“Sweet Freya, mother of all,” Dagny said once she saw me—a rushed prayer under her breath.
I’d been back at the apartment for about five minutes, but she hadn’t looked up from her book. She was sprawled out on the lumpy couch, with a dog-eared copy of a Lois Duncan book in her hands and Jewel playing through her laptop speakers.
“What happened?” Dagny sat up and set her book aside. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Elof patched me up.” I collapsed on the couch beside her, and then I ran through the events of the evening.
When I finished, she asked, “Do you want some lemon tea?”
“No. I seriously just want a hot bath and to go to bed.”
“Coming face-to-face with an Ögonen can be unnerving,” she said. “I’ve interacted with them a few times for work, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get comfortable with them just … pushing their thoughts in my head like that.”
“Yeah, I can’t say that I enjoyed it either.” I shivered involuntarily at the thought of the spiders and the words frozen in my throat.
“So, do you think the book was worth it?”
“I don’t know yet.” I leaned over, moving slowly in a vain attempt not to exacerbate the aching pain all down my back, and I winced as I pulled the book out from where I had stowed it in my bag. “I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”
Dagny took it from me and flipped through it. “Is this a fairy tale?” She rolled her eyes. “You’ve been listening to Hanna too much.”
“No, it’s not Hanna,” I said, and she gave me a dubious look. “Okay, it’s mostly not because of Hanna.” I tapped the gilded sigil on the cover. “That’s the Älvolk symbol. Finding more about them is a high priority right now.”
“So that’s why you picked this book? Because of the cover?” Dagny asked.
“I’ve seen it before,” I said as she handed it back to me. “Have you heard of Jem-Kruk?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I remember reading stories about him when I was a kid. He was something like a Viking Robin Hood. A swashbuckler who saved damsels and slayed dragons.”
“I don’t remember there being dragons in Robin Hood,” I said wryly.
“That’s true. Maybe I used the wrong example, but you get the idea,” she said. “It’s been a long time since I read any of the stories, but I don’t recall anything that relates to the Älvolk.”
“I guess I’ll find out.” I got slowly to my feet. “I’m doing some reading in the tub.”
While the tub filled up, Dagny insisted on lighting incense on a tray on the back of the toilet. “It sounds silly, I know, but you’ll never have a more relaxing soak.”
Fifteen minutes later, the bathroom was filled with hot steam and lavender smoke. I slid under the water—it was almost too hot, stinging my scrapes, and I knew when I got out my skin would look like a boiled tomato—somehow it was completely perfect and wonderful.
And then I dove into the tale of Jem-Kruk and his adventures in a far-off land. It was a single novel, but it was really a series of short stories detailing various escapades of Jem-Kruk and his friends.
It would be fair to say that the sun always felt the warmest after a storm. So it was after the Great Blue Thunder—which had unequivocally been the worst storm that either Jem-Kruk or Jo-Huk had ever witnessed, with thunder shaking all across Adlrivellir. Rain came down for three days and four nights, until the water filled the Valley, but it had finally come to an end.
On the very first morning that Jem-Kruk awoke to a silent world and a cloudless sky the color of fresh grapefruit, he knew what he had to do. First, he woke his brother, pulling him half asleep from their tree house. Jo-Huk was still quite sleepy, squinting his eyes against the bright light of the three suns Kyr, Nuk, and Veli. He was about to grouse about it, like a cranky bear disturbed too early in spring, and then he finally saw that it wasn’t too early.
“The storm has passed,” said Jo-Huk, in awe now that he finally beheld the Valley. “But I worry it will come again.”
“You worry too much, my brother.” Jem-Kruk slapped him merrily on the back.
“It is as the häxdoktor said,” Jo-Huk said, reminding him of the warning they had heard. “The suns set in the green sky when the good morning becomes the violent night. Before the storm, the sky was green, this morning it is good.”
“If it is a violent night, then we must greet the day with open arms.” Jem-Kruk spread his arms wide. “But now we must dry out!”
“Everything in our sight is soaked through. How shall we dry?”
“There.” Jem-Kruk pointed to the mountain across the flooded Valley, before the caves where the etanadrak slumbered.
“It’s too far, and the path is much too dangerous!” exclaimed Jo-Huk.
Jem-Kruk laughed, for he knew that was what Jo-Huk would say. Many called Jo-Huk the wiser of the two, but Jem-Kruk knew that wasn’t true. He’d come to learn that what most called “wisdom” was nothing more than “fear” in fancy dress.
“The rains have gone, the air is sweet, today is the day we go to meet the suns!” Jem-Kruk threw his head back so that he was yelling at the sky in a gleeful threat.
Jem-Kruk ran on ahead, knowing that Jo-Huk would give chase, and he did. But Jem-Kruk knew that if Jo-Huk caught him, he would have to go back. Those were the rules they agreed to, but all that ever truly meant was that Jem-Kruk would never let himself be caught.
As they raced through the woods, of course, they did not yet know of the trouble that lay ahead of them. Before they reached the mountaintops, they’d first have to pass the fairy lagoon.
“What?” I whispered incredulously in the silent, steamy bathroom. “Are there gonna be fairies and mermaids too?”
It was one thing that information about Áibmoráigi was hidden away in old books, but it was an entirely different thing to take advice and directions from a silly children’s book full of make-believe.
Or maybe I was too tired and my head hurt too much. But either way, I wasn’t in the mood for this anymore, and I headed to bed.