She didn’t look up. Her head hang limply forward.
A man in an expensive suit sat in the chair against her. Well-polished shoes, trousers neatly pressed.
“Hello, Garún.”
She looked up. She had assumed it to be the officer, Þráinn. But the voice had been too familiar.
Hrólfur leaned back in the seat against her.
No words. No words would do for her. They were all ruined, meaningless.
“I’m not quite sure what I’m doing here.” He reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and shook one out. “They told me to leave it be. That it was pointless. But I felt like you deserved something. Some explanation. So I asked them to ensure that you would remember enough for the purposes of this conversation.”
She watched him light his cigarette and inhale the bluegrey smoke. Factory rolled cigarettes. With no character. Her ears buzzed.
“You …’
She swallowed. It was hard to speak. Every word she tried to speak out loud only came forth as involuntary twitching as they all simultaneously fought for purchase. She felt nauseous.
“All this time?’
He nodded, brushed ash off his trousers.
“All this time.”
“Also Diljá? Katrín?’
She could hardly form sentences. Her mind reeled as she went through their time together, or what she had remaining of it, re-examining every single word, every moment, every decision.
“No. Just me.”
“Where is Katrín?’ Garún struggled to keep her voice level. “What did you do to her?’
“She’s here. In the Nine.”
“And Diljá?
Some shadow of pain had moved across his face when she said Diljá’s name. As if it hurt him to be reminded of her. As if he had loved her. Garún felt heat flow into her. Her heart pounding. Screaming.
“That’s none of your concern.”
She spat in his face. There was blood in the saliva.
“You’ve killed them! You’ve killed them! You disgusting fucking pig!’
She struggled against her restraints and screamed, not aware of what she was saying. The chair rocked and she fell to the floor. But she still kept on going. The doors opened and guards came in, but Hrólfur said it was fine, they could go.
She pushed, fought and screamed until she became completely numb. Sore and empty. Hrólfur lifted up her chair and sat back down against her. He’d wiped the spit off himself.
“Finished?’
She said nothing.
“I cared for Diljá. I really did. But she was always trouble. These huldufólk are always groping your emotions when you least expect it. It just won’t do. So when the pressure became considerable, I decided to develop some feelings towards her. Only let her sense love and affection. I wished it hadn’t had to come to this. But I was always prepared for it. As you said yourself, she was completely aware of what she was signing up for.”
“Knew what she was signing up for?’ Garún screamed. “Are you completely fucking insane? You betrayed us! You killed her!’
He shook his head. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. I don’t why I thought you did, after you went so completely off the rails.”
“Understand what? That you are an inhuman piece of shit?’ She shook her head and laughed. “It doesn’t matter. You didn’t manage to stop us. The stiftamtmaður is dead. Loftkastalinn is gone. The Crown is not invincible. The people will rise up against their oppressors and tear down all the despicable walls you have built around yourselves.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “Stop you? But that was exactly the purpose. To remove Trampe.”
She could not speak. This was the last thing she’d thought he would say.
“Well, all right. The goal wasn’t exactly to kill the stiftamtmaður,” Hrólfur went on, twirling the cigarette in his hands. “It was to destabilise Trampe and get some leverage on him. Removing him was a long-term political plan, if you can wrap your head around something like that. That was always the agenda, long before that crappy little newsletter was founded. This course of events was set in motion before you needed more delýsíð and went to Viður to buy more. The trap he set you up with. Everything.”
He took a drag of smoke and studied her as he blew it out.
“The only thing I did not expect was that fucking Sæmundur. And you going so absolutely off the goddamn rails. Never expected him to be the lunatic he turned out to be. But it was fine, we will have Sæmundur neutralised soon enough. And it turned out to work out well for us that Loftkastalinn vanished.”
“Well for you? You work for the fucking Crown!’
He sighed and leaned forward in his seat.
“Garún, think. Who benefits the most from getting the stiftamtmaður out of the way? Do you have any idea of the political landscape in this country? Or are you so completely absorbed in your own revolutionary rage and sense of self-righteousness that you are absolutely out of sync with reality?’
He threw his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his heel.
“I work for Innréttingarnar. For Sheriff Skúli. For the party. Trampe was trouble from the get-go, and he had to be managed. That was why we let your little rebellion operate for as long as it did, printing Black Wings without repercussion. It worked, for a while – Skúli thought he could slowly undermine Trampe. But then Katrín got that fucking article in the paper and sabotaged the deal for Perlan. Goddamn, how you bitches went behind my back. You ruined everything, Trampe went berserk when he heard about it. The entitled moron . . . He never compromised!’
Hrólfur leaned back and crossed his legs.
“I guess you two had that in common. Trampe never understood how everyone could profit. How everyone’s interests could be ensured, so that everyone could come out of a deal having gained something. He never knew how to compromise. So we had to put some pressure on him. That’s why the protests were allowed to happen. You weakened Trampe’s hold on Hrímland and gave us the chance to form the Home Rule Party. Everything you did, everything you fought for,
