They were in the Nine now. And eventually, they would talk. They’d already moved houses, but that wouldn’t be enough. They’d be coming for them. Maybe they would raid the concert tonight. Perhaps they already knew, if they’d got their hands on Black Wings.
She wanted to throw up.
To add on top of this was Sæmundur. Fucking Sæmundur. He’d told her everything and explained nothing. He’d stolen something from Svartiskóli. He’d summoned it. Now the Crown was after him and seemed to think he belonged to their little revolutionary cell. Garún couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing. What she knew was that those soldiers had been killed in a horrific way – another thing that left her conflicted; they had intended to take her to the Nine – and that Sæmundur refused to tell her how or why or what had exactly happened. He wielded galdur differently now. That was all he said. And that he wanted to help.
So she had let him. Maybe losing those soldiers to that horror would give the Crown some pause. Maybe Sæmundur was unknowingly saving their skin tonight. Or he was dooming them all with this suicidal meddling in svartigaldur.
She downed the rest of the beer and threw the bottle. It broke with a satisfying crash. Tonight she was alive and she thirsted. Thirsted for life and wine. Come what may.
* * *
Faded lights lit the tables where people sat and chain-smoked between talking over each other. A small group of people had gathered in front of the stage. They looked young and insecure. Human college kids who wanted to brag about sneaking into Gómorra in Rökkurvík. She was surprised by how much she resented them for seeming happier and more carefree than she had ever been. When she was their age she’d already been working for a living for years in Reykjavík.
On one table sat a group of huldufólk, all dressed in clothes that looked like old heirlooms from the vanished world. In reality the clothes were new and incredibly expensive. They were smoking imported pre-rolled cigarettes, talking and laughing with more fervour than anyone else. Diljá, Styrhildur and Hraki were sitting with them and they waved to Garún as she spotted them. Diljá was dressed in a beautiful sequined dress that Garún had never seen her wear before, Styrhildur was in a similar, but more practically cut dress, and Hraki was in a suit that seemed authentically antique. She knew the kids didn’t have a lot of money. Diljá must have helped them out. To Garún this kind of almost formal wear wasn’t really something she thought one should wear to a memorial concert and revolutionary rally. It seemed vain and out of place. But to them it was a statement, a source of pride. The vanity of the old world was something Garún was brought up to consider a disgrace, a symptom of the hubris that had led them to ruin. It also reminded her of going to church, when people wore their best to Mass. The image stirred up bad memories she’d rather leave behind.
The rest were the regular patrons of Gómorra on any given day. People who had no other place to go. In one corner a man was lying in a puddle of beer, blackout drunk. Her people stood out. They carried themselves differently. They stood up straight, had a determined look in their eyes. She wondered if this difference was perceptible by the people from Reykjavík. Most likely the people of Rökkurvík all looked the same to them.
It wasn’t surprising that no náskárar or marbendlar showed up. The náskárar would never venture to this cursed place, where they’d lose the advantage given to them by flight. There were no open skies here, nowhere to fly to. Garún had no idea what would await them up in the flat, dark sky. The marbendlar didn’t want anything to do with Rökkurvík, for some unknown reason. When Garún asked Diljá about it, she’d said that Kryik’traak had only shaken his head in a human gesture and said that it was forbidden.
The first job Garún had got in Reykjavík had been as a porter at the river-docks in Elliðaárdalur, moving cargo for the marbendlar. They had always remained a mystery to her for the couple of years she worked there, but this revelation of a secretive taboo was a familiar feeling to her. So it went, in the Coral Spires. It was a completely different world. She hoped she could visit, one day. She had been so unnerved by the marbendlar the first time she saw them. They looked like monsters to her. But then she’d found out that they didn’t differentiate her from the huldufólk and humans. To them, all these bipedal land-dwellers looked the same. It had been a tremendous weight off her shoulders. Something she’d grown so accustomed to carrying that she’d stopped feeling it weighing her down. Throwing that weight off had felt like flying.
Diljá excused herself from the crowd of huldufólk and came over to Garún, smiling widely to her. She looked glamorous in her dress.
“Hi, Garún! All by yourself in the corner, as usual, I see. Would you like to join us?’
She glanced over at the group. She considered her own worn jacket, the paint-spotted trousers.
“No, I’m fine. Thanks, though.”
“Just thought I’d ask.”
Diljá tentatively reached out, and Garún reached back. She felt excitement, hopefulness – Diljá’s sincere desire for Garún to join them. She relaxed. She let the other woman through, let her feel the waves of her anxiety, loneliness, old memories, washing over her.
“I wanted to give you this.” Diljá reached into her purse and pulled out a bracelet. “My mother made this the other day, and I thought of you.”
It was handmade, a fine tangle of interwoven silver circles that held between them tiny gleaming jewels. Like sparkling
