“Illaria convinced me that she was going to help Ellie, and I trusted her because they’re sisters. I’ve known them both since they were born.” Jem-Kruk stared down at the table, his dark lashes resting on his sharp cheekbones. “When they finally let us in to see her—”

“They didn’t let us in,” Sumi corrected him bitterly. “We had to fight our way in, and you had to threaten all kinds of violence.”

“They think I’m more powerful than I truly am,” Jem-Kruk confided sheepishly.

“Only because the Älvolk have fetishized every aspect of our world.” Sumi rolled her eyes. “That’s what all of this is about. I don’t know what they were doing to Eliana, but I’m certain that whatever it was, they did it because they thought it would get them into Alfheim.”

“When we finally got to see Eliana, the Älvolk were holding her in a dungeon.” Jem grimaced. “Illaria claimed it was for her own safety, but Ellie was sickly and pale and hardly remembered anything.”

“Her memory has been coming back over the past month,” Sumi elaborated. “She still doesn’t remember much from before she got sick in the first place, so she’s foggy on us and her mother. But she has been able to remember the in-between, like Hanna and you.”

“Which is why we’re here,” Jem said. “She’s not getting better, and we don’t know what to do for her.”

“You said that the Älvolk fetishize your home. What did you mean by that?” Dagny asked Sumi.

“Growing up around them, they constantly spoke of the other kingdom, just across the bridge, and how it was our birthright that the álfar kept us from,” Sumi said derisively.

“A long, long time ago, a powerful enchantment was put on the bridge between the kingdoms,” Jem explained. “Only those with álfar blood can cross it.”

“My mother was álfar,” Sumi said, sounding proud for a moment. “The Älvolk men are trained in the art of helifiske. Meaning they’re taught to charm and woo women into becoming carriers of their daughters. My father knew enough to lure my mother until she was trapped with him, much like Indu did with Senka.”

My stomach rolled at the sound of her name. Senka. My mother. I wanted to tell them that she was my mother. But Sumi was talking, and it wasn’t the time, so I sipped my tea to keep anything from spilling out.

“—rulers don’t have any álfar blood themselves,” Sumi was saying. “Perhaps they once did, but they need much more than a drop. So they were looking for other ways to break the enchantment. Thus far, they have not been successful.”

“How do you know?” Dagny asked. “They could be crossing it as we speak.”

Jem-Kruk smiled, crooked and uneasy. “If the bridge was open, what is on Alfheim would be here, and everyone would know.”