Elof stood thirty-six inches tall, and by the time he turned thirty, he’d started using a cane when he walked long distances. Rickshaws were usually parked around the Mimirin, available for anyone to ride for a nominal fee, and they made the whole city much more accessible for hobgoblins and little trolls.

“Why are we going all the way out here to talk?” I asked Elof as we rolled past the woolly elk meadows, the big beasts grazing on the grassy fields. We were far enough away from downtown that we could speak without being overwhelmed by noise.

“I wanted to show you something, and we needed to talk, so I thought we’d hit two animals with one stone,” Elof reasoned.

“Can you tell me now what the results are, or do we need to wait until we get to our mystery destination?” I asked.

Elof had told the driver where to go when he paid him, but I hadn’t been close enough to overhear. I’d asked on the way down from the lab where we were going, but Elof had vaguely answered with “outside.”

“I suppose I can tell you now if you’d like.” He sat back in the seat and folded his hands on his lap as he looked over at me. “Bryn has no Omte blood.”

“So . . . she’s not my sister?” I asked, and it wasn’t until then that I realized how much I was hoping that she was my sister, that I had a real connection to somebody I cared about.

That I had a connection.

“No, she is not,” Elof said sadly.

My heart sank, and I swallowed back tears. “That’s good for her. I mean, she really loves her dad.”

“She has no Kanin blood either,” he said, and I looked sharply at him.

“What?” I shook my head. “Iver Aven was born a Kanin Markis. Bryn told me how her father came from a high-ranking Kanin family.”

“Iver may very well have, but I didn’t have a sample from him available,” Elof said. “What I did have is a sample from Bryn that predominantly has markers for Skojare and some for the Trylle. And I have a sample from you that is half-Omte and half-unidentified.”

“Indu said my mother is álfar, and that would be the unidentified half, so Indu is mostly Omte then,” I said, my words rapid and uncertain. “He identifies as Älvolk, but that’s—that’s a cult, not a tribe, not a race, so he’s Omte.” My mind raced with the implications of Elof’s words. “So Bryn’s mom must’ve had an affair with another man.”

He waited a beat, the wheels crunching loudly on the gravel, and the air sweetening as we passed the Sommar plum orchard, and then he carefully replied, “That is one possibility.”

“What’s the other?”