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"You know, Arctic foxes are endangered in Scandinavia,” Vegard says from his seat on the black couch, as your song plays softly on his MacBook. “Overall their conservation status is good, but there are fewer than two hundred in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. You see, people trap them for their pelts, right? And if you get them at a point in the population cycle when food is scarce, they’re very vulnerable."
You get the impression that these infodumps are his way of being friendly, so you smile. "That's interesting! "
He smiles brilliantly, but not in return. His eyes are far off. There is a healing cold sore on his upper lip. “It's a really good song.”
“Oh. Thank you.” You turn away from him, and cough into your sleeve. Which makes your nose start running. Joy. When you turn back, he's holding a kleenex out for you, and you take it with a grateful little nod.
“Are you going to be all right to sing tonight?” he asks.
“Do we have a choice?” you ask, your voice an embarrassing squeak.
“We work well under pressure,” he says, pulling out his phone. “Just let me talk to Bård.”
“No, no,” you say, making a little placating gesture with your hands. “I'm fine, I'm fine. It was a rhetorical question. I'll take a decongestant and then I'll be good.”
“Okay.” He shrugs and puts his phone away, and goes back to the computer. In seconds he's totally absorbed in whatever he's doing, dark eyes intense, a small, happy smile on his face.
Your hand hovers over one of the bottles of water, and then you pluck up an orange juice instead. Vitamin C.
You start to turn away, and freeze. Winter is nuzzling Vegard's hand. And gods help you, Vegard is absently scratching Winter's muzzle and throat and ears, his fingers burying deep in the soft ruff, or making a tight little horseshoe for Winter to push her face through until she gets to the ears and then he scratches behind them. She gives you a look as if to say, Well, you weren't petting me.
You crook a finger, and the little fox comes to heel as you head back to your dressing room. Vegard's hand goes limp. He does not look up.
***
After the rehearsal, you have the option of going back to your hotel room, but Roland only knows about the mundane side of things, and he put you out by Dýranblað, where spoiled teenagers snap illusions at you like yo-yos, amused at the humans going about their daily business all unseeing, even more amused at humans like you, seeing and trying hard not to react. You've been open about the depression and anxiety that followed in the wake of Ten Love Songs, but that could backfire if people see you flinching at thin air.
You thought you'd be away from all that here. There's something very safe and cozy and human about the Ylvis brothers. And yet here is Vegard Ylvisåker, absentmindedly playing with your familiar. You have a mystery. You would love to let it be, because you are sick and stressed and so so tired, but things being what they are, you're not sure you can afford to.
Admonishing Winter to stay in the dressing room, you poke your head out with the intention of asking one of the stagehands what the brothers are up to, but you can hear oompah music coming from the stage. You head down, and watch from the wings as they sing the opening number, and link arms with the girls and dance. You find yourself grinning. Probably you were just seeing things. They are beautiful, but their beauty is a messy, joyful exuberance, rehearsed again and again until it's done right--not the cold, angular perfection of the elves, who keep making ever more rules. You wonder if you can put that in a song...
Not until the oompah music is over. Puck's kneecaps, it's distracting. They're in street clothes, and you try to picture how it's going to look with the suits and the costumes. In your mind's eye, it's ridiculous. Not that that would ever stop them.
The music ends, and the choreographer--Thea, you think her name was--sends everyone off to hydrate. Vegard walks up to you, hair held back by a band of cloth, skin glowing with perspiration. He grins up at you. “Susanne! How do you feel? Are you okay?”
“I'm fine,” you say, grinning. Your voice is a little scratchy, but you do feel better. “That looked fun.”
“It was very fun, but it should be even better tonight.” He starts to move off.
“Hang on,” you say, and he pauses. “You've got a stray... here... let me.” You reach up and adjust the band that holds back his hair, swiping a thumb along his hairline.
“I'm all sweaty,” he says with an uncertain little smile. “I'm sorry.”
“I can wash my hand,” you reply cheerily, and slip back into your dressing room.
With your dry hand, you work the lid off a bottle of water, and pour a small amount into a puddle on the dressing table. That will have to do. Then you add the drop of Vegard's sweat, and sketch a glyph in the air over it. “Show, please.”
For a terrible moment, as you sift through the signatures of old enchantments, you know that you have fallen into a trap. You turn around, expecting to see him standing behind you. Would it be worse, to see his smile gone, or to see it still there, changed? But the doorway is clear, and Winter--who has stopped chasing her tail, and stands on the arm of the chair on her hind legs, paws on the table--looks alert and curious, and not alarmed, and when you have pushed the panic aside enough to reflect, you realize that everything in the puddle is still the colour of innocence. The old spells on him, even the curse, have the patina of things long forgotten, although the forgetting is loose at the edges, as if it has been lifted and then pulled down again many times. The really shocking bits--the headlong flight, the end of the world, the wolf, the blood, the prison, the agony of having a piece of soul amputated, the tangle of red threads--have the mistiness of things that haven't happened yet.
You close the door, and return to stir the puddle. The scrying ripples and disappears for a moment, but then it comes back.
Futures can change, futures are always changing, and nothing is ever set in stone, but gods, this comes close. It is the same, unwavering, as if the decisions that bind him to this path have been made already, as if one thing will lead to another to another to another, like the teeth of a cog catching him and pulling him in and ripping out pieces without which even you, newly introduced, cannot imagine him.
Innocent.
You really don't want to get involved. You're sick. You're tired. You just wanted to do the rounds, show up at the awards show, and get away from this godsforsaken place with its fae factions and rising tides of hate and that smarmy bunch of pointy-eared fratboys angling to be in charge. Realistically speaking, no one is going to go after a human, but things have changed in Scandinavia, there's been a knot of tension in the pit of your stomach since you crossed the border, and you just don't feel safe here anymore.
You hear the knock, and before you've thought about it properly, you cast. “Sofa núna!”
There's a thud against your door. You open it, first relieved that it's worked and then aghast at who it's worked on. The body that tumbles in has honey-blond hair. You hook your hands under Bård's armpits and drag him into your room. Tugging him up onto the couch sets your nose running again, and you say a couple of choice words as you see to it.
Winter jumps up onto Bård's stomach, and walks across his chest. She puts her nose in the crook of his neck and snuffles at his hair.
He stirs. You freeze. Both of them?
She nuzzles his neck, and he giggles and puts his hands up. He pats his neck and chest, somehow always missing her. She licks his fingers, and he giggles again and subsides.
He's towelled off and changed into jeans and a t-shirt, so there's no sweat to be had here. But Winter creeps up and nuzzles his temples, and you see, through her, through the flavour of the salt on his skin, a past of pain and terror and deep cold, a future of anguish and searching. And looking back at you, implacably, a single grey eye. You chase the image, but there's nothing behind it. You are being watched, with calm curious patience, by something that does not exist yet.
Bård, too, is innocent.
“You beautiful, silly men,” you sigh, brushing his hair back from his eyes, “what happened to you?”
“Weird that way sometimes,” he says, indistinctly, and then he rolls over and curls up, one hand tucked under his cheek, the other in the waistband of his jeans. He looks very boyish, and you are momentarily tempted to take a picture.
Now, of course, you have a problem. No answers, and the host of the show is unconscious on your couch.
Well, you can at least put him in his own dressing room. You scoop up Winter. “Tell me when the coast is clear,” you whisper, and open the door to let her into the hall.
But Vegard is walking past just then, looking freshly showered, his curls wet and fragrant with KMS. He stops short, and goes to your door. “Susanne! Have you seen Bård?”
“Um,” you say, scrambling. Should you knock him out too?
Then he looks past your shoulder, and his jaw drops. “Bård!”
“I can explain--”
“Susanne, I'm so sorry. He never does this. I mean, he always does this, but not in guests’ dressing rooms before a show.” Vegard reaches in and grabs his brother's Hummeled foot, giving it a squeeze and a rough shake. “Bård? Bård! What the hell do you think you're doing?”
Bård pulls his foot away and opens his eyes, blinking slowly, sleepily. “What?” He sits bolt upright, looking all around him. “What the hell?”
You seize on an explanation. “Are you feeling better?” you ask, brow wrinkling in concern.
“What? Yeah. I'm fine. Why am I asleep on your couch?”
“Because you're an unprofessional buffoon?” Vegard suggests, offering him a hand up.
“You knocked on my door all pale and wobbly,” you tell Bård. “I told you to sit down, and next thing I knew, you were out.”
Bård frowns. “Was I? I don't remember a thing. I feel fine. Maybe a little... swimmy.”
“I hope I didn't make you sick too.”
“I'm fine,” he repeats, but there is a doubtful, far-off quality to his voice. Winter, intuiting that her job is done, rubs her face against his dangling hand, and he rubs a thumb between her ears. “I was going to say...I came here to say, you two have time to run through the song a couple more times on stage. And then we should decide on dinner. Susanne, you’re welcome to join us.”
“To celebrate your nominations,” Vegard adds. “And to get some food into this dizzy guy here.”
Dinner turns out to be burgers from the place downstairs. They’re very good--very very good--but your appetite is gone, perhaps from the fever and perhaps from the guilt of gaslighting the men, and Winter ends up eating most of yours.
***
Even with your voice high and husky, the song goes well. The show goes well. You flub one line, but it doesn’t show badly. And then... commercial. You thank the boys and collect hugs, and head backstage, where Winter has been waiting for you, tail wagging. Back to the hotel, now. Maybe the elves will be gone at this hour.
Performing has driven the mystery of Ylvis and their doom right out of your head. You remember it now, but it still seems safely distant. Maybe not knowing is its own kind of protection.
Vegard catches up to you in the stairwell. “Susanne!”
You turn around. “Aren’t you in the middle of...?”
“The ads run forever.”
“What's up?”
“I wondered, where are you staying?”
“A hotel,” you say warily, disappointed. So much for innocence. “Why?”
“Because you sound terrible. I mean, not the song, the song sounded great, but singing it made me think… really, come home with me. Helene and I have got a guest room with its own bathroom. We'll cook for you. I’m pretty good at steak. I promise my kids are good as gold. You can just rest.”
You close your eyes, and lean against the wall. It would be nice to not have to run the gauntlet on the way to the hotel. To lounge around in sweats and eat home-cooked meals you haven't had to cook yourself and be pampered for a little while. “It's very kind of you. What... what makes you ask?”
“The fox,” he says in English, and your eyes fly wide, but as he keeps talking in Bergensk, you realize Winter’s not what he means. “I just remember this whirlwind, being so tired and being shuffled off from gig to gig to gig all over the world, and I don't know if you know but Bård got really sick in England, he got strep throat and we just couldn't stop. So I know a little bit how it feels, and if I can help...”
“You dear sweet man,” you sigh. One more try. You wave your hand in front of your face, to get his attention. When he looks up politely, you drag your fingertips down in a sort of clawing motion. “Losa minni frá búrinu hugarfarsins. Losa um orð frá búrinu af þínu tennurnar.”
He goes very still, and for just a moment, the look on his face is one of shock and dawning horror.
“How much do you know?” you demand gently, staring straight on into his eyes with every bit of compulsion you can wring from the surrounding air.
He blinks hard a few times, and shudders, his mouth working soundlessly. His hand goes to his chest, two fingers absently rubbing his collarbone. Then he finds his voice. “The p-position of the stars. Islands. Geography. Flying. I have my pilot’s license. A little bit about music. Swedish. Danish. English. Some Portuguese. More German than I let on. To listen and think. To not take sides. Embroidery. Gardening. Home improvement. I cook a good steak.” He blinks a few times. “The kids would be good as gold. Sorry. I have to get back. Did I ask you already? I forget. Come home with me.” He’s just shaken off the compulsion like cobwebs. The only thing in his eyes is friendliness and honest concern.
“You’re very kind,” you say, “and I am very tempted. But... I don’t want you to get what I’ve got, and I certainly don’t want to give it to your family.”
“Okay,” he says, already drifting back in the direction of the stage. “Take care of yourself. Be careful.”
“You too,” you say with a smile, and go downstairs to hail a cab.