He practically smirked.

“Sounds good.”

I switched to Finnish without even realizing I’d done so. I didn’t even know what I was saying until my throat closed up with pain at the end of the sentence.

“My sister’s name was Elvi and I miss her every day.”

His look of smug triumph vanished. His head jerked back, and he looked so shocked and sad for me that I knew, I fucking knew, that he’d understood perfectly. There was no conceivable reason for him to be looking at me like that otherwise.

“Suvi...” He came closer, then stopped practically mid-stride when I crossed my arms over my chest and hunched away from him. He looked even more pained now, but he didn’t come any closer now. All he did was hold out his hand and say for the third time, “Put this in your ear.”

It wasn’t a harsh demand. But neither was it a request. What would he do if I refused?

What would I do? Go on fighting to catch every alien word, while he understood me with ease no matter what language I spoke?

And if this thing worked, it seemed like I’d be able to understand other languages too. Not that I was exposed to any other ones besides the Bohnebregg tongue, but still. For some far-off, distantly dreamed-of future where I was no longer trapped here, it could come in handy.

I’m just being practical, I told myself sternly. It’s not just because I hate conflict and he could crush me like a pine nut if he wanted to. I took the scrap of stuff from Skallagrim’s hand. My fingertips scraped across his palm, and at the contact Skallagrim’s arm spasmed, like I’d shocked him. I snapped my hand back, clutching the scrap, absurdly worried that I’d somehow burned him.

“Are you alright?” I asked, peering at him. Skallagrim flexed and loosened the fingers of his hand several times, then let it fall to his side, though his posture was anything but relaxed. When he answered, his voice sounded strained.

“There is much... Much to say. I need you to understand each word.”

His eye fell meaningfully to my closed fist.

Even though I’d already decided to put the thing in my ear and hope it didn’t short circuit some important bit of human biology in the process, I was suddenly afraid to. He looked too intense, some raw and unnamed emotion etching itself into the lines of his scaly face, and the instinct to hide from whatever he had to say was more clear and more ominous than any other I’d ever had in my life.

Elvi wouldn’t have hidden from whatever it was. She would have shoved the translator right in and then would have demanded an explanation for all the heaviness in the air. She’d never shied away from hard questions and even harder answers. As a child, I’d been hotly embarrassed by that sort of behaviour from her. She was never afraid of offending anyone – neighbours, our landlord, my teachers – and I was doubly afraid of it for the both of us. But as I got older, I’d admired her for it.  She wasn’t rude, and she was an incredibly kind person, but she didn’t let the quietness of courtesy smooth over the ugliness of the problems that still existed underneath. She didn’t let things fester or go unsaid.

And neither would I.

I didn’t even pause to take a deep breath. I just lifted the delicate, iridescent silk and shoved it into my ear canal.

Well that was a mistake.

That was my first thought. My second thought was, How the hell did ten thousand bees get into my head and why are they all on fire?

There were no thoughts after that. None with words, anyway. Just the acid, buzzing burn of pain unlike anything else I’d ever experienced. The closest sensation was the therapy done to my feet, but that had at least felt somewhat external. This was inside my skull and I couldn’t get it out.

I wasn’t aware of my legs collapsing until Skallagrim surged forward and caught me. I gasped and half-sobbed, unable to breathe past the agony. With a feral urge, I raised my hands, clawing at my ear, smacking at the side of my head.

Skallagrim lifted me onto the bed and scraped the hair back from my right ear. He roared something – Jolakaia! – but it was a distant crash of sound beyond the furious magma-hot vibration. I thought a door might have opened and closed, but I couldn’t see it as I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around my about-to-explode head.

I wasn’t sure if the buzzing began to dim, or if the words were growing louder and louder.

“What in the river have you done to her?”

“I gave her the webbing from Aeshyr! The one that translates. It didn’t cause such a reaction in me! And Koltar has it too and obviously that self-righteous fool is just fine!”

“She is not our kind! I don’t even know what her inner ear looks like and you’ve gone and shoved a foreign object in there. No! Don’t argue, Skallagrim. You should have consulted me first. We could have done a more thorough examination and-”

The words were cut off as I made a strangled sound. This one wasn’t a sound of pain. It was a sound of Oh my fucking God I can understand every single word they’re saying.

Skallagrim was there in an instant, gripping the sides of my face with frantic hands, his single eye burning even harder than my head.

“Suvi. Little star. Stay with me, now. Stay with me!”

“I’m not going to die. I think,” I groaned. Already, the pain was ebbing, flowing out of my head like pus from a boil, leaving behind a weakened throbbing. My entire brain felt bruised, but as far as I could tell it was still functioning.

Another hand pressed beneath my jaw.

“Her heart rate is very elevated,” Jolakaia snapped. “Even more than when we administered the Mother’s Light on her feet. You have put her body through immense stress and pain, Skallagrim.”

If a green-scaled alien could have visibly paled, I was pretty sure Skallagrim would have. He looked stricken, like he’d been the one to get wrung out with agony instead of me.

I wanted to comfort him. To smooth this all over. It’s fine. I’m fine. Yes, I was hurting, but yes, I think I’ll be OK. Probably. Eventually. I put it in my own ear. I did this to myself.

It was like the translator could bring back the voices of the dead, because Elvi’s voice was so suddenly, shockingly clear that I half-expected to see her standing in the very room.

When other people make you bleed, you don’t get down on your knees and bandage them up.

She’d said that to me when I was being bullied and had wanted to placate my tormentors instead of fighting back. It was right before she’d put me in hockey.

So I didn’t tell Skallagrim it was alright.

I didn’t say anything at all for a moment. I waited to see if the ghost of my sister had anything else to say. I’d suck up everything – every word – even the ones where she was berating me. Because that echo of memory was all I had left.

But there wasn’t anything more. At least, not from her. Jolakaia’s fingers poked and prodded at me, and she shone a tube of light into my ear, making a hissing sound of disapproval that was unnerving.

“What?” Skallagrim said tightly. He didn’t look at her when he said it, but at me.

“It looks like inflammation.”

“Then by the blasted river, give her something!”

“I will,” Jolakaia shot back. “Something I actually know won’t harm her tissue, you moronic stone sky god. I would say that being immortal has made you careless with the lives of others, but even Aeshyr has a lick of sense about him when he deals with mortals!”

“Did she just say... immortal?” I breathed, my throat feeling like scraped-raw even though I couldn’t remember screaming.

Skallagrim’s snout was tense, his eye a burning ember.

“Yes. Though I will not be for much longer.”

My heart seized up.

“Are you going to die? Is that what you needed to come in here and tell me?”