by Amie Kaufman
And then a quarter of an hour later, the unexpected happened: they actually found Jerro. It was Rayna who spotted him, and she flicked one hand up in a discreet signal to draw the boys’ attention to him.
Jerro was following one of the mayor’s advisers, his hands in his pockets, his walk casual. His face had been scrubbed clean, but despite the loss of his usual dirt, he was unmistakable. Sam made a quiet noise of pure relief, and Anders felt like a huge weight had lifted off his shoulders.
“Well done, Jerro,” approved Rayna. One of the first rules of pickpocketing was that you shouldn’t stand out, so Jerro had cleaned himself up to fit in.
He was edging closer and closer to his mark, clearly preparing for a highly risky attempt at an in-transit lift, when he spotted his brother standing with the twins and stumbled abruptly. He fell straight into the man he was trying to steal from, and though the adviser turned around with a frown on his face, Jerro’s quick and embarrassed apologies settled him down. With a gruff “No harm done,” the man was on his way.
Jerro nodded at a giant, haphazard pile of firewood, and they hurried around to meet him behind it.
He didn’t let Sam get a word out before he threw his arms around him, squeezing him tight.
“Where’s Pel?” he asked urgently.
Sam wheezed and tried to reply, but it was left to Anders to speak.
“He’s safe,” he promised. “He hurt his leg, but he’s back at our, uh . . . camp. We have medics who looked him over too. They said he’ll be fine, but he can’t go anywhere right now.”
Sam thumped on Jerro’s shoulder with one fist, and his big brother finally realized what was going on and released him.
Sam took a great, heaving breath and then grinned. “Sorry to spoil your lift,” he said.
Jerro snorted, reaching into one pocket. “Spoiled what?” he asked, pulling out a handful of coins. “Just a different opportunity.”
Sam laughed, and Anders felt himself grinning.
“You can come with us,” Rayna said. “We’ll take you to Pel. Is there anything else you brought out of the city that you need to get?”
Jerro opened his mouth to reply, paused, closed it again, opened it, and hesitated. “Um,” he said eventually.
“Um?” Sam asked. “Jerro, you have to come. Pel can’t leave. And anyway, it’s better there. It’s safe.”
“It’s not that,” said Jerro. “It’s just not that simple. I haven’t been sticking around here for fun—if I could, I’d have been back in the city, hunting every second for Sam and Pel. Instead, I just had to hope they’d come here. You’d better follow me.”
He led them through the camp once more, leaving the prosperous area and moving through the muddy parts where families were camped, cooking over fires, trying to gather together or protect the few things they had managed to take with them from the city.
And then they moved into the really poor part of camp, where the inhabitants simply huddled in their cloaks, without shelter or cooking fires.
It was there, clustered in the protection of a boulder, that Jerro showed them what the problem was. When he rounded the big rock, half a dozen small faces turned up toward him, like a nest full of baby birds waiting to be fed.
Except these weren’t birds. These were children. All smaller than Anders and Rayna, all at least vaguely familiar from the streets of Holbard. Jerro had lost his two little brothers, but he had found all these children to protect, and protect them he had.
“I can’t just leave them here,” he said helplessly. “No one else will look after them. Some of the farmers from around the area have started coming into the camp with goods to sell. With the money I lifted, I can feed us for at least a day or two.”
The twins exchanged a quick glance, communicating without words, as they almost always did. They both reached the same conclusion, and then Rayna spoke quietly.
“But what if they scream?” Rayna said quietly. “When they see, you know . . .” Her hands made a vague flapping motion. When they see the dragons.
“Well, Jerro’s right,” said Anders. “We can’t just leave them here.”
A skinny girl piped up from the cluster of children. “Jerro, are you going away?”
“Don’t worry,” said Rayna, “nobody’s leaving anyone anywhere. It’s time we met up with Viktoria and Ferdie and Ellukka. They’re probably waiting for us by now—I’ll go see. Anders, Sam, why don’t you two take Jerro and the others out of the camp to where we . . .” She paused, because she clearly didn’t want to say landed in front of Jerro and the others and give the game away. “To where we’ll depart from,” she settled on. “Wait for us there. That way, if anybody’s going to scream or do anything stupid, they can do it where it’s quiet.”
Jerro looked like he had a lot of questions, but Sam squeezed his hand, and he kept them to himself for now, willing to trust his brother until they were away from the camp. He and his little troupe followed Anders and Sam out past the camp borders, clutching their few precious belongings in their arms.
It was a long walk out to the place where they were to meet the others, and Rayna, Viktoria, Ferdie, and Ellukka caught up with them before they reached it.
They waited until they were a good distance away, though—until it was inconvenient for anybody to try to run—before they explained exactly how they would be getting to Cloudhaven.
Some of the children took Rayna’s, Ferdie’s, and Ellukka’s transformations into dragons more calmly than others, and there was a little screaming. But in the end, the older children managed to keep everybody together. Ferdie played the clown, leaning in and snorting hot breath at each of the children, letting them touch his nose and tickling them with the end of his tail. And, one by one, they began to relax.
Then, of course, they had a new problem: even though the children Jerro had rescued were small and skinny, together they all still weighed far more than any of the dragons had ever lifted before. Despite Ferdie being older, Ellukka was the biggest and strongest of the three, so she took more of the load than anyone.
Anders and Jerro carefully made sure each of the children was somehow tucked into her harness, arms or legs poking through, everyone under instructions to stay still and hold tight.
“That is a long way to fall,” Jerro told them sternly, “so don’t do it.”
He was nervous as well, Anders could tell, but his big-brother instincts were hard at work, and he hid his own fear for the sake of his charges.
When Ellukka finally took off, Anders watched her struggling. It was as though she was clawing her way up through the air, gaining altitude very slowly, making her turns wide and careful. But she did it.
To his left, Ferdie and Viktoria took off with Sam hanging on behind her, and Anders helped Jerro climb up onto Rayna’s back and sit behind him before they took off as well. Wondering what the others would make of their newest residents, they slowly began to wing their way toward Cloudhaven.
Chapter Five
THAT NIGHT, CLOUDHAVEN WAS BUSIER THAN IT had ever been before.
Ferdie and Viktoria were keeping a firm eye on Ellukka, making sure that she ate, and then ate a little more, to recover from her trip back.
Det and Jai were working with Sakarias and Bryn to feed many more mouths than they were used to, chopping and mixing, doling out food into bowls and passing them around—they had enough spoons and forks, but not quite enough bowls, and most of the children clustered around to share, scooping the food up eagerly.
Mateo, the biggest of the wolves, sat cross-legged with the smallest of the orphans in his lap, holding his bowl out in one large hand so she could dig her spoon in.
Lisabet sat quietly beside him, downcast. She had had no success with the books she was hoping would help her find a way inside Cloudhaven, and the news that her mother was missing had hit her hard. She didn’t contribute to the conversation around the fire as the wolves, dragons, and other children all considered what they had learned that day.
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“Hayn was right,” Anders said. “We have to get the different groups to talk to each other. It’s the only way anything will change. But I have no idea how we do that.”
Surprisingly, it was Sakarias who shook his head. “That’s not the way it goes,” he said. “We don’t talk to each other. We don’t get along. And maybe there are reasons we’ve stayed apart.”
Anders hadn’t been prepared to hear Sakarias, of all people, say something so negative. But after a moment he remembered the way Sakarias had been looking at Ferdie and Viktoria every time they worked together. Sak and Viktoria had been friends and roommates for almost a full year at Ulfar. Wherever you found one, you always found the other.
Everyone was quiet for a moment, and then Ferdie broke the silence. He didn’t sound offended—he was speaking in his usual, friendly tone, as if they were all getting along.
“I don’t know, Sak. Do all wolves make stew like this?” he asked, holding up his bowl. “Because if they do, I’m certainly willing to talk.”
Sakarias made a soft grumbling sound, but Anders knew he was at least a little pleased—Ferdie had deliberately chosen the part of the meal that Sakarias had been in charge of.
But then, looking at his friend, Anders remembered something else. Speaking of not getting along . . .
“Sak,” he said, “right after the battle at Holbard, you were going to tell me something about the fire down at the port, weren’t you?”
Sakarias’s expression grew serious. The fire at the port had been huge, swallowing up most of the houses that ringed the town square, and each of those several stories high. The flames had been white with gold sparks—dragonsfire—and the wolves had fought them valiantly.
It had been at that fire that Anders had rescued Jerro and his brothers from the roof.
He and Rayna had seen a fire just like this before, only it had been much, much smaller. They had watched a puppet show in one of the small squares of Holbard, and when the dragon puppets had flown in, the twins had marveled at how the flames seemed to be white. If the fire could be faked on such a small scale, Anders had thought after he saw the port fire, perhaps it could be done on a large scale as well.
He hadn’t wanted it to be true, though.
“We went and took a look at it, like you asked,” Sakarias said, his face grim. “It was the next morning. There was a lot of white ash there—it turned to powder when you touched it. And there were piles of this gray dust that seemed like it was made of metal. It didn’t seem right. It wasn’t what you usually see in the fireplace after a fire has burned itself out, but we couldn’t work out what it was. Is that what you were expecting?”
“I’m not sure what I was expecting,” Anders replied. “Do any of you dragons know if that’s what’s usually left behind after your flames?”
The dragons all shook their heads. “The flames look different from normal fire, but the ashes aren’t any different,” Ellukka said.
“Then why did this fire leave something different behind?” Lisabet asked.
“Um,” said a voice. Sam had raised his hand. “I think we humans might have the answer to this one,” he said. “While you wolves and dragons were off studying magic and battles, we were learning other things, and inventing some too. Anders, you’re thinking of the puppet show at Trellig Square, aren’t you?”
Anders nodded.
“Oh,” said Rayna.
“Right,” Sam agreed. “For the rest of you, there’s a puppet show about the last great battle, and the players like setting up in Trellig Square. They have little Wolf Guard puppets, and little human puppets, and the dragon puppets . . . well, they breathe fire.”
“How?” Isabina asked, immediately interested in how an invention like that would work.
“Jerro and I made a few coppers carrying supplies for them once, and one of the women told me,” Sam said. “They said that kind of fire is made by using a special kind of salt and iron filings.”
Everyone was listening now, his voice the only sound besides the crackling of the fire. “The salt turns the flame white, and the iron filings make it spit sparks.”
Mikkel’s mouth fell open. “You’re saying it makes it look like dragonsfire.”
“We were framed,” Ellukka said, glancing around the circle as though somebody would be able to explain to her who had done this and why. “Someone lit those houses on fire and tried to pretend it was the dragons.”
“You were framed,” Sam agreed, “and we were almost killed.”
“But who did it?” Rayna asked.
Anders had a horrible suspicion that he knew the answer to that, but it lurked in the corner of his mind, still half-hidden in the shadows. He had no proof, so at least for now, he said nothing.
It was hard to get to sleep that night with everybody staring at them, waiting for him and Rayna to pass out so they’d know whether Hayn’s runes had worked or not.
Every time Anders moved, he felt the scratch of the paper against his chest where it was wrapped firmly around his augmenter, and every time he got settled, he found something else to poke him in the ribs or sit not quite right under his hip.
And then the next thing he knew, he was in Drifa’s workshop.
Was he awake again? Had he been sleepwalking?
Rayna stood beside him, and when he reached out to catch her hand, his passed straight through it. She blinked, stared, and tried grabbing his hand, with the same result.
“Not awake, then,” he concluded.
His voice caused a figure on the far side of the room to move, and Anders’s attention snapped up as he realized they weren’t alone.
It was a tall woman who, even in the dim light of the workshop, looked instantly like an older version of Rayna. Her skin was just the same shade, and her dark hair was tightly curled. It stood out in a ring around her head, as wide as it was tall. She wore a leather apron over her clothes, and it was pitted and scarred with little black scorch marks. It was a dragonsmith’s apron.
“What are we doing here?” she asked, looking around the room, her gaze pausing on the two children.
Anders’s tongue seemed to fill his mouth, but he made himself speak. “Are you Drifa?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, coming around the table beside her to walk closer to the twins. “But who are you?”
“I’m . . . we’re . . .” Anders could hardly make himself speak. “I’m Anders,” he said, “and this is—”
“Rayna,” his sister breathed.
“It can’t be you,” Drifa whispered. “It can’t—you’re both so big. Sparks and scales, has it really been so long?”
“It’s been ten years,” said Rayna quietly.
Drifa’s lips trembled, and she pressed them together very hard, as though she was trying not to cry. “I’ve missed so much,” she said quietly. “It’s so, so good to see you both.”
“Is our father here?” Rayna asked.
Drifa shook her head in a small, tight movement, but she took a long breath through her nose, and her voice was even when she replied, “No. Felix is gone.”
“But you’re not,” Anders said quietly.
“Not yet,” she corrected him gently.
“We can’t get to you,” he said. “We tried, and Cloudhaven led us to a wall covered in words. We’re trying to translate them—a friend of ours, she knows how—but we haven’t really gotten anywhere. If you can tell us what to do, we can come find you.”
“No,” Drifa said, gentle but firm. “No, please don’t try. Please stay away. It’s not safe.”
Anders and Rayna exchanged a quick glance. Rayna’s eyebrow flicked, and Anders inclined his head just a fraction. It was all they needed to say. As if we’re staying away, and, I know, but there’s no need to tell her that right now.
“I didn’t know it had been so long,” Drifa was saying. “Tell me about yourselves, my darlings. I want to know as much as I can.”
And so they did, falling over themselves to share all
the details of their lives, telling her about all the places they had found to live and to sleep, about the places where they had gotten their food, all the ways they had kept themselves safe and entertained themselves on the streets. They told her about the last great battle too, and she pressed one hand over her mouth in horror.
“I left you with a woman I knew,” Drifa said eventually, slowly shaking her head. “She was a human, so I hoped you’d be safe until I could come back. I needed to hide for a little—I was close to being found. But then I . . . couldn’t. I couldn’t come back. I wish I could have. I would have stood trial for something I didn’t do, I would have taken the punishment, if I’d known it would have prevented so much death. My friend must have died in the battle, if you were found as orphans. I’m so sorry, my loves. I never meant for you to be alone.”
“We had each other,” Anders said, and Rayna reached out to try to squeeze his hand, though hers went right through it again.
“You were two years old,” Drifa whispered. “I’m surprised you even remembered your own names. Your father helped choose them, you know.”
“We knew our names,” Rayna said. “And we knew we were twins. We stuck together.”
The twins told Drifa about Kess the cat, about the friendly shopkeepers who had slipped them food. And they told her about the day they had found themselves down by the port, and had ended up on the dais, making their transformation, Rayna into a dragon and Anders into a wolf.
The story grew more somber as it went on, though. They told her about Rayna’s time at Drekhelm and Anders’s at Ulfar, about his journey to find her, about the smaller battle with their classmates, their time at the Finskól, and the much larger battle for Holbard.
They told her how they had come to Cloudhaven now.
They told her they didn’t know what to do next.
She listened to every word, drinking them up as if she were parched and their story was water. No detail was too small for her. Every triumph was to be celebrated. Every setback was met with sorrow. Anders had never had a more fascinated audience in his life.