by Amie Kaufman
But while Valerius departed after a few final words to the others, the other two took up a stance that Anders and Lisabet recognized from seeing it thousands of times over back in Holbard, wherever the Wolf Guard went. The pair were standing watch, and they were in no mood for any trouble. Which meant that unauthorized wolf children had absolutely no chance of getting inside.
“Perhaps there’ll be something in the books Theo has in the classroom,” Anders suggested, not very hopefully, as they made their way back in defeat.
“Worth a try,” Lisabet replied.
But as soon as they came back to the classroom, Leif looked up, his gaze lighting on the pair of them. “Anders,” he said, rising from his seat. “Come with me, I want to talk to you. Rayna, you too.”
Lisabet headed silently for the long tables, and Anders knew she’d see if Theo had anything in his books. For his part, he followed Leif out of the classroom, suppressing a sudden shiver of nerves. What did the Drekleid want? Had the dragons changed their minds about letting the two wolves stay? But in that case, it would be Lisabet by his side to hear the news, not Rayna. Wouldn’t it?
Leif led them down the hallway and opened a stout door with his own name on it, engraved on a silver nameplate in curling script. Inside was a cozy office that in many ways reminded Anders of Hayn’s workshop at Ulfar. It was crammed top to bottom with shelves down the left-hand side, and they were stuffed with books, artifacts, a few plants with green leaves trailing down the piles below, a teapot, a bag of apples, and what looked like a forgotten loaf of bread down near the floor. Down the right-hand side ran Leif’s desk, equally crowded with his belongings. On the floor was a thick red rug to keep the cold of the stone away. At the other end of the narrow room was a floor-to-ceiling window like the one in the classroom, looking out toward the Icespire Mountains to the west. That was one way Hayn’s workshop was different—it didn’t have any windows, a fact that had forced Anders and Lisabet to pick the lock and break in only a few weeks before.
“Please, take a seat,” Leif said, sinking down into his large, comfortable chair, and pulling two smaller stools out from where they were tucked in underneath the desk. Anders carefully removed a tiny mechanical model of a cow from one and sat down.
Leif took down a small, embroidered purse from the shelf, using a handkerchief so it wouldn’t touch his skin. The fabric of the purse was red, and it was shot through with silver threads, which matched the silver clasp at the top. “This is an artifact,” Leif said, “which after some considerable searching, I have managed to retrieve from our archives.”
Anders was dying to hear what the purse had to do with Rayna and him, but he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to find out how Leif had managed to locate anything, let alone the thing he wanted, in the archive caverns.
“Theo showed me around in there,” he said, making his eyes wide. “It looks like everything’s all just piled up, one thing on top of another. How do you find what you want?”
“You probably shouldn’t go into the archives,” Leif said absently. “There are too many dragons still unhappy about your presence. Still, I suppose nobody told you not to yet. They certainly are disorganized, we need young Theo’s work very badly. As for how I found it, there was a fair bit of undignified crawling around, but I also know that artifacts that served similar purposes used to be stored together at Old Drekhelm, and when they were picked up and carried here, they tended to stay together. So one might not know where exactly something is, but looking for things like it makes it easier to spot the group, and then it’s just a matter of getting dusty.”
Anders nodded, wondering if the mirror would be stored with other mirrors or other communication devices.
Leif shook his head. “My, but I get sidetracked by questions easily,” he admitted.
“It’s the dragon way,” Rayna said, with an impressively straight face.
“True enough,” he agreed. “Anyway, this artifact is going to serve a very useful purpose for us. It’s a coin purse designed so that only members of the same family can open it. Now that we’ve found it, this is a very simple way for us to test whether you’re related. We’ll set it to recognize one of you, and if the other can open it, then you’re family.”
An unexpected shiver of pure apprehension went through Anders. On one hand, he was positive that he and Rayna were twins. He couldn’t doubt that, not in his heart. He’d given up everything to be with Rayna, and it was worth it a hundred times over. On the other hand, that selfsame heart was thumping wildly at the prospect of this test, so hard he could feel it all over his body.
After everything they’d been through, the risk that Leif might tell him Rayna somehow wasn’t his sister—might try to deny or take away that connection—made his mouth dry and his breath shake as he drew it in.
Rayna reached over and took his hand in hers, squeezing tight, and he knew without even looking at her that she was as nervous as he was, even if she’d try and bluster her way out of it.
He found himself speaking before he quite knew what he was going to say.
“Leif.” His voice was surprisingly steady, given he was pretty sure the rest of him was shaking. “We’re family anyway. No matter what the purse says. Rayna will always be my sister.”
“Yes,” Rayna said, uncharacteristically brief, her voice a little rough, her hand squeezing hard. “No matter what, Leif.”
The Drekleid inclined his head respectfully. “Of course,” he agreed. “If you’re prepared to try the artifact, I think it would be helpful for us to know whether you are sister and brother by blood, or simply by connection of the heart.”
Anders looked across at Rayna, seeing his own doubt mirrored in her eyes.
“I think we should,” she said eventually. “We both want to know who we are. What we are. And I hate that I can’t make a spark, let alone a flame. If we know we’re blood related, perhaps that means I can make icefire. Two’s better than one, right?” Her smile was weak.
“Two’s always better than one,” he told her firmly, and they both knew he wasn’t talking about icefire.
“Okay,” she said to Leif, letting go of Anders’s hand. “Let’s try this purse, then.”
Leif nodded. “I’ve released the previous bindings on the purse, which wasn’t easy—I had to find a member of the family it used to belong to and get her to release it. It was the granddaughter, and she’s living over in Port Alcher now. Quite a flight. She doesn’t transform, but she has an inkling her grandmother did. Anyway, she—the granddaughter, I mean—runs a pie shop, and I had to buy a dozen pies before she made time for me.” He paused, reflective. “They were delicious, though. And at any rate, now the purse is unattached, waiting for its new owner. It will bond to the next person who touches it. That’s why I’m holding it with a handkerchief. Anders, would you do the honors? It will require just the smallest drop of your blood. Artifacts linked to family often do, among others. The blood of the most powerful wolves and dragons can achieve a great deal.”
Anders took the purse from Leif’s hand, cradling it in the palm of his own. He accepted a needle and pricked his fingertip, and with a quick sting a tiny drop of blood welled up, crimson against his brown skin. He pressed it to the silver of the clasp and his hand tingled briefly—a tickling, bubbly sensation that swept quickly up his arm and through his body in a wave. The purse itself seemed to glow for an instant, and then it looked normal once more.
“Done,” said Leif. “Now, Rayna, if you would be so kind as to take the purse and attempt to open it, we’ll have our answer. If it doesn’t recognize you, it will scream an alarm. If it opens, that’s all we need to see.”
Rayna took a deep breath, and took the purse from Anders’s hand, just as he’d taken it from Leif’s a minute before. “Here goes,” she said, and Anders knew she was trying to sound like her usual brave self, despite the tremor in her voice. She put her fingers to the little silver clasp on the purse and took a deep breath.
Then
her fingers pressed against it.
It popped open, like it was waiting expectantly for someone to drop coins inside.
All three of them stared down at it, and then Rayna began to laugh in sheer relief. Anders’s face stretched to a grin, and he threw both his arms around her, hugging her tight.
“Can you imagine?” she said. “If someone had come in, and we were all just sitting here, staring at the purse like it was going to start singing and dancing?” She was giggling, and Anders couldn’t help but join in. Even Leif smiled, breathing out slowly as the tension dissipated. “Can I keep the purse?” Rayna asked.
“Yes,” said Leif, still smiling. “Sparks and scales, you can keep the purse.”
Anders had worried about the answer to the question of who he was, of what he was—ever since the moment of their transformation—but he hadn’t realized just how much of an effect it was having on him until now. He felt so much lighter, he could have floated up to the ceiling.
“You may be the first confirmed elementals of mixed blood in Vallen,” Leif told them, his voice quiet, thoughtful. “I mean, plenty of people have traces of wolf and dragon ancestry, and I suspect some transformed wolves and dragons even have traces of the other in their heritage. But there have only ever been stories about what might happen if two actual elementals—two people capable of transformation themselves—had a child. In you, we may have evidence that it’s possible. We may have evidence that the old stories, which say that elementals of mixed blood have special powers, are true. This must be the reason for your icefire, Anders. And Rayna, it means you probably have a gift as well.”
“There was an old story about a dragonsmith with special powers, wasn’t there?” Anders asked, remembering Hayn’s grim expression the day he’d told Anders and Lisabet about the dragon who’d killed his brother.
“That’s right,” Leif said, his smile dropping away. “Drifa, her name was. We attended the Finskól together as children. She grew up to be the greatest dragonsmith of our age. She was clever, inventive, creative, and daring, and the whispered rumor was that her father was a thunder lion from Mositala. They are elementals who control the wind and air. If she knew the truth about her parentage, she never told us, but the story was that her thunder lion heritage allowed her to control the winds around her forge and infuse them with essence. Then, when she worked with her own magical flame, she created truly incredible artifacts.”
“That sounds amazing,” Rayna breathed. “Why do you look so serious?”
Leif shook his head. “She died far too young. The wolves claimed she murdered one of their own, and afterward, nobody could find her. We searched as best we could, but we have no idea where she went, or whether she died too that day. It’s been so long now that I’m sure she must be dead. Things were difficult between dragons and wolves before the day they say she killed a wolf, but afterward, they were impossible. The wolves refused to trust us, and their demands became more and more unreasonable, until eventually, they tried to keep dragons prisoner in the city of Holbard itself, to ensure we worked on the artifacts they needed. It was that wolf’s death, and Drifa’s disappearance, that led to the last great battle.”
Both Anders and Rayna were silent, eyes wide. Anders knew this wasn’t the story that was told about the battle in Holbard. He’d always heard that the dragons had attacked unprovoked, and the wolves had defended the city. But if the wolves had been holding dragons prisoner, that was a whole other story. Then again, if a dragon had killed a wolf . . . He didn’t know what to make of it.
One thing he did know for sure, though, was that both sides would suffer if there was another battle. “Leif,” he said, “has the Dragonmeet made any progress in deciding what to do about the Snowstone?”
The Drekleid shook his head slowly, regret in every line of his face. “We have been talking all week, and we remain deadlocked. Perhaps there is too much anger among the leadership on both sides of this fight.”
“Then what will happen?” Rayna asked in a small voice. “War, again?”
“I hope not,” Leif said gravely. “Perhaps . . .” He paused, then continued, looking directly at Anders. “Perhaps we need to come up with a new kind of solution. Perhaps someone will see a creative way out of this situation.”
Anders felt quite sure in that moment that Leif meant him to listen carefully to those words. That Leif meant him to think about finding a way out of this.
On one hand, the task felt almost overwhelmingly large.
On the other, he wasn’t the same boy who’d fled his own first transformation in terror. He’d found his way into Ulfar, to Fylkir’s chalice, to Drekhelm itself. And now he was finding a way to get by, even to make a home at Drekhelm. Who knew what else he could do when those he loved were at risk?
As the three of them walked back to the classroom, Anders knew he had to tell Rayna about the mirror. He’d worried about whose side she might take in the wolf-dragon divide, but now she knew that she herself was born of both, things had to be different. They’d always worked together to solve problems in the past, and this one was going to need all the brains they could muster.
When they were back with the others, he quietly told Lisabet what had transpired in the Drekleid’s office. He could see Rayna whispering the story to Ellukka as well. Lisabet’s eyes went huge at the news.
“Pack and paws,” she murmured. “You’re . . . You two are a completely new kind of elemental, Anders. That’s incredible.”
“There’s more,” he said, leaning in close. He told her what else Leif had said—about the way the dragon had looked directly at him, as good as telling him to use his creativity to avert an all-out war, while the adults were tied up in endless, deadlocked discussions. “We have to tell Rayna,” he finished, and Lisabet nodded.
“The others too,” she said. “Ellukka goes where Rayna goes, and we’re going to need Mikkel’s and Theo’s help. We have to trust them. If the Dragonmeet is no closer to a solution, and we’ve seen what my mo—what Sigrid can do with the Snowstone, then this is urgent.”
After dinner that night, Anders and Lisabet discreetly gathered up their friends and brought them back to their room. The dragons were all curious, but they came quietly, piling into the little guest room the wolves had made their own. Anders, Lisabet, and Theo sat on Anders’s bed, and Rayna, Ellukka, and Mikkel took up Lisabet’s.
“Well?” said Ellukka. “What’s the big secret?”
Anders told them about his trip with Theo to the artifact storage caverns, and Theo joined in a little, confirming what Anders was saying, though he clearly didn’t know why it was so important that they share this information right at this moment.
Then Lisabet took over from Theo, and together the wolves told the dragons about Hayn, and about the mirror they’d seen in his office—about their theory that perhaps the dragons’ counterpart wasn’t broken—especially since the symbol beside it in the book said otherwise—but instead simply locked up somewhere dark and quiet.
And finally, Anders told them what Leif had said in his office that day—that to search for one artifact at Drekhelm, you looked for others like it, which at least gave them something of a hint as to how to narrow their search. And more important, that Leif had as good as told him to take action.
“What exactly does Leif want us to do?” Rayna asked, thoughtful. “What can we do?”
“We’re twelve,” Mikkel said, pale. “How can we be in charge of handling any part of this?”
“I’m thirteen,” said Ellukka, and he elbowed her in the side. “Anyway,” she continued, “we’re Finskól students. We’re there because we’re all good at something special.”
Anders nodded. “And if we do nothing, it’s just going to get colder and colder. The Dragonmeet’s talking forever and getting nothing done. We should try and find out what the wolves have planned.”
“I agree,” said Rayna. “We have to try and find the mirror, see what we can find out from watching this Hayn.”
“Then do what?” Theo asked. “If we tell anyone where we got that information, we’ll get in trouble for using an artifact like that without permission. Assuming they even believe us. And if they think we revealed to the wolves that the mirrors still work . . .”
“Then do whatever we can think of,” Anders said, “to try and stop them using the Snowstone. To keep things the way they are, so the wolves can’t attack.”
Until now, it had been a matter of keeping himself, Rayna, and Lisabet safe. But now, looking around the room, he was realizing he had more to fight for than that. He needed to broaden his vision—he had friends on the wolf side and on the dragon side who would suffer if there was another battle.
“I think we should vote,” said Lisabet. “It’s a big risk for all of us. Anders and I could be thrown out of Drekhelm if we’re caught using an artifact like that without permission, or risking the wolves using their mirror in return. Perhaps the rest of you could too, I don’t know, if we got caught going behind the Dragonmeet’s backs. Everyone needs to be in on this.”
“Agreed,” said Anders, his throat tight with nerves. What would they do if one of them didn’t want to join in but already knew their plans? “Hands up, all who think we should try and find the mirror.”
He raised his own hand, and beside him, Lisabet raised hers as well. Rayna did at the same time, backing him without hesitation.
Ellukka looked sideways at Rayna, and then raised her own hand, and with a soft, worried sound, Theo raised his.
Mikkel looked around at them all, biting his lip, considering.
“I think they really would throw us out,” he said quietly. “Out of the Finskól for sure. Leif couldn’t defend us. We might be exiled from every dragon community in Vallen, if they think we’ve shown the wolves a way to spy on us, or they think we were trying to talk to them.”
Anders nodded slowly. “That could all happen,” he admitted. “But if we do nothing . . .”