by Amie Kaufman
“It’s like the winter never ended,” a second man agreed.
“Still,” said the woman beside them. “If it’s hard for us, it’s worse for those dragons. I heard half the port burned down, the last fire they lit.”
The first man clucked his tongue in worry. “I heard we’ll have a battle before the year’s out. I only hope we’re not there when it happens, makes you want to stay out on the farm where it’s safe, even if nothing’s growing.”
“The wolves are strong,” the second man said. “Surely they’ll defend us again.”
“They’d better,” the woman replied, with a snort that sounded a lot like Rayna’s when she got indignant. “Wolf Guard on every corner, constantly stopping you and asking your business. And they take plenty of money from the city’s coffers. The Fyrstulf offers protection, and that’s valuable, but you bet your boots she knows how valuable it is.”
“Don’t say things like that,” the man said, lowering his voice. “People might think the wrong thing.”
Anders glanced across at his own companions—Lisabet’s lips were pressed together in a tight line, and she was staring straight ahead. She’d grown up with stories of duty and honor, and it must be hard for her to hear what people thought of the wolves. Rayna was barely listening to them, busy glancing up and down the stream of travelers, calculating the best spot to be when they reached the gate. She looked cold too, her cloak drawn tightly around her. And Ellukka, who had never been near Holbard before, was staring at everything with wide eyes, her hood pushed back so she could get the best possible view, blond braids gleaming in the sun.
Eventually the city gate reared up ahead. The black stone walls were high, and wide enough that the wolves could walk patrol along their tops—Anders could see two gray-cloaked figures making their rounds, if he squinted. The gates were a hardened, flame-proofed wood, thrown open just now so the people and wagons could make their way in through the wide arch. With any luck, plenty of these people would head straight to the port square where Anders and Rayna were meeting Hayn, and the children could mingle with them all the way.
Anders was just beginning to feel relaxed about the plan when the crowd ahead started to bunch up, slowing as it reached the gates. He craned his neck and felt a chill go through him as he spotted wolves up ahead, standing atop packing crates and surveying the crowd.
“Wanted,” one called, holding up a large poster. “These children are wanted. Please look at their faces and report any sightings to the Wolf Guard immediately. Wanted!”
The poster held a fair portrait of Anders and Lisabet, and a less good one of Rayna—the wolves had even arranged to have them made in color, the twins’ brown faces, brown eyes, and black, curling hair sitting alongside Lisabet’s white, freckled face, green eyes, and black curls.
“Pack and paws,” he whispered, a chill running through him that had nothing to do with the temperature. There was no way they could slip away at this late stage—they had to find a way to hide within the crowd approaching the gate.
He glanced sideways at Lisabet, who flipped her cloak’s hood up over her head and slowed her pace, bending over as she did, until she was shuffling along like a very old woman, almost bent double. Because she did it gradually, no one person saw much of her transformation, and certainly not enough to be alarmed. She started to fall behind, but with any luck she was well hidden.
Rayna ducked around the side of a cart and dove beneath it—Anders caught a glimpse of her cloak as she crawled along below it, but nothing more.
Ellukka’s face was unknown, so that left only Anders to hide. In a flash, it came to him. “Lift up your cloak,” he whispered to Ellukka. Her brow creased in confusion, and then she understood. Without missing a beat she took hold of the edge of her cloak, swirling it around so it fluttered as the air caught it, smacking one of her neighbors in the face.
“Hey!” the man cried. Nobody noticed Anders sneaking in underneath the cloak, staying as close as he could to Ellukka, hidden by the billowing folds.
“Sorry!” Ellukka said cheerfully. “I was feeling dramatic there for a moment.”
The man grumbled but subsided, and Ellukka and Anders walked along carefully together, making their way through the gates. Anders could hear the guards above him still calling out their message.
“Wanted, these children are wanted. Please look at their faces and report any sightings to the Wolf Guard immediately. Wanted!”
Holbard had always been his home, and now he was a wanted criminal. Wanted badly enough that the wolves were prepared to stand by the gates each day and spread the word.
He wrapped an arm around Ellukka’s waist, steering her along the main road from memory—he’d been to the west gate plenty of times, and he was sure there was a little side alley less than half a block in on their left. She understood what he was doing, and as soon as they reached it, she peeled away from the crowd to make her way down the narrow laneway.
Rayna picked her moment and darted out from beneath the cart, scrambling in to join them where they waited in an alcove, and after a little, Lisabet shuffled along in her old-woman disguise, waiting until she reached the alcove to abandon the pretense and move in to join them. Now all four of them were safe in the little alleyway.
“Wanted posters,” she said, her voice shaking. “I mean, I knew—but I didn’t think . . .”
“I knew the wolves would be looking out for us,” Anders said quietly. “But I didn’t think it would be like this.”
“And someone must have described me from the Trial of the Staff,” Rayna said. “Or else someone who knows us from the street recognized me when it happened and told.” She scowled at the very idea of such betrayal, but Anders knew she was trying to cover a greater shock.
“Holbard is so big,” said Ellukka, her voice smaller than Anders had ever heard it. “I’ve seen pictures, but I never imagined—I’ve never been anywhere like this. There are so many people.” She was nibbling on the end of one of her plaits, clearly close to overwhelmed. Anders had never seen Ellukka anything but bold before, and he wasn’t sure what to say.
Rayna wrapped an arm around her, though, and squeezed her tight. “You’ll be used to it in no time,” she said. “You’ll forget all about how big it is. Anders, there’s only one way we’re going to get to the port, if they’re looking for us.”
“Agreed,” said Anders. “It has to be over the roofs.”
“The what?” said Ellukka.
Anders was the tallest, so as always, he boosted Rayna up until she could grab the gutter and scramble onto the roof—buildings crowded in on either side of the alleyway, blocking out most of the sky above them.
Then Rayna leaned down and grabbed Lisabet’s hands as Anders boosted her. Lisabet disappeared for a moment, and Rayna turned her head in the direction she’d gone. “Stop sightseeing and come help!”
Finally Anders boosted up Ellukka, who was heavier than the other two, but she had Rayna and Lisabet to pull, and it worked out fine. Glad he was taller than the others, since there was nobody to push him up from below, he jumped until he could catch hold of the gutter, and all three girls pulled until he was scrambling onto the grass beside them. It really was colder here in Holbard—his hands were chilled, knuckles aching from the effort of gripping the gutter.
But then he looked around and forgot all about his discomfort for a moment. Something in his heart felt like it was unfurling at such a familiar sight, like a flower’s petals turning to the sun first thing in the morning.
The rooftops of Holbard were all joined together on each block, sown with grass and flowers, so that a meadow stretched away across most of the city, gently undulating with roofs and hills. Instead of streams breaking it up, as they did on the plains outside the city, in Holbard streets provided the divisions. The city’s clever street children had bridged the narrowest of those streets and alleyways with bridges made of planks, which meant that if you knew where to navigate, you could find a path almost
the whole way across the city without touching the ground.
They saw a few other children in the distance, but they were too far away to make out who they were, so Anders and his friends simply waved, and set off. “There are four of us,” Rayna said, “so it won’t occur to them that we’re the three they want.”
Ellukka and Lisabet were amazed by the rooftop meadows, trying to look all around them as they hurried after the twins. Lisabet had only seen them once or twice before, training with the wolves. For Ellukka, it was calmingly like being out on the plains. The four of them only had to head down into a street once, darting across it and into an alleyway on the far side to climb up once more.
By the time they reached the port, Ellukka was wearing yellow-and-white flameflowers and red fentills tucked into her hair, and Lisabet was mumbling something about researching the historical use of the rooftop highways. Anders and Rayna were strategizing.
“The port is a smart place to meet us,” Anders said, even though he hated the place. “There are more visitors to the city there than anywhere else, and the guards are less likely to be keeping a lookout for us that far into town.”
“Agreed,” said Rayna. “Still, we need a better disguise than we’ve got. Now that we’re past the entrance, it would be best if we looked like we weren’t from Holbard at all.”
So they found an inn where visiting sailors and merchants stayed, and climbed down into the courtyard, liberating clothes from Mositala and Halotan from the washing line. “Sorry, visitors,” Rayna whispered. “Welcome to Holbard. It’s not personal.”
Ellukka was well-disguised just by being herself, since nobody knew her face, but Lisabet borrowed the dragon’s cloak, which was bigger than her own, and concealed her face when she kept the hood up. “It looks a little suspicious,” Rayna conceded, “but you might just be shy.”
Rayna and Anders added the stolen clothing to their own—he carried his cloak and wore a bright pink-and-gold vest from Halotan, letting his jacket hang open to show it off. She tied a green-and-gold Mositalan shawl on over her skirts, twirling so it shimmered in the light.
“People will think we’re traders’ children,” Anders explained to the others. “If they notice one thing about you, like how bright your clothes are, most of the time they don’t notice anything else.”
Rayna shot a quick glance at him, brows lifted. When they’d both lived in Holbard—which felt like a lifetime ago, even though it had only been weeks—she’d been the one to say things like that. He thought perhaps she was surprised to hear he knew it too. Then she grinned, and he realized she wasn’t surprised—she was just impressed.
The twins adjusted their outfits, and finally, they were ready to make their way out into the port square to meet Hayn.
Rayna, Lisabet, and Ellukka hadn’t seen the place where the fire had been set—Ellukka hadn’t even seen the port square, of course—and the three of them sucked in quick breaths when they saw the aftermath. Even Anders was taken aback, and he’d seen it at full blaze. The bottom stories of the homes along the port’s edge were gutted, and the scorch marks reached all the way up to the roof, where he’d rescued Jerro and the others. If he hadn’t, it was clear they’d have been scorched too, or worse.
“They’re saying this was dragons?” Ellukka whispered, her cheeks pink. “We’d never! And in the middle of Holbard? Nobody could keep that kind of thing quiet even if they did do it.”
“It would be very hard to transform into a dragon, light a fire, and transform back again without anyone seeing,” Rayna said, dubious.
“They’re saying it was definitely dragonsfire,” Lisabet said, sounding almost apologetic. “Pure white, gold sparks. It’s very distinctive. You never see that kind of flame anywhere else.”
A sudden thought jolted Anders at her words. He had seen the fire somewhere else. Just the day before the Trial of the Staff and his first transformation, in fact. He and Rayna had watched a puppet show, and when the tiny dragons had appeared, the puppeteers had created a tiny dragon’s flame. He’d even talked about it with Rayna—they’d used a kind of salt to make the flame white, and iron filings for the gold sparks.
But it was one thing to produce a handful of flame for a puppet show, and quite another to change enough of it to burn down whole buildings. Surely that was impossible? He tucked the question away for later, because they were reaching the southeast corner and the water’s edge, and it was time to look for Hayn.
They were very near the easternmost pier, ships pulled up on either side of it, mooring ropes strung between them and the wooden structure like intricate spiders’ webs, sailors jumping from ship to pier and back again with the nimble agility of long practice. Near the end of the pier was a series of makeshift food stalls, with tables made of half-barrels and chairs from packing crates.
And there, sitting on the edge of it, was Hayn. He was so big he practically dwarfed the packing crate he was sitting on, his knees up around his ribs, and he was watching the square anxiously. He started to rise to his feet when he saw Anders and the others, and then sank back down again, lest he draw attention.
They hurried over, and Anders and Lisabet took the packing crates nearest him. Rayna and Ellukka exchanged a glance, and then Ellukka settled down on her packing crate facing out toward the square. Her face was the least recognizable, and she would keep watch as the others spoke to the big wolf.
Hayn’s face lit up as they joined him. “You’re here,” he said, relief all over his features.
“This is Rayna,” Anders said, resting his hand on his twin’s.
“Yes,” Hayn said. “Yes, your sister.”
There was no dismissal in his tone, and Anders was surprised to hear the big wolf speak as though he had no doubt Rayna was his sister. “Yes,” he agreed. “And this is—”
“Someone else,” Ellukka said, without turning her head, cutting him off before he could give her name or explain who she was.
“Pleased to meet you,” Hayn said diplomatically.
“Hayn,” Lisabet said, breaking in. “What’s been happening at Ulfar?”
The designer pushed his glasses up his nose, taking a deep breath. “They believe the dragons are preparing to attack,” he said. “Suspicions are running at fever pitch.”
“But the wolves are the ones who have the Snowstone!” Anders said, spluttering. “They’re the ones about to attack.”
“I know,” Hayn said. “But most don’t. Most wolves don’t know about the Snowstone, and they don’t know what happened to you and Lisabet. There are rumors you were kidnapped, and some that you betrayed us.” He looked at Lisabet. “Your—”
“Leader,” she said, cutting him off before he could say “mother” in front of Rayna and Ellukka. “The Fyrstulf, what is she doing?”
Hayn inclined his head, accepting the warning not to mention the connection. “Everything she can to make sure the wolves and people of Holbard understand she thinks an attack is necessary.”
Lisabet flinched, though the news couldn’t be a surprise. She turned her head, glancing across the city to where the Ulfar Academy gates were hidden behind streets and buildings, and Anders wondered if a part of her had somehow imagined going . . . well, home, despite everything that had happened.
“It looks like the wolves and people of Holbard are believing her,” Anders said quietly. “Do you?”
“I think I have things to tell you,” Hayn said. “And that I’d better just do it, and then we’ll see what’s what.”
“All right,” Anders said, exchanging a glance with Lisabet and Rayna. “Go on, then.”
“For a start,” Hayn said, his tone solemn, “I believe that you and your sister are wolf and dragon born. You have mixed blood.”
“Yes,” said Rayna. “We know that.”
Hayn’s jaw dropped. “How could you possibly know?” he asked. “Everyone thinks it’s impossible.”
“Leif, the Drekleid, told us,” Rayna said.
Hayn nodded slo
wly. “And was he able to tell you who your parents were? Because I believe I can.”
Rayna gasped, and a thrill went through Anders. “N-no,” he stammered. “He didn’t know.”
“Or he didn’t say,” Lisabet put in.
“I will,” Hayn said quietly. “Anders, Lisabet, I’ve told you before that my brother, Felix, and I used to work with the dragonsmith Drifa. We designed artifacts, she forged them. The three of us were close. We worked together for years. The story is that Drifa murdered Felix and then fled. That was what reignited the feud between dragons and wolves, and ultimately led to the last great battle. I believed it when I was told—after all, he was dead, and she was seen fleeing, and after that she vanished. It came out of the blue—they’d always seemed to like each other, even care for each other—but I could see no other explanation. But deep down . . .” He sighed, looking out at the moored ships, pensive. “Deep down, I’ve always wondered.”
Anders could barely breathe. “What do you think now?” he whispered.
Hayn swallowed and looked back at Anders, and then at Rayna. “Now, I wonder if he was killed by someone else. I wonder if Drifa and Felix did more than care for each other. I wonder if they were both attacked, and if she ran because she was pregnant. If she had to protect herself.”
“So, you mean . . .” Anders could barely say the words.
“Yes,” said Hayn quietly. “I believe you and your sister might be the children of Drifa and of my brother—my twin brother—Felix. That you might be my niece and nephew. You’re exactly the right age.”
“But, but . . .”
Anders had never heard Rayna at a loss for words before. For his part, he was staring at Hayn, suddenly seeing a sadness etched in the man’s face that he’d never noticed before. Anders couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose Rayna. He could see how Hayn might have believed the worst all these years.
Lisabet broke the silence. “So you’re their uncle?”