“We came a long time ago,” Ellukka agreed, “but the dragons just fought a battle against the wolves, so the Finskólars at New Drekhelm aren’t going to be out on class excursions right now. They’ve all got bigger things to deal with. And we know most of them are back at Cloudhaven. These footprints look recent.”
“We’ll have to hope it was just someone who was curious,” said Anders.
“Or someone who just remembered last week that they left something behind when they moved out ten years ago,” Rayna replied, in a voice that wanted to be cheerful but sounded a little bit unsettled.
“I think I know where the bedrooms were,” said Ellukka, “but there are a lot of them, and I’m not sure how we’ll know which one was Drifa’s.”
“All we can do is look,” said Lisabet. “Lead the way.”
Their lamps held high, they followed Ellukka down an empty hallway, their footsteps echoing without rugs to absorb them.
At New Drekhelm, artifact lamps would have come to life ahead of them, fading out slowly behind them, rendering the whole place in a cheerful yellow glow. Here, the dark seemed to close in from all directions.
Ellukka hesitated a couple of times, but a few minuteslater, she was gesturing triumphantly. “This hallway is where the bedrooms start,” she said. “Why don’t Lisabet and I go to the other end, and you two can hunt along here? If anyone sees anything, or thinks maybe Drifa slept in that room, they can shout. We’ll hear.”
“The sooner we start, the sooner we finish,” Lisabet said. “Or, I guess, if it doesn’t go well, then the sooner we know we need a new plan. Let’s go.”
She and Ellukka lifted their lamps high and made their way down the corridor, disappearing around a corner and leaving the twins alone.
“Let’s get to work,” said Rayna, sticking her head inside the first bedroom.
Anders took the bedroom across the hallway, holding up his lamp as he peeked inside. There was a bedframe carved into the rock, but apart from that, it was completely empty. He quickly studied the walls, but nothing was carved there, and there was no sign to show that anyone in particular had slept here, let alone Drifa.
He made his way through into the bathroom, but it was just as empty of anything helpful.Maybe Drifa’s room won’t be this empty, he thought.She wasn’t here to clear it out when the dragons left Drekhelm. She was already... missing. She was already wherever she is now, perhaps.
He tried the next room, and the next, and the next after that, with no luck at all. As he and Rayna worked their way down toward the corner, Anders was beginning to appreciate what a very, very long task this might be, and to wonder if they should bring more reinforcements from Cloudhaven in the hope that more pairs of eyes could search the rooms more quickly.
He left the room he was in and was about to turn the corner to head along to the next door. But before he could, someone else came striding around it instead.
It was Leif, the head of the Dragonmeet, and the leader of the Finskól.
His old teacher’s mouth fell open in surprise as they stood face to face for an instant, staring at each other. Then the Drekleid lifted one big hand, and without a word, he pushed Anders straight into the room Rayna was busy searching.
She turned around, her mouth open to ask what he was doing, and Anders frantically signaled to her to stay quiet as he hurriedly pushed across the shutter on his lantern to dim its glow. She closed her mouth again with a snap and followed his lead, dimming her own light and dashing over to join him as he peeked through the crack where the door’s hinges joined it to the rock.
Leif was still there, turning his head to speak to someone over his shoulder. For a moment, he reminded Anders of Hayn. Not because helookedlike Hayn—where his uncle’s skin was dark brown, Leif’s was a pale white, though ruddied and freckled by the sun, and where Hayn’s hair was a tightly curled black, Leif’s hair and beard were a much lighter red. But they both shared the same smile lines around their eyes, and both gave the impression that though they were large, they were gentle. And they had both protected him at different moments. They both felt like safety—even if one of them had just shoved him into a dark room.
Then Anders saw who Leif was speaking to. Around the corner came Valerius, Ellukka’s giant blond father, and Torsten, whom Anders had always secretly called Bushy Beard. Then came two women that Anders recognized from the Dragonmeet, though he didn’t know their names; then, finally, came Mylestom and Saphira, the two youngest members of the Dragonmeet. Mylestom was walking beside Saphira as she propelled her wheeled chair along.
Rayna held on to Anders’s arm with an iron grip as they watched the procession pass by, as though she was trying to hold in all the questions she wanted to ask, and the things she wanted to say.
“I think we may as well go,” Leif was saying. “There’s nothing more we can do here today.”
“If we can’t find anything here that will help us,” said Torsten, “then we should go ahead with what we have. There’ll never be a better time.”
“He’s right,” Valerius said grimly. “The wolves can’t stay out there in that camp of theirs forever. They’ll run out of things to eat.”
“The humans will capitulate,” said one of the women. “What else can they do?”
“That might be,” said Saphira from behind them, “but there are still other options.”
Anders held his breath, hoping against hope that neither Lisabet nor Ellukka would spot anything interesting enough at this moment to cause them to yell for the others to come join them. He and his sister extinguished their lamps completely and crept after the dragons as they made their way back to the abandoned Great Hall. Together, the twins hid in the shadows by the entrance as, one by one, the dragons began to transform.
After Valerius, Torsten, and the two women left, Saphira maneuvered her chair into the center of the hall and began to wheel it toward the ledge, Mylestom following behind her.
It was then that Leif raised his voice. “I think the twoof you should wait here a moment longer,” he said. They both turned, curious, and he spoke again. “Anders? You’d better come out. And your sister too. I’m sure if you’re here, she’s somewhere close by.”
Anders’s breath caught, and he felt Rayna’s hand tighten on his arm again. But Leif knew they were there. And even after all that had happened, Anders had no reason to mistrust his teacher. He had just hidden them from the unfriendly members of the Dragonmeet. And in the great battle above Holbard, Leif had defended his students.
