Mylestom rose as well, and beside him, Anders could see Saphira’s horrified expression. All three of them must be afraid that Ellukka, Mikkel, and Theo really had broken, had decided to come back to Drekhelm and seek forgiveness, abandoning their wolf allies. Perhaps Leif thought he’d made a mistake in telling the children that the Dragonmeet was threatening to attack—that knowing they’d run out of time, they were panicking.
It wasn’t such an impossible thing, after all. Living at Cloudhaven, away from their friends and family and everything they knew, had been hard. Others might have given up.
“Why have you come back now?” Torsten asked. “Why today?”
It was Theo’s turn to answer. “Because we have information you need to know, and it’s urgent,” he said.
Leif tried again. “Are you sure—”
“What information?” Valerius demanded. Anders could tell from the angle he was on that he still had an arm around Ellukka.
“We know exactly where Anders and Rayna and Lisabet are going to be soon,” she said. “We’ll show you, but we don’t have much time.”
“And it’s a small place,” Mikkel added, “only a few of you will fit.”
“Then we should act quickly,” Valerius said. “The Dragonmeet will need to empower a small group of us to act.”
“I will be part of it,” said Leif firmly. “I am the Drekleid. I am the leader of the Dragonmeet.”
A woman from farther along the table spoke up. “Let’s make a list of the aspects of this issue that we should discuss,” she suggested.
“There’s notimefor that,” Theo insisted.
For once, Torsten was on their side. “No time at all,” he agreed. “The traitors must be captured.”
“I will be going with Leif,” said Valerius. “It was my daughter who brought us the news.”
Leif nodded. “I propose we bring Torsten and Saphira as well. Then both ends of the debate will be represented, and the decisions that are made will be fair.”
Anders knew exactly why Leif was proposing this. Torsten would cheerfully have incinerated the lot of them, given the chance. Saphira felt exactly the opposite—Leifmust be hoping that he and Saphira could protect the children.
“We have to hurry,” insisted Ellukka, cutting off further discussion.
Leif nodded, coming out from behind the table. “Then let’s go,” he said simply.
Anders caught a glimpse of Torsten rising to join him, and Saphira wheeling toward the ramp at the end of the table. Then Ellukka’s communicator went blank once more, as she shifted to dragon form.
Next, Anders spoke Sakarias’s name quietly into the communicator.
The view from the front of his friend’s cloak was of the wolves’ camp, which he was walking toward. He couldn’t see the others, but he knew Viktoria would be beside him, with Det, Mateo, and Jai close behind. The five wolves had insisted on sticking together to do this, more comfortable as a small pack, even if they were exiled from the larger.
Their plan was very simple. Unlike the dragons, they didn’t need to do any talking or any convincing. They only needed to be seen by the guards, and then run for the meeting spot—the wolves were guaranteed to chase them.
After all, Anders and Lisabet had betrayed the pack bystealing Fylkir’s chalice and defending the dragons when Ennar had led the class against them. The rest of his friends had betrayed the pack by defending Anders and the others against Sigrid at the Battle of Holbard. All of them were wanted now, so all they had to do was run.
Oh. And not be caught along the way.
The guards would follow, and Anders was sure that Ennar and the others would join in the chase. Anders was hoping that Ennar would try to make sure the children weren’t hurt. They had all been her students, after all, and not so long ago.
As Sakarias drew nearer to the camp, Anders saw it had been set up with absolute precision. There were no tents—they were not needed, as the wolves could sleep under the stars in wolf form and be perfectly comfortable.
Anders did wonder where the human staff from Ulfar Academy and Ulfar barracks were, though. Wouldn’t they need tents? Perhaps they had been left, or sent, to join the town camp. That was the problem with wolves. They only thought about the pack.
There had been small shelters erected to safeguard the wolves’ supplies, but there was very little to block anyone’s line of sight.
“Anders,” Sakarias muttered, “if you’re watching, I really hope this works.”
A moment later, they were spotted by the guards, and the howl went up.
