Anders knew the truth was that most of the elementals never had. Not during the battle, and not before it, and probably not since, except to wonder if the humans would still follow the commands of the wolves. His mood was grim as they set off down the broken street again.
The twins had hoped that the marketplace would be the best place to find food, and when they reached it, Anders was relieved to see that they had been right. Goods were spilling out of ruined and abandoned stalls with nobody to salvage them, and shops had been broken open by the earthquakes.
Anders usually worried about stealing, but this food would go bad before the real owners had the chance to retrieve it.
And, he thought darkly,it’s probably too late to worry about stealing after destroying the city.
There were others picking over the ruins in search of a meal, so the twins hefted the empty bags they’d brought with them and joined the other scavengers.
A little while later, Anders was trying to stuff a wheel of cheese into the too-small opening of his bag when he heard a whisper.
“Psst! Anders!”
He straightened, wary, running his eyes over the ruins and debris around him, trying to find the source of the voice.
A pasty-white face with a shock of black hair was peeking out from behind the jagged half of a wall. Anders recognized the grubby features, but he didn’t know the boy’s name. He was sure he was one of Jerro’s little brothers, though. Jerro was another boy from the streets, and the day Anders had made his transformation, Jerro had helped him escape the wolves by swapping cloaks with him. Anders had repaid the favor ten times over by rescuing Jerro and his brothers from the roof of a burning house during the great fire at the port.
A thought suddenly surfaced to tug at him. Just after they’d escaped the battle, Sakarias had something to tell him about that fire. It was said to be dragonsfire—it looked like dragonsfire—but Anders wasn’t so sure. He made a note to ask Sakarias again.
But just now, Jerro’s brother was staring at him, sizing him up. Anders moved closer, but not too close.
“Where’s Jerro?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” the boy admitted. “Can we trust you?”
“Of course,” Anders replied.
Everyone looked out for themselves on the streets, but none of them would ever put another in danger.
“You were on wanted posters,” the boy pointed out.
“That has nothing to do with—you can trust us,” Anders insisted. “Are you all right?”
“No,” the boy admitted. “Pellarin’s hurt. We need help.”
Jerro was about the twins’ age, and this boy looked perhaps a year younger, so Pellarin must be the smallest brother.
Anders signaled to Rayna, who was emerging from the ruins of a bakery with a huge fruit tart in her arms. It had about as much chance of fitting into her bag as the cheese wheel had into Anders’s, but it did look delicious. She made her way over to him, and he told her what had happened.
“What’s your name?” she asked the boy.
“Sam,” he replied. “Will you help us?”
“Of course,” she replied simply. “Show us where he is.”
Sam spoke quietly as they made their way to the place he had Pellarin hidden. “We haven’t seen Jerro since the battle,” he said. “He’d gone over to Pila Square to get some scraps from the baker there, and he never came back. We had to leave where we were hiding because the roof fell in, so now he doesn’t know where to look for us.”
Anders’s breath caught uncomfortably in his throat. That was a whole day ago now. Jerro wouldn’t leave hisbrothers alone that long if he could help it. He’d be searching if he possibly could. So where was he?
Sam had managed to hide his little brother in the stable of an inn, propping him up in a pile of hay. Pellarin was covered in dust, and his leg was carefully positioned on a saddle, bloodied and bruised.
“I’m almost sure it’s broken,” Sam said.
“Hello,” said Pellarin. “Aren’t you criminals?”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Rayna told him, her tone deliberately cheerful.
“The leg is getting worse,” Sam said quietly, and Pellarin didn’t deny that.
