Anders had still been dizzy when they’d met up later to collect their share of the spoils, but he had to admit they’d eaten very well that week. And their cat, Kess, had been amazed, her eyes going so round he thought she’d forgotten how to blink.
He hadn’t seen Kess since shortly after his transformation, and he hoped desperately that she’d found someone else to sleep next to, and a safe place to be. He wished he could find her, but she’d run from him, smelling the wolf on him even in human form.
For now, he had other problems to solve. “This way to the mirrors,” Theo said, hurrying along a jumbled pathway that had been cleared through the piles of old artifacts, and just plain junk. Outside, Rayna was probably giving a speech about the amazing benefits of barrel racing by now, and more than likely halfway to convincing the horrified guards that the dragons should take it up as a winter sport.
“I’ve seen mirrors before,” Theo told him, pausing by a desk to pick up an artifact lantern, which was glowing dimly. He turned a knob to bring the light up to full strength, and then handed two more to Anders and Lisabet. “First place to check is whether it’s with those.”
They made their way through two more caverns, where stacks of books and crates, spindly-armed artifacts and piles of spare parts cast long, eerie shadows, the rooms growing dustier each time they made their way through a new doorway.
The third cavern they passed through held a huge wall of hammers—small and shiny, big, blunt, and black, they were hanging on hooks set into the rock. In the middle of the room stood a collection of anvils of all sizes. Anders had seen an anvil before, at a blacksmith’s in Holbard, but there were dozens here.
“They must have belonged to the dragonsmiths,” Lisabet whispered.
“No use for them anymore,” Theo said, leading them onward.
No use now, Anders thought.But once there was.
When they came through the next doorway, Anders pulled up short—his lantern was reflected back at him in dozens of different mirrors, each showing a shadowed picture of a frightened boy, the glow of the lantern making his brown face pale yellow.
“Let’s split up and search the room,” Lisabet said. “It’s not that big, we should be able to see one another, or at least hear if somebody calls out.”
None of them were particularly enthusiastic about being on their own, but the urgency of their task pushed them on, and they parted ways, climbing through the piles of junk and stacks of files, checking the frame of each mirror, looking for the pack of wolves running down one side of it, the dragons snaking their way down the other.
But though Theo called Anders or Lisabet over a couple of times to check mirrors he’d found, and after a while they began to hunt in places the others had already been, they had no luck. “It has to be here,” Anders said, desperate. “We have to find a way to see what’s happening at Ulfar somehow.”
“Perhaps it’s hidden somewhere else?” Lisabet asked, not sounding very hopeful.
Anders closed his eyes, picturing the mirror he’d seen back in Hayn’s workshop. “It... it has to be somewhere dark. Otherwise, Hayn would have seen or heard someone in it by now if it’s working. Is there somewhere near here that’s dark and quiet?”
Theo frowned. “Maybe? There are a lot more caverns. I’ve been in most of them, though, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.”
“What’s this?” asked Lisabet, from behind a stack of mirrors. They hurried around to join her, dozens of reflected lanterns jangling as the real ones swung back and forth in the boys’ hands. Lisabet was looking at a heavy wooden doorway, sealed tightly shut in the stone.
“It could be somewhere dark and quiet,” Anders said. Hoping against hope it wasn’t just another room, he tugged on the handle, then leaned back, putting his whole weight on it. Slowly, the door started to open. He pressed one eye to the crack, and gasped.
He could barely make out the frame of the mirror on the other side of the door, set in the middle of a tiny room, but he could clearly see what was reflected in it.
Hayn’s workshop.
The shelves crammed full of unrepaired artifacts, the desk full of Skraboks, the strings of lights along the walls—they were all there. And then Hayn walked into view, straight across the mirror’s line of sight, disappearing on the other side. It was impossible to mistake him—he was a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark-brown skin, a black beard, and black, square-rimmed glasses, standing at least half a head above almost everyone at Ulfar.
Anders hurriedly shut the door, blinking at the other two. “We found it,” he whispered. “He’s right there.”
Lisabet made an excited little squeak, and Theo jumped up and down on the spot.
“Let’s put the lanterns out,” Anders suggested. “If we close the door behind us quickly and sit in the dark, and if we keep quiet, there’s no reason he’ll even know we’re there.”
They turned all their lanterns down until their glows became faint, and then extinguished, and slowly, carefully, Anders opened the door. One by one they slipped inside, and Theo pulled the door closed after them. There wasn’t much space in the tiny room, and the three of them had to bunch up together. They crouched on the floor in silence, watching the workshop and waiting to see if Hayn would appear again, or if he had company.
It was only a few minutes before their patience was rewarded. Hayn reappeared, opening one of the huge Skraboks sitting on his desk and slowly turning the pages. He was frowning at what he found there when the sound of the door opening interrupted his concentration. He looked across, almost right at the mirror—because of course, in his workshop, the other mirror stood beside the door.
“Sigrid,” he said, and beside Anders, Lisabet gave a little gasp, then clapped her hands over her mouth to muffle it, though too late.
For an instant, Anders could have sworn Hayn’s gaze flickered toward the mirror. But if it did, then the next instant it was back on the Fyrstulf again.
“Hayn,” she said, her voice grim. Anders, Lisabet, and Theo held perfectly still as the Fyrstulf—Lisabet’s mother—strode into the workshop. “Well?” she said, her back to the mirror, her arms folded. “Any luck?”
“None so far,” Hayn said, glancing down at the book on his desk, then back up at the pale blond woman standing before him. “This is an incredibly delicate procedure, Sigrid. You have to understand it’s going to take time.”
