Anders nodded slowly. “She is.”
Hayn didn’t look surprised, which was odd. Just worried. “Anders, I must speak to you,” he said again. “And your sister. Is there any way you can get here? I mean it when I say this might be the only chance to stop a war. It has to be in person. And it has to be soon. Tomorrow, even. One of your classmates stole an important artifact while they were at Drekhelm. It’s called the Snowstone.”
“We know,” Anders said.
Lisabet spoke beside him. “And we know Sigrid will use it to freeze the dragons if she can.”
Hayn nodded slowly. “Yes. But I think I have a way to counter its effects.”
“Why do you want to do that?” Theo asked, finally speaking up. As the only dragon present, he sounded cynical.
“Because I don’t want a battle,” Hayn said. “Everybody will be hurt. And... for more personal reasons. Which I’d prefer to give Andersin person.”
Anders exchanged a three-way glance with Lisabet and Theo. He saw the doubt in their eyes, but Lisabet nodded a fraction, and after a moment, so did Theo. He turned back to Hayn. “I’ll try my best,” he said. “Where should we meet you?”
“In the port square,” Hayn said. “In the southeast corner, by the water.” The port square was where the wolves held their monthly Trial of the Staff. It was where Anders and Rayna had first transformed, and it was where Anders had watched helplessly as the wolves battled a deadly white-and-gold dragonsfire that took hold of the buildings all along the waterfront.
The port was also busy and bustling all day long, full of Vallenite buyers and sellers, hawkers and passersby, not to mention the visitors from faraway places, the crews of mercher vessels docked from all over the world.
It was a good place to meet because there was always a crowd to blend into. But the square gave Anders nightmares—memories of smoke and screaming, from that hazy place where all his earliest memories lived. He sometimes thought they might be memories of the last great battle. He had only been two years old when it happened, and he and Rayna had come out of it orphans, their parents unknown and forgotten.
“In the port square,” he agreed. “If we get away after breakfast, and if Rayna can fly that far, we can probably be there by mid-morning.”
“Be careful,” said Hayn. “You might be recognized.”
Anders could hardly imagine anyone in Holbard would ever recognize him, beyond a few of his Ulfar classmates, but he nodded. “We will,” he promised. “If we can get away, we’ll be there.” Getting away would require a lot to go right—the others would have to agree to the meeting, Rayna would have to be able to cover the distance, Leif would have to agree to let them out of class again. But he’d do his best.
“We should go,” said Lisabet. “Nobody knows we’re here.”
Hayn nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, his gaze on Anders’s face. “Be careful.”
Getting out of the archives proved to be easier than expected—some ways up the hallway a kerfuffle was still underway, and several adult dragons, including the guards, were lecturing Rayna, Mikkel, and Ellukka about the perils of barrel racing, the irresponsibility of doing it in a hallway where anybody might be walking along, and the expectation that students of the Finskól would know better than to undertake such shenanigans.
Anders, Lisabet, and Theo snuck out of the storage caverns and took off in the opposite direction, hurrying back to Anders and Lisabet’s room to wait for the barrel racers to return. Eventually, they did, their eyes dancing with mirth.
“We should try that again sometime,” Ellukka said, gleeful, as she thumped down onto Lisabet’s bed.
“Youwouldsay that, you won,” Mikkel complained. “I was nearly sick.” Even he looked pleased, though.
“Of course you were,” Ellukka replied airily. “You rattled around in your barrel like dice in a cup. I was wedged firmly into mine, so I didn’t move around. Much easier. You shouldn’t be so skinny.”
Mikkel made a grumbling noise, but he climbed onto the bed next to her anyway.
“Well?” said Rayna. “Did you find it?”
“Did we ever,” said Anders.
They told the others everything that had happened, and their eyes grew wider and wider with each new detail.
“So you want to go to Holbard?” Ellukka said, in the end. “Do you know how much trouble we’d be in if the Dragonmeet found out? Or how much danger we’d be in if the wolves did?”
“I know,” Anders agreed. “But if he really does have a way to stop the Snowstone bringing down the temperature, we have to try and find out. Otherwise it’s just a matter of time until the wolves attack.”
“Perhaps we should tell the Dragonmeet,” Mikkel said, though he didn’t sound very convinced.
“And what?” Rayna said, rolling her eyes. “Sit around while they debate it for the next month? This Hayn person said it’s urgent. He said it needs to be tomorrow. We can’t afford to wait. I vote we should go. I’ll fly there, Anders, and take you.”
“I think I should go too,” Lisabet said. “I know more about the wolves’ history than any of us. I’ll know if Hayn’s telling the truth.” Anders glanced across at her, wondering if that was her real reason, or whether she simply wanted to be close to Ulfar, to see her home again, even if she couldn’t return to it. He hadn’t forgotten that they’d just seen her mother in the mirror too.
