“Of course,” Lisabet said. “You’re my best friend. She’s had the same time to get to know the dragons, I suppose. She’ll want to stay here.”
“Well, besides the fact that she made friends here, the Wolf Guard tried to kill her last time she was in Holbard,” he pointed out. “She’ll want us to stay too.” She’d wanthimto stay, at least—he’d make her see about Lisabet. “I don’t know if it’s safe, but we don’t have anywhere else to go. We stole the chalice. Or at least I did, but they won’t believe you had nothing to do with it. Not after the fight. They saw you defend Leif.”
“I had to,” she said helplessly, sinking down onto the bed opposite him. “If the head of the Dragonmeet had been killed, it would have started a war big enough to make the last great battle look like a game. Anyone can see that.”
“Anyone can when you explain it,” he agreed. “But you saw it straight away, and nobody else stopped to think at all.” That was Lisabet, always clever, always solving puzzles. “What do you think would happen if we did try to go back?”
“Exile,” she whispered. “Stealing the chalice and fighting just now was a betrayal of the pack. They could put us on a ship out of Vallen, never to return.”
They were both quiet, imagining that total loss of their home, that separation from everything they knew. In her own way, Lisabet had lost even more than he had.
Lisabet was the daughter of Sigrid, who was the Fyrstulf, the leader of Ulfar—of all the wolves. And though Sigrid was sometimes terrifying, usually overwhelming, and possibly less than honest, she was still Lisabet’s mother. Anders knew firsthand what losing family was like, but he had Rayna back, at least for now. Lisabet’s loss was only beginning.
Anders could picture the Fyrstulf’s cold, pale stare as clearly as if she were right in front of him. The fact that Lisabet was her daughter wouldn’t save them from her wrath, or from exile, if she got her hands on them. Lisabet had to deal not only with the loss of the pack, but with the knowledge that her own mother wouldn’t allow her to return to it.
“Go and wash,” she said eventually. “I promise I won’t fall asleep while you’re gone, I’ll follow doctor’s orders. You’ll feel better once you’re clean.”
He gathered up his half of the fresh clothes, making his way back into the bathroom. It was a small room with a stout wooden tub, a rail laden with towels, and another window, though the view outside was hidden in mist or cloud. He discovered there was a showerhead above the tub and also a spout lower down, in case you wanted to fill the bath. He passed on the idea of standing under the shower and instead turned on the spout, peeling off the rest of his clothes and climbing in carefully once the water was most of the way up the sides of the bath.
The hot water came up to his chin, his fingers and toes tingling as they warmed up, his skin itching as it adjusted to the temperature. And then the heat was soaking into his exhausted bones, finally warming him up completely for the first time since he’d left the wolf camp at the cache. Back at Ulfar, even warm weather had made him feel woolly-headed and tired. Now, heat just felt good. That was strange. What had changed?
His thoughts swirled around like the hot water as he scrubbed himself clean, a mix of relief at knowing his sister was nearby again—that he could walk down the hallway to find her whenever he liked—and worry, and regret for his friends at Ulfar. He’d begun to find a home there, and now he’d never sit around the table in the dining hall with them again, watching Sakarias try to wheedle his way into everybody’s spare dessert, while Viktoria quietly put vegetables on his plate while he wasn’t looking. No more suffering through combat class with everyone else, running endless laps around the gym under Professor Ennar’s watchful eye.
Hehadbegun to find a home there, and now he’d lost it—and he had no idea if he could find a home here instead. He was an orphan, and he was used to making do wherever he had to, but would the Dragonmeet even consider it? What would happen if he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer their questions?
He leaned down to pull out the plug and slowly dried himself. The clothes Ellukka had grabbed for him were soft and well-made: a pair of dark-blue trousers, a light-blue shirt, and a dark-green tunic to go on over it. As practical as his wolf’s clothing, though more casual.
He pushed open the door and found Lisabet sitting on her bed eating a bowl of thick stew.
“Ellukka came back with food,” she informed him around a mouthful.
Anders’s bowl was sitting on the small table by the door, and he picked it up, sinking down onto his own bed, the soft patchwork quilt giving beneath him. For the next few minutes everything was quiet as they dunked dark-brown bread in the thick gravy of the stew and chewed their way through beef and carrot and potato.
When they were done, Lisabet still had a couple of hours to stay awake, so they tipped their boots over to rest the leather against the warm stone floor, hoping they’d dry, and leaned back against their pillows. Anders was dying to crawl under the quilt and close his eyes—because he was exhausted, and because falling asleep would give him a break from the thoughts and questions racing around his head. But he made himself keep his eyes open.
“So,” he said, trying the words out loud. “We’re in Drekhelm.”
“We’re lying in their beds,” Lisabet agreed. “Pack and paws, we couldn’t be more in Drekhelm if we tried.”
“I wish you hadn’t come,” Anders whispered. “Not that I don’t want you here,” he hurried on, when he heard her hurt intake of breath. “But now you can’t go home. I’m used to moving to new places, to finding my feet wherever I go. But Ulfar’s always been your home.”
“We don’t even know if they’ll let us stay,” she said quietly. “You heard that man in the infirmary.”
“That’s what’s worrying me most,” he admitted. “What if they want us to tell them things we can’t?”
“We might not have a choice. And they’re not just going to ask questions about Ulfar’s secrets, they’re going to have questions about your icefire as well.”
“Ihave questions about my icefire,” Anders said. “I don’t know how I did it, but I can tell it’s... gone. I don’t think I could do it again, I don’t know how.”
“Maybe we can tell them that,” Lisabet whispered. “They’ll think we’re less of a threat.” She didn’t sound very hopeful.
But the idea was starting to take root in Anders’s mind. “We don’t have to just wait around,” he said quietly. “We’ve been talking about how we can’t go back to Holbard, but maybe there’s an option in between going there and staying here.”
“What do you mean?”
“If Rayna’s better in the morning, she could help us get somewhere else. Somewhere they can’t find us, at least until we know what they’ve got planned for us,” he suggested.
“Do you think she’ll be well enough to move?” Lisabet’s tone said she was already seriously considering the idea, which told Anders she’d been as worried as he was.
