“The older wolves are living their own story,” Ellukka said. “Just like the older dragons. Stories about murders, and refusals to care about justice, and red jackets and threats.”
“But it’s not meant to be that way,” Lisabet pressed. “Neither side can make artifacts without the other. The arches in Holbard, they must never have finished repairing them. They’re failing even now. Sometimes huge gusts come through, and it’s happening more often.”
“The arches are the least of our problems,” Leif replied. “For now, we of the Dragonmeet are dealing with a wolf raid on Drekhelm, and the theft of the Snowstone. The wolves no doubt have stories about our equinox kidnappings”—and here he looked at Theo, who blushed—“and about our spies in their cities. We have stories about their raids, their attacks, their intentions. The way these things build up and explode is complicated.”
“And the Dragonmeet’s been talking about it without getting anywhere for ten days now,” Ellukka said. “No offense to you three.”
“None taken,” Leif said. “You’re right.”
“Leif,” said Nico, frowning, “I don’t think we should be discussing how to respond to this with wolves right here in the classroom.”
“I agree,” said Krissin straight away. “They shouldn’t evenbein class. They could be spies.”
“They are not!” Ellukka said immediately.
“Go back to your equations,” Mikkel said to them from beside her. “You’re both better at things with simple answers anyway.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the fact that an equation has a right answer and a wrong answer,” Nico snapped. “So do some of the things we’re talking about here.”
Krissin scowled. “I thought you were meant to be listening to other points of view. That’s what Leif was just saying. Our point of view is that we shouldn’t talk about this in front of wolves. You know what his name is?” She was pointing at Anders. “AndersBardasen.”
There was a long silence—it seemed that the dragons knew where the name had come from, even though none of them were from Holbard. After the last great battle, orphans whose parents and names weren’t known were named after the battle itself.
“His family died, and he’s supposed to be friends with dragons now?” Nico asked, one brow raised.
“You didn’t see what they did in the battle,” Ellukka said, rising to her feet and pointing to Anders and Lisabet. “I did. If you want them gone, would you prefer Leif was dead?”
“I have questions about Theo too,” Krissin added. “He only came from Holbard six months ago, his family is still there. How do we know who he’s loyal to?”
Anders glanced up at Leif, who had bowed his head and was rubbing his face with both hands. Why wasn’t he saying something, defending them? Anders and Lisabet had given upeverythingto come here—their friends, her mother, and his uncle, it turned out. They’d given up their life at Ulfar, everything they were used to. And though they’d found good friends here, that didn’t stop him desperately missing Sakarias and Viktoria, Jai and Det and Mateo, or feeling like there was a hole in his heart when he imagined them thinking he’d betrayed them.
“The whole thing could have been a setup,” Krissin said, speaking slowly, as if she was explaining something simple. “It was their own class. Who says they didn’t make a plan that someone would attack Leif, and Lisabet would defend him, and then we’d all trust them?”
“It wasn’t!” The words burst out of Anders. “You think we wanted to be stuck here?”
And then everyone was shouting, fingers pointing and children coming to their feet, yelling accusations and snapping defenses. Anders couldn’t even make out what anyone was saying anymore, and he didn’t care—what he cared about was that the wayhefelt was pouring out of him, and it felt so, sogoodto raise his voice and shout at Nico and Krissin.
Eventually Leif raised his hands, and then his voice. “Enough,” he called, and then when nobody was listening, he shouted louder: “ENOUGH!”
One by one the young wolves and dragons went silent, and everybody turned to look at Leif.
“Well,” he said quietly. “I see you are not that much ahead of the Dragonmeet after all. And after you started out so well. I’d hoped for more from my chosen students.”
Anders could hear Rayna muttering under her breath, and even calm Lisabet sounded like she was growling in the back of her throat. He felt like doing exactly the same.
Leif shook his head. “We will do independent study for the rest of the day,” he said. “Usually I would end your lessons here, but frankly, I don’t trust you not to continue the fight without me. It’s time you all had a day off, so tomorrow will be a rest day. I will expect to see you all calmer when you return the day after.”
There was a round of muttered apologies, not one of which sounded like the speaker really meant it, and one by one the students found their work on the long tables and turned their attention to it. As Anders found the booklet that contained his reading and writing exercises, he could feel the room bristling with unspoken arguments.
More than ever, it felt like there was no solution to the bad blood between the wolves and the dragons, except to make it impossible for each to attack the other.
As the class had talked through the beginning of the fight, it had been so easy to see where things had gone wrong. But though it had all started with suspicions and wrong beliefs, the truth was that in the end, wolves and dragons haddied.
It wasn’t just a case of everyone understanding the other side of the story—his class couldn’t even do it with the Drekleid’s help, and none of them had even been involved. Real harm had been done in the last great battle, and he wasn’t sure it could be undone.
Real harm was done, said a small voice in his head,in the battle ten days ago as well.
That was the thought that had been preying on his mind ever since, no matter how he tried to hide from it. He couldn’t just explain to his friends that dragons weren’t what they’d always believed them to be. They had suffered real injuries—they had run for their lives.
