Everyone froze, and Anders kept his head still as he turned his eyes to look over at the window. It was so dark outside now that only the stars told him where the gap was. And the longer he looked, the more he saw—until he realized there was a small silhouette in the window.
It was a cat. And as its ears pricked up and its head tilted in a particular way, he realized it was a cat he knew very well.
Kess had often slept with him and Rayna for warmth, and one of the worst moments since Anders’s transformation had been the morning he’d found her again, only to have her hiss and spit, and run from him in fear, smelling the wolf on him. He’d told Rayna about it at Drekhelm, and they’d both worried about her since.
But now, somehow, Kess had found them.
“There’s some ham in that bag by your hand,” Rayna whispered.
Anders groped for it without looking and found a bit to hold between two fingertips. Then, very slowly, he sat up. He could make out Kess’s eyes gleaming faintly in the dark now, and he knew her little nose would be twitching as she smelled the ham. “Kessie girl,” he whispered, holding it out to her. “It’s just us. I know we smell funny, but we’re safe.”
“Come on, Kess,” Rayna crooned behind him, pushing up on her elbows.
They all held their breath, and slowly, slowly, Kess leaned forward. Then in a sudden movement she jumped down from the window, scampering across the hay to plant her paws on Anders’s outstretched arm, and nip the ham from between his fingers. Waiting for the sharp sting of her claws, he gently stroked her back as she chewed. Instead, he got the low rumble of her purr. “Hey, Kess,” he whispered, happiness brimming up inside him. “Rayna, she’s so skinny, I can feel her ribs.”
“Kess,” Rayna scolded, leaning in to offer the cat another piece of ham. “Did we feed you so much you forgot how to hunt? Or are you just a lazy cat?”
Kess meowed, as if to say she was nothing of the sort, but simply deserved to be fed, and Rayna giggled.
“Are you going to introduce us?” Ellukka asked, her smile audible in her voice.
“Ellukka, Lisabet, this is our cat, Kess,” Rayna said, in the most formal of tones. “Kess, Ellukka is a dragon and Lisabet is a wolf, but try not to hold it against them.”
They took turns feeding pieces of their food to the little black cat, who had clearly decided that although she’d prefer they smelled the way they used to, she was pleased to see her friends again, and to make new acquaintances. After all, she lived in Holbard—it wasn’t as though she’d never smelled a wolf before. She just hadn’t been expecting Anders to smell like one.
When Anders finally lay down again, Kess in a purring ball between him and Rayna, he found he could get some sleep after all.
His nerves came back in full force the next morning, as he watched Ellukka walk up to the Ulfar gates again. She’d looked a little ragged when they’d woken—even he and Lisabet could tell the city was cold, and wind had gotten into every possible crack in the stable overnight, as if it was seeking them out.
He watched from his position in the shadows as she spoke to the guards, who stood alert and unfriendly, watching everyone who passed by as though they might be a threat. They looked so much taller than Ellukka, and the conversation seemed to take far too long, stretching his nerves thin. But eventually she accepted something from them and walked back the way she’d come. It was a return letter, also sealed in wax.
“Sakarias went along with it,” Ellukka reported, as Anders unsealed the letter. “The guards said to let his mother know that Ulfar was thinking of her.”
Lisabet and Rayna were already climbing down from the roof, and their feet hit the ground just as Anders opened the letter. He passed it to Lisabet, who would read it quicker, but that didn’t prove very important—the note turned out to be short.
“Come to the northwest corner of the Academy wall,” Lisabet read. “Hurry.” She looked up, grinning. “They’re going to get us inside, I’ll bet my tail. You’ll have to come too, Anders, just in case your family bloodline’s somehow needed.”
“What do we do if it’s a trick?” Ellukka asked, though the four were already drawing up their hoods and joining the early morning bustle, making their way around the Academy walls, which towered above their heads. Rayna had Kess tucked inside her coat, which she’d buttoned up to make a sling for the cat. Kess seemed happy with this arrangement.
“It won’t be a trick,” Anders said, confident. “If they didn’t want to help us, they just wouldn’t answer. But they wouldn’t trick us. I can’t imagine Sak and Viktoria doing that.”
“I hope you’re right,” muttered Rayna, as they arrived at the corner. “Now what?”
A whisper came from overhead. “Up here!” Their heads all snapped back as one, and there was Sakarias peeking over the wall. “Quick, while everyone’s at breakfast,” he said, glancing back inside the Ulfar grounds.
Anders wove his fingers together to make a step for Lisabet and boosted her up. Sakarias helped drag her the rest of the way, and then passed her over the wall to someone. Ellukka boosted Anders, hefting him up until Sakarias could grab his hands. Anders clambered over the wall, dropping down to the other side, where he found Viktoria, Jai, and Mateo waiting. Jai was white as a sheet with worry, running their hand through messy red hair as they glanced up at the corner where Det could be seen keeping watch over the main courtyard, ready to signal trouble. Mateo looked much as he always had, tall and broad and placid, but he was watching for a signal from Det as well.
“Thank you,” whispered Lisabet.
“You better be telling the truth,” Sakarias said, as sternly as Anders had ever heard him, outside of a discussion ranking the Academy’s desserts. And he took dessertveryseriously. “We’re trying to do what we think Hayn would want. He’s locked up, but Professor Ennar won’t hear anyone say anything bad about him, and we think if we’re going to trust anyone, it’s her. And your letter promised...”
Jai finished for him. “You’re our friends, we’re trusting you won’t hurt us.”
“We won’t,” Anders promised. “We only want to keep the balance.”
“Let’s go,” said Viktoria. “It won’t be long until everyone’s coming out of breakfast and going to class. We need you gone by then.”
Jai took off their cloak and wrapped it around Anders’s shoulders, and Viktoria was doing the same thing with hers for Lisabet, hiding their clothes underneath, since they weren’t in Ulfar gray anymore. It was another uncomfortable reminder of the distance between them and their friends.
