Chapter Eight

AS ANDERS FOLDED UP THE MAP AND TUCKED IT inside his coat, Ellukka spoke. “The Sun Scepter could change everything,” she said intently. “This is how we could end the feud forever. We dragons have never tried to start fights—it’s only ever been the wolves. This could be a way to weaken them so much we can take charge for good. That could be how we keep peace.”

Anders froze. “Ellukka, no,” he said, stumbling over the words in horror. “No, that’s not what this is for. It’s not what we agreed. We agreed we were going to find a balance, a way to make sure neither the wolves nor the dragons were strong enough to beat each other.”

She turned to him, hands on her hips. “Why are you defending them? The wolves have wanted posters up for you, you should be on our side!”

“I’m not on your side,” Anders began, “I’m—”

“Well, you can’t be on their side!” she interrupted.

“I’m not on anyone’s side!”

Suddenly all three of the girls were staring at him, and he realized he’d shouted. He never shouted.

“I think we’re on both sides,” Rayna said, for once the voice of reason. “I think we have to be, because we are both, Ellukka.” She didn’t sound completely certain—and Anders had never seen her show the slightest concern for wolves before. But the idea of an uncle was a powerful draw. Especially one who cared about them as much as Hayn seemed to.

“Let’s talk about it when we get back,” Lisabet suggested. “Mikkel and Theo must be covering for us by now.”

They walked a little farther from the city gates in silence, until they were in a dark gully where the dragons could transform and take off without being seen. Anders and Lisabet wrapped all their layers of clothing around themselves tightly, preparing for the freezing cold of the night air.

This time there was no landscape to see below them—just black beneath and the stars above, and the feeling of flying endlessly through the night. Occasionally Anders saw the moonlight glint off a river or lake, but after a time he was too cold to really look for anything below. He retreated inside his own thoughts, going over everything that had happened that day, and everything that would happen next.

The girls landed a little ways around the mountain from the doors to the Great Hall, scrambling for purchase on the loose scree and the snow, and once they were securely in place, Anders and Lisabet slid down to the ground. Rayna and Ellukka transformed back into humans, and the four of them made their way up the mountainside together. The dragons were already looking stronger with the mountainside beneath their feet, and even Lisabet, strengthened by a day in Holbard’s cold air, looked all right.

They were hoping that they’d be able to slip through the little human-size doors unnoticed, and hurry away into the passageways of Drekhelm, with nobody the wiser that they’d been out at all.

But they weren’t that lucky. Ellukka walked carefully through the door with the others behind her. Anders was right on her heels, unbuttoning his coat, which meant that when she suddenly stopped, Anders, Rayna, and Lisabet piled up behind her—Anders got a faceful of blond plait and nearly inhaled it.

When he stepped out to see what had made her stop, his heart sank. There were her father, Valerius, and the bushy-bearded member of the Dragonmeet, Torsten, who had been so suspicious of him when he’d first met the council. The two big men were sitting together at one of the small tables around the edge of the Great Hall—the center was left clear for dragons to land in—and the remains of their dinner were lying before them. They must have come here for a chance to talk.

“Ellukka?” Valerius said, rising to his feet. “What were you doing outside at this time of night?”

Ellukka opened her mouth and closed it again, but Rayna didn’t miss a beat.

“Stargazing,” she said, from behind her friend. “It’s a beautifully clear night.”

“What?” Valerius looked from Rayna to Ellukka and back again, and beside him, Torsten snorted.

“We just stepped outside,” said Rayna.

Belatedly, Ellukka came to life. “Stargazing,” she said, nodding vigorously. She was doing a terrible job of pretending, and if Valerius couldn’t tell, Torsten clearly could.

“And why were you stargazing?” he asked, frowning behind his beard.

“Why not?” Rayna said breezily—Anders knew she knew full well what Torsten thought of at least two of them, but she’d faced down scarier people on the streets of Holbard. “It’s a beautiful night.”

“You’re not supposed to be outside after dark,” Torsten said with a scowl. “Particularly the wolves. How do we know you weren’t signaling someone?”

“Signaling?” Anders spoke up for that. “Who would we signal?”

“And we could just as easily do that during the day,” Lisabet pointed out. “With a mirror or something.”

Torsten looked very thoughtful. Anders could have kicked her.

“So you’ve thought about that?” the big man asked.

“No!” Lisabet replied. “I’m just saying—”

“How long have you been out there?”

Just then Mikkel came running into the Great Hall, using an entrance behind the two Dragonmeet members. He skidded to a halt, and Theo slid through the door, coming to a stop up against his roommate.

“Hey, there you are!” Mikkel said, with exaggerated cheer. He could clearly tell they were in the middle of an alibi, and just as clearly didn’t know how to back them up. “How was—”

“Stargazing!” Anders and Rayna said together, before he could finish.

“Stargazing,” he agreed, nodding hard. Torsten turned and looked over his shoulder at him for a long moment, and Mikkel stopped nodding.

“We were just outside,” Ellukka said. “We’d have heard you if you called for us. And we weren’t long.”

“That’s right,” Mikkel agreed. “They had dinner with us just before.”

“Are you sure?” Valerius asked, looking at the redheaded boy and then back at his daughter.

“Father!” said Ellukka, indignant.

Anders flicked a glance to Torsten. The big man was staring at Anders’s chest. Was the map visible? Had it somehow edged out of his pocket? He looked down and saw that the bright pink-and-gold waistcoat he’d been wearing as part of his disguise in Holbard was there on show, looking nothing like the clothes he’d been taking from the dragons’ store cupboards. Torsten had to be wondering where it had come from. Anders realized with a chill that Rayna still had a green-and-gold shawl tied over her skirts.

“Time we started getting ready for bed,” Rayna said, with a polite bow to first Valerius and then Torsten. “Good night!”

“Listen, I—” Torsten began.

But Rayna grabbed Ellukka’s hand, hurrying off down the nearest hallway, and a moment later the others were all piling in after her. Nobody called them back.

“Let’s talk in our room,” said Anders.

“With food,” Rayna added.

“I’ll get it,” Theo volunteered. “But don’t start without me!”

Anders, Lisabet, and Mikkel settled in on his bed, Rayna and Ellukka side by side on Lisabet’s.

Mikkel shook his head sadly as the others shed some layers, warmed up, and waited for Theo. “Leif asked if you were back,” he reported. “I said yes, and last time I saw you, you were eating dinner, so he went off to look for you. Then I saw him again later, and he hadn’t found you, of course, so I sent him to the classroom. It was kind of a mess.”

Theo showed up then with a tray piled high with thickly buttered slices of brown bread, two big bowls of stew—one for each bed—with six spoons, and a bag of apples tucked under his arm. “Okay,” he said, distributing the food. “Go.”

As they hurriedly ate, they told Theo and Mikkel everything that had happened that day. Anders could tell almost straight away that, like Ellukka, Mikkel could see in the Sun Scepter the possibilities for beating the wolves once and for all. Theo didn’t look as enthusiastic about that idea. Dragon he might be, but he’d only left his family in Holbard a few weeks ago, and of course he still loved them.

When they were all done with the story, Anders spoke into the silence that followed. He knew what he said next was going to be very important, and he’d chosen his words carefully on the way back from Holbard.

Now he felt as if he were leaping out into the air, trusting Rayna to soar out beneath him and catch him. Trusting her to back him, as the two of them had always backed each other, no matter what. He hoped she’d meant what she’d said before, about being both wolf and dragon born.

“There’s only one way we’re going to use the scepter,” he said, making his voice firm.

“What’s that?” asked Mikkel.

“We’re not going to use it to help either side win,” Anders said. “If we can find it at all, we’re going to use it to keep things equal between the wolves and the dragons. There can’t be more battles, no matter who has the advantage. We’re lucky nobody was killed last time.”

To his intense relief, Rayna nodded. “Anders and I are the only ones who can use the map to find it,” she said. “So that’s the deal.”

Everyone considered this in silence.

“And we’re not going to tell the adults,” Lisabet said eventually. It wasn’t really a question. It was a statement.

One by one, the other five nodded.

“They’ll just discuss it forever,” said Ellukka.

“Or use it to win,” Lisabet said. “You’re our friends, you listen to us—”

“And we understand why you want to use it to keep things even,” Ellukka said with a sigh.

“But the Dragonmeet won’t understand wanting to keep things even,” Lisabet said. “Any more than the Fyrstulf would.” Her voice was perfectly even as she spoke of her mother, though her gaze was down.

“Okay,” said Anders. “So if we’re going to find it and use it, it’s going to be all up to us.”

“I think maybe that’s what Leif means us to do,” Rayna said. “To come up with a new, creative way to solve the problem that neither the wolves nor the dragons would think of. They’re always looking for ways to win. We’re looking for a way to make sure neither side can try to fight the other.”

“Are you all in?” Anders asked.

“Yes,” said Lisabet and Rayna at the same time.

“Yes,” said Theo, nodding his head.

“I’m in,” said Ellukka.

Mikkel sighed, looking down and away, his shoulders rounding. But just as Anders’s heart was starting to thump, the other boy looked up and grinned. “Kidding,” he said. “I’m in. We have to do something, and this is the best we have.”

“Then we don’t have a lot of time to waste,” said Lisabet. “But for now we should get to bed. Let’s meet at breakfast, and we can start figuring out the map’s riddle, and work out where to find the scepter.”

Anders read out the riddle one more time, so everyone could think about it overnight, and then one by one the others trooped out to bed.

Anders and Lisabet got ready for bed, their movements slow. It had been a long day, and for Lisabet, spending so much time next to the warmth of a dragon had been difficult.

“It feels good to be doing something,” she said, as they snuggled down underneath their quilts.

“It does,” Anders agreed. “I hope it’s enough.”

“You’ve done a lot already,” she said. “More than anyone could have imagined.”

“Me?” He felt like laughing—he’d been worried and confused for weeks now. He didn’t feel much like someone who got things done.

“Sure, you,” she said. “You figured out how to see Ulfar with the mirror, made contact with Hayn, met him, got the map, and now you’ve assembled a team. We’re going to do this, Anders. Somehow, we’re going to do it.”

Anders wasn’t sure what to say to that, but as he drifted off, he felt more hopeful than he had in a long time.

Tomorrow, they’d have to work out where blue meets blue the whole day long.

But for now, they’d sleep.

They met again for breakfast the next day, all itching to discuss the puzzle. But as if they knew exactly when they weren’t wanted, Nico and Krissin, their least favorite Finskólars, sat down at the next table, eating in silence, perfectly able to hear everything that Anders and his friends might say. They pretended to pay no attention, but Nico was glowering at his porridge from beneath his floppy black fringe, and Krissin sat with her head up, like a wolf scenting the breeze.

So Anders silently recited the riddle in his head, and tried to think over it on his own, and joined the others in casting frustrated glances at their two neighbors. There wasn’t room to move far enough from them to speak, so they were stuck waiting for another chance.

When everyone was finished with their breakfast, they rose as one to put away their bowls and plates and head to the classroom. Anders’s frustration bubbled up, and he checked over his shoulder before he whispered to his companions. “Why are Nico and Krissin even in the Finskól? They’re horrible to everyone. Leif could choose anyone, and there are things that matter more than brains.”

Mikkel answered, keeping his voice down. “Leif chooses whoever he wants, and he never explains why. There are all kinds of reasons, though. I’ve read about it in my history studies. Doesn’t mean everyone he chooses is a nice person.”

“We have theories on Nico and Krissin,” Ellukka added. “They might not be nice, but they’re really smart. Perhaps Leif would rather he knew where they were all the time, and what they were doing.”

“And then there are people like Ferdie,” Mikkel said, grinning.

“He’s studying medicine,” Ellukka said, “so he could just be learning in the infirmary. He does go there a lot, in fact.”

“Right,” Anders said remembering what Bryn had said the first time he’d been introduced to the Finskólars. “But everyone who meets him, they like him. Ferdie could end up accidentally ruling the world, he’s so charming, so maybe Leif wants to make sure he turns out to be a good person, just in case.”

“Exactly,” Mikkel said. “In Ellukka’s case, she’s such a good storyteller that I think Leif wants to be sure she turns out to be a good person, too. Stories are powerful, they can sway people to believe all kinds of things, to do all kinds of things.”

“Of course I’m a good person,” Ellukka said, with a huff. “The best.”

“Well, whether they belong with us or not, Nico and Krissin are making this very difficult,” Lisabet said.

“Agreed,” Anders said. “We’ve already got the Dragonmeet looking over our shoulders, we don’t need more watchers.”

Anders had hoped they’d be studying independently that morning, so he could work on the riddle with at least some of the others, but yet again, luck was against him.

“Good morning,” said Leif, as soon as they entered. He had the two youngest members of the Dragonmeet with him—Saphira and Mylestom. Anders saw now what he’d missed when the Dragonmeet was gathered around the table in the Great Hall—Saphira used a wheeled chair like others he’d seen in Holbard. There was a knob on each wheel, so she could grab it and turn it, and she wore brown fingerless gloves to protect her palms. She and Mylestom—she round-cheeked and smiling, he lanky, straight-backed, and serious—had taken up places by Leif’s desk.

“This morning,” said Leif, “we are going to have an unusual lesson. Although it’s not often discussed, we’re going to talk through the events that led up to the last great battle.” A small murmur went through the classroom, and he inclined his head to acknowledge their surprise. “With all that’s currently happening, I feel you should know more. Even the oldest of you were children then, and the reasons for it were not simple. Ellukka, can you tell the class the first and most important rule of historical stories?”

Ellukka nodded. “There are at least two sides to every story, and usually a lot more than that. So you should look for the sides you don’t know, and then ask yourself why you didn’t hear them.”

“Exactly,” said Leif. “So we will tell you our version of this story, but as we do, I want you to remember Ellukka’s rule. If you see another way the story might be told, speak up.”

They all nodded, and Anders glanced over at Nico and Krissin, who were already glaring at him, as if they were preparing to hold him personally responsible for everything the wolves were about to do wrong in this story. But he was curious as well—he’d always been told the dragons simply attacked one day, and Leif was making it sound like there was more to it than that.

“Ten years ago,” Leif began, “the youngest of you—Anders, Rayna, Mikkel, Theo—were only two years old. And the oldest, Patrik and Isabina, were only eight. Back then, the city of Holbard was growing very quickly. The wind arches at the harbor were being repaired. Lisabet, can you tell everyone about the arches?”

“They’re the biggest artifacts on Vallen,” Lisabet said. “They stretch all the way across the harbor mouth, and they make sure that no matter how windy or stormy it is outside, inside the harbor it’s always calm. They’re the reason so many people from all over the world come to Vallen to trade.”

“Just so,” Leif agreed. “A pair of wolf designers called Hayn and Felix had been working with one of our dragonsmiths, Drifa, and her team, to repair the arches.”

Ferdie raised his hand. “You mean dragons were there in Holbard, working with the wolves?”

“Exactly,” said Leif. “There were disagreements, and we were two very different groups, but this is not just the story of the last great battle. It’s the story of how we dragons stopped working in Holbard. How we stopped working together with the wolves.” He paused, to let the murmurs around the classroom die down, then continued. “The arches were already very old, and had begun to let in gusts sometimes, endangering ships. Repairing them was a very difficult job, and it required a great deal of fine detail. We had to pause regularly to research, to discuss the best next steps, and to consider our work.”

“I can think of a different way to tell that,” Rayna said, raising her hand. Leif nodded, and she continued. “The wind arches are important,” she said. “If they’re not working, food doesn’t get into Holbard. And ships don’t. People need what’s on those ships to make a living, and just to survive. To dragons, it’s important to discuss everything forever and ever—” She paused as Saphira laughed, and even Mylestom covered his mouth with one hand. “Sorry, but it’s true.”

“It’s true,” Saphira agreed. “We’re the newest members of the Dragonmeet, and we’re learning all about long discussions.”

“Well,” said Rayna. “Maybe dragons felt like they were doing it the best way they could. But maybe the wolves, and the people in Holbard, felt like the dragons were deliberately taking their time. Sometimes it’s hard to understand what the delay is.”

Anders fiddled with the stack of papers on the desk in front of him—some of Isabina’s mechanical drawings—and straightened them one by one, though there was no need to do it. These were his and Rayna’s parents they were talking about. Felix and Drifa. Working together on the arch.

“Very good, Rayna,” said Leif. “Whether you’re right or wrong, I do not know, but this is a perfectly valid point of view. I wish we could think so clearly about what happened next. Somebody, we don’t know who, murdered one of the wolf designers, Felix.”

A gasp went around the room, and Anders bowed his head. It was so hard to hear it said so simply, and pretend it was only a story to him too. Hayn had said that he, Anders, looked like Felix, but he wondered what he had been like. If he had been loud and confident like Rayna, or quiet and thoughtful like Anders. What kinds of things he’d have shown the twins if he’d had a chance to raise them.

If Anders had a chance to speak to Hayn again, he’d ask him.

“That’s sad,” Bryn said, “that he was killed. But what does it have to do with the battle?”

“Ah,” said Leif, his usually friendly face turning grim. “The same day Felix was killed, the dragonsmith Drifa was seen flying away from where his body was found.”

“She killed him,” said Bryn slowly.

“Or,” said Lisabet, “she was running away from the person who killed him.”

Every head in the room turned toward her, but Anders glanced up at Leif and found the Drekleid gazing thoughtfully back.

“Perhaps,” Leif said. “That is certainly another way to interpret the facts. Unfortunately, and not without reason, the wolves believed Drifa to be the culprit. They demanded she stand trial, but we could not find her.”

Mylestom spoke up from the front of the room. “Or we refused to send her to Holbard, from the wolves’ point of view.”

“Just so,” said Leif with a sigh. “As one of the dragons who hunted for her, I can tell you that I, at least, truly could not find her. But the wolves and the citizens of Holbard were not placated. Rumors flew, and every day citizens of Holbard became warier of dragons than they had ever been.”

“For all they knew, dragons were murderers,” Ellukka said slowly.

Leif nodded. “They told us dragons we had to wear red coats when we were in Holbard in human form, so they knew who we were. And then they told us we were only allowed to move through certain parts of the city.”

“They thought you were that dangerous?” Theo asked quietly.

“That we were that dangerous,” said Mikkel. “Or I bet they could have said it was because people were angry about the murder, and nobody wanted a dragon to be hurt by angry people in Holbard. So better to stay in safe, designated parts of the city.”

“Very good, Mikkel,” said Leif. “That was exactly the excuse. Every time a dragon flew overhead, coming in to work in Holbard, humans would run for cover, and the Wolf Guard would watch us.”

“Who’d want to go to Holbard at all, with things like that?” Rayna asked.

Leif sighed. “As it turns out, almost nobody. Fewer and fewer dragonsmiths agreed to work in Holbard, and projects began to pile up. We were worried for our own safety.”

“Or,” said Ellukka, “you were refusing to help people in Holbard. I mean, that’s what they might have said.”

Leif looked across at Saphira and Mylestom. “You see?” he said.

“They’re doing more than the Dragonmeet ever manages,” said Mylestom. “Usually the ’Meet members are all talking over each other by this stage, or hopelessly off-topic. At least your students are listening to one another.”

“That’s what being a Finskólar will do for you,” Saphira replied, with her easy smile.

“This is why I am telling you this story today,” Leif said to the students. “We do not speak of it often, but you are young, and your minds are open. Sometimes you see possibilities where we adults do not.”

Was Leif telling them again to take action? Anders wasn’t sure, but he suspected the Drekleid was. Then again, he had no idea they already had Drifa’s map.

Leif continued. “Fewer and fewer dragons were willing to work in Holbard, no matter what the reward. The wolves were demanding Drifa stand trial. Some of us felt she should, and some felt no dragon should subject herself to wolf justice. But in any case, nobody could find her.”

Anders’s hands made fists under the desk. Nobody had been able to find her, he knew, because she had been hiding. Waiting to have her babies and conceal them with some ally in Holbard. But where had she gone then? Had someone found her, and done the justice the wolves thought she deserved? Or, a tiny voice in the back of his mind whispered, was there a chance she was hiding still?

“What happened next?” Krissin asked softly.

“The wolves took dragons prisoner,” Leif said, “refusing to allow them to leave the city, forcing them to work on the wind arches and other projects.”

“Hold on,” said Lisabet, holding up her hand. “The wolves are a pack, and we make decisions differently from dragons, but I don’t know if you can say ‘the wolves’ all did something, any more than you can say ‘the dragons’ all did something. The wolves’ leaders took dragons prisoner.”

“And maybe they were desperate,” Ellukka said reluctantly. “If they thought a dragon killed a wolf—”

“And maybe she did,” said Bryn. “She hid afterward, that doesn’t look good.”

Rayna drew a quick breath—Anders knew she wanted to defend their mother—then looked down. He was pretty sure Ellukka had stood on her foot under the table.

“Perhaps they were desperate,” Leif agreed. “With little reason to trust dragons, and no help with projects they thought were vital.”

“That still doesn’t mean you can just take prisoners,” Nico said. “Even if everything they thought was true, and we don’t know that it was, they were following a wrong with a wrong.”

“Many dragons thought that way,” Leif said. “A rescue mission was mounted. A raid to free the dragons being held prisoner and made to work in Holbard. But how else might such a mission be described?”

“An attack,” Anders said softly. He hadn’t spoken yet, taken up with images of his parents, and everyone in the room turned to look at him.

“Just so,” said Leif, just as soft. “An attack. Which led to a battle. And a break in what little trust there was, which has led to a separation that has lasted until this day. Many members of the Dragonmeet fought in that battle. The current Fyrstulf was a squad commander back then, one of the loudest voices against us.”

“We were never taught this,” Lisabet said, her voice shaking. Anders realized with a pang that it was her mother they were discussing. “The older wolves must know, but nobody our age has any idea.”

“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 even be in 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. “Anders Bardasen.”

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 up everything to 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 way he felt was pouring out of him, and it felt so, so good to 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 had died.

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.

Just like the larger battle, it had begun with myths and lies, but now there were real hurts to be forgiven. And though he hoped against hope they could be, in his heart, he wondered if it could ever happen.

At lunch, Anders and the others took no chance that Nico and Krissin could sit next to them again and stop them from working on the riddle. Mikkel and Rayna ran to fetch food, and they met the others in the big map room that Anders and Lisabet had discovered the first day they’d broken out of their locked bedroom.

The huge map of Holbard was still there, taking up one whole wall, and as he looked at the markings on it, identifying Ulfar Academy, the site of the port fire, and other places besides, Anders felt the chill of an impending battle looming over him. He forced his mind back to the riddle and took his place with the others around one end of the long table.

“Let’s hear it again,” said Lisabet, who was helping Theo unload the stack of books he’d brought with him. He was still trying to figure out exactly what the Sun Scepter did, besides something that presumably had to do with heat—after all, it was named for the sun—and he was not having much luck with his research.

Anders swallowed his bite of his sandwich and recited the words.

“Where the sun greets herself at every dawn,

And the stars admire themselves at night,

Where blue meets blue the whole day long,

The scepter’s head is wedged in tight.”

Everyone was quiet. “Um,” said Ellukka eventually. “Where do you start with one of these things?”

“First line,” said Lisabet practically. “The sun at dawn.”

“So somewhere in the east,” Anders said. “That’s where the sun comes up. She can’t be greeting herself anywhere else, except where she is.”

Everyone turned to look at the big map of Vallen, which illustrated all the details of the island, from pools and lakes all the way up to mountaintops, with almost perfect accuracy.

“I wonder what it means by ‘greets herself,’” Rayna mused.

“Some kind of mirror?” Mikkel tried. “There have to be two of you for you to greet yourself.”

“I think it has to be,” Lisabet agreed slowly. “In the next line, it says it’s somewhere the stars can admire themselves. You admire yourself in a mirror, don’t you? Theo, is there . . . ?”

Theo was already standing up with a sigh. “I’ll find a book on famous artifact mirrors,” he said, trotting out of the room.

Everyone sat in silence while he was gone, eating their lunch and staring at either Drifa’s map or the map on the wall, occasionally breaking the quiet to murmur one of the lines of the riddle to themselves. Theo returned and started leafing through the pages of his newest book, frowning.

“What does ‘blue meets blue’ mean?” Anders said eventually. “I’m trying to think of—I mean, I suppose it’s two blue things.”

“What kind of things are blue?” Lisabet asked quietly, seeing the thoughtful frown on his face.

“The sea, the sky,” he said. “Maybe it’s somewhere along the east coast?”

Ellukka dropped her sandwich. “I know the place!” she said, shoving her chair back and hurrying around to the big map of Vallen. “There is a place where the sea meets the sky, and it’s over here in the east! I’ve been there with my father, and I was practicing a story about it a few months ago in school!”

She snatched up a pointer that was clipped into a rack beside the map, and used it to point at a spot near the very top of the eastern coast. Just off the coast, a string of islands looked like it had been dropped into the sea, and below, where her pointer was tapping, was a patch of blue named the Skylake.

“It’s a huge lake,” she said. “It sits at the top of very high, very sheer black cliffs—that’s why it’s called the Skylake. Because it’s so high up compared to the sea. And if you’re there on the right kind of day, the water is so perfectly still, it acts like a mirror.”

“Good,” said Theo, closing the book on mirrors and reaching for his sandwich with visible relief. “Because I was getting nowhere.”

“You could see the sunrise in it,” she said. “Or the stars at night, if you flew over the top.”

“Do you think we need to go there on a perfectly calm day?” Mikkel asked.

“No,” said Anders. “It doesn’t say ‘when,’ it says ‘where.’ So we just have to go to the place where it happens, not on the day it does.”

“This has to be it,” said Rayna. “We should go on our rest day tomorrow.”

Mikkel groaned, lowering his head to thump it gently on the table. “Please get home before dark this time,” he said. “Seriously, we’re begging. Theo and I are going to completely run out of excuses.”

“We’ll do our best,” Ellukka promised.

Anders barely heard her. He was too busy staring up at the map. The Skylake.

Solving the riddle hadn’t been as hard as Hayn had warned it would be, but then again, they’d had wolf and dragon friends to help them. And perhaps in some ways, the hardest part was having Drifa’s blood—after all, that was something you couldn’t pretend.

Tomorrow, they’d find out if they were right. And if they were, they’d find the Sun Scepter.