Ice Wolves (Elementals, Book 1)

by Amie Kaufman

  “What do you think it’s like for people who had a big family outside, before they came here?” he asked, hoping to divert her from thoughts of his family.

  “Depends on what it was like,” she said, considering. “Sakarias missed his a lot at first, but they were very poor. There’s more for them with him here, and he has opportunities here he never would have had otherwise.”

  “Viktoria must have given up a lot,” he said.

  Lisabet smiled. “Why do you think she’s the only girl at the Academy to still have long hair? She refused to cut it, had a huge argument with Dama Lindahl about it. In the end, the rules don’t say it has to be short until you join the Wolf Guard, so she got to keep it. To be honest, though, I think she’d cut it now if she could. She was just upset about having to leave her home.” She paused. “She’s less spoiled than people think. Just . . . used to things a certain way. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how to work hard.”

  “I know,” Anders agreed. Despite her tendency to wrinkle her nose, Viktoria had never really been unkind to him. She was worlds better than the ones who still whispered when he went by, about his lack of ice spears.

  Lisabet paused again, but she didn’t pick up their progress on the paragraph. Instead, she continued, more tentative still. “Do you miss your old life, before you came to the Academy?”

  He considered the question. So much for causing a diversion. It was hard to talk about his life without talking about his twin, but more than that . . . it was difficult to put the answer into words. “It was different,” he said eventually. “I mean, a lot of things are better here. There’s always enough to eat. I know where everything will come from. There are people to help us, when we need it.”

  He hadn’t expected to say that last part—he sounded like a wolf, always going on about pack—but he realized it was true. It felt different, having so many people to watch his back. It might even feel good, if he wasn’t so scared of what they might find out about him.

  “And some of it’s not so good?” Lisabet guessed.

  He couldn’t exactly say that it wasn’t as good because he was missing his sister like he was missing half his heart. That he was afraid, after what Hayn had said, that there was no way they could possibly even be related.

  But there were other answers he could give. “I miss being able to move around as much as I like. It’s amazing, up on the city rooftops. There are flowers as far as you can see, this time of spring. It’s like your own world up there.”

  “Where’s your favorite place?” she asked, smiling.

  “I . . .” He hesitated, the words caught in his throat. The Wily Wolf was his secret place with Rayna—not a person alive knew about it except for the two of them. When they’d found the hatch by accident, it clearly hadn’t been opened in generations. It felt like a secret he shouldn’t share—it was the place they could always go to shut out the troubles of the world. It was as close to a home as they’d had since they left the orphanage. Just thinking of it now, his chest tightened a little. He wished so hard he were back there, lying in the warm dark with Rayna, making a plan for a new day.

  Lisabet was watching him, her chin propped up on one hand, but when he looked at her, her gaze flicked away, her smile gone. “You can tell me,” she said quietly. “It’s not like I have other people I’d tell.”

  And there it was—this time not just the pang of loneliness he’d seen in Lisabet before, but a proper stab. The sadness that made her look serious whenever she wasn’t smiling. Lisabet’s brains, or her dangerous ideas about dragons, or her devotion to books and learning—something about her separated her from the rest of the pack.

  But Anders liked her smile, he liked her generosity. She was trying so hard to help him catch up, when there was nothing in it for her. He felt like maybe, even though she was surrounded by wolves, she wouldn’t have minded a friend.

  For sure, he could use one.

  “There’s a lookout point where you can see all of Holbard,” he said, thinking back to the night before he and Rayna had transformed. “It’s a tavern called the Wily Wolf, on top of the hill. It’s a building just a little taller than the others, and it has a pointed roof, with a hoist for pulling supplies up to store in the attic. If you climb up, you can see every roof in the city, all the meadows spread out, the people down below, all the way to the port. It’s like all of Holbard belongs to you.” His mouth felt a little dry just speaking about it, as though he’d broken a promise to his sister. “It’s my secret,” he said. “It’s . . . it’s my special place. Nobody else in the world knows about it.” Except Rayna.

  “I won’t tell,” she promised gravely. “I’d like to see it one day. Maybe next time we’re allowed out.”

  Anders blinked, abandoning thoughts of the Wily Wolf. “When are we allowed out?” This could be his chance—a way to find something Rayna had left behind in one of their hidey-holes.

  “Didn’t anyone tell you? Once a month we get an afternoon out in the city, to do whatever we want. The next one isn’t for a couple of weeks, you just missed the last. They come more often once you’re senior, but because we’re only first years . . .”

  Lisabet was still talking, but inwardly, Anders was dancing a jig. If he couldn’t find a way out earlier, then at most it would be two weeks—plenty of time before the equinox—before he managed to get outside. He could spend the whole afternoon searching for anything at all Rayna had left behind, and then with any luck at all, he could coax the locator into working and see where she was.

  He was startled back to the present moment by Lisabet saying his name.

  “Anders, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” he said, still mentally planning.

  “That girl,” she said. “The day you transformed. The girl who transformed into the scorch dragon. Do you know who she is?”

  “I—what?” He winced inwardly. Not smooth, Anders, not smooth.

  “The dragon,” she said. “She said the two of you were there for the Trial of the Staff, I heard her. And I just thought, if you knew who she was—”

  “I don’t,” he said, interrupting her. His brain wanted to shut down, but he forced it to keep moving, to try and generate some sort of reply. Lisabet had been one of the wolves to track him after he’d run from the square. She’d been at the docks. She’d seen Rayna’s transformation, and his. She might have seen a look pass between him and his twin, she might have seen him panic when Rayna transformed. She might have seen anything. She suspected.

  “No,” he heard himself say. “I mean, like I said to Hayn, I’d seen her on the streets, but I don’t know who she is.”

  Lisabet kept trying. “I just think if there was a way to talk to a dragon, perhaps we could prove—”

  “Lisabet, stop!” His voice was louder than he’d meant, and they both froze as the librarian looked in their direction. Only once she was sure they were done shouting did she continue shelving books on the other side of the library.

  He wanted so badly to trust Lisabet. She’d been nothing but kind to him, from the moment she’d picked him up from Sigrid’s office and rolled her eyes to make him feel better.

  She was the only one at Ulfar who showed even a hint she could ever trust a dragon, or at least listen to one. Anders personally wouldn’t trust a dragon as far as he could throw it—but Rayna wasn’t a dragon, not like the others. She wasn’t one of them. She’d been kidnapped by them. Either way, Lisabet might be willing to hear her out.

  But Lisabet was loyal to Ulfar Academy, however many questions she asked. If she knew about his connection to Rayna, she might turn him in.

  Or just as bad, she might try and use his connection to Rayna to further one of her arguments. He knew Lisabet felt passionately about convincing the other wolves to think differently about the dragons, to question the Fyrstulf’s determination to keep them away from Holbard at all costs.

  He couldn’t trust her not to think winning her argument was more important th
an protecting his sister.

  “I just thought, well, you knew that boy who took my cloak, the day you ran away,” she said, sounding a little apologetic for bringing it up. “I thought maybe you knew other children who grew up where you did as well.”

  Anders shook his head. “I hope they catch her,” he said. “She’s dangerous.”

  Lisabet nodded slowly, and she didn’t ask again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ANDERS LEFT LISABET BEHIND IN THE library as usual, to finish up her own homework and research. Her constant presence there had made searching the Skraboks difficult, but now that he finally had a plan, he felt better than he had in days.

  When he got back to their room, he found Viktoria alone.

  She was sitting cross-legged on the end of her bed, staring down at something in front of her, her sleek black hair falling around her face. Her head jerked up when he opened the door, and he pretended not to notice as she hurriedly swiped her forearm across her eyes, rubbing away what he was pretty sure were tears.

  “I thought you’d still be studying with Lisabet,” she said in a snappy tone that suggested he should be studying.

  “We finished our homework,” he said, setting down his books and looking over at her bed. The thing in front of her was a fan with a delicate wooden frame, blue-and-gold silk stretched across it. It was intricate, beautiful. “That’s . . . wow. I’ve never seen one like that.” Which made sense, of course—Viktoria had grown up rich, of naturally she had nice things.

  “Well, you probably won’t see one like it again,” she said, sniffing, still staring down at it.

  He was about to give up when she spoke again. “It belonged to my grandmother. She brought it with her when she came from Ohiro, when she was young. She came here because she fell in love with my grandfather. She was a doctor, he was a Vallenite sailor.” Her fingers ran over the delicate silk. “I’ve always liked that she brought it with her. It wasn’t a practical thing to choose, so it must have been important to her. Anyway, my parents wrote to say they think I should give it back to the family, for my sister to have it.” She paused, squaring her jaw in her determination to keep her voice steady. “Because apparently my transformation means I’ve left the family.”

  Anders let out a slow breath and walked over to sink down onto the edge of her bed, keeping to the other end—because even when you were trying to comfort her, Viktoria was still Viktoria.

  “They’re wrong,” he said. “You found a new family when you became a wolf—that’s what they’re always saying here, that we’re a pack. But having a new family doesn’t mean you give up the old one. Just because you’re adding something to who you are doesn’t mean you have to give up who you used to be.”

  Viktoria looked at him like he’d grown a new head, and he swallowed, wondering if he’d said something completely stupid. It was how he felt—it was what he desperately wanted to be true. He might be a wolf, but he was also Rayna’s twin, and nobody could change that connection between them.

  “Huh.” Viktoria nodded slowly. “I didn’t expect you to say something that smart.”

  Anders nearly laughed. Trust Viktoria to say something insulting, even when she was giving you a compliment. “I guess everyone’s right once in a while,” he said.

  She showed him how the fan worked and let him hold it—the blue silk was smooth under his fingers, the gold thread gleaming where it was woven through—until the others arrived and it was time to get ready for bed. Then she quietly slipped the fan into a drawer, and neither of them said anything more about it.

  Later that night, as Sakarias muttered things in his sleep—he really never stopped talking—Lisabet’s question from the library echoed in Anders’s mind, chased by his own words.

  The girl who transformed into the scorch dragon. Do you know who she is?

  He couldn’t help wondering if he actually knew the answer to that. After two weeks in their midst, the history of the wolves was bearing down on him. They told stories that were centuries old. They had records that went back endless generations. Hayn said that he’d never heard of a wolf and a dragon sharing a family—and he was an expert on Ulfar’s impossibly big library.

  He was so sure Rayna was his twin . . . except the odds seemed vanishingly small.

  He wasn’t sure what Rayna was, and he wasn’t sure what he was, who he was. Never had he wished so hard to know who his parents had been.

  What he did know was that the answer to that question didn’t matter when it came to finding a way to rescue her. His words to Viktoria had been absolutely true.

  He and Rayna were each other’s family, one way or another. Becoming something new didn’t take away the old.

  But the question still nibbled at him, however hard he tried to push it away.

  * * *

  Over the next two weeks he pushed his way through classes, lost in a maze of textbooks he couldn’t read without a struggle and ice spears he couldn’t throw. The equinox was drawing closer, and the students were saying the Wolf Guard was patrolling the city more carefully than ever. There were stories about more dragons seen overhead, and of two kidnappings of children from Holbard, of scorch marks at their homes.

  And those were only the children somebody would report—Anders knew that if any of the children he knew from the street went missing, no adult would ever know. But when the first years asked their professors about the rumors, they were told to focus on their studies. Anders was used to being able to see what was happening all around Holbard—he felt so cut off, shut inside the Academy walls.

  He tried to sneak to the library when he could, but Lisabet was so often there. And to make matters worse, suddenly the senior students had exams coming, and they were sitting in every corner, studying the very books he wanted to look at. Even when he did manage a few moments with the Skraboks, he took forever to read even one page.

  He began to worry more and more about what would happen if he couldn’t find something of Rayna’s on his rest day out in the city. Or what would happen if after he did, the locator frame wouldn’t work, and wouldn’t show him a picture of where she was.

  He would simply have to slip away—there would be no other choice. Perhaps if he could find a dragon aerie by searching the mountains, it would lead him to Drekhelm. Perhaps Rayna would be there.

  Perhaps he would be small enough to sneak in and find her. If he could get inside and transform into a human, hide his amulet, perhaps they might think he was one of them.

  Except it was a terrible plan. It was perhaps upon perhaps upon perhaps, and any one of them might be wrong. But he couldn’t wait forever. If he didn’t learn something soon, he’d have no choice but to go.

  * * *

  Finally, finally, the rest day came.

  “Pack and paws, Viktoria, hurry up!” Sakarias was dancing from one foot to the other around their room, wriggling so hard it was a wonder he didn’t transform so he could wag his tail.

  Viktoria was taking her time winding her scarf around her neck, getting slower and more serene as Sakarias grew more frantic.

  “Why aren’t you putting on your cloak, Anders?” asked Lisabet, who was fastening hers.

  Anders started, looking up from where he was sitting on his bed, going over his homework. His plan was to wait until the others had left, then sneak out alone, so he could search his and Rayna’s hideouts. “Oh, I think I’m going to keep on with my homework,” he said. “There’s nothing I need to see, and I don’t have any money.”

  All three heads swiveled to look at him.

  “But you get an allowance,” Viktoria pointed out, tossing her hair.

  “And we need you to be our fourth,” Lisabet said.

  “And everyone needs a day off,” Sakarias added.

  “We’re only allowed out in groups of four,” Lisabet continued. “It’s the rule. Come on, you’ve been doing homework all morning. Come out for a couple of hours.”

  Anders’s heart sank. He knew the Ulfar stu
dents only ever came out in groups of four, but in his eagerness to get out of the school alone, he’d forgotten. He hesitated, wondering if it was better to go now and try to slip away from the others, or wait and try and sneak out the gate on his own.

  “Come on,” said Sakarias, shoulders dropping, one hand lifting to lay along his head, imitating wolf ears gone flat with disappointment. “They’ve canceled the Trial of the Staff this month because of what happened at yours. We’re lucky they’re letting us out at all.”

  “There isn’t anybody else who can be the fourth?” Anders asked, helpless.

  “There is,” Viktoria said. “But . . .”

  “We want you to come,” Lisabet finished for her.

  Anders looked around at the three of them, his cheeks warming as he registered their solemn faces. They actually wanted his company.

  Did that make them his friends?

  His pack?

  “Well, I can . . .” He was only halfway through his concession when they started cheering, even Viktoria. They bundled him into his boots and cloak, Lisabet fastening it at his neck while Sakarias tied his laces, and Viktoria supervised.

  “We get our allowance from the supply room,” Lisabet explained as they headed there to collect their copper coins from Dama Lindahl before departing. “Once you’re a student, you don’t take anything from your family anymore.”

  A few minutes later Anders stared at the thin coins lying in his palm, designs stamped on them to show their value. Money, all his own, for no particular reason other than that he might want to buy something. It seemed an impossible, illogical luxury, and none of his roommates—his friends—seemed to think it unusual at all.

  All his life he’d seen the quartets of Ulfar Academy students making their way around the city. All his life he’d watched them, knowing they had everything they needed and more, and now he was one of them, in his white-trimmed gray uniform. Part of the pack.

  As they walked through the gates, a stab of guilt speared him. What was he doing, thinking about pack, about family, without thinking about Rayna? He bit his lip, promising himself he’d slip away from the others as soon as he saw a chance.