FOUR
NOW? BUT THAT MEANT . . . Could they really be
planning an attack on the Keepers this soon? The thought of
returning home frightened me as much as it compelled me. I wanted
to get back to my pack as soon as possible, but was I ready to
fight side by side with Searchers? I didn’t trust these people. My
captors. They wanted an alliance, but they had yet to tell me
anything else.
“Excellent,” Lydia
said, re-entering the room. “I would have been so disappointed if
I’d sharpened my daggers for nothing.”
A ripple of tension
slid through my body. Lydia’s appearance was ferocious enough that
it was a struggle for me not to shift when she was nearby. The
scent of her clothes, the gleam of steel at her waist—she was
everything I’d been trained to kill.
“Right now?” Shay
strode across the room. The air around him was buzzing and I
worried he was about to shift forms again. Apparently we were both
on edge among the Searchers. “Are you insane?”
“Shay.” Anika spoke
calmly, but her tone wasn’t unlike a sword sliding out of its
scabbard. Smooth and deadly. “You are important here, more than I
could possibly convey to you. But I am still in charge, and you
will follow my orders.”
“I barely know who
you are,” Shay snarled. “Why would I take any orders from
you?”
I swore under my
breath. He was about to change. Lydia seemed to sense it too. Her
hands shot to the bright hilts at her waist. I snarled. The moment
those weapons appeared, I’d shift too. I did a quick scan of the
room. We were evenly matched—not good.
“Time-out, kiddo,”
she said. “Take a breath. Or several.”
I knew Shay wouldn’t
listen to any of them. His wolf instincts were taking over, and
they were threatening something he considered his territory . . .
me. He was acting like I was his mate. His alpha counterpart. And
that meant I was the only one who could intervene. Though my
instincts were shrieking for blood, I fought them off. It wasn’t
worth the risk.
“Shay, wait,” I
said, grasping his arm. His pulse was racing; I could feel each
staccato beat beneath my fingertips matching my own. “It’s
okay.”
“How is it okay?” He
was still on the brink of shifting, but at least his focus was on
me now.
“Because I want to
go,” I said. “I need to go.”
As I spoke the
words, their truth settled deep in my bones. No matter how little I
knew about the Searchers, my pack was worth risking everything. I
had to go back for them. I needed a fight. I was desperate for one.
If that meant I had to fight with the Searchers at my side, I could
find a way to make it work. At least I hoped I could.
Shay watched me,
uneasy, but he was listening. I was taken aback by how deeply the
wolf had marked him. The way he reacted to me was the way one alpha
took counsel from another. That partnership made strong, unwavering
leaders. If his mind was working on those terms now, I knew how to
sway him.
“The pack, Shay,” I
whispered. “Think of our pack.”
My skin prickled at
calling the Haldis wolves “our” pack—Shay’s and mine instead of
Ren’s and mine. But it worked.
“Do you really think
this could save them?” he asked, and I saw his anger begin to
fade.
“It’s our only
shot.” I showed him my sharp canines. He smiled, understanding the
signal that this alliance wasn’t us giving up. I was negotiating
terms that the wolf warriors within both of us needed.
“She’s right,” Anika
said, motioning for Lydia to back off. “We wouldn’t take the risk
if there was another way. And it’s not just Calla we’re risking.
I’m sending in our people too.”
I watched the Arrow,
assessing her expression. Her face was set, resolved, her eyes
alight with the fire of impending battle. It was true. The
Searchers were risking their lives by heading back to Vail. And
they were doing it to pull Guardians—my packmates—out of danger. It
was the last thing I’d expected. I found it both thrilling and
unnerving.
“Damn straight,”
Lydia said, her own eyes bright as Anika’s. “Wouldn’t miss it for
the world.”
Gazing at the two
women, I was suddenly relieved that I’d be going into the fight
with them, not against them.
“And unless we walk
into the best scenario possible, which is unlikely,” Anika
continued, “the rescue won’t happen tonight. This mission’s focus
will be first contact. We need to go now because it’s
Saturday.”
“Saturday?” Shay
repeated.
“The weekend day
patrols are made up of Calla’s packmates.” Anika cast a sidelong
glance at me. “Am I right?”
“Yeah.” I nodded,
though I was more than a little unsettled that she knew it.
How did they find out about our patrol
routes?
“To make this
alliance happen, we need to start by gaining the young wolves’
trust, with the intention that a wave of revolt would spread
through the Guardians from that initial point of contact. Calla’s
presence will secure that trust, hopefully with a first step
today.”
I almost smiled but
stopped myself. For now I only wanted the Searchers to see me as
serious in the face of battle . . . and dangerous.
“It would be some
pairing of Mason, Fey, and my brother,” I said. “They rotate
through Saturday patrols.”
“Here’s hoping it’s
Mason and Ansel.” Relief flickered over Shay’s face. “That’s
probably the best pair you could hope to meet.”
“But . . .” My own
flash of joy at the thought of seeing Ansel and Mason wavered.
“When I left Ren, he said that my packmates were being held for
questioning. Do you think they’re back on patrol?”
“Did any of them
know about Shay’s true identity?” Anika asked. “Or that he was
going to be sacrificed at the ceremony?”
“No,” I said. “They
knew nothing.” Guilt wedged its way into my chest, sharp as a knife
between the ribs. How much danger had I put them in?
I thought of Bryn,
of the last time I’d seen her.
“You ready for this?” Bryn asked. She offered me a bright
smile, but I could hear an edge of fear in her
voice.
“I’m not sure that’s the right question,” I said. I
glanced at the ring again. This is where I belong. I’ve
always known my path. Now I have to walk it.
“Just know that I’ll be right behind you.” Bryn took my
arm. “None of the pack will let anything bad
happen.”
“You’re not allowed to participate,” I said, letting her
lead me out, down the steps and into the
forest.
“You think they’ll be able to stop us if you’re in
trouble?” She elbowed me, making a smile pull at my
lips.
“I love you, Cal.” She kissed my cheek and headed for the
ring of torches.
My blood was
singing. I wanted to shift forms and howl, calling to the pack I’d
left behind. I love you too, Bryn. I’m coming
for you.
“Their ignorance
works in our favor,” Anika was saying. “Once the Keepers have
determined that you and Shay were alone in the plot, they’ll most
likely try to return things to normal. They’ll want to convince the
Guardians that nothing is amiss—it would hurt them to suggest that
they’d in any way lost control.”
I nodded, swallowing
the thickness that clogged my throat. “But Ren . . . they’ll know
he lied.” My packmates hadn’t known what I’d done or who Shay was.
Ren had. Did that mean we’d be too late to save him?
“We don’t have a
clear picture of what’s been happening among the Keepers and
Guardians since we hit Rowan Estate,” Anika continued. “We’re
hoping to get a better sense of that before we execute the next
phase of the plan. Even if you don’t meet the wolves you’re hoping
to, we’ll still benefit from clearing up the confusion that’s
ensued in the past week. The scouting team will rendezvous with one
of our contacts at a drop point tonight.”
“You have contacts
in Vail?” Shay asked. “You mean spies?”
“We do,” Anika
said.
“Where?” I asked,
racking my brain for how there could be Searchers in Vail that we
hadn’t identified. It didn’t seem possible.
“Right now there are
only two,” she said. “One in the school and one in the
city.”
“In the school?” I
gasped. “That’s impossible!” I ran through the faces and scents of
my classmates, teachers, and the staff of the Mountain School. None
fit into this scenario.
Anika laughed. “Not
so.”
“If there were
Searchers in the school, I would have known. The Keepers would have
known.”
“Well, if we were
stupid enough to use our own people as spies, we would have lost
this war before it started.”
The speaker was new,
his voice muffled. I turned to see a strange figure in the doorway.
His face was obscured by the mismatched stack of books and tightly
rolled papers that swayed precariously in his grasp.
“A little help,” he
said. Adne, giggling, hurried forward and caught the scrolls that
slid off the top of his pile.
“Hey, Adne.” The new
arrival grinned. Now that I could see his face, I was even more
confused. He was a young man, no older than Shay. Thick black
glasses only made the sharp lines of his face more striking. But
his most noticeable feature was the mass of hair atop his head.
Swirls of ebony and vivid cobalt battled each other like a roiling
sea that formed peaks and waves just above his
eyebrows.
He stumbled into the
room, propelled forward by the weight of his armload, spilling the
mass across the tabletop.
“Thank you for
coming on such short notice, Silas,” Anika said. “She’s just woken
up.”
“I figured it was
something like that.” He turned and gave me an assessing look. Not
only did he have crazy hair, but he was dressed in torn jeans,
combat boots, and a Ramones T-shirt. If I’d been confused about the
Searchers before, with his arrival I was utterly
stumped.
Connor, followed by
a still skittish-looking Monroe, came through the door, took one
look at Silas, and turned back around.
“Catch you guys
later,” he said, waving good-bye.
“Stay,” Anika
said.
“Aw, man,” he
moaned. “Really?”
“Connor.” She didn’t
veil the threatening note in her voice.
“I’m staying, I’m
staying.” But he was staring at Silas like the newly arrived punk
look-alike had just crawled out of a Dumpster.
“Nice to see you
too.” The look Silas was giving Connor wasn’t any
friendlier.
“Calla, Shay,” Anika
said, ignoring their game of Let’s Burn Holes in Each Other’s
Skulls with Angry Stares. “This is Silas. The Haldis
Scribe.”
I stared at his
rumpled T-shirt and mad hair. “He’s a Searcher too?” He didn’t look
like one.
Anika twisted her
mouth and I thought she was trying not to laugh. “As a Scribe,
Silas can take a bit more liberty with his wardrobe. It’s unlikely
he’d be involved in a field action.”
“What’s a Scribe?”
Shay asked.
“A paper pusher,”
Connor muttered.
“This coming from a
quasi-illiterate,” Silas snarked. “What an insult. How will I
recover?”
“Would you two lay
off?” Adne said, turning to Shay. “Scribes manage our intelligence
and archives.”
“That’s hardly an
adequate—” Silas began, puffing up his chest.
“It’s adequate
enough,” Anika cut him off. “Just say hello, Silas.”
“Fine, Miss Manners.
Just trying to keep my reputation intact,” Silas said,
deflated.
Their exchange
bewildered me, and not just because Silas was so odd. Anika held
the reins of this bunch—that was clear enough. But she didn’t seem
to mind their constant jibing. Guardians had to submit to their
masters. The sorts of comments the Searchers were always throwing
around would garner severe punishment. But Silas, Connor . . . all
of them treated Anika like she was a friend.
My muddle of
thoughts was interrupted by the penetrating way Silas was staring
at me. He cocked his head back and forth, as if trying to get the
right angle on a strange new specimen that showed up on his lab
table. “You’re the alpha, huh? Pretty. That’s interesting. I
thought you’d be all haggish or something. We mostly hear horror
stories about Guardians. You know, sin against nature all
that.”
Sin against nature? What the hell is he talking
about? I blinked at him, utterly unable to
respond.
Silas’s eyes rolled
to the side and looked Shay up and down. “Hmmm. And you must be the
Scion.”
He walked in a slow
circle around Shay, pausing to eye the back of his neck, and
smiled. “And there’s the mark. Hey, hey. Things are looking up
after all. Man, I’ve been waiting a long time hoping to meet you. I
had my doubts that we’d get there. Grant says you like Hobbes.
That’s fantastic. Too bad about the curse; sounded like your
classmates were just about to embark on an interesting discussion
when he got hexed. Oh, well.”
“Grant?” Shay
sputtered. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Grant Selby,” Silas
said. “He’s one of our agents.”
“Wait,” I said,
blinking at him. “Our teacher? Our philosophy teacher is one of
your spies?”
“He is.” Silas
smiled. “Good cover, huh?”
Anika crossed the
room, sorting through the mess of papers Silas had dropped onto the
table. “We obviously can’t get near the Keepers without being
detected. So we’ve taken to recruiting humans to be our eyes among
them. Not many, obviously; we don’t want to risk any more lives
than we have to. Mostly they are people who stumbled across our
world by accident, caught in the crossfire, that sort of thing. The
ones who have a genuine interest in the war’s outcome usually offer
to help. The most able are sent right into it. Spies.”
“And you have them
teach us?” I asked. It seemed crazy. Dangerous and crazy. Who would
sign up for a mission like that? Mr. Selby was either very brave or
had a serious death wish.
“That school is the
easiest place to track Keeper investments because it offers the
juncture of human, Guardian, and Keeper lives,” Silas said. “And
they employ only human teachers. We’ve been able to keep at least
one and sometimes two agents on its staff for the past few years.
They’ve significantly improved our intelligence
operations.”
“He always has to
bring that up,” Connor whispered to Adne in a voice loud enough for
all of us to hear. “It’s not like he’s the only person who’s had an
original idea in this outfit.”
I nodded, ignoring
Connor’s snide remark, but then frowned. “If Mr. Selby knows about
our world, why did he talk about Hobbes in class? Do you know what
happened to him?”
Our teacher had
discussed The War of All Against All—a
topic raised by Shay but strictly forbidden by the school’s
proprietors, the Keepers—and he’d paid for it. I remembered the way
he’d flailed at the front of the classroom, spittle running down
his face. Magical torture disguised as a seizure.
Anika grimaced, but
Connor started laughing. “Yes, and it happened because he’s a
sentimental fool. Nearly got himself caught there.”
He batted his
eyelashes at Shay. “He was just so taken with the fact that the
Scion wanted to talk about Hobbes. Thought it was a sign from on
high or something.”
Shay
scowled.
“It probably is,”
Silas said. “If you’d crack a book, you’d appreciate the
connection. But then again, you’d have to learn to read first . .
.”
“You knew something
like that was bound to happen when we let him recruit an agent.”
Connor ignored the Scribe, speaking to Anika. “Silas has all the
wrong priorities.”
“Grant has done
exceptional work,” Silas sneered.
“That slipup almost
blew his cover,” Connor said. “It was stupid, and he should have
known better.”
“Better than that
troglodyte you brought on board,” Silas said, shuffling through a
mound of papers. “I wouldn’t set foot in that dunghill he operates.
Then again, you probably already have all the diseases you could
catch in the Rundown.”
“It’s Burnout,
moron,” Connor said. “And it’s as good a cover as the school. The
wolves are there all the time.”
“Burnout?” I gaped.
“Tom Shaw is an operative?” I thought of the gruff manager of our
favorite dive bar. A place we found refuge from the Keepers’
scrutiny—and were never carded. Tom was Nev’s friend, the drummer
in their band. Was all of that just for show so he could glean
information from us when we hung out at the bar?
“He is.” Monroe
glanced wearily between Connor and Silas.
“Hardly the keen
observer that Grant has been for us,” Silas sniffed.
“Tom’s got better
connections.” Connor had pulled out his dagger and thumbed the edge
of the blade while throwing menacing looks at Silas. “He’ll be a
linchpin in this alliance. Grant hasn’t gotten his hands dirty the
way Tom has. That school is a cushy place to cool your
heels.”
If you aren’t being tailed by a succubus. Grant
wasn’t the only one who’d been punished at the Mountain School. I
squirmed at the memory of Nurse Flynn’s fingernails digging into my
cheeks when she walked in on Ren and me. Then I blushed when I
remembered what we’d been doing. I glanced guiltily at Shay, but he
wasn’t looking at me.
“I like Mr. Selby,”
Shay protested. “He was a great teacher.”
“Of course you like
him.” Adne threw a stern glance at Connor. “He’s a brave man and
brilliant to boot. Connor just has no appreciation for
intellect.”
“You know you don’t
have to defend Silas just ’cause you’re both overachievers,” he
said. “My point is, intellect won’t save your hide at the end of
the day.”
“That’s not
necessarily true,” Shay countered, looking ready to have a serious
debate. But Connor shook his head.
“I call ’em like I
see ’em, kid. I’m not going to argue with you.”
“You just like free
drinks.” Silas began scribbling furiously in what looked like some
sort of logbook.
“God, you aren’t
filing another complaint against me, are you?” Connor pointed the
dagger at Silas.
“Actions unbecoming,
threatening language . . .” Silas didn’t look up.
“I’ll just ignore
it, Silas.” Anika folded her arms across her chest. “You submit at
least ten of those a week.”
“Twenty.”
I was getting
impatient with all this bickering. “How do you get information from
them? How do they avoid detection?” We’d been talking about a
fight. Was that ever going to happen? My teeth were sharp in my
mouth and I was working hard not to growl every time I
spoke.
“We keep two post
office boxes in Vail, under aliases of course, but we give them
each a key,” Anika replied, happy for the opportunity to interrupt.
“That’s how we communicate. We change the name and box every few
months and distribute the new keys. Vail has a lot of ski bums and
seasonal workers who move in and out; it keeps interest in the
rotating names low.”
I nodded,
increasingly on edge. The Searchers had been watching us the whole
time, and we hadn’t even known it. They were unpredictable, but
that seemed to make them more effective than I’d first thought. My
pride in the effectiveness of Guardian patrols was being eroded
with each revelation.
“You’ll rendezvous
with Grant tonight,” Silas said, pulling a crumpled piece of paper
out of his jeans pocket. “I just got confirmation.”
Anika reached for
the note. “Silas, we’ve talked about keeping correspondence
neat.”
“I was in a hurry.”
He shrugged.
“I wouldn’t touch
that if I were you,” Connor said. “You don’t know where it’s
been.”
“Shut up, you
louse,” Silas snapped.
“Louse?” Connor
laughed. “How deep did you have to dig for that one?”
“Quiet, both of
you.” Monroe spoke for the first time since rejoining our group.
The calm, forceful demeanor that usually emanated from the Guide
had returned. “Anika, my team is set. Can we execute today, like
we’d hoped?”
I held my breath,
waiting for the response. If she didn’t say yes, I’d be damned if I
didn’t find my own way back to Vail.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Who’s the team?”
I smiled, running my
tongue over my sharp teeth. Shay looked at me. I could tell he was
worried, but he nodded. He knew as well as I did how much this
fight mattered.
“Lydia, Connor,
Ethan, and Calla,” he said, startling me. As much as I was eager
for battle, it felt strange to be counted among the Searchers. Plus
there was one name that still left me uneasy.
“Ethan?” I asked,
remembering the raging eyes and maniacal screams of the Searcher
not half an hour ago.
“He must adjust to
this alliance as quickly as possible,” Monroe said. “There isn’t
time to coddle him.”
“I agree,” Anika
said. “Who else?”
“Isaac and Tess will
help us stage the mission from the outpost.” He paused, glancing at
Adne. “Jerome will weave.”
Adne sputtered, but
Anika spoke first. “No. Jerome has been reassigned to a teaching
post. He’s an excellent Weaver and he’s earned his place in the
Academy. Adne is the Haldis Weaver effective
immediately.”
Adne closed her
mouth, looking smug.
“I thought with the
nature of this—” Monroe began.
“No discussion,”
Anika broke in. “Adne weaves. I trust that won’t be a
problem.”
“No,” Monroe said,
though he folded his arms across his chest, clearly
unhappy.
I frowned as I
watched the exchange. What’s up with
them? Whatever the source of Monroe and Adne’s bickering
was, I didn’t want it interfering with this mission. Luckily,
neither did Anika.
“Good,” she said.
“There’s no time to waste. Ethan’s already there?”
“Yep,” Connor said.
“Should have cooled off by now. Tess works magic with the ravaged
soul. Plus I think she gave him cookies.”
He winked at Lydia.
“That whole Betty Crocker thing is how she snagged you, isn’t
it?”
“I’m a sucker for
oatmeal chocolate chip.” Lydia shrugged.
“Maybe Ethan hasn’t
eaten them all yet.” Connor laughed.
“You’re about to
find out.” Anika smiled. “Adne, open a door.”