Ch. 52 Meeting the World Wolf

Chapter 52: Meeting the World Wolf

Seraphina objected to the move.

She objected to being lifted, to the unfamiliar room, to the blanket being arranged incorrectly, and finally to Lexander’s attempt to reassure her.

Ignatius slept through all of it.

Thor stood beside the window while Io examined the doorframe.

The rooms had once been intended for visiting family. They opened onto a short corridor with a single guarded entrance, and their windows faced an enclosed garden where Aurethar could comfortably place his head.

He had already done so.

“Too close?” the dragon asked.

His voice vibrated through the glass.

Seraphina fell abruptly silent.

Lexander looked down at her.

“Oh, that works?”

She stared at the enormous golden eye beyond the window.

Aurethar blinked slowly.

Io turned from the door.

“Stay exactly there.”

Fulla arrived carrying the distaff and a basket of sewing things. Lisbeth followed with blankets, Shadow, and the expression of someone prepared to injure anyone who asked why she was carrying a cat.

Shadow immediately climbed onto the largest chair.

Thor inspected the adjoining chamber.

“I’ll sleep there.”

“You don’t have to sit awake all night,” Lexander said.

“No.”

He waited.

She looked at him.

“I can stand for some of it.”

Atreyu closed the study door.

Mara laid Fenrir’s message on the desk.

“The meeting is tomorrow night. An inn on the north road. The room above the stables has a separate entrance.”

Loki nodded.

“He chose somewhere he could see anyone approaching.”

“Or somewhere he could leave quickly,” Mara said.

“Both.”

Lexander remained standing.

“How many people knew the nursery?”

“Most of the household,” Atreyu said. “Guards, nurses, cleaners, glaziers, carpenters. Anyone who delivered furniture. Anyone who saw which windows were kept lit.”

Io’s face tightened.

“So finding a traitor may mean looking for someone who doesn’t exist.”

“It may.”

Atreyu let that settle before continuing.

“We’re checking who requested details beyond what their work required. We’re also collecting the building drawings sent outside the palace.”

Lexander looked at him.

“Those were sent outside?”

“To workshops making fitted pieces. To the contractor installing the heating flues. To the glassworks.”

The information had left openly.

That was somehow worse.

Lexander had imagined a hidden letter, a bribed servant, someone he could arrest and remove.

Instead, the palace had needed windows.

Loki took the note from Mara.

“He didn’t say there was a traitor.”

“He said Surtr knows where they sleep,” Io answered.

“Yes.”

“Then until we understand what that means, the children stay here.”

No one argued.

Lexander slept for perhaps an hour.

When he woke, Io was no longer beside him.

He found her in the adjoining room, sitting near the twins with the distaff across her knees.

A narrow band of linen lay half finished in her lap.

“You’ll make yourself ill.”

“I know.”

She did not put it down.

He sat opposite her.

The new ward had been fixed above the corridor entrance before midnight. Fulla had checked it twice. Thor occupied the room beyond, and Lisbeth had taken the first watch with the nurses.

Io was sewing another strip.

“For the window?” he asked.

She nodded.

Lexander looked toward the glass.

Aurethar’s breathing stirred the leaves outside.

“I should have thought about the drawings.”

“So should I.”

“We can do that all night.”

“We appear to be.”

He reached across and placed his hand beneath hers, stilling the needle without taking it away.

Io looked at him.

For a moment, her composure almost held.

Then she whispered, “I keep seeing the room when they were born.”

He knew which part.

The injured midwives.

Lisbeth unconscious.

The place where an assassin had stood close enough to touch their children.

Lexander moved beside her.

She leaned into him, careful to set the needle down.

“I can’t make every wall strong enough,” she said.

“No.”

He felt her flinch at the honesty.

So he stayed with it.

“But you don’t have to do every wall tonight. Atreyu is looking. Mara is looking. Loki will hear what Fenrir has to say. Thor is outside that door.”

“And you?”

“Here.”

Io closed her eyes.

After a while, she let him take the linen.

He placed it on the table.

Then they sat together until the first gray light reached the curtains.

By morning, Atreyu had found the drawings.

A set had been copied for a heating contractor whose apprentice had gone missing four days earlier.

The contractor had reported him.

The report had been filed as a young man abandoning his employment.

Mara brought the man to the palace.

He was broad-handed and visibly frightened.

“His name’s Tavin,” he said. “He’s seventeen. Been with me since he was thirteen.”

Lexander indicated the chair.

The contractor sat on its edge.

“Did he take anything?”

“His tool roll. Some clothes. I thought…” He swallowed. “He’d been asking about wages upriver. I thought he’d found better work and hadn’t wanted to tell me.”

“Where were the drawings kept?” Atreyu asked.

“In the shop.”

“Who could see them?”

“Anyone who came through the front.”

There it was again.

Nothing secret.

Nothing that required treason.

Io leaned forward.

“Do you know whether anyone spoke to him about the palace?”

The contractor rubbed his palms together.

“A man wanted measurements for a fireplace surround. Said the steward had sent him. Tavin helped him find the right sheet.”

“When?”

“Six days ago.”

Mara began writing.

Lexander looked at the contractor’s face.

The man was waiting to be blamed.

“We’ll look for your apprentice.”

“Your Majesty, if he’s done something—”

“We’ll find out what happened first.”

The contractor’s shoulders shook once.

He pressed his lips together and nodded.

Loki left for the inn before sunset.

Baldr rode with him.

Neither pretended this was an arrangement Loki had proposed.

“You can wait downstairs,” Loki said.

“I can.”

“And remain there.”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“Whether someone tries to strangle you again.”

Loki looked ahead down the road.

“I miss when you were easier to discourage.”

Baldr gave him a mild smile.

“I remember you saying that before.”

The inn was busy enough to provide witnesses and quiet enough that Loki could hear the stable horses shift when they entered the yard.

Fenrir was already upstairs.

He sat beside the window.

No drink.

No food.

The room’s only lamp remained unlit.

Loki shut the door behind him.

“Baldr’s below,” he said.

“I know.”

“Good. Saves us a tedious conversation.”

Fenrir’s eyes moved to the bruises above Loki’s collar.

Then away.

Loki sat.

For a while, neither spoke.

Outside, a carter swore at a wheel.

At last Loki placed the message on the table.

“Tell me.”

Fenrir looked at the paper.

“One of the things from the ash got through before you destroyed the mill.”

Loki’s expression changed.

“How long before?”

“Long enough.”

“How many?”

“One that held its shape.”

“Where?”

“In Concordia.”

Loki leaned forward.

“What shape?”

“It changes.”

“Into people?”

“Into what it’s given.”

The room seemed colder.

Fenrir continued.

“Cloth. Hair. Blood works better. He’s still learning what it needs.”

“He.”

“Surtr.”

Loki’s fingers flattened against the table.

“The apprentice.”

Fenrir looked at him.

“What apprentice?”

“A boy who worked on the palace heating.”

A pause.

Then Fenrir reached inside his coat.

Loki’s hand went to his dagger.

Fenrir noticed.

He withdrew a folded slip of paper and pushed it across the table.

An address.

A name.

“He’s being kept there,” Fenrir said. “If that’s the boy.”

Loki read it.

“Why?”

“He knows the passages.”

“The palace passages?”

“The flues.”

Loki stood.

Fenrir did not stop him.

At the door, Loki turned back.

“Why warn us?”

Fenrir’s jaw tightened.

“Don’t make it into something it isn’t.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

For several seconds, Fenrir watched him.

“I knew he wanted the children’s power,” he said. “I thought he meant to kill them.”

Loki felt something ugly settle in his stomach.

“And that was acceptable?”

Fenrir looked away.

The silence answered.

“What changed?”

“He intends to keep them.”

Loki’s hand tightened around the latch.

Fenrir’s voice was low.

“Whatever they grow into. Whatever it takes to make them useful.”

Outside, a horse struck its stall.

Loki thought of a chain.

Of a child treated as a danger before he had decided what sort of creature to become.

He looked back at his son.

“You can still walk away from him.”

Fenrir’s expression closed.

“Go and find the boy.”