“Take a breath, Arric,” Conrad said, his tone soothing. “I am not suggesting we simply hand the keys to the Archives over. You will have input into what is shared and what is kept back.”
“My word, yes.” Arric looked a little mollified. “My word. We will—we will organize a meeting. Yes. First thing, a meeting of the archivists. We will establish a system by which the requisition of certain documents might be managed, we will procure the relevant forms—”
“And how long will that take?” That was Elza, her eyes blazing. Seth caught his breath, ready to rebuke her, but to his surprise, he felt his father put a hand on his shoulder, a quiet signal to let her speak. “Your Queen is out there somewhere—possibly hurt, possibly in danger. Every second that goes by is a second we could be using to find her. Please.” Her voice was shaking with feeling. “Please, let us help you. We’ve lost too many people as it is.”
Seth bit his lip. He’d been intending to go slow with the dragons, to let them grow accustomed to having a wolf pack in their midst, to go along with their stuffy rules and procedures. Elza’s passionate outburst was the last thing he’d expected to go over well. But to his surprise, he saw the other archivist clear his throat.
“The wolf is right, Arric. The procedure is important, but … surely we can post-date the requisition forms. We’ve done it before.” His eyes sparkled with more mischief than Seth had ever imagined could be associated with paperwork.
Within the hour, the table in front of them was groaning with more paper than Seth had ever seen in one place—and more was on its way. Once Arric had been talked around, he’d surprised them all with his enthusiasm for the puzzle. They started with the basics—a list of who had gone missing, and when. That question had been responsible for the first cartload of paper being withdrawn from the Archives. While that was underway, Seth quietly handed a list of names to Conrad.
“You brought this with you?” That was Hartwell, the other archivist.
“In a manner of speaking.” Seth tapped his temple. Hartwell looked nonplussed. “Shared memory,” he explained. But the archivist still seemed mystified. “Do you not… know about wolves? With libraries that size?”
That seemed to strike a nerve. “We have detailed histories spanning centuries,” he snapped. “Of course, we don’t keep records of secret abilities…”
“This one isn’t a secret,” Seth said blankly. “Any wolf would tell you about it if you asked.”
Hartwell continued to bristle… but Seth could sense that his curiosity was going to win out over his pride sooner or later. There was a lot of ground being broken here tonight. One way or another, their people were going to come out of this with a better understanding of each other. He could see his father smiling faintly as he helped the dragons pore over their records, see his mother sizing up the Captain of the Palace Guard with grudging respect.
This was exactly what Lana had wanted for them, Seth realized, feeling his heart ache, and she wasn’t here to see it. They had to find her. They had to get to the bottom of what was happening here, once and for all. He caught Conrad’s worried eyes across the table, and knew that he was thinking about the same subject. And in that moment, he knew it didn’t matter to him if Lana chose this man over him.
All he cared about was getting her home safe.
Chapter 19 - Lana
Lana woke in the Fog, again.
There was an odd prickling of déjà vu in the back of her mind as she wandered through the trees, one hand trailing through the thick Fog that crowded in around her, almost too dense to see more than a few feet ahead of her. It was so beautiful out here, so quiet, so calm. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so peaceful. She couldn’t remember much, to be fair. There’d been something going on, some kind of stressful event, or a decision she had to make, or someone she needed to talk to… but no sooner had her brow creased a little in the effort to remember, she felt it all slip away like a handful of sand.
The trees, the Fog. Strange Fog, wasn’t it? Thick, thicker than you’d think was possible. Hadn’t she tried to fly out here, at first? Yes—she remembered her wings getting tangled, weighed down, as though she was trying to fly through water, not air. And so she’d landed, dodging nimbly through the treetops. Yes, that was right. Her memory was fine. She hadn’t forgotten what was before that, she was just… choosing not to think about it, right now.
After all, what was the point of looking back? She wasn’t going that way. The past was the past. For Lana, it was all about the future. Where was she going next? What exciting new things were on the horizon for her? Don’t worry about the tangled mess behind you. Don’t worry about the love of your life being the one person you could never be with—
Lana stumbled, swearing as she almost fell. The forest floor was treacherous, with twisted tree roots half-hidden by the Fog. She ought to keep her wits about her. That was what she got for thinking about the past, wasn’t it? Eyes up, focus ahead, that was the ticket. She’d first come to this place through the Fog somehow, hadn’t she? Home couldn’t be too far away. She just needed to get through this Fog, and then she’d know where she was again. She couldn’t wait, she told herself firmly, though it didn’t feel especially convincing.
This had to be where she’d first found herself in this strange place. It had to. Hadn’t she retraced her steps exactly? She seemed to remember that, when she worked hard at it… she’d come through the passageway and out into the forest, and then it had seemed obvious to take off, winging her way above the trees and beyond, beyond, back to the waystation where she’d stayed that first night. It had been hard to find from the air—it seemed the thick gray Fog that encircled the valley had rolled in quite some distance, almost enveloping the little cabin where she’d slept that night. Never mind. She was fairly certain she’d found the place where the monster had almost killed her, where the wolves… a pang of sadness rippled through her at the sudden, vivid flash of a pair of silver eyes in her memory.
No, she told herself firmly. No, she was leaving him behind. All of that could just… fade away, the same way a dream did when you woke up and tried to remember it. That was what this Fog was for, wasn’t it? She could already feel it taking effect, blurring her memory of where she’d been, what she’d done, who she was… was that why she’d come here, though? Had she come to the Fog to find her way home, or had she come to lose her mind?
Well, why couldn’t it be both?
A mad-sounding giggle escaped her lips, and she kept walking, quickening her pace. As pleasant as it was out here, something was telling her to move quickly, some lingering sense of worry. Someone might be following her. Someone likely was following her, actually, to judge by the shadowy figures moving in the Fog behind her… but then again, the Fog was so thick that those could be just about anything. Trees, maybe. Or more monsters like the one that had nearly killed her that first night.
No matter. She’d had a great idea about how to deal with monsters like that one… what had it been? Well, she’d remember if she ran into one. It was something to do with the Fog. Wrapping herself in the Fog like armor, thick and dense and powerful, letting it thicken and thicken until it became a part of her, a living suit of magic—
There was sound, on the very edge of hearing. Lana frowned, lifting her head, stumbling again as her foot caught on an exposed root. That wasn’t the rustle of the wind in the trees… there hadn’t been wind for quite some time. Nor had there been trees, for that matter. Around her was only Fog… thick, gray Fog, so dense she could barely see a few inches in front of her. She couldn’t see her body when she looked down, couldn’t see her legs as she took a cautious step. Something so disconcerting about that… but at the same time, so freeing. If you couldn’t see your body, who could say what it was? Maybe she could be anything. Maybe she could turn into something else altogether. A wolf, perhaps… a strange pang of memory, and she frowned, feeling her brow furrow. That would solve her problems, wouldn’t it? If she was a wolf? What was it about wolves that was still lingering in her mind?
There it came again—the sound. It was a shout, and it sounded like a word, and the word sounded like a name, and the name sounded like the thought about wolves in that it made her want to try to remember where she’d come from, who she was. Irritated by it all, she pressed forward. She wanted that dreamy emptiness again, the forgetting that she’d come here for. She wanted to be home, in the Fog, where there was nothing to disturb her from her dreams…
“Lana!”
A shadow in the Fog suddenly resolved itself, unpleasantly enough, into the undeniable shape of another person. She felt her eyes narrow and her lip curl, immediately on the defensive. What was this person doing here, following her into her blissful rest, shouting her name? Demanding things from her? He’d want her to leave. He’d want her to follow him back out and to remember it all. She tried to turn and run from the sound of his voice… only to run into something hard and unyielding. Around her, the Fog pressed in like a living thing. It was almost as though it was caressing her, coaxing her away, lifting the tresses of her hair and tempting her onwards… but there were two solid hands squeezing her shoulders and this blue-eyed man was shouting that name in her face, over and over.
“Who are you?” she heard herself ask, and when her lips opened, the Fog filled her mouth like a cloud. It tasted cool and sweet and slightly effervescent, and she smiled despite the heartbroken look on the face of the man in front of her, whose hands had gone slack on her shoulders. Taking the opportunity to slip away, she stepped back… but the man didn’t follow her. He seemed defeated, somehow. And while she watched, something interesting was happening, something that stopped her from running away. The Fog was growing thinner around her, just a little… and in turn, it was thickening around the man. When she looked down, she could see all the way down to her knees—but looking at the stranger, she could barely make out his chest any longer. Fascinated, she stepped closer, reaching out a hand—but to her surprise and delight, when her fingers met the thick gray curls of Fog, she felt actual resistance to her motion, as though she was trying to press her fingers through densely packed snow.
She looked up at the man’s face, wondering if he knew what was happening—if he was controlling it somehow. But what she saw made her catch her breath. His face was all but invisible, eclipsed by Fog… she could make out just enough to see his face frozen in a frightening rictus, for all the world as though he was screaming at the top of his voice. But when she listened, all she could hear was a faint, high keening on the edge of hearing… for all the world like the sound that monstrosity had made.