“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, noolder 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.