Authors: Amanda Hocking
“You think he’s going after other changelings?” someone in the audience shouted.
“Yes, that’s exactly what we fear,” Dad said. “There’ve been two incidents with Konstantin
Black in the past seven days. We don’t want a third. Which is why we’ve called you
all here.”
“Are we going after Konstantin?” Kasper asked, and I straightened up.
“We don’t know where he is, or where he’s going to strike next, so that doesn’t seem
prudent,” Dad did his best to explain. “We’re going after the changelings.”
Everyone erupted in protests, saying how it wasn’t possible or how it would ruin our
economy. With over five hundred changelings between the ages of four months and twenty
years old out in the field, we didn’t have the manpower to bring back every changeling,
and it would cripple our finances if we did. Not to mention that a lot of the changelings
were still just kids, many under the age of ten. The American and Canadian police
would have a field day if we kidnapped hundreds of children.
“Calm down!” Ridley shouted. “We have a plan, and before you guys get your panties
in a bunch, you should at least listen to what it is, don’t you think?”
“Konstantin’s attacks haven’t been random,” Dad elaborated, once the room quieted
down again. “The first changeling he went after was Linus Berling, who as you all
know is next in line for the throne if the King doesn’t produce an heir. The one he
targeted yesterday was Charlotte Salin, who is right behind Linus in line for the
throne.
“He’s going after royalty,” Dad concluded.
“But how is he getting this information?” Tilda asked, speaking for the first time
since the meeting had started. “It’s classified. Almost no one has access to it.”
“We’re not sure, but we’re investigating,” Dad assured her.
“As soon as we find the leak, we’ll be able to find Konstantin and put a stop to this,”
Ridley added.
“But until then, we need to keep ourselves protected,” Dad said. “That means more
protection here in Doldastam, which is where the Högdragen come in. Linus Berling
and Charlotte Salin need extra guards on them. The front gate needs to be locked at
all times, and we need to instate a patrol to go around the wall. Doldastam must be
impenetrable.
“As for the rest of the trackers, you’ll be going out to get our more elite changelings
that are coming of age. We think that’s who Konstantin will target next, and we want
you to get to them before he does.” Dad pulled out his papers, looking down at them.
“I’ve got all the placements right here. When I call your name, come up and get your
file, and then you’re to leave as soon as you’re able.
“Tilda Moller and Simon Bohlin, you’ll be paired together,” Dad began.
“Paired together?” Tilda asked as she stood up.
“Oh, yes, after the incidents, we thought it would be best for the trackers to be
paired up,” Dad explained. “Both for your safety and for the changelings’.”
“But what if we don’t need to be paired up?” I protested, and Tilda gave me a look
as she made her way to the front of the room.
“Everyone is paired up. No exceptions,” Dad told me without looking up.
“But we’re wasting resources,” I insisted. “We only have so many trackers. If we pair
up, then you’re cutting our number in half. If we went on our own, we could get twice
as many changelings.”
“Or twice as many of you could end up dead.” Dad pursed his lips and finally looked
at me. “The King and Queen made the call, and the decision is final.”
“I’m just saying—” I began.
“Bryn Aven, why don’t you come up here and get your placement?” Dad asked. “That would
probably make the rest of this meeting go much faster.”
I groaned inwardly, but I went up to the front of the room, carefully maneuvering
around trackers and guards. People had begun whispering and talking among themselves
again, but they kept their voices low so they’d be able to hear my dad call their
names.
“Where’s my file?” I asked when I reached my dad.
“I already gave it to your partner.” Dad motioned to Ridley, standing beside him,
holding a manila file.
“You’re retired,” I protested.
“I came out of retirement for one last job,” Ridley told me. “This is an important
mission, and they needed the best.”
“And that’s me and you?” I asked.
Smiling down at me, he said, “I don’t see anybody better here. Do you?”
The train ride to Calgary was long, and that should’ve been a good thing, since it
gave me more time to go over the changeling’s file. As soon as we’d been assigned,
Ridley and I had gone to our respective homes, packed up our things, and within twenty
minutes we were on the road out of town. I’d glanced over the file long enough to
see where we were headed, noting that there would be a lot of downtime as we passed
through the Canadian landscape.
That also meant there was plenty of time to have awkward conversations with Ridley.
I hadn’t spent this much time alone with him in … well, in
ever
, actually, since we’d be together for at least a few days on this mission.
This was coming right after we’d spent the night together—platonically, sort of. And
right after I’d realized my feelings for him, feelings I was trying to will away or
at the very least pretend didn’t exist. Which was much harder to do when he was sitting
right next to me, his arm brushing up against mine as I leafed through the file.
The cover page had all her basic information on it.
NAME:
Emma Lisa Costar (
Jones
)
PARENTS:
Markis Guy Costar and Marksinna Elsa Costar, née Berling
HOST FAMILY:
Benjamin and Margaret Jones
BIRTH DATE:
February 26, 1999
HAIR COLOR:
Brown
EYE COLOR:
Brown
LAST KNOWN ADDRESS:
1117 Royal Lane SW, Calgary, AB T2T 0L7
Paper-clipped to the top were two photos—a baby picture taken right after Emma was
born, before she was switched at birth, and a composite photo of what Emma might look
like now, based on her baby picture and her parents. I always thought the composite
photos looked more than a bit creepy, but they had helped me find changelings in the
past.
According to her birthday, Emma was just barely fifteen, but in the composite picture
of her, she appeared younger. Her cheeks were still chubby, her eyes wide, her dark
hair falling in ringlets around her face.
The packet of pages behind that had all kinds of information about her biological
family, in hopes that it would shed some light on what she might be like, as well
as information about her host family, to make it easier to find her.
I barely glanced through the packet, though, because I already knew a great deal about
her family. Her mother—Elsa Costar—was Dylan Berling’s sister, making her Linus’s
aunt and a cousin to the King. If something were to happen to Linus, when Emma returned
from Calgary in a few years according to the original schedule, she would be next
in line for the throne. Charlotte Salin—the changeling Ember had just rescued—was
only next because she had come of age, and Emma Costar hadn’t yet returned to Doldastam.
We kept very rough tabs on changelings while they were gone, since in general the
Kanin liked to interact with humans as little as possible. That meant that, rarely,
changelings would move or go missing, and we couldn’t find them. On other tragic occasions,
the changelings died while in the care of their host families, usually due to accident
or illness.
The horrible truth was that we had no real way of knowing what was happening to changelings
when they were with their host families. Most of the time it was nothing notable—their
host parents generally loved and raised them like their own. But right now, when Konstantin
Black was on the loose and going after changelings, it was a little scary not knowing
where exactly Emma Costar was or if she was safe.
“Anything good there?” Ridley asked.
He sat low in the chair next to me, one of his legs crossed over the other, making
his knee bump into mine every time he shifted. His head rested back against the seat,
and his eyes were barely open, hooded in dark lashes so I wasn’t sure if he even saw
anything at all. In his hand he had a small lock of Emma’s hair, taken from her when
she was a baby and tied with a thin pink ribbon.
“Just the usual stuff,” I said with a sigh and tried not to stare at Emma’s hair as
he twirled it between his fingers.
The Costars hadn’t taken Emma’s hair in a gesture of affection. It was a tool, an
aid in helping trackers find her later. By touching something personal, most trackers
had the ability to imprint on a changeling. Ridley couldn’t read her mind, but he’d
be able to feel if she was terrified or in pain—extreme emotions that meant that she
was in trouble and needed our help.
This also turned the changeling into kind of a tracking beacon. If Ridley focused
on her, we’d be able to find her. I wasn’t sure exactly how it worked, but Ember had
explained it as feeling a pull inside of you, like a tug from an invisible electrical
current warming you from within and telling you which way to go, and the closer you
got to the changeling, the stronger the feeling would get.
Ember had that ability, so did Ridley and Tilda and almost all the other trackers
I worked with, as did their parents, and their parents before them. A Kanin’s supernatural
abilities were passed down through blood, and naturally the trackers were the ones
who carried the tracking gift. Since my parents weren’t trackers—my mother came from
a tribe that didn’t even have trackers of any kind—I was born without it.
That was one of the reasons it had been harder for me to become a tracker. I suffered
a major handicap compared to everyone else, but I worked twice as hard to compensate
for it. Instinct, intuition, and sheer force of will seemed to make up for my lack
of blood-borne talent.
“Are you getting a read on her?” I asked Ridley.
He shook his head. “Not yet, but we’re still kinda far away.”
“When we get to Calgary, we should go to her house straight off and scope it out.”
I closed the file and settled back in my seat. Ridley moved his arm so it rested against
mine, but I let it. “We can check into the hotel after, but we should get a read on
her, at least, make sure she’s safe, and then we should come up with the best plan
to interact with her.
“Obviously, since I’m younger than you and don’t look like a thirty-year-old creeper,
I should be the one to make contact,” I continued, thinking aloud. “It’s going to
be a bit trickier, since she’s younger than most changelings, but maybe that will
work to our advantage. Younger kids tend to be more trusting.”
“I have done this before.” Ridley looked down at me, a wry smirk on his lips. “Believe
it or not, I do know a few things about tracking.”
“I know.” I met his playful gaze with a knowing one. “I’m just coming up with a course
of action.” I moved my arm away from his. “I’m not used to working with someone.”
“Neither am I, but I think we make a good team. We’ll be fine.” He reached out, putting
his hand on my leg, but only for a second before taking it back.
“I don’t know.” I looked away, remembering the ominous warning Ember had given me
this morning. “Konstantin seems out for blood.”
“There’s two of us, and we’re both strong fighters. Hell, I’m an amazing fighter.”
Ridley tried to make a joke of it, but I wasn’t having any of it, so his smile fell
away. “If you could handle him by yourself, there’s no reason to think that we can’t
handle him together.”
“Except this time he’s escalating,” I reminded him. Ember had filled out a report
and told Ridley in even greater detail about her fight with Konstantin and Bent, so
he knew about Konstantin’s blatant disregard for everything when he stole Charlotte
from her bedroom.
“But we’re prepared for it,” Ridley countered.
“I still can’t believe you’re out in the field for this mission,” I said, eager to
change the subject from Konstantin and the sense of impending doom he filled me with.
“Isn’t it, like, illegal to un-retire?”
“No, we just don’t often un-retire, as you so eloquently put it, because there’s a
reason we retired in the first place. For me, it was because my boyish good looks
had given way to the ruggedly handsome features of a man, and for some reason teenagers
find it creepy when grown men hang around high schools.”
“Teenagers can be so unfair,” I said with faux-disbelief. “Do you ever miss being
in the field?”
He raised one shoulder in a half shrug. “Sometimes, yeah, I do. The one thing that
does suck about being the Rektor is being stuck in the same place day in and day out.
Don’t get me wrong.” He turned his head to face me, still resting it against the seat.
“I love Doldastam, and I love my job. But it would be nice to see other places, like
Hawaii in January.”
“Did you ever go to Hawaii?” I asked.
“I didn’t. I’ve tracked changelings to Florida and Texas, and once I went to Japan,
which was definitely a trip. Mostly, though, I spent time in Canada,” he said, sharing
a familiar story. It seemed that only on rare occasions did changelings move someplace
far away and exotic after we’d placed them. “What about you? What’s the farthest your
job has taken you?”
“Alaska. Or New York City.” I tried to think. “I’m not sure which is farther away
from Doldastam.”
“You’re young. You’ve got time. Who knows? Your next mission could be to Australia,”
Ridley said, attempting to cheer me up.
“Maybe,” I said without much conviction. “Other than the lack of travel, you really
like your job?”
“Yeah. The paperwork can be a bit much, but it’s a good job. Why?” He stared down
at me. “You sound skeptical.”
“I don’t know. Just…” I paused, trying to think of how to phrase my question before
deciding to just dive right into it. “Why didn’t you become a Högdragen?”