Chapter Thirty-Four: A Note in the Frost

The message came the next morning, and it did not come the way I expected.

I was standing on the porch of the stone house with a cup of tea, watching the frost melt off the pine needles, when I saw a small figure at the edge of the trees. It was a boy, no more than ten years old, thin and pale, wrapped in a coat two sizes too big. He stood very still, the way a rabbit stands when it is deciding whether to run.

Jorah saw him at the same moment and moved fast, but I raised a hand.

“Wait,” I said. “He is only a child.”

“Children can carry knives, my lady.”

“He is shaking. Look at him.”

Jorah looked. Then, grudgingly, he stepped back and let me walk down the porch steps alone. I stopped a few paces from the boy and crouched so my eyes were level with his.

“Hello,” I said. “Are you lost?”

He shook his head. Slowly, he pulled a small folded square of grey cloth from inside his coat and held it out to me with both hands.

“A lady gave me this,” he whispered. “She said to put it in your hand and nobody else’s. She said you would know what to do.”

“What lady?”

“The old one. With the white hair.” His eyes went wide. “She said if I did it right, her men would not hurt my mother.”

My heart dropped. I took the cloth gently. “You did it right. You did very well. Come inside and get warm.”

He shook his head hard. “I have to go back. If I am gone too long, they will know.”

Jorah had come up behind me, his face dark. “Where are they keeping your mother?”

“I do not know.” The boy’s lip trembled. “They took her from our house two days ago. I was told to bring this and walk back. That is all.”

I looked at Jorah. He gave a short, tight nod. One of the border wolves would follow the boy at a distance and see where he went. It was the best we could do without frightening him more.

I put my hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What is your name?”

“Pip.”

“Pip, I promise you, we will find your mother. Do you understand? You are not alone in this.”

He stared at me for a long moment, like he was not sure whether to believe it. Then he turned and ran into the trees, small and fast, and was gone.

We gathered in the study of the main pack house an hour later. Adrian, Corwin, Mathis, and me. I laid the grey cloth on the desk and unfolded it carefully.

Inside was a single strip of white bark, and on it, in thin careful handwriting, a few lines.

I am not who you think I am. I cannot speak freely where I am watched. Come to the old stone bridge at the eastern edge of the forest, at the third hour past midnight, three nights from now. Come alone, or with one other. If I am wrong to trust you, I will die for it. If you are wrong to trust me, so will you. Burn this after reading.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

“It is a trap,” Corwin said flatly.

“Probably,” Adrian agreed. His voice was dangerously calm. “A very well made one, if it is.”

“She used a child,” I said. “She threatened a mother to get a note into my hands.”

“That is exactly what a trap looks like.”

“Or exactly what desperation looks like.” I held up the bark. “Think about it. If Hale wanted to take me, he does not need to send a note. He sent men with ropes to a patrol wolf. He is not subtle. This is different. This is someone who is afraid of being caught writing it.”

Mathis had been quiet, bent over the writing with his glasses pushed up on his forehead. “The handwriting is old fashioned,” he said. “The way she forms these letters, it is the style of the northern scribes. Very few people still write like this.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning she is old enough to have been trained before the northern schools closed. That is a hundred years at least, or close.” He looked up. “If she is truly that old, she may have been alive when the passes were sealed.”

The room went quiet again. I felt a strange cold thrill move down my arms.

“She might have known my mother’s family,” I said.

“Or your mother’s enemies,” Adrian said. “Elena, I know what you are thinking. I know you want to go. But I cannot let you walk into a camp full of Hale’s men on the word of someone we have never met.”

“I am not asking you to let me.” I turned to face him. “I am asking you to come with me.”

His jaw tightened. “That is not what she said. She said one other at most.”

“Then it will be you. Nobody else in the world could keep me safer than you.”

“Elena.”

“Adrian, listen to me.” I put the bark down and took his hands. “She knows how to break the curse. I would bet my shop on it. She felt my seal break from miles away. She understands both sides of this magic. If there is a chance, even a small one, that she will tell us how to save you, I cannot ignore it.”

“I am not worth that risk.”

The words hit me hard. I held his hands tighter.

“You do not get to say that anymore,” I said quietly. “You decided that once for both of us, and it cost us a year. I will not let you decide it again.”

He stared at me. Something moved behind his eyes, old pain and new hope fighting each other.

“Three nights,” he said at last. His voice was rough. “We prepare for three nights. We send scouts ahead, and Corwin and a hidden team stay close enough to hear a shout. If anything feels wrong, we leave. No arguments.”

“No arguments,” I agreed.

Corwin let out a long breath through his nose, clearly not happy, but nodding.

Mathis picked up the bark and held it over the candle flame. We watched the white curl and blacken, the careful words turning to ash.

I did not know then that the woman waiting at the old stone bridge would change everything I thought I knew about my mother. I only knew that for the first time since Hale’s men had come into our lives, we were not simply waiting to be hit.

We were finally moving first.