The Rage Eater

Chapter 35: Happy

W I N T E R

Sadie lay awake in bed, wrapped in a bundle of thick blankets, watching the snow fall outside. It began slowly—a few dozen flakes drifting beneath the starlit sky—but soon became a steady flurry, an ocean of white dancing and whirling as it fell.

Aubrey and Sim slept softly in the bed beside her, while Dylan sat at the foot of her bed, soundlessly sleeping. Lying here in the dark, with her friends asleep, Sadie slipped into a deep calm.

It'd been over a month since her victory in the Game of Thieves. Since then, they'd won three more games and lost one, making them one of the top teams at Barrett's Academy. She had won Master Dao's respect, the Reynard twins' too, and while Nicolas still harbored a nasty grudge against her, Geoffrey seemed to have forgotten about his completely. More importantly, Sadie had great friends—and a great beastly.

Sure, she missed George, missed her mother even more, but that longing felt more like an ache than the burn it once did. And, for the first time since she'd arrived, she no longer felt out-of-place or desperate to prove herself. She was exactly where she belonged. And in two days, Master Padwe would take her, Dylan, Aubrey and Sim to the Bloodwood, a forest home to dozens of rare and unique plants, even in the dead of winter.

At that moment, Sadie realized that the anger she'd lived with for so many years—an anger that had driven her to become a Warrior, that had once exploded into a powerful rage, incinerating a chair and nearly killing a man—was gone.

I'm happy.

#

"Sadie, this is horrible!" Aubrey said.

The snow was thick and high—almost waist-level—and fresh flurries continued to fall from the sky.

"You don't like it?" Sadie said, opening her mouth to catch a snowflake on her tongue.

"Like it? Are you mad? I'm wet and freezing. Honestly, I don't know how anyone lives like this."

Sadie laughed.

Sim hugged himself, shivering. "Monkeys and Kaas just aren't m-m-made for this climate."

Aubrey scooped Sim up, then trudged towards the castle, her face bowed against the blowing wind and snow.

Sadie held up Dylan in front of her face. "What about you, Dylan? Do you like the snow?"

Dylan turned into a red leaf, then back into a blob.

"Huh, I guess not. Are you cold?"

He turned into a green leaf, then back again, squinting at her the whole time.

Sadie thought for a moment. While she didn't know nearly as much as Aubrey, she did know that some plants thrived in cold weather.

"Dylan, can you transform into something that might help you stay warm? Like a pine branch or birch bark?"

Dylan transformed into a slab of snow-grey birch bark, lined with black and curled at the edges.

"Perfect, now let's get you inside." Sadie tucked Dylan inside her tunic, then barreled through the snow towards the castle.

Inside, the Dining Hall was slick with melted snow and buzzing with excitement.

"S-S-Sadie, over here!" Tim called. "We've got some of your f-f-f-favourite: eggs."

Laughing, Sadie joined Tim, Emily, Aubrey, and Sim, then placed birch bark Dylan on the table.

"I love the new l-l-look, Dylan!" Tim said.

Dylan shifted from the birch bark into a small pink cactus, then back into a blob.

"It's just to stay warm," Sadie said. "When we're outside."

"Tim was just telling us about his new theory," Aubrey said, rolling her eyes.

"I'm s-s-s-sorry if recovering a lost piece of history b-bores you."

"It's not that it bores me," Aubrey said. "It's just that I find the whole idea implausible."

Emily pawed a fistful of eucalyptus leaves and stuffed them into her mouth.

"Implausible?" Sadie asked. She'd never heard the word before in her life.

"It means unlikely," Tim said. "B-b-b-ut not impossible."

"So, what's the theory?" Sadie asked.

Tim smiled. "Okay, let's assume these lost books exist somewhere. That m-m-means someone had to hide them. But where? Even secret chambers and hidden chests d-d-don't stay secret for long. Which means, if there are l-l-lost books somewhere, they're probably h-h-hidden in plain sight, where n-n-no one would think to look."

Sadie thought for a moment. "You mean in that dusty old room in the Great Library?"

"Exactly," Tim said beaming.

"But that raises another problem," Sim said. "Cataloguing 100,000 old mildewed books."

"They're not all m-m-mildewed," Tim said. "But you're right. It will take a while."

"Years," Aubrey scoffed. "Anyway, Sadie and I have more important things to think about. Like the Bloodwood."

"Aren't y-y-you worried about orcs?" Tim said.

"There haven't been orcs this far from the Badlands in years," Aubrey said.

Sadie plucked a soil puck from a sack in her pocket, then fed it to Dylan.

"But the attacks are g-g-getting further and further out," Tim said. "Between that, and Caleb Reynard's d-d-d-disappearance, something strange is happening."

"How do you know all this?" Sadie said.

"Wisdom follows knowledge," Tim said proudly, reciting the Clan Terrin words. "Also, my Uncle Lawrence writes me. He's on the Council of Kings."

"Well, I still think it's the Orcs Without Masters," Aubrey said.

"But the OWM always b-b-brag about their attacks," Tim said. "To show that they're p-p-powerful, that they should get their land back."

"Well maybe they should," Aubrey mumbled.

Sadie felt her face flush with anger. How could Aubrey—her friend, and the daughter from a great Southern Clan—be defending orcs? "They should? They're savages! They shouldn't get anything."

"How would you feel if you had to live in the Badlands? Away from your homeland? Without any decent farmland?"

"S-s-stop," Tim said. "It's too early to fight about p-p-politics."

Furious, Sadie stabbed an egg with her fork, watching as the bright yellow yolk oozed onto her plate.

"Gross, get a-a-a-way," Tim said.

Sadie looked up. He was shooing a fly. Which seemed strange, especially in the winter, until Sadie looked closer and saw its eyes—one red, one black.

Wizard Dvesha.

It'd been weeks since she'd seen him last.

Suddenly, she remembered his instructions: "When I can call, you come."

"Aubrey, can you watch Dylan?" Sadie pushed her plate to the side and stood. "I just remembered I have to meet one of the Masters before class. Alone."