The Disappearance of Ember Crow Read Free Page B

arm, spoke in a sharp voice. “No. Leave her.”
    To anyone else that might have sounded cruel. Not to me. I regained my balance and met Connor’s eyes in a bittersweet moment of understanding.
    In my head, a wolf yipped, flinging out a challenge to the world. I understood what I was hearing now. The wolf-voice was Connor’s emotions. He and I were linked, and had been ever since Ember helped us share memories. Sometimes I felt what he was feeling and sometimes he felt what I was.
Maybe that means Em and I are linked now too?
Except she’d said once that her ability worked differently when it was one of her own memories, and if I could feel what she was feeling, I wasn’t conscious of it. All I was aware of right now was Connor’s emotions and mine.
    We both knew that it was time for me to lead my Pack.
    “Ember …” My voice was hoarse, weak. I frowned and began again. “Ember said in the memory that if she didn’t come back, it would be because she’d chosen to stay away. I think she’s trying to protect us.”
    “Protect us from what?” Georgie asked.
    “I’m not exactly sure.” I gathered pieces of information together. “People connected with the fake Serpent. And she also said …” My voice trailed off. It was hard to tell them the rest. I fought the ridiculous urge to protect Em from criticism and shoved words out of my mouth. “She said she thought she might know who the guy pretending to be the Serpent is.”
    Daniel and Connor spoke as one. “Who?”
    “She didn’t say. She didn’t say anything else really.”
    My chest tightened in a familiar sensation, as if a rock was sitting on my heart. If it got much heavier, I wouldn’t be able to breathe.
    “Do you know if she met up with the Serpent?” Connor asked.
    I shook my head.
    “If she’s still searching for him, we could try to find her at the next rally,” he pointed out. “And even if Ember – or the Serpent – aren’t there, there’ll be people at that rally who were at the last one. Someone might have seen who she was with, where she went.”
    An idea. The weight on my chest grew lighter.
    “Does anyone know when the next rally is?”
    “A month and a bit,” Daniel answered. “We haven’t gone through the things in her lab yet either.”
    Two
ideas. I scrabbled for another and found one. “Have you tried talking to the crows?”
    “Not yet.”
    I swivelled, scanning the trees.
There!
A big glossy one perched in the distance. A male, I could tell by the red eyes. I focused my attention on the bird and yelled, “Hey, crow!”
    The crow didn’t move. He didn’t seem to know I was there at all. Or maybe he couldn’t understand what I was saying. It wasn’t always possible to communicate with someone else’s animal.
    I tried again. “Ember’s gone. You must know that she’s left the Firstwood, and wherever she is, I think she might be in trouble. Can you help us find her?”
    The crow just sat there, silent and – smug? I got the distinct feeling he was ignoring me on purpose, and he didn’t seem to be a bit concerned about Ember. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Crows weren’t Pack animals the way wolves were. They were independent, contrary creatures, and Ember was part-crow to them, like I was part-wolf to the wolves. They’d assume she was clever enough to take care of herself. Crows thought they were clever enough to outwit anyone or anything.
    “We could get Keiko to talk to them,” Georgie suggested. “Or Coral.”
    Those two were Chirpers, bird-speakers. I wasn’t sure they’d have any luck either. It was still worth a try. “I guess we’ll have to.”
    “We could check the storage unit as well,” Daniel said. “I did search it after I found the note, in case there was something else there. But I could go back.”
    I considered that. Ember had been inside the unit in the memory, although that had probably been before Daniel had gone through it. She certainly wouldn’t be there now, though,