around the castle. Falador’s wealthier citizens want to retrieve the riches that they so hastily threw away in their madness. I shall need to send a message to some of my scientific friends in Varrock, for I need equipment that isn’t available here.”
The alchemist smiled cunningly.
“The work is going to make me a wealthy man. I have a handsome commission, so it is a job that is worth the labour.”
The companions laughed at his acumen.
“I shall be going to Varrock” Theodore said. “And I will take your message, if it can wait for a few days. Sir Amik needs new recruits for the knights and he wants me to take advantage of my fame and act as a recruiting sergeant. Our losses were so great that we shall admit entrants who are older than usual, and Sir Amik has told me that they will cut a year off the training time in order to bolster our ranks quicker.
“And he has told me something else…” Theodore looked to his friends as if they were all part of a dark conspiracy. “I am to be made a knight on my return. In only a few more months, before the summer comes. So, too, is Marius.”
Castimir stood and started clapping, and so did Kara, and then Ebenezer and Doric, followed by Gar’rth, who knew just enough words now to understand what was said.
“Congratulations, Theo!” Castimir said. “Everything you have worked so hard for is realised.” The wizard’s eyes filled with happy tears for his childhood friend.
But there was one amongst them who hadn’t spoken. Gar’rth walked to the window after the friends had finished congratulating Theodore.
“And what shall you do, Gar’rth?” Theodore asked, looking at the sudden bitter expression on the youth’s face as he stared out of the rain-battered pane and over the city.
“Jerrod lives,” he said.
They had searched for the werewolf’s body amongst the dead of the battlefield-the soldiers had been told to look out specifically for a man with black blood-but no corpse had been found. Gar’rth had later caught his scent and had followed it for a day, first south and then east and north across the open countryside. It seemed likely that Jerrod had joined the Kinshra retreat.
He had told them of his wish to hunt his uncle down.
“He will not stop,” he said. “So I must go to him.” He had carefully rehearsed the words with Kara, and she knew that he was right, for Jerrod would one day return.
“Gar’rth will accompany me to the monastery,” she added abruptly, her eyes resting on Theodore as he averted his gaze. Everyone was aware of the tension that still existed between them.
The alchemist raised his mug of ale briskly, diverting their attention as he stood.
“My youthful friends,” he said. “And you also, Doric, if you so wish…” His voice was suddenly serious. “I will soon be a wealthy man, with more money than I can ever spend in my declining years. My children died of smallpox in their infancy and my wife died in childbirth many years ago. I have no family left. No one to care for me when my wits abandon me.” He gave Castimir a sidelong glance, as if expecting the wizard to make a joke.
“Therefore, I wish to adopt each of you as my heirs, for we have braved so much together that it is only right.”
Doric grumbled and got to his feet. “I am older than you, Ebenezer, and I am wealthy in my own right. I thank you for the consideration but this gift is best suited for the young.”
The alchemist nodded and raised his ale again.
“So be it,” he said. “To friends! And to family!”
And amongst them the woodcutter’s daughter raised her drink, knowing suddenly that she had found what she had always truly sought, though she had masked it for years under the veil of anger and revenge.
Kara-Meir had found a family she could call her own.
