But the comfortable loneliness of uninterrupted solitude couldn’t last forever. It was Kuro’s curse to find peace only to have it ripped away from him, and in this case, it came in the form of two murderous girls.
There had been another burglary. Just as with all those before, Kuro had no good alibi. The Hounds who came to investigate this time absolved Kuro within seconds of meeting him for the very simple reason that the burgled room did not stink of skunk. While that may have been adequate evidence for professional wizard hunters, it wasn’t nearly enough for the self-proclaimed Avalon Royal Defence League.
He was just at the edge of the Summer Quarter on his way back to the lodge for dinner when he felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. He dove behind a tree just in time for lightning to split the humid summer evening. The tangy aroma of the electrified air almost overpowered the skunk.
“Stand still, thief!” ordered Moira, her voice loud and commanding for such a young girl.
“No, thank you,” replied Kuro. Normally he was reasonably cooperative with them. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt in his escape attempts, and the girls were usually harmless, anyway. They’d threaten him and tie him up but never really tried to hurt him. Still, they usually didn’t greet him with a bolt of lightning.
“Did you think you could rob Lady Lamorak without consequence?” Moira bellowed as Azalea unleashed another arc of electricity.
Kuro hadn’t known it was Azalea who had been burgled. His isolation meant he was out of earshot for most of the gossip, and he had thought the dismissal by the Hounds would have protected him from blame. “Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t do it?”
Another crack of lightning singed a nearby tree in response. He felt the air around him start to heat up and decided it best to leave before Azalea’s anger burned down the forest with him inside it. He gathered the wind behind him and fled faster than was at all sensible given the thick vegetation and rough terrain.
Thistles and thorns lashed at him as he pounded through the undergrowth, but he didn’t slow or even look back. He leaped gullies, swung from branches, and slid beneath bushes, putting as much forest between him and them as possible.
Unfortunately, he quickly ran out of forest. He tripped out through the last of the tree cover into the tall grass near the Summer Quarter cliffs. He didn’t want to risk turning around, but continuing forward would end in a long drop into the wrong side of the veil.
He needed to hide, and fortunately Arthur had provided him with a perfect spot.
The luminous slime mold cave wasn’t far. He made a turn away from Autumn and ducked down below the long grass. Moving as quickly as he could without exposing himself, he scampered to the small clearing, then slid into the tiny entrance. He wriggled down the length into the cold ground and down into the damp darkness of the hollow at the end.
Kuro crouched in the barely visible glow of the slime and waited, his senses so alert that his breath and pounding heartbeat sounded like they could be heard in Vertheim. He stilled that breath until even he couldn’t hear it and wedged himself into a crevice where even if they did find the cave, they might still not find him.
There, unmoving, as the exhilaration of the chase was replaced by the cold soaking through his clothes, and as the scrapes and bruises he had ignored began to burn and throb, Kuro found a truth that had been eluding him.
He was comfortable.
Not in a literal sense; he was sore, cold, wet, hungry, and scared. But that was normal; that was natural. It was his default state of being. He had moved by instinct, leading his pursuers away from his home and hiding in the darkest, most uninviting place he could find just as he had dozens of times back in Detritus. All the kind friends, warm beds, and good meals of Avalon were like a pleasant dream. This was who Kuro knew how to be, where he felt like himself. He felt at home.
It was the kind of feeling everyone had been describing when they conjured their familiars, but they all did it in different words. It had nothing to do with their actual houses; it was about finding the feeling normal people felt in their houses: safe, comfortable, not having to posture and pretend.
In a flood the spell made sense, and at the same time it became clear that Kuro couldn’t possibly cast it. It was loud, elegant, and complicated. Kuro was none of that. The words spoke about the beauty and power in his true self, but his true self had neither of those. Kuro was much more himself when dirty, smelly, and alone than he ever could be surrounded by people.
A foolish curiosity gripped him, and he wriggled cautiously out of his nook. In a small barely audible whisper, he cast the familiar summoning spell, being careful not to splash or make a single noise with his movements.
It felt right. The connections all made sense, and he could feel the truth of their meaning flowing through and out of him. A hazy dimming in the faint glow of the slime mold implied that something was happening, that his conjuring was forming something in the air around him. It was the same dark smoke that had filled the lodge, but this time it was controlled and moved with purpose. He didn’t even need to see it to know—he could feel it.
As he reached the finale, a noise like fabric sliding over rock at the mouth of the cave interrupted him. He fell entirely silent and didn’t move for long minutes. He barely breathed and hesitated to even think too loudly.
He crept back to his narrow hollow to wait properly for night to fall, when he could be certain that the Avalon Royal Defence League would have given up the hunt and gone to bed. Their zeal for justice had never kept them out past curfew.
Fortunately, old Pete was somewhat more relaxed in his application of the curfew rules at the lodge, partly because he went to sleep before it happened, and partly because of the problem with the clocks. The only people held to the curfew at the lodge were the first years, and that was mostly for their safety. There were dangers on the island at night that were easy enough to avoid once you knew better than to bother them. There were creatures in the woods, for instance, ones that hunted in the dark, ones who lurked at the edge of the forest near caves in the Summer Quarter, where foolish children might hide from each other, ones whose eyes gleamed yellow when they caught the rising moon at just the right angle.
Kuro ran for his life for the second time that day.
For days following, Kuro tried to re-create the feeling in the cave, but with no success. He tried standing in a sleet storm, skipping meals, and spending more time with the slime mold, but he couldn’t conjure even the faintest wisp. He suspected that Azalea and Moira would be more than happy to help re-create the exact circumstances he had found so helpful, but he thought it better to survive than to succeed.
At the very least, Kuro had some insight to pass on to Bindal, who reappeared while Kuro was failing to cast anything in the graveyard. Kuro didn’t know if Bindal had returned because he judged Kuro to have practiced enough, or because Kuro’s stench had adequately faded. Bindal, of course, had no interest in explaining himself.
“You will teach me now,” he said. It was neither a request nor an order, just a statement of fact. It was Bindal’s way. He spoke with absolute certainty. Kuro somewhat envied how self-assured the young lutin was.
Kuro explained as well as he could to Bindal all he’d learned about conjuring a familiar. He passed on the wisdom and varied experiences of the other students, and the things that helped his own mediocre progress. After patiently listening and nodding along to his explanation, Bindal tried to cast the spell. He executed it perfectly, every movement and word timed better than anyone in Kuro’s class. He must have been practicing as well in his time away. And yet, absolutely nothing happened.
“You are not teaching me right. Teach better.”
Kuro groaned. “I can’t. I’m a terrible wizard.”
“You are not a wizard,” Bindal corrected. “You are a monster.”
“You’re not a wizard either,” replied Kuro.
“No.” Bindal was offend
ed at the mere suggestion that he might be. “I am a lutin.”
“Do you want to be a wizard?” Kuro asked.
“No,” Bindal replied, then repeated as if Kuro hadn’t heard him the first time, “I am a lutin.”
“Then why do you think you can do magic like a wizard?”
“Wizards do book magic,” he explained. “They read instructions, and then they do the magic. That is how it works.”
But that’s not how it worked, not quite. If it were that easy, anyone could do it. There’d be no Blandlanders or fireflies. “No,” Kuro said. “To do wizard magic you have to be a wizard. Otherwise, any lutin or giant or fairy could just copy wizards. I can’t teach you wizard magic any more than you can teach me lutin magic.”
Bindal scrunched his very large nose in annoyance. Kuro was correct, and admitting so was entirely unpalatable. “But you promised,” he said, losing his confident tone for the first time.
“I did,” Kuro said. “And I’ll keep trying if you want.” Part of him hoped he’d be released from his obligation, but another wanted to persevere. It felt like if he could teach Bindal, then there was hope for even him.
The young lutin didn’t look like he wanted to carry on. He looked at his hands with contempt for failing to conjure his desired familiar.
Kuro didn’t exactly like Bindal; he was blunt and demanding and thought Kuro ate children. At the same time, he didn’t wish any ill on him. “I brought you some cake,” said Kuro, trying to distract Bindal from his sulking.
Kuro dug the slice of week-old birthday cake out of his book bag and passed it over. “It wasn’t very good when it was fresh, and that was a while ago,” he said. “But the icing will probably still taste good.”
It was a pathetic offering, and yet Bindal’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the stale cake. He just stared at it, not moving to take it or refuse it. “It isn’t chocolate,” he said at last.
“No, it isn’t. I’m sorry.”
“You promised to bring me chocolate.”
Kuro couldn’t quite understand Bindal’s tone. He expected it to be angry, or to command him to go and correct the mistake. Instead, it seemed almost grateful.
“I couldn’t get chocolate; I’ll get some eventually,” Kuro said.
Bindal looked at Kuro as though he were a complete stranger, as though someone he’d never met had just wandered into the clearing and offered him a sack of money. He slowly reached out and claimed the crumbling slice of white cake with caution. He broke off a corner of dried out icing and tasted it. “You should not have brought me this.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you might like it,” said Kuro.
“But you did not promise cake. You promised chocolate.”
Kuro felt like they were talking in circles, and he was very much missing the point. Bindal sounded confused rather than angry, and he kept eating pieces of the icing while he accused Kuro of not living up to his vow. “Do you not want it?”
With a sudden burst of renewed confidence, Bindal drew himself up to his full height and pointed at Kuro. “I defeated you. I bound you in promise. I made you serve me.”
“Yes,” Kuro agreed. “I remember.”
“This cake is not your promise. You should not do kindnesses for me. You should hate me. You should try to trick me into releasing you and eat me. You are the kuro monster.”
Kuro had all but forgotten how terrified Bindal had been of him. Kuro knew himself to be laughably harmless, so he hadn’t considered how strange it must be for Bindal to be spending time with his natural predator. It would be like Kuro having a friendly lunch with Dubois.
He tried to think of a way to explain that in a way Bindal would understand. “I didn’t choose to be a monster,” he said, sitting down on a fallen gravestone. “I was made that way by bad wizards. I’m not even good at it. I’m a worse monster than I am a wizard. I don’t even want to eat lutin, so the promises aren’t so bad.”
Bindal sat opposite Kuro and eyed him with unease as he tried to process this new information while steadily munching on his cake. “Do you mean I helped you?” It was a question, the first Kuro could remember Bindal asking. He appeared uncomfortable with the format, and it still came out sounding like an instruction.
“Sure,” Kuro agreed. It wasn’t like he had any intention of eating lutin, but there was a small comfort in knowing that he couldn’t if the situation arose.
“Do you not hate me?”
Kuro laughed. There was only one person whom Kuro hated. Compared to Phineas, Bindal was positively delightful company. He wasn’t even as bothersome as Azalea. “No. You’re fine,” he said.
Kuro laid back on the gravestone and watched the shifting stars appear in the darkening sky as Bindal foraged in the cake for edible bits. He thought about how to teach the lutin the spell he so desperately wanted to know and wondered if it was even possible. “Why do you want to summon a familiar, anyway?” asked Kuro.
Bindal stopped chewing on a bit of hardened icing and stared into the distance for a bit before answering. “A familiar does not have promises to keep,” he said.
Kuro hadn’t considered that Bindal might be bound by promises as well. It made sense. How else would he know so well how promises were made if he hadn’t made some. “What kind of promises?”
“Don’t see people. Don’t go places. Don’t do things.” Bindal trailed off, making Kuro think that was just the start of the list.
Kuro thought promises like those were a nasty way for parents to control their child and could understand why Bindal might want a way around them. Kuro had lived his life obeying orders he could not escape or even attempt to disobey. Even if Bindal couldn’t break the promises himself, if the familiar could, it would provide some measure of freedom. “I’ll keep trying to teach you,” he said.
Bindal’s reply was not at all what Kuro expected. “I will teach you lutin magic, too.”
“Huh?” was all he could reply.
“It is logical,” said Bindal with his usual certainty. “You are promised to protect lutin, but you are a bad protector. You need better magic. You are a bad teacher; I will show you how to be better.”
The conversation was cut short, however, as both stiffened in unison. The sensation of being watched crept up both their spines.
“Next time,” said Bindal and vanished.
Seeking out the intruding observer, Kuro found a wide, furry grey face with a black mask and dark round eyes staring out at him from the woods. Upon being spotted, the raccoon retreated silently into the forest, leaving Kuro alone in the graveyard.
Eighteen
Strays in High Places
Things had changed around the lodge during Kuro’s aromatic exile. Mag Singh was trying on new hairstyles and first names, Sean and Gregory sat together all the time instead of with their roommates, and Marie appeared to have been replaced by a winged unicorn.
It was Charlie’s constant companion regardless of whether the room was big enough to fit the familiar. If it didn’t fit through a door, Charlie would unsummon it and bring it back on the other side.
It wasn’t terribly surprising. Lots of Kuro’s classmates were equally excited about their familiars. Arthur had a different one out at every meal, and Sean’s hummingbird was always buzzing about. The only real difference with Charlie’s was that it was much harder to ignore. It was huge and beautiful. When it stretched its wings, they touched either side of the dining hall. Nearly everyone was jealous of it, and those that weren’t were lying.
She had been forbidden from riding it without a proper saddle for safety reasons, but she wasn’t upset about that. She could just let it fly around, unsummon it, and enjoy everything it had experienced. She spent her free time watching it soar over the island, then sucking up the memories.
Kuro wondered at Marie’s absence at dinner though. When he asked, Charlie rolled her eyes and flung her arms in the air. “She’s being impossible,” she said. �
�She spends all her time looking for bilious tree frogs and barely talks to me. She takes her food with her and comes home late, and I hardly see her except in class, and she’s always grumpy about Henrietta taking up too much space. That’s my familiar, Henrietta. Ms. McCutcheon says it’s unseemly to name a familiar because it’s a part of you, like naming your right hand, so I just named my hands, too. This is Leftie, and this is Steve.”
She held up her hands for Kuro to see. She had drawn name tags on them.
“Maybe we should help her,” Kuro suggested. “She’s been searching for ages, and it’s due before Solstice break.”
“We offered,” said Arthur. “She said she wants to do it herself.”
“She’s being ridiculous,” added Charlie. “I helped you, and you helped Arthur, and Arthur helped me. It would have been way harder to catch the larvae if Arthur hadn’t been there to swing the bat at the adult moosefly. You should have seen them, Kuro, big as a melon with antlers like Steve and Leftie. Hard to collect their larvae with them buzzing around and charging at you, but we did it, got more than a dozen fresh ones. They look like wriggly parsnips.”
Arthur, who was interested in forgetting the experience, changed the subject. “Kuro, I have a question for you,” he said as he pulled a familiar notebook from his bag. “Did you hear about the latest burglary?”
“Oh, yeah,” replied Kuro, recalling his own terrible evening. “Azalea and your sister nearly murdered me.”
“Moira wouldn’t do that,” said Arthur flatly. “She knows we’re friends.”
“I’ll let her know you said so,” said Kuro.
“I compiled a list,” said Arthur, ignoring Kuro’s sarcasm. He opened his notebook and presented three pages of names and animals. “It’s almost complete.”
Kuro scanned the pages. It looked like Arthur had every student and teacher at the school paired with their familiar. “How did you do this?”
“Arthur’s been interrogating everyone at the lodge about their classmates’ familiars,” said Charlie enthusiastically. “It’s great. He’s just like a real detective. We should get him a hat. Real detectives always have cool hats.”
Volume 2: Burglary Page 17