Volume 2: Burglary

by R. A. Consell

  The ship slowly filled. It was a quiet and subdued crowd. All the other voyages were full of enthusiasm and noise. This trip lacked the anticipation of the others. They weren’t escaping school for celebrations or summer, and they hadn’t been gone long enough to miss their friends or forget about what was waiting for them once classes resumed. There were no excited squeals or songs of joy, just a collective sigh of resignation.

  Eventually Arthur found them, or rather Moira found them with Arthur in tow. She informed them that they would have the pleasure of her company for the duration of the trip.

  Marie appeared shortly after, looking groggier than Kuro felt and moving with less enthusiasm than most.

  “How was your holiday?” asked Charlie.

  “Fine, I think,” said Marie. “I don’t like it when they give our memories back. Everything gets mixed up in my head. It feels like I just left Avalon for vacation, and that I’m coming back, both.”

  “You’re coming back from vacation,” Arthur said, helpfully.

  “I know that,” grumbled Marie. “It’s just confusing.” She slammed herself into a seat next to Charlie as the engines started up and the boat started to move.

  “Did you get anything good for Solstice?” asked Charlie eagerly and then failed to give anyone time to respond. “I got new jeans and this sweater and a sword and a shield from my grandparents, and Kuro gave me a really funny book from the Blandlands!”

  “Kuro also gave me a Blandlands book,” said Arthur. “Did you like your presents, Kuro?”

  “Oh yeah,” said Kuro “I got a nice mortar and pestle and this warm hat. It was great.”

  Arthur’s face fell a bit and there was an uncomfortable silence before he said, “Is that all?”

  “Oh, a card from Marie,” said Kuro. “Thanks for that.”

  “Did I give you a card?” she replied, searching her muddy memories. “Oh yes, I sent it with Charlie.”

  “Did you not get Arthur’s gift?” demanded Moira. “It should have arrived via the post over Solstice Eve.”

  “The lutin post?” asked Kuro.

  “Yes, of course, the lutin post,” replied Moira. “What other post is there?”

  While Moira missed the message entirely, Arthur buried his face in his hands, remembering too late the issue Kuro had with getting mail. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

  “It’s okay,” said Kuro. “I bet it was great. How about you, Marie? Did you get anything nice for Noël?”

  Marie tried to clear the cobwebs out of her mind. “Mostly clothes,” she said. “And a new journal, and a nice rock. Oh yeah, Kuro gave me a piece of pyrite. It was nice. I don’t remember telling you I collected rocks.”

  “What’s pyrite?” asked Kuro.

  “Fool’s gold,” said Marie, and then her face fell. Her pleasantly befuddled expression became a mask of horror.

  She grabbed her backpack and started rummaging in a panic, but it was too late. The boat passed out into the Blandlands and as the edge of the veil swept over them, her bag was torn from her hands. While the boat drove out into the bay, the lump of gold in her bag stayed still, trapped against the barrier between worlds. It knocked over benches, shredded Marie’s backpack, punched through steel walls, tore through the innards of the ship, and ripped out the back of the hull.

  A few minutes later, Kuro and Marie found themselves staring at Knight Commander Talen Dubois, with the slightly mangled hunk of gold on a table between them.

  He had been there to see his children off to school. When the ferry groaned its way back into the dock moments after departure, he had been quick to investigate the source of the trouble. His daughter had been even quicker to report it.

  While the boat underwent emergency repairs, Dubois brought Kuro and Marie into the building where the firefly memories were kept and set about interrogating them.

  He had done a pretty good job at pretending to be the concerned parent until he had gotten them in private. Once the door was closed, though, and they were alone with nothing but a metal table between them in a room full of seashells, he dropped the act. The Hound in him emerged, and he stared them down with his predatory eyes until one of them cracked.

  Marie shattered like glass. She wasn’t used to this kind of thing. She explained that she didn’t know it was gold. She thought it was just fool’s gold, a pretty rock to decorate her dorm room. When the vice principals had checked if they had any jewelry or electronics with them, she’d said no. It couldn’t have possibly been real gold. You can’t just get that much gold from a schoolmate in the Blandlands. It was ridiculous. She almost shouted her defence at the Hound, but Kuro could see her shaking and fighting back tears.

  Once Marie’s confession had sputtered to a stop, Dubois turned to Kuro with an accusing stare.

  “What?” said Kuro.

  “Could you explain how she got that gold in the first place?” asked Dubois.

  “I gave it to her for Solstice,” said Kuro.

  Dubois just stared at him and rapped his fingertips on the table. When Kuro failed to elaborate, he said, “How?”

  “I slipped it into her bag before she got on the bus,” said Kuro. “So it would be a surprise.”

  “You know what I mean,” responded Dubois, starting to lose his calm.

  “I really don’t,” said Kuro.

  “I mean,” he leaned in and almost growled at Kuro. “How did you get gold out through the veil?”

  “The normal way,” said Kuro.

  “There is no normal way,” replied Dubois.

  Something dawned on Kuro that he really should have considered before. “Is it illegal?”

  Dubois leaned back and threw up his arms. “Shockingly no,” he said. “Impossible things usually aren’t.”

  “So, are we in trouble?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dubois. “You probably should be, but you haven’t actually broken any rules. The real problem, and this is a very real problem, is that apparently it’s possible to get gold out of the veil.”

  “It’s not really that hard,” said Kuro. “A stray could do it with the right ingredients.”

  “You delight in making my job difficult, don’t you, Kuro?”

  While Kuro didn’t want to admit it, as he knew it was a dangerous pastime, annoying Dubois did bring him a certain amount of satisfaction. “No, sir,” he said.

  “How did you learn to do it?” asked the Hound.

  Kuro felt his jaw clamp shut and his heart rate slow just thinking about answering the question. Dubois was quick to react. “Never mind,” he said. “I can guess. Even behind bars, that man is causing trouble. Who else knows what you did?”

  “Nobody,” said Kuro. “Solstice gifts are secret.”

  “Good,” said Dubois. “Marie?”

  Marie jumped at being addressed. She had been ignored for the past couple of minutes and was doing her best to disappear completely into the scenery. “My parents and my brothers and sisters, but they think it is just a pretty rock. Arthur and Moira, and Charlotte Cook, they might guess. Nobody else.”

  “So now I’m left with a bit of a problem,” said Dubois. “A school child knowing how to smuggle gold into the Blandlands could be quite an issue, particularly one with a bad reputation. Even knowing that it’s possible is troublesome.”

  “Are you going to take our memories?” asked Marie, sounding glum but resigned.

  “That’s possible, but I’d rather not,” said Dubois. “Carving out the specific memories would be a challenge, and I’m not trained to do it myself. If I have to bring in someone else to help, they’d know, too.”

  “What if we promise not to tell?” said Kuro.

  “I’d love to say that I trust you, Kuro.” Dubois didn’t bother finishing the sentence.

  “I mean a proper promise,” said Kuro. He climbed from his chair and found a sharp edge on a chipped seashell. He sliced his thumb open just a little and let a drop of bloo
d fall to the ground. “I, Kuro, promise you, Talen Dubois, that I will never tell anyone about getting gold out through the veil.”

  With that, it was done. Kuro felt the promise take hold and file into place with all his other magical obligations.

  Dubois clutched the table and shuddered slightly as the other half of the promise took hold, filling him with the knowledge that the promise was true and binding. “What in the realm was that?” he demanded.

  “A promise,” said Kuro. “A real one that I can’t break without dying.”

  “Where did you pick up that kind of magic?” he asked.

  “Can’t say,” said Kuro almost automatically. He could say, but that would let Dubois know about Bindal, whom he had promised to protect, along with all other lutin. “I promised.”

  “Right,” said the Hound, looking at Kuro as if he had grown a second head. “I guess that solves half the problem, but we are talking more about this another time.”

  “No, we aren’t,” replied Kuro. “I just promised.”

  Dubois ground his teeth in frustration. Rather than dealing with Kuro, he turned on Marie. “What shall we do with you?” he said.

  “Just tell people that I made a mistake,” she said sullenly. “I’m just a dumb Blandlander. Maybe I forgot my phone in my bag or something. They wouldn’t even believe me if I said what happened. It’s impossible, right? They’d say I was crazy.”

  Dubois considered that for a moment and found he was satisfied. “That’s more true than it should be. Are you all right with taking the blame?”

  “Do I have much choice?” she asked, staring at the floor. “Even if you take my memories, it will be the same. I just won’t remember why.”

  “It’s settled, then,” said Dubois. “You better get back on the boat. It won’t take long for them to patch those holes, and the longer I keep you, the more rumours will start. Take care, you two. And Kuro, do try to stay out of trouble.”

  The voyage through the Blandlands was supremely awkward. The entire school knew that Kuro and Marie had been taken away by the Hounds. They complained to each other about being delayed and made their displeasure known by speaking just loudly enough about Blandos and thieves to be overheard.

  Charlie and Arthur accepted Marie’s story about forgetting something in her backpack. Moira, however, was scandalized. She couldn’t believe that Kuro had been returned to the ferry after such a wanton act of destruction. She expressed repeatedly her opinion that Kuro was a thief and a villain, and this was only more proof of it. She lamented that her brother continued to associate with such a miscreant, though she made no move to leave their company. It made for a very long journey.

  During the walk to the lodge, Arthur tried and failed several times to start a conversation. “I liked the book,” he said.

  “I’m glad,” said Kuro.

  That was followed by several minutes of silence.

  “The card was good, too.”

  “Oh, good.”

  More silence.

  “I was surprised that you gave me a clue.”

  “I thought you’d like it.”

  The effort involved in climbing the Summer hill stopped attempts at talking for a while.

  “It was interesting,” said Arthur once he’d caught his breath.

  “That’s nice,” said Kuro.

  The weather had cooled before Arthur spoke again.

  “I talked to my father,” he said in the same unwavering tone he’d said everything else, so it took Kuro a moment to notice the dramatic change in subject and even longer to craft a response that was more than a single profanity. When Kuro didn’t answer, Arthur continued. “He said you were right.”

  Kuro was not in the frame of mind to handle that kind of statement. He tripped to a stop and stared at Arthur, mouth agape, attempting to make sense of what he’d heard.

  “He said I should trust my friends,” Arthur explained, his features shifting to look like his father’s as he quoted. “That’s more important than finding a burglar.”

  Kuro worked to find a way to square what Arthur was saying with what he knew of Dubois and failed. The idea that he and Dubois would agree about anything was unsettling; that it was about how to deal with crimes was downright unthinkable. He almost shouted at Arthur for yet again upending his reality. Instead, he settled on a civil and eloquent “Oh.”

  “I crossed you guys off the list.” Arthur retrieved his book of case notes and showed a line through Kuro’s and Marie’s names.

  Kuro was moved. Even if Arthur was willing to stop investigating his friends, that didn’t mean they were innocent. That he would eliminate them as possibilities went against everything he’d ever said about the proper way to do detective work. He had clearly spent time wrestling with the idea because the page had been worn thin by erasing and replacing the names and lines through them repeatedly. Kuro noticed the same for his sister’s name, which he had added to the end of the list.

  “Are you going to keep investigating?” asked Kuro.

  “I think so,” said Arthur. “But just for fun. If my dad couldn’t solve the mystery, I don’t really think that we can.”

  Kuro was pleased to discover that there were some benefits to the reverence Arthur held for his adoptive dad. “Do you have a plan as to what to do next?”

  “No,” Arthur sighed. “I keep looking at the clues I have, and they don’t make sense. It’s no good to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”

  “What?” replied Kuro. The last part sounded like a strange thing for Arthur to say.

  “It was in the book you gave me,” said Arthur. “It’s about a very good Blandlands detective. What it means is that we tried to find clues to fit our ideas, but we should do it the other way. We need to find more facts. Maybe if there are more burglaries, we will learn something new.”

  Kuro was glad that his friend was willing to let go of his obsession for a while, at least. He hoped that the burglaries were over so that there was no reason to slide back into constant suspicion.

  They reached the lodge at long last and went straight to their dorm, Arthur to dump his bags, and Kuro to take the much-needed nap he’d been unable to get on the boat. They pushed open their door, and Kuro swore. He was much too tired to deal with what he found.

  Arrayed across the floor beneath the open window of their little dorm room were a collection of objects, including hairbrushes, hand mirrors, a pair of shoes, a jewelry box, and a leather-bound book. They were unmistakably the items that had been stolen from the other students over the course of the year.

  Twenty-three

  Candy Castles

  Alarms were raised, Hounds were summoned, their room was turned upside down looking for more information, and the two boys were interrogated late into the night by both the vice principal and the Guard. The grand result was that Kuro slept through the first day of class.

  The Hounds concluded that the thief was probably a student who had finally lost their nerve and thrown the items into Kuro’s room to cast more suspicion on him. The objects stank too much of swamp mud for their familiars to pick up any other scent, so they had no good way of tracking down the thief. They didn’t try that hard, though. So far as they were concerned, these were petty thefts and student pranks. Nobody had been hurt, and now the items had been recovered.

  Kuro was inclined to agree. It was a rational conclusion based on the evidence, and it meant that the Hounds wouldn’t be bothering him for a while.

  When the noise of students returning from class finally roused Kuro, he shuffled out to find Arthur and Charlie excitedly discussing their new clues in the lounge, accompanied by their familiars. At least Kuro assumed the squirrel scampering over the sofa was Arthur’s. It might just be one of the braver residents of the autumn forest.

  “No Marie?” Kuro asked as he navigated between Henrietta’s legs to get a space on the couch.

  “Library,”
said Charlie with a shrug that told Kuro she’d tried and failed to get her roommate to come home with them.

  “She said she wanted some peace and quiet,” explained Arthur.

  Kuro waited for some indication that Arthur found that suspicious or noteworthy, but instead, he justified it. “She still feels bad about ruining the boat yesterday.”

  “Are people still being mean to her?” asked Kuro.

  “Not to her face,” said Charlie. “But you know how the rich kids are, all talking behind her back and tittering behind their fans. None of them have the guts to actually say anything to her face ’cause they’re afraid she’ll beat them up.”

  It never failed to amaze Kuro how afraid wizards were of a fist fight. Despite being able to hurl lightning and conjure beasts from nothing, the idea of getting punched made most wilt like a rose in the desert. It was especially silly since, so far as Kuro knew, Marie had never been in a fight. She had angry eyes and a good collection of swear words. That and coming from the Blandlands was more than enough to give her a reputation as a brute.

  “I don’t blame her for wanting to hide,” said Kuro.

  “You solve all your problems by hiding,” accused Charlie. It was a fair assessment. “Want to solve the mystery with us? Arthur was telling me about all the clues you found last night.”

  “We didn’t really find them,” said Kuro. “Someone left them in our room.”

  Charlie crossed her arms and scowled at Kuro. “Stop spoiling it,” she said. “You’re letting facts get in the way of good stories.”

  Arthur recoiled in horror, clutching his notebook to his chest. Kuro plunged in to try to rescue the situation. “What did you learn?” he asked.

  Shaken free of the terrifying grip of Charlie’s whimsy, Arthur turned to share his precious clues. “I examined the stolen items before the Hounds arrived,” he said. “Each one was expensive, but none of them was very special. They weren’t enchanted or unique, and I think they were all new. Except for the mud, they were in good condition. No signs of wear.”