Volume 2: Burglary

by R. A. Consell

  Twenty-four

  Questionable Successes

  The weeks started to whip by for Kuro. The relentless demands of school left little time for much else, and what free time he could find was largely spent visiting Bindal. He had become much more predictable and more eager to see Kuro, mostly due to the collection of candy he carried for the lutin.

  Their lessons had devolved to sessions of throwing rocks at the veil. They both still tried to do the other’s magic but were losing hope that it was possible. It seemed increasingly clear that wizards couldn’t do lutin magic, lutin couldn’t do wizard magic, and Kuro couldn’t do much of either.

  That is, until one late evening in early February, something struck Kuro.

  It wasn’t a brilliant insight or a clever idea. It was a rock.

  Bindal had lobbed it from the far side of the veil, and Kuro, not being able to see it coming, walked straight into it. It cracked him in the cheekbone, and in the moment of blind vengeful anger that follows any blow to the face, Kuro instinctively fought back. He hurled the rock back from where it had come, neither looking nor thinking.

  He sank to the ground clutching his throbbing face and wiping away the steady stream of tears from his one eye as Bindal stepped through the veil wincing and clutching his shoulder.

  They both took breaths, ready to blame each other for the assault when the true consequence of the situation dawned on them simultaneously.

  The rock, rather than crossing the veil and splashing harmlessly into the bay, had skipped over the bay entirely. It had ignored the whole notion of the veil and travelled as though the two shores were connected, just as the lutin did.

  “How did you do it?” demanded Bindal.

  “I don’t know,” said Kuro, “I just forgot that I couldn’t for a minute.”

  He tried to remember what was going through his head when he threw the rock. Pain, it was mostly pain. But that pain had drowned out everything else. He didn’t look at what he was doing; he didn’t notice his surroundings or even try to aim. He just hurt and knew, in that moment, that he needed to send the rock back where it had come from.

  It was a little like the time in the cave when he had nearly summoned his familiar. He was tired and cold and afraid then, too distracted for his doubts to take hold.

  Neither head trauma nor mortal terror were the sort of thing Kuro wanted to reproduce, but that experience proved it was possible. Kuro could do it, so long as he could forget that he couldn’t.

  Bindal was eager to continue experiments with Kuro. Kuro declined at first, mostly because Bindal clearly expected most of these tests to involve throwing more rocks at him. Once they had agreed that bludgeoning Kuro wasn’t a sustainable method, Bindal became more open to other options.

  “I can follow you when you blink places, right?” Kuro said.

  “Yes, it is very rude,” replied Bindal.

  “What if I can follow you . . .” he was about to say, “through the veil,” but he realized that if that was the way he thought about it, it probably wouldn’t work. “If I hold your hand, and close my eyes, what happens if you just pull me along?”

  Bindal considered the option. He was curious enough to try it, even if it was less exciting than pelting Kuro with stones.

  Kuro shut his eyes and held tight to Bindal’s hand as he was led blindly forward. He tried to focus on the hurt in his face and Bindal’s grip, to forget about the world around him and any indication of where he was. His feet betrayed him, though. He could feel the uneven ground of the rocky shoreline and couldn’t help but attend to it as he tripped along behind his guide.

  He felt something in his arm stretch out unnaturally, and doubt gripped him as he took another step forward. It felt as though his whole body were being stretched and squeezed simultaneously, a wave of pain and nausea overtook him, and he stumbled forward and vomited into the snow.

  “It worked!” Bindal clapped and danced at his success.

  He opened his eyes and found that he was in a different landscape altogether. No longer was he on Avalon at the edge of Winter; he was elbow deep in snow in what could only be the kingdom of Alfheim. Behind him was the wafting veil and beyond that the raging, ice-filled waters of the bay. Out of sight in the distance was Avalon Island. They’d just crossed miles of Blandlands in a single step as if the two shores were connected.

  It had worked. It almost hadn’t. Kuro wondered if he’d have been torn in half had it not, but that was the very sensation that had made him forget about his doubts and worry more about his innards being tied in knots.

  Bindal was so excited that he grabbed Kuro and pulled him back the other way. The trip back was less horrible, but only slightly. Kuro gave equal weight to the possibilities that it was because he knew it was possible and that his stomach was already empty.

  Bindal was eager to do it again. He celebrated his great and phenomenal power to drag a monster around wherever he wanted. Kuro was less inclined. The point had been made, and he was sore and ill.

  He was able to stop his partner from inflicting any more harm with a suggestion. “If I can follow your magic,” Kuro said, holding a cold smooth stone to his swelling cheek. “Maybe you can piggyback on mine.”

  “Explain better,” ordered Bindal.

  “Maybe I can cast the spell for you, or do the wizard half of it,” he suggested.

  “Yes,” agreed Bindal. “That is good. Do it now.”

  Kuro had to admit he had no idea how to do it, but it sounded good. Bindal was annoyed that Kuro would offer an idea with such promise and then fail to follow through on it immediately. He could only be soothed by a hearty application of gingerbread and jujubes. Kuro escaped without any other harm befalling him by assuring the lutin that he would do some research and come back with candy and ideas.

  Kuro was at a loss as to how to do the research, however. He couldn’t think of a way to ask anyone without raising suspicions. He had to figure it out himself. The library seemed like the most logical starting point, but it was difficult since he was hesitant to ask the librarian for guidance, or even have her notice he was there.

  He slipped in undetected and prowled the rows of shelves in search of promising volumes. His hours of investigation over the week yielded some moderate success, with a book about spells cast in pairs, and a story about someone helping a wizard complete spells after losing their arm.

  He also found something unexpected in the library: Marie.

  The fact that she’d isolated herself in the library wasn’t surprising. She’d been gloomy and evasive ever since the incident with the gold on the ferry. Kuro felt terrible that his attempt to make her feel better had just driven her further away but couldn’t think of a way to fix it. He couldn’t even bring himself to talk to her. He just watched her through the bookshelves before creeping away, unseen.

  He tried to work up the courage to face her each time he saw her there, but he ended up spying on her accidentally. He wouldn’t have called it spying, except that she was doing something very strange.

  She wasn’t doing homework or reading for pleasure. She was leafing through big old tomes and history books. For the first few days, Kuro tried to ignore it. He couldn’t help but notice that she kept returning to the same section in the library every time he saw her, and the villain of curiosity quietly directed him past those shelves when he wasn’t paying attention.

  It was the section on familiars.

  The source of Marie’s gloom and odd behaviour crystallized for Kuro. She still couldn’t conjure a familiar. She’d claimed months ago that it didn’t matter, and that she had moved on to other things, but she’d been lying. Her nights alone searching for tree frogs, her refusal for aid, her self-isolation, and now her obsessive reading—it all pointed to the same thing. She’d been trying and failing to summon her familiar for months. She wanted it badly but was afraid to admit it.

  Kuro couldn’t blame her. He felt the same way, though may
be not as strongly.

  He wanted to offer to help her, to team up in their incompetence, but he was sure she’d refuse it. She’d probably deny that she even cared. Besides, the last time he’d tried to do something nice for her, they’d both ended up talking to the Hounds.

  He thought that maybe, just maybe, if he could help Bindal succeed, then he might be able to genuinely give Marie the help she needed. He resolved himself to the task. He’d help them both. He wouldn’t even worry about whether it was possible.

  It didn’t take very long before Kuro found his resolve wavering. While he was quite committed to the task, the rest of the world had failed to make any accommodations for his new obligations. It was difficult to engage in secret arcane delving in the library when it was full of other people.

  It was the time of year when every teacher was tired of giving lectures and grading tests, so instead they assigned large projects that kept the students out of their hair for a few weeks. That meant not only that the library was constantly populated by other students, but that Kuro was also burdened with several reports of his own, which ate into his research time.

  To add to Kuro’s concerns, he’d heard that the Avalon Royal Defence League was on the hunt for him again. He had hoped that the return of the stolen goods and the long drought of burglaries would protect him from the wrath of Moira and Azalea, but that was not the case.

  He’d successfully dodged them for weeks, but his luck could only last so long. One evening, just before the school library closed, Azalea found him. He had hidden himself away in a back corner to avoid prying eyes, but that also left him cornered when she pounced.

  She whipped into his alcove, barring his exit, and demanded, “Did you read my journal?” It was more of an accusation than a question.

  “What?” Kuro had no idea what she was on about. “No. What journal? When?”

  “The journal that you stole.” She balled her fists in anger. “You read it, didn’t you?”

  A mote of clarity had entered the interrogation, and Kuro made a leap. The soggy book that had been with the other stolen goods was hers. “I didn’t,” Kuro tried to soothe her. “I couldn’t have if I wanted to. It was completely soaked.”

  “I meant before you dumped it in a swamp for a week,” she shot back.

  Her normally pallid face was flushed, and Kuro felt the heat rising in the area. He quickly scanned for an escape, partly out of self-preservation, and partly to save the library from being burned to the ground. There was a closed window nearby. That would do.

  An explosion of air burst it open, and Kuro flung himself to safety. He plummeted earthwards, relieved to be out of danger, landed on a cushion of air, and dashed to freedom. He rightly guessed that Azalea wasn’t prepared to follow him out the window, and the four flights of stairs would slow her enough that she’d no chance of catching him.

  The first thing he did once he was certain he wouldn’t need to start dodging lightning was thank the wind. He didn’t know if the coyote had been speaking literally about being loved by it, but he thought it good to be polite just in case. If the wind did have feelings, he’d been pretty ungrateful up until that point.

  The next thing was to ponder what she’d said. She was right to be upset about her journal being taken and possibly read. He didn’t blame her for her anger. But Arthur had said that his name was in the book, that it was about the only legible thing in there. It seemed likely that the journal was like Arthur’s folio of clues. It was probably full of notes on the burglaries that she wouldn’t want her prime suspect gaining access to.

  The most interesting part, though, was what she’d said about how long it had been in the swamp. That was a curiosity he needed to share with Arthur.

  He found his roommate in the lodge lounge, already invested in his investigations. He was drafting floor plans of the residences and plotting the burglaries on them. He clutched his notes and complained at Kuro for bringing the wind inside with him.

  Once the breeze that had pushed Kuro across campus politely died away, Arthur reopened his notes and presented them to Kuro. “Have a look at this,” he said. “Where do you think the thief will strike next?”

  Each burglary was carefully plotted on his maps with names of the victims and the dates of occurrence. Kuro’s immediate inclination was that there was the opposite of a pattern. Every theft was in a completely different place, a different wing or floor of each residence. It looked so random that Kuro wondered aloud if that was intentional.

  “I thought the same thing,” said Arthur, reclaiming his maps. “But never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.”

  “My boy?” Kuro repeated, raising an eyebrow at his friend.

  “It was in the book you gave me,” Arthur explained, dropping his eyes to the floor. “Look, there have been at least two burglaries in each residence, and a boy and a girl in each as well.”

  “That’s as spread out as they could be, isn’t it?” concluded Kuro.

  “Yes,” said Arthur. “Perfectly spread out. One burglary on every floor that a first- or second-year student might stay, except for us. Nothing has happened here.”

  Kuro had only wondered a little about the lack of burglaries in the lodge. The students there were the least wealthy, and none of them was of any importance, so it was of no surprise that the lodge hadn’t been raided, but it did make for a curious exception. “What do you think it means?”

  Arthur tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Either the thief isn’t interested in the lodge, or they can’t get in.”

  “I’d guess the first,” said Kuro. “The lodge is the easiest of them to break into.”

  Arthur raised a finger in protest. “You said yourself that the burglar isn’t robbing things the way you would. Maybe their methods don’t work here. We would need more evidence to know for certain.”

  “Are you enjoying this?” asked Kuro.

  “Very much!” replied his friend.

  “Want another clue?”

  Arthur scrambled for a fresh piece of paper, but Kuro wasn’t going to give anything up so easily. “When you opened the journal, how wet was it?”

  “Very,” replied Arthur as quickly as he could so as not to delay the tantalizing clue. “Soaked through.”

  “And the mud.” Kuro let his roommate drown in anticipation as he slowly confirmed his suspicions. “Had it soaked into the pages as well?”

  “Yes. They were all brown.”

  “And the ink, it had bled badly?”

  “Nearly illegible. I told you.” His pen hovered over the page waiting for the new information Kuro had promised.

  “How long do you think a book would need to be in a swamp to get like that?”

  Arthur’s features drifted as he processed that thought. “Days at least,” he said.

  “Weird, right?” said Kuro. “If they just wanted to get the scent off before returning them, they wouldn’t need to soak them for days.”

  Arthur nodded his agreement and added, “If they wanted to keep the things they stole, they wouldn’t hide them in a swamp. They’d get ruined.”

  Kuro concluded the thought. “And if they wanted to get rid of them, wouldn’t they just tie them to a rock and toss them off the Summer cliffs into the Blandlands?”

  “Curious,” said Arthur. “Very odd.”

  “You sound like your dad,” replied Kuro.

  “Thanks!”

  Despite the mountain of barriers being thrown up, Kuro still managed to find time to work with Bindal. It was always after dark, and frequently in lousy weather, but they made the time, and they even made progress.

  Following Bindal through the veil became easier with every trip across the bay, to the point that it wasn’t even uncomfortable. Kuro just had to think about something else while it happened. With practice, he could do more than just follow; he could lead Bindal across.

  One night, something even more remark
able happened. As Kuro took Bindal’s hand to pull him through the veil, he found that they were already on the other side.

  Kuro shook his head as his senses worked to reconcile the new scenery with the lack of motion.

  Kuro was about to ask Bindal what had happened when he was cut off with a counter accusation.

  “How did you do that?” demanded the lutin.

  “I thought you did it,” replied Kuro.

  “No,” said Bindal with absolute conviction. “It was you. Do not take me places without permission.”

  Kuro was so busy apologizing that it took him a few moments to realize what had happened. When it sunk in that he had blinked across the bay rather than walking through the veil, that he had pulled Bindal rather than following, he was dizzy with excitement.

  It was a struggle to get Bindal to agree to try it again. Kuro was a monster, after all; he might do something terrible. It might be a trap. Kuro had to soothe and assure Bindal that they’d only go to the graveyard. That Kuro wouldn’t try to take him anywhere dangerous.

  It took time to find the right frame of mind. Kuro had to forget about the rules of the world, ignore everything his senses were telling him, focus entirely on his inner feelings, and then just know where they were meant to be.

  When he opened his eyes, there they were. Without a step or a breath, they had crossed the bay and a good chunk of the island and were standing in the middle of the graveyard.

  Kuro was giddy with his newfound ability. It was more than power—it was freedom. He could grab hold of a lutin and be anywhere he’d ever been instantly. He could leave the school and wander into Detritus Lane, never to be seen again.

  That freedom changed something inside Kuro. Avalon Academy had been a prison for him. He’d been forced by Talen Dubois to go and was unable to leave. The miles of freezing Blandlands water held him captive. Even if he had grown to like it there and had people he cared about and a warm bed and delicious meals, it was still a cage.

  The moment he’d blinked, however, the walls of the cage had fallen away. He could leave at any time, not just to the frozen wilderness on the far shore but back to Detritus and Bytown, where he could disappear and live the life he chose. That simple choice changed the island from a personal prison into the same school that everyone else was attending. Every day that Kuro woke up and had breakfast with his friends was another day that he’d chosen to stay. Kuro the inmate had been freed, and Kuro the student wanted to stay.