That angered the man, and he turned to point at Kuro with an accusing finger. “They did no such thing. They enchanted you, loaded you up with spells and toyed with your brain, but I did the important work. I, using the Blandland science that wizards dismiss so readily, was the one to blend human and lutin genetics, to grow a person from a single manufactured cell in a petri dish. I created life, like a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein. You’re my monster, not theirs. As usual, the stray gets none of the credit.”
The raccoon wedged itself behind the bench and started to climb the back leg. Kuro tried to keep the doctor’s attention. “You must be very smart,” he said.
“Naturally,” replied the man, sipping casually at his coffee before returning it to the workbench. “I’m a renowned geneticist in the Blandlands.”
“Why are you staying here, then?” asked Kuro.
“Spending years posing as a servant to bratty, ungrateful wizard kids, you mean?” He sneered as he said it. “All part of the plan.”
“What plan?” asked Kuro.
“The plan,” said the doctor with a hint of madness. “The master’s grand plan, for which we are all just pieces on a chessboard. He will dismantle the courts and build the fey realm anew.”
“Why are you helping them, though?” asked Kuro. “That’s wizards’ stuff. You said you’re a stray.”
The doctor began to lecture like a teacher at a chalkboard. “There are things here that could save thousands of lives out in the Blandlands, but the wizards in power don’t want to share with the outside world. They don’t want to even try to break through the barrier or find ways to bring ordinary folk in. Think about the advances in science we could make if we could access the plants and animals here, if we could study magic with proper instruments. With just these samples of blood, I might be able to untangle what makes wizards special. Maybe make every Blandlander and stray into one. It’s a noble cause.”
As he rambled, the raccoon braved the top of the workbench. One hesitant step at a time it moved over the open surface of the table, ready to make a mad dash if it was spotted. Its movements were fearful, pathetic, and entirely familiar to Kuro, like watching himself. The raccoon reached the flask the doctor had presented with the anaesthetic in it, stood up on its hind legs, poked its arm through the top, and dipped its paw into the liquid inside.
Kuro tried not to visibly cringe. He’d believed for a moment that the raccoon had a plan. But it seemed more like a raccoon than he had hoped. Now Kuro just prayed that it wouldn’t lick the potion and fall asleep on the bench.
As the doctor ended his rant and began to turn back to his work, Kuro quickly interrupted, giving his raccoon a chance to move out of sight. “So that’s what you’re doing here? Finding a cure for blandness?”
“Much less than I’d like,” the doctor complained. “No, this is a clever plan, nearly a decade in the making, to discover the identity of the heir to the Summer throne. I have been here for five years, gathering the supplies, building trust, learning the ways and places of the school. All the master’s idea, brilliant, really.” The doctor’s eyes went weird, and his face twisted slightly whenever he spoke about the master or the plan. It was reverence more than respect. “We needed a sample of every single possible heir’s blood. Only a dozen or so candidates, really. Something a lutin could do easily in a night if he had access and the proper training.
“All we needed to do was to sneak him into the residences, let him explore the relevant rooms when the school was empty for the holidays. Then he could teleport between all the candidates in one night, leave no trace, just a couple of woozy children.”
The raccoon on the bench carefully made its way around the racks of blood phials to the doctor’s coffee. It put its potion-soaked paw into the cup and swirled it around before retreating. It was a good plan. It was what Kuro would do.
“There were little hiccups, of course,” continued the doctor. “Not problems with the master’s plan, mind you. The plan was perfect. Just flaws in the personnel. It took longer than I expected to work out how to get a lutin past a salt ring. I would have liked to be prepared last year. That’s my failing, not a problem with the plan. I couldn’t get into the Autumn Lodge, you see. The lutin there were too wary, and I had no reason to be there. No matter, little Bindal here found a way in on its own, must have found whatever gap there was in the defences that let the other lutin through in the first place. First useful thing it’s done. Also, we never got a list of the candidates from the master. Simple enough to solve—we just took a sample from everyone it could possibly be.”
“So, everyone except me?” Kuro asked, trying to keep the doctor talking while the raccoon escaped down the back of the bench.
“Of course. I know everything that went into your blood. I know which pieces of which wizards you’re made of. You might be interested to know that you’re related to that knife-wielding lutin on your back; his genetics were a key component in your creation. You’re practically brothers.”
Kuro felt the grip on him slacken slightly as both he and Bindal grappled with that information, but the knife didn’t waver.
The doctor noticed their shock and responded with a smug grin. “So, you see, there’s no chance of you being the heir, and throwing a bit of suspicion your way has been convenient. I’m a little bit sorry for complicating your life, but you were made as part of the plan, so in a small way, you were serving your purpose.”
Kuro silently begged the man to keep talking, for his mouth to get dry, for him to take a big gulp of his cooling coffee. “What about the Hounds?” Kuro asked. “Why didn’t they catch you?”
“I out-thought them ages ago.” The doctor laughed at his own cleverness. “I snuck this lutin into the rooms inside pillows during my normal duties, with orders to wait until I was otherwise occupied to break out. I always had an alibi, and my scent was always expected to be there. The cleverest part was that the Hounds’ familiars couldn’t smell the solution I put on the feathers. It disrupts magical fields, so the feathers basically didn’t exist to those dogs.”
The sound of the simmering potion boiling over pulled him away from Kuro. He cursed at Kuro, himself, and the burner as he deftly regained control of his boiling golden goo. He was so focused on the roiling disaster, that he didn’t notice the back half of a raccoon tail slip down behind his bench.
“You distracted me,” he snarled at Kuro. “It’s been too long since I could speak about my work. You caught me bragging. Stay still and stay quiet. I’ll give you your medicine when I’m done.”
Kuro obeyed, eyes fixed on the cup of coffee.
The doctor worked furiously, popping corks and adding drops. He reacted with a start at one of the phials. After he added the golden drop, the red blood faded to green and began to glow faintly. “At last!” he shouted holding up the little glass container. “Do you know what this means?”
He grabbed his coffee and took a celebratory swig. He screwed up his face in disgust at the flavour and looked into the cup as if demanding it explain itself. A look of anger swept over the doctor’s face, and then a wave of confusion.
He shook his head, trying to clear the building fog. When he noticed the glowing phial in his hand, he was surprised all over, then again noticed the foul flavour in his mouth.
He looked at Kuro. “How did you do that? Bindal, I told you . . . something about if he tried magic.”
“No magic, Doctor,” Bindal answered with fear in his voice. “I did what I was told. It was the raccoon.”
The doctor followed Bindal’s eyes beneath his bench and then stumbled back in surprise. The raccoon bared its teeth and hissed, trying to frighten the man, but was no more intimidating than Kuro would be wielding a butter knife.
The anaesthetic was taking effect, but Kuro knew it would take minutes for him to fall fully asleep. Until then the doctor would be a disoriented and forgetful problem. Kuro hoped he would wait it out without having to move, and t
hat the doctor wouldn’t clear his head enough to give Bindal more dangerous directions.
The doctor stumbled and tried to find his bearings but failed. He crashed into his bench, knocking over the trays of samples, and tipping over the burner. Flames chased the spilled fuel across the desk, igniting his notes and lapping at the wooden shelves full of containers of questionable substances.
He retreated from the growing fire, and when he looked for something to put it out with, forgot it was there. Instead, he found Kuro again. He couldn’t remember why he was upset with his creation, but he definitely remembered that he was. He lurched towards Kuro, looking to attack.
“How badly will you stab me if I move?” he asked Bindal urgently.
“Not badly,” answered the lutin on his back.
Kuro dodged to the side of a clumsy kick from the doctor and felt the small knife sink into his shoulder. “Ooooow!” he shouted.
“It is not bad,” Bindal informed Kuro.
Kuro’s shoulder disagreed with the assessment, and quite strongly, but at least it was his right arm, and it hadn’t been in the chest. He could still move and didn’t have a knife in his lung.
Kuro used the pain to help him forget about the growing catastrophe in the room and try to pull Bindal and himself to safety once more, but Bindal pulled back, keeping them trapped in the room as it filled with smoke.
“I cannot go,” said Bindal. “I was told. I promised to do what I was told.”
Kuro could probably force the lutin off him and run away, but that would leave Bindal trapped in a room full of fire, unable to escape without permission. “Do you want me to rescue you?” Kuro asked.
“Yes,” said Bindal.
Kuro tried to think quickly, but the growing fire, building smoke, and thrashing man challenged careful reasoning. “Can you drink something?” asked Kuro.
“Yes, but I am not thirsty.”
Kuro danced through the legs of the doctor and was grateful that he hadn’t told Bindal to stab him every time he moved.
The doctor turned to follow, then saw the fire and began to panic again.
Kuro grabbed the cup of coffee and thrust it at Bindal’s face. “Drink this!”
Still clinging to Kuro’s back, Bindal dropped the scalpel, took the cup, and gulped down the remains of the doctor’s drugged drink.
Bindal was small, and the dose was large. It only took a few seconds before he started to nod off and become forgetful. “Tell me what is happening,” he ordered Kuro around a lazy tongue.
“I’m saving you,” said Kuro.
“You kept your promise,” replied Bindal as he slipped from Kuro’s back. “Good monster.”
The rampaging delirious doctor teetered toward them, coughing violently from the smoke that had filled the upper half of the room. If Kuro left now, he would probably pass out from the anaesthetic and be consumed in the fire.
Kuro hesitated. He couldn’t just let the man die. He didn’t have much time or skill, but he had to do something. The wind offered its aid, whipping up the flames and spreading embers around, and making everything worse. The terror of suffocating in a tiny underground cell full of fire settled on him, and he focused that into an icy blast. He hoped that the chill would extinguish the flame, but instead the sudden cold cracked some of the glass jars full of alchemy supplies, spilling their contents on the table and adding fuel to the fire.
With even less time to act, Kuro unslung his bag from his shoulder and put it under one of the doctor’s clumsy footfalls in a desperate attempt to rescue the man.
The doctor tripped and stumbled, falling waist deep into the satchel. He fought against gravity and tried to pull himself out, but the raccoon leaped on him. In the struggle they both fell into the space with a crash and a cry of pain.
As more containers burst and flames spread all around, Kuro spotted the phial of glowing green blood on the floor, cracked and leaking, with the identity of the Summer heir written on the side, just out of sight. He was curious. Desperately curious, but there was a time and a place for curiosity, and this was not it.
He grabbed hold of Bindal, no longer in any condition to fight the pull. He let the pain in his arm and the desperation in his chest distract him from the world around him and brought them all away.
Twenty-nine
A Silver Bracelet
Given how many times Kuro had visited the school nurse over the past two years, he knew very little about the man. He was very good at his job, which Kuro appreciated. He had a gentle touch and a compassionate tone. When he asked about Kuro’s injuries, there was never a hint of judgement or accusation, just a need to know what he needed to fix. He left the interrogations to the principals. His office was a place for healing and treatment.
Despite regular visits, however, Kuro realized that he had never learned his name. He knew nothing about the nurse beyond that he had salt and pepper hair and a mild Acadian accent. Who was he? How did he end up on Avalon? Where did nurses learn their trade?
He considered these things to avoid thinking about the stitches going into his shoulder. The nurse had numbed it with a salve, but Kuro found the idea of being sewn back together more distressing than the pain of it.
“All done,” said the nurse, inspecting his work and nodding with approval. “Well done staying so still. It’s a good clean cut, and if you take care of it, it should heal just fine.”
Kuro nodded obediently.
“Come by every morning for the next four days, and I’ll check your bandages and give you a potion to help speed the healing. Don’t pick at the stitches. The spider silk should dissolve on its own and fall out when it’s ready. I’m going to put your arm in a sling now to help to keep you from using it. Do you have a classmate who could take notes for you for a few days?”
“I’m left handed,” said Kuro.
“Well, that is fortunate, I suppose.” The nurse stepped away and started to clean up. “We’re all finished here, but you’re welcome to stay and rest longer if you like.”
Kuro wondered why he would want to, but the nurse gave a meaningful look at the door.
His office was a haven, but something was waiting for him in the hallway. A principal at best, but likely something worse.
Kuro had managed to avoid the fallout from the morning’s adventures for nearly an hour. He’d dumped the delirious doctor outside Principal McCutcheon’s office, left the sleeping Bindal with the lutin at the lodge, and then tried to patch himself up. He had never really expected to get away with the whole thing without being found out, but his instinct was to hide everything, and it was a hard habit to break.
Vice Principal Flint had been the one to find him. He was full of accusations and questions related to drugged students, unconscious servants, and fires inside historical sites. Being covered in his own blood gave Kuro a brief reprieve, but being mildly stabbed only delayed the inevitable.
A gentle knock at the door brought the nurse away and left Kuro alone with his thoughts. A lot had happened in a very short time, and Kuro had been more concerned with surviving the ordeal than contemplating the details of what had been said.
That man was one of Kuro’s creators. The heir to the Summer throne was on Avalon. Somebody was trying to overthrow the royals. Bindal was Kuro’s older brother.
The last of those was the one that Kuro dwelled on. The others were too big for him, but the idea that Kuro had family, even unwilling and unknowing family, was something he could get his head around. He found he liked the idea more than he expected.
He felt his relationship with Bindal matched well with what little he knew of siblings. They didn’t much like each other or get along very well, but Kuro couldn’t help but care about the annoying creature. He wondered if Bindal would be okay. He had promises to keep, people he had to obey. He might vanish forever the moment he woke up.
Kuro took the nurse’s invitation to avoid the outside world as long as he could. He napped an
d flipped through his textbooks absently. He tried and failed to find ways to keep his raccoon from getting into every drawer in his bag.
His reprieve was ended by a quick sharp refusal by the nurse from outside the room. “Absolutely not,” he said. “This is a medical office, not an interrogation room.”
Kuro couldn’t make out the words of the person he was speaking with, but he recognized the tone. It was a casual growl, a threat coated in civility—a wolf in guard’s clothing.
“I don’t care if you’re the Winter queen,” replied the nurse. “He’s in my care. He’ll speak to you when he’s well enough to do so and not before.”
Kuro appreciated the nurse trying to protect him, but he could only avoid Dubois for so long. There was no sense in the nurse getting on the bad side of the Hounds.
“You got here fast,” said Kuro as he left the examining room and found the nurse facing off against the Hound in the waiting area.
“I was already on my way before we heard anything about you,” replied Dubois. “A third of the students at the school being drugged overnight tends to get the Guard’s attention.”
The nurse interrupted. “You don’t have to speak to him now,” he said. “You can wait till you’re properly rested, and a principal is present.”
“It’s okay,” said Kuro. “If he was going to arrest me, he’d have done it already.”
The nurse didn’t like that answer, but he allowed them to leave.
Dubois took Kuro to the room where Kuro normally met with his social worker, Sabine. He walked in as though it were his own office and dropped into the armchair Kuro usually sat in. “Close the door,” he said.
Once Kuro had settled into Sabine’s chair, Dubois put on his serious business face, the one that implied that he might eat Kuro if he didn’t like what he heard. “I’d like your version of events from this morning.” It was said in the way that made it seem like he already knew everything Kuro was going to say, and the only purpose of the conversation was to catch Kuro in a lie.
Kuro had the problem of not knowing exactly which of the things he or Bindal had done were illegal. Even if he was willing to expose himself to danger, he had to protect Bindal. He’d promised. He explained what happened in the cell with the doctor as best he could, leaving out any details about the lutin, and just sort of skipping any explanation as to how he got out of the locked, burning, smoke-filled death trap.
Volume 2: Burglary Page 31