Dubois was not immediately interested in the obvious gaps in Kuro’s story. Instead he asked, “Did the doctor say who he believed the Summer heir to be?”
“No,” replied Kuro. “It was written on the phial, but I never saw it.”
“Would you tell me if you had?” asked Dubois very seriously.
“Sure,” said Kuro. “That’s royal stuff. Nothing to do with me.”
Dubois visibly relaxed at that. “It probably wasn’t really them, anyway,” he said, but it sounded like he was trying to convince Kuro of it more than accept the fact. “The doctor, Vincent Penfield, is clearly delusional. He keeps switching from ranting about the glorious revolution and grand plan of the master to worrying that his duties as a servant are being neglected. He doesn’t seem to know anything beyond what he was trying to do, though. His brain is a disaster. It looks like Phineas’s handiwork.”
“Is he here?” asked Kuro fearfully.
“No,” said Dubois. “We double checked. He’s still in his cell in Niflheim. When asked about Vincent, he responded by laughing himself silly. There’s no evidence to suggest the doctor has been in contact with anyone in years. It looks like they set him up to carry out this task and then left him. In the interim, just about anyone he might have worked with has been rounded up. He’s just a wind-up toy to them, set in motion and then forgotten. I doubt anyone expected him to succeed.”
“That’s a lot of work for nothing,” said Kuro.
“That’s how Claudius Roche operates,” replied Dubois. “He’s the master Vincent rants about. He likes to make big bets with long odds, using people as currency. It costs him nothing to sacrifice years of someone else’s life in the slim chance of a big payoff. He wiped out the whole royal family of Tirnanog that way. He was responsible for the Coup d’Été, raising a small army and assassinating the entire Summer Court, but didn’t lift a finger to carry it out. Manipulating a stray into checking if the missing Summer heir ended up here on Avalon is a trivial expense, and the identity of that person is worth a lot. If they were ever found, they would be the most important person in the realm, the rightful ruler of Tirnanog.”
“And now the doctor knows who it is?” asked Kuro.
“As it turns out, no, he doesn’t,” said Dubois with a sly wolfish grin. “He had a solid dose of a memory-affecting anaesthetic. You’re the only one who remembers what happened in that room, and it was so entirely destroyed by the fire that there’s no way to determine who he imagined it to be. So, if you don’t know, nobody knows. In fact, you may be the only person who knows he succeeded.”
“Besides you, you mean,” said Kuro.
“Me, I think he’s a lunatic,” said Dubois. “His brain has been through a blender; I can’t trust a thing he says. Besides, he’s just a stray. What would he know about these things? I personally confirmed the identity of every child that could possibly be the heir years ago. The only unaccounted for child at this school is you, Kuro, and we’ve already ruled you out. The heir probably didn’t survive the coup. If they did, maybe it’s better for them if they’re never found. Everyone in the realm would want a piece of them. A child ruler would be manipulated, bought, sold, maybe even assassinated.”
The Hound seemed almost happy that the name had been lost, that the heir he’d spent years searching for would remain a mystery. “You already know who it is, don’t you?” said Kuro.
Dubois levelled a ferocious grin at Kuro. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I’ve spent my career hunting for that child. It is my greatest failure. Everyone knows that. Do you think I would abandon my duty, sacrifice my honour, break the law, commit treason, just to protect a child? Who do you think I am?”
The menace was so thick in the room that Kuro didn’t dare answer, but he knew. He had been allowed to see behind his mask. This was Sir Talen Dubois, knight commander of the Hounds, the Dread Wolf, Loup Garrot, Fenrisúlfr, the most feared man in the three kingdoms. The wolf that walked at his side was a pale reflection of the relentless ferocity contained within the man. The uniform he wore was just a disguise making him appear tamed, a collar he wore for the comfort of those around him. These were things Kuro already knew, truths that Dubois shared openly. But in his deadly smile and cunning glare, Dubois shared a moment of deeper honesty. He was a wolf, through and through, and a wolf protects their pack. There were things that Sir Talen Dubois, knight commander of the Royal Guard, could not say or do or know, that Talen Dubois the man would topple an empire for without hesitation if it meant protecting something he cared about.
Kuro nodded slowly, silently consenting to join Dubois’s conspiracy of ignorance, though he didn’t do it out of fear but from a shared understanding that it was the best way to keep safe whomever the heir might be.
“So, I’ll ask again,” said Dubois. “Do you know who Dr. Penfield thought was the Summer heir?”
“No,” said Kuro with all the certainty and honesty he could convey. “He didn’t even test all the phials, and the testing syrup boiled over. It might have not been working correctly.”
The feeling of a pending storm that had been building in the room subsided. “Maybe that is for the best,” said Dubois. “It would impede my investigations and cause a stir if you started spreading rumours.”
Kuro nodded along in understanding.
“That brings us to another matter.” Dubois pulled a silver bangle from his pocket and toyed with it while he spoke. It was bright and new, covered in intricately carved runes that shone as he moved it, as if reflecting light from a source that wasn’t there. “It seems despite my request to the lutin to keep their distance and not interact with you, you managed to learn some of their magic, anyway.”
Kuro sank in his seat. After all of that, he was going to be arrested again. “Is that illegal?”
“No,” said Dubois. “As you’ve already discovered, there are few laws against things that can’t be done. However, if you keep doing them, there soon will be.”
Kuro let out a sigh of relief.
“The lutin, though, have agreements, limitations, places they are not allowed to go, or allowed to try to go. It’s important that they uphold those treaties for their own protection. According to Ingot, you could break those rules. In fact, I believe you were designed to.”
“It doesn’t work very well,” said Kuro. “I can’t do it without a real lutin to help.”
“That’s part of the problem,” explained Dubois. “You could bring a lutin anywhere you’ve been, and the normal barriers that stop them don’t affect you. You could breach palaces and prisons. You’ve already been inside the Granite Citadel. As nice as it might be to have you pop by for afternoon tea, it poses a security risk, and there’s no reason to believe you wouldn’t improve with practice.”
“What if I promised I wouldn’t?” offered Kuro.
“Not good enough,” said Dubois. “I might trust it, but nobody else would. People in power have already been calling for you to be caged, just in case. The less charitable ones have called for worse. Now that we know you can do it, I haven’t much choice.”
Gloom overtook Kuro. He wondered if he’d even be allowed to say goodbye to his friends, or if he’d just be made to disappear.
“Catch,” said Dubois.
Kuro was startled from his self-pity and hurt his shoulder scrambling to grab the shiny bracelet spinning through the air toward him.
“What’s this?” asked Kuro.
“It’s an anchor,” said Dubois. “Svartálfar design, thing’s worth more than my house. Among other things, it keeps a lutin from blinking place to place. Put it on.”
It was a large hoop, big enough to fit easily over an adult’s hand, but as soon as he passed his through, it shrunk down to fit around his wrist. Kuro tried to stretch it back out and pull his hand free. “I can’t get it off.”
“That’s kind of the point,” said Dubois. “And don’t try too hard. I’m told it will explode if it’s
cut. It’s better than a prison cell, though. At least I hope it is.”
“So, if I wear this,” Kuro said, “I can stay? I don’t have to go to prison?”
“As long as you can keep from drawing too much attention to yourself and getting into more trouble, yes.”
It was a small price to pay, Kuro tried to tell himself. He’d only just learned to travel like a lutin. He wouldn’t be missing much if that were taken away. At the same time, he’d just found a form of freedom, and he was being shackled for it. Wings he’d used for the first time were being clipped. The island was once again a cage, as it was intended to be.
Dubois pulled himself out of the armchair and headed out of the private room. “I think we’re done here,” he said.
They exited the school to find Dubois’s familiar, Garmr, menacing children on the lawn, and Ingot using the big wolf as a leaning post.
“How’s Bindal doing?” Talen asked of the lutin.
Kuro grumbled quietly to himself. He had carefully removed all mention of Bindal and the lutin from his retellings, and as per usual, Dubois had known everything already. He had allowed Kuro to lie to him only because it served his purposes at the time.
“He’s still a little dopey, but otherwise well, all things considered,” said Ingot. “He’d like to see Kuro again before he goes, if that’s okay.”
“Sure thing,” said Dubois. “I’ll meet you at the lodge.”
Kuro had avoided talking about Bindal at all, hoping that he had somehow escaped the attention of the Hound, but that was clearly a lost cause. “Is he in trouble?” asked Kuro.
“Less than you,” replied Dubois. “The lutin look after their own. He’ll be watched and anchored, but he’ll be cared for, too. They’d start a war before they’d let another wizard lay hands on that boy.”
“He has promises to keep,” said Kuro. He was worried that restraining the lutin could be a death sentence if it forced him to break his obligations.
“He did,” said Dubois. “But unlike the magic that binds you, it seems, promises can be released. I can be fairly persuasive, when required, and the good doctor saw the wisdom of cooperating.”
Kuro understood well enough not to ask for details.
The walk back to the lodge was slow. Dubois made a parade of it, letting the students get a long look at them together, making sure that they once again knew that when Kuro was still at the school tomorrow, it was because Knight Commander Talen Dubois had allowed it.
The lutin were waiting at the lodge for them. Not just Ingot. At least half the lodge staff were there along with a good number Kuro didn’t recognize, and Bindal along with them.
He wore a silver bangle, like Kuro’s, but it dangled around his neck like a collar. He was flanked by older lutin, one who held his hand and the other, his shoulder. They were holding him firmly, but not like a prisoner. It was more like they couldn’t bear letting go than they had a fear of him fleeing.
The lutin parted to let Kuro approach their wayward child.
“Are you okay?” asked Kuro.
Bindal nodded sleepily, the adult-sized dose of anaesthetic not quite worn off yet. He smiled dreamily and said, “Yes. I’m going home. You’re a good monster.”
Kuro couldn’t help but smile. Even a rescued Bindal, freed from his promises and surrounded by his own kind, was still Bindal.
“Take care of yourself,” said Kuro. “Come visit, if you can.”
“I can’t go very far,” the little lutin replied and tugged at his shiny new collar. “But I can write.”
Kuro cringed and looked at the other lutin, not certain who should explain that they no longer delivered Kuro’s mail.
“Ah, I should say something,” interrupted a lutin in a postal uniform. “We were given instructions by the Royal Guard not to interact at all with you.”
Kuro looked to Dubois, who crossed his arms and evaded Kuro’s glance like a child who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I didn’t actually mean for them to stop delivering your mail. I just meant to stay out of sight.”
The postal lutin continued, “The order has since been rescinded.” He vanished and appeared a moment later with a sack, which he presented to Kuro.
“You kept my mail?” Kuro said in surprise as he inspected the contents. There were letters both from him and to him: letters from Charlie, Arthur, and even Ms. Crawley. There were Solstice presents as well: a novel called Wildland Werewolves from Sabine, and a fine brass magnifying glass for investigating mysteries from Arthur.
“Of course.” The lutin was offended that Kuro would imagine otherwise. “We are caretakers of the mail.” He stood to attention, gave a kind of salute, and blinked away.
Most of the other lutin blinked off as well, but a group of them walked with Bindal toward the shore. Kuro stayed with them as long as he could and watched them vanish through the veil. Even after Bindal was out of sight, he could feel him. He knew he was there, really knew, and even without holding on to him, he felt like he could have followed. He almost wished he had. Maybe there was a family for him among the lutin.
But then, he already had a family at the school. A small, strange family of friends who had chosen him and whom he fought to keep hold of. People he wasn’t ready to leave behind.
“He’ll be well looked after,” said Dubois after the last lutin was out of sight. “Can’t ask for a better family than the lutin.”
Kuro laughed. Like a wizard, Dubois didn’t recognize that the lutin were still only a few feet away and could hear him clearly. The miles of bay that separated the island from the shore didn’t exist for them. Kuro just waved and wished them safe travels.
Dubois released Kuro at last and allowed him to return home to his friends.
Not only did Kuro have to explain what had happened that morning to them, but he had to explain what had happened the night before as well. The anaesthetic had so muddied their memories that it had all become a messy dream to them.
Having already done it once before, Kuro could do a better job of things the second time. He had fewer secrets to keep and could tell them all about Bindal properly.
Arthur was overjoyed to have the mystery solved, and Kuro made sure to congratulate him for his diligent sleuthing. Nonetheless, Charlie claimed most of the credit.
“I was right!” she proclaimed. She thrust her fists in the air victoriously.
“About what?” asked Arthur, trying to recall anything helpful she’d contributed.
“I said that the burglar was trying to find the Summer heir!” she replied, still in her victory pose.
“You said a lot of things,” argued Arthur. “And that was Kuro’s idea.”
“Nope! I thought of it first!”
Charlie and Arthur continued to debate whether an absurd theory that Charlie had proposed, which nobody but her remembered, counted as solving a mystery. What stopped them was not any kind of agreement but a spell being cast by Marie.
They had all forgotten about Marie’s familiar, and she only half-remembered their conversation in the woods. Kuro had started his stories by handing her two books with dog-eared pages and leaving her to rediscover the truth about her familiar as he introduced his raccoon and talked about his adventures with Bindal.
This time, rather than a summoning full of shame and doubt, she proudly conjured her raven in the middle of the room.
It stretched its wings and flapped over to perch on her shoulder, while Arthur and Charlie fell briefly silent before exploding in praise and surprise. The celebration and congratulations of the spectacular familiar overshadowed anything else from that morning, letting Kuro slide quietly back into the background where he belonged.
Just like that it was over. School exerted its inescapable force and dragged Kuro back into the routine of classes and assignments. The rumours about what really had happened that morning were replaced with gossip about who liked whom and dreams of the summer vacation that lay
on the far side of a mountain of projects and exams.
Kuro let the weeks pass, allowing himself to fall out of the attention and suspicion of his classmates. Even the Avalon Royal Defence League gave up on chasing him, as Moira reluctantly yielded to her father’s evaluation of Kuro’s innocence, and both she and Azalea discovered they needed to put effort into passing final exams.
On the last day before the ferry would return them across the bay, while Charlie and Marie were busy flying their familiars around together, and Arthur was off tolerating a visit with his sister, Kuro sat by the Spring shore rereading his letters.
He took his time, enjoying the solitude and the sunny afternoon, letting his raccoon investigate holes beneath trees and the insects hiding under rocks. It had, over the past few weeks, grown bolder and more curious. It spent less of its time hiding and more of its time out in the open. It even, on occasion, let itself be seen by wizards other than Kuro and his friends.
Kuro’s peaceful reading was interrupted by his racoon fleeing from the nearby bushes, running past Kuro and diving headlong through the veil. Kuro panicked that the foolish thing had just doomed itself, but rather than dissolving back into its constituent thoughts out in the Blandlands as it should have, it vanished like a rock thrown by Bindal.
Kuro didn’t have time to investigate; he felt a cold stare settle on him. Kuro turned to find the owner of that stare emerging like a wraith from the forest. Azalea, ghostly pale and clad in black, stepped into view but kept within the shadows of the trees, just out of reach of the sun.
Kuro considered following his raccoon. For a moment, he thought he could. He could feel it just a few meters away watching him, waiting for him. Something about Azalea’s gaze gave him pause, though. It lacked the cunning or malice she usually wielded.
Volume 2: Burglary Page 32