“Dunno.” Tzusy nodded in the direction of the staircase that lead up to the library’s second floor, and Crocker started through the stacks with her. “He just seems so, well, so subdued today, but he keeps shrugging me off whenever I ask him what’s up.” She looked from Shtasith to Cluny. “Maybe you guys can work it out of him: he seems to get along better with familiars than he does with the rest of us.”
Cluny nodded. Eubie was a prodigy, a ten-year-old who regularly ranked among the top seniors at Huxley. When Tangle was with him, he seemed much more at ease than when he was on his own, but wizards and familiars had separate tracks of classes, so as a rule, the two groups spent most of the day apart. It was a stupid rule, Cluny had always thought, and she was glad that their cover story required her, Crocker, and Shtasith to attend each other’s classes. But every time she asked Master Gollantz about granting Eubie and Tangle a similar exemption, she got nothing but the bristling eyebrows of his glare. “We’ll talk to him,” she told Tzu Yin.
They reached the top of the stairs then, the second floor of Podkamennaya Hall much larger than it had any right to be. Their study group always met with Mistress Ippolitov, their faculty advisor, at the tables under the first set of windows, and Cluny could see the others already in their places.
“Crocker!” Eubie jumped up and waved wildly in their direction. “C’mon and sit! I saved you a place!” He patted the back of the chair beside him.
Crocker missed half a step, and Cluny couldn’t help blinking as well. Eubie had always been friendly enough, but Cluny had never seen anything like the giant smile stretching as slippery as a banana across his face. “Thanks, Eubie,” Crocker said above her. “And sorry we’re late, ev’ryone. The walk through Eldritch Park seemed ten minutes longer today.”
“That’s great!” Eubie was bouncing a little as Crocker sat beside him. “‘Cause now that you’re here, I betcha ev’rything’s gonna be OK! Even better’n OK!”
Jeanette gave a little grin and scooted over to let Tzu Yin slide a chair in on Crocker’s other side. Mistress Ippolitov rolled her eyes, ice white but the exact opposite of blind, Cluny had learned, the way she seemed to see just about everything. “Then if you will please continue, Ric?” she asked, her accent maybe a little more rustling that usual.
Since it was the end of the week, everyone was detailing the progress they’d made and the difficulties they’d encountered on their current projects, a process Cluny loved. Hearing from her fellow students always got ideas sparking in her own head, and when Mistress Ippolitov asked if anyone had any suggestions, Cluny often found that she did. Of course, she always had to preface her remarks by saying, “Crocker had me researching something similar for him,” but since it let her take part in the conversation, she didn’t really mind it any more.
She’d coached Crocker earlier in what to say when their turn came to share with the others, but instead, Crocker sighed and said, “Aura Ghosting.”
For a moment, Cluny was sure she had the same blank look on her face as everyone else around the table, but she remembered their assignment just as Crocker went on, “Yeah, I’ve never heard of it either. But Master Gollantz wants me and Cluny and Shtasith to write him a report on it by Monday.” He spread his hands. “Anyone got a clue where we should even start?”
Their fellow students all continued looking blank, but Mistress Ippolitov was rubbing her pointed chin. “It’s a rare but very serious condition, an imbalance that can occur between wizard and familiar.” She blinked those eerie eyes in her thin face. “I cannot imagine it would be affecting anyone in this group, let alone yourself, Sophomore Crocker. This imbalance happens when a wizard is drawing too much power from a familiar. It artificially inflates the wizard’s own aura at the expense of the familiar and in extreme cases can lead to the burning out of the human and the death of the animal.”
A chill rustled Cluny’s fur, and her whiskers bristled. Was that what Master Gollantz thought might be happening with Goulet and Polaris? But Cluny had never felt anything more balanced than those two holding each other a few mornings ago!
Above her, she noticed Crocker was nodding. “Huh. Well, thank you, ma’am.”
They broke into individual study at that point, and Crocker headed them straight for the library’s ‘magical ailments’ section. “Crocker,” Cluny got out through gritted teeth. “This isn’t anything we have to worry about. It’s just Master Gollantz being Master Gollantz, and we’ve got other projects we should be focusing on.”
“Really?” Crocker grabbed the ‘A’ volume of the Encyclopedia Aegrotationum from its shelf. “The Magister Magistrorum himself assigns us a research paper, and we’ve got other projects?”
Shtasith hissed a sigh. “As much as it pains me to agree with our Crocker, my Cluny—”
“Fine!” Leaping from her pocket, Cluny flicked a spell from her whiskers to thicken the air so she could scamper down it like a ramp. “You guys do that, then! I’m gonna go save a couple lives!”
Which, she realized immediately after the words had left her mouth, was a complete exaggeration: as much as getting back into Huxley would help Goulet and Polaris, not getting back in wouldn’t endanger them in any way. But by that time her claws were already scrabbling her across the polished wood of the library floor, and besides, this was more a matter of principle than anything else.
“Hi, Cluny!” Eubie’s voice snapped Cluny’s attention forward, and she saw the boy coming toward her between the shelves, a waver in his steps like he wasn’t quite sure where his feet were going to end up. His brow wrinkled, and a salty wave of panic roiled his scent. “Why’re you running? Is something wrong? Where’s Crocker?”
“We’re fine, Eubie.” She slipped around him and continued scampering. “I’m kind of in a hurry right now, but I’ll find you a little later so we can talk!” First things first.
“Cluny?” she heard him ask, but she was concentrating mostly on the flare of her detection magic, her whiskers telling her that Tzu Yin was just a few aisles over.
Weaving a quick path through the stacks, Cluny finally came out into a little clearing among the bookshelves, Tzu Yin seated atop a table there and leafing through one of the volumes piled around her. “Tzusy!” Cluny was so worked up, she didn’t even need a levitation spell to make the jump to the tabletop.
Tzu Yin gave her a few blinks, then glanced up and around before focusing back down again. “Hey, Cluny. What’s up? Where’s Crocker?”
“Oh, he’s just being a—” Cluny flicked her ears: no need to go into all that. “I wanted to ask you about Goulet.”
A frown tugged Tzusy’s mouth. “What about him?”
The tiniest little warning bell began tinkling in Cluny’s head, but she pushed on regardless. “It’s just, I mean, you saw how being with Polaris again brought his magic back. So I thought we should see about getting him readmitted to—”
“No!” The shout came from behind her; Cluny whirled to see Eubie pressed up against the end of a bookcase, his eyes wide and shining like wet glass. “That’s—! He’s—! You’re crazy!”
“Eubie?” Crocker’s voice this time; he and Shtasith stepped out from between the shelves beside the boy.
“Crocker!” Eubie spun and grabbed Crocker’s hand so hard, Cluny could feel the frantic strength of his grip through the link she shared with her familiar. “Your squirrel’s crazy! She wants to let Goulet try and kill me again!”
“What?” Crocker’s gaze flashed to meet Cluny’s, and he pursed his lips. “No, Eubie. She just thinks—”
“But I won’t let her!” Eubie stomped the floor, and his scent now, all itchy and awful against her whiskers, made Cluny think of a tree infested with fungus and about to collapse. “I’ll get Goulet first! I betcha I will!” His face clenched, his hands bunching into fists, and the magic that exploded out of him nearly knocked Cluny over backward among Tzu Yin’s books.
Knees buckling, Eubie seemed to deflate. Crocker rushed to catch him, Shtasith slitherin
g to Eubie’s shoulders, his wings beating furiously to keep the boy from keeling over. Tzusy had leaped to her feet by then, her fingers flashing with her usual levitation spell, and between the three of them, they managed to maneuver Eubie into Tzu Yin’s chair. “Eubie?” Crocker was asking, his voice shaky. “You OK, buddy?”
“So tired,” the boy whispered. “I haven’t slept in, like, five whole nights, y’know? Not since Master Gollantz told us they let Goulet outta jail. ‘Cause ev’ry time I close my eyes, Goulet’s right there trying to kill me, and I jump up awake again.” That big, weird smile slid across his face. “I betcha I’ll sleep OK now, though.”
Cluny’s tail jittered, still frazzled from that blast of magic. Jumping into Eubie’s lap, she stood on her hind legs and rested her paws on his chest, his heart fluttering inside it like a moth against a lantern. “What did you do, Eubie?”
His eyelids came open slowly, practically creaking in Cluny’s ears. “When I saw you guys today, I started thinking how Crocker wouldn’t just sit around waiting till Goulet whacked him. And then I thought that, since Goulet’s a monster, I betcha I could send a monster to get rid of him.”
Trying not to dig her claws into his robes, all Cluny could manage was to ask again, “What did you do, Eubie?”
“Got rid of him,” Eubie repeated, his whole body drooping. “I summoned a monster and I sent it to his house and now I can go to sleep and not ever hafta worry about Goulet killing me.” His head lolled sideways. “Not... ever... again....” And he began to snore.
For about half a second, that was the only sound in the entire building. Then Crocker and Tzu Yin both opened their mouths and drew in breaths big enough for Cluny to be sure they were about to start shouting. So—
“Shhh!” Cluny flared a ball of silence from her whiskers, dropped it over Eubie’s head like a diving helmet, and crooked her claws, motioning the other two humans to lean in. “We need to keep Eubie asleep!” she whispered as urgently as she could. “That way, he won’t be able to influence whatever he’s summoned, so if it’s not something naturally war-like, we can maybe deal with it! Tzusy, you stay here and watch Eubie; the three of us’ll pop over to Goulet’s and see what’s going on!”
Tzu Yin did some more blinking. Cluny felt her stomach tighten, but, well, they didn’t really have time for the whole “cute woodland creature” thing right now.
“It’s OK, Tzusy,” Crocker said, and the confidence Cluny heard in his voice made her look up in surprise. “Hopefully, it’ll be nothing,” he was going on, “and Eubie won’t get in too much trouble. But if you don’t hear from us in, like, half an hour, tell Mistress Ippolitov and Master Gollantz.” He straightened, still chubby-faced and pale, but in the year that Cluny had known him, he’d never looked more like an actual student of wizardry than he did right then. “Cluny? Teakettle? Let’s go.”
Cluny almost cheered, jumping from the table to swarm up Crocker’s sleeve. Shtasith gave a little hiss from where he hovered above Eubie, but he flapped quickly enough to Crocker’s shoulders. Crocker held up his arms and nodded to Tzusy. “Half an hour,” he said, and Cluny flicked her whiskers into the little illusion spell she used so often: it made her appear to sit still while transferring the motions she was actually making to Crocker. So when she dug her claws into the underlying sub-strata of the local universe and pulled it apart so they could slip through in the direction of Goulet’s house, anyone watching would see Crocker casting a long-range teleportation spell.
The magic whisked them away, and while Cluny channeled it pretty easily since they’d made this same trip not that many days ago, she was glad Goulet and his parents only lived on the other side of Huxley Grove: when the spell popped her and her familiars out into the early afternoon sunlight, the power expenditure made the world swirl like she was underwater. Gasping, she clutched at the edge of her pocket and blinked to clear her eyes.
She could feel Crocker planting his boots firmly on the flagstone sidewalk, though, and the whoosh of wings told her that Shtasith was swooping in a tight circle overhead. “There’s something,” the firedrake muttered. “A power held in abeyance, I would say, but not a sort with which I’m acquainted.”
Her vision settling, Cluny looked out at the neighborhood, a picture-perfect postcard of a suburb: single family homes of one or two stories with lawns spread out around them; the honeysuckle-scented rows of shrubs marking the property lines; the winding brick pathways leading from the street to the various front doors. Goulet’s house sat in the middle of the block ahead, and stretching her whiskers, she let the various offensive and defensive spells she’d developed over the past year blossom around her while casting some general detection magic to find whatever it was Shtasith was sensing.
It came to her more like a scent than anything else, as smoky and expectant as banked coals. Except she could tell that the thing lying in wait here would flare up in darkness instead of fire should it become too disturbed. Taking a breath to let the soothing warmth of Crocker’s power and the sharper flames of Shtasith’s mingle with her own, she said, “Stay close.”
Crocker gave a little laugh. “Where’m I gonna go?”
She gestured forward with a claw. “That way. Not too fast, though: I’m still not sure what we’re dealing with.”
“Saunter it is.” Crocker started up the block. “Should I whistle, too, while I’m at it?”
Shtasith settled around Crocker’s shoulders, but he didn’t relax at all. “Please, my Cluny, can we not trade this simian in for a functional one?”
Rolling her eyes, she opened her mouth to get in on the banter, but a puddle of shadow caught her attention along the walkway between the sidewalk and a house just ahead. Not just any house, though: that was Goulet’s front lawn. And shifting her gaze up, down, and around, she couldn’t see any bushes or trees or mailboxes that could’ve been casting a shadow over that particular spot.
“Hold it,” she managed to say, and that was when the shadow rose from the ground on four big paws. A black tail swept behind the thing as it turned, ears perking from a sudden wedge-shaped head, glowing red eyes fixing on them from either side of a vaguely canine snout.
Crocker stopped like he’d frozen solid. “Cluny? Shtasith? You guys seeing a big shadowy wolf dog thing, too?”
“A barghest.” Cluny swallowed and tried to recall what she’d read about the creatures in the old extraplanar zoology book she’d skimmed through last year when she was researching firedrakes. Barghests were associated with the cold and the dark, it had said, but she also recalled the book referring to them as ‘reasonable beings.’ Which meant, she hoped—
“Hmmmph!” The barghest grunted and flared its nostrils, darker holes in the odd wavering darkness of its snout. “Sure, and I’m scenting you’re neither my summoner nor my target,” it said in a brogue as softly ominous as the distant rumble of midnight thunder. “So best you be on your way and leave me to be about my business.”
The voice made Cluny think it must be male, so she asked, “Please, sir, may we know what your business is?”
Those fiery eyes narrowed. “Be wary, tree rat, lest I add you and yours to it.”
Shtasith gave as quiet a hiss as Cluny had ever heard from him, and the way he wasn’t leaping into the air and demanding the barghest apologize told Cluny a lot about how delicate the situation was. “Please,” she said again. “We don’t want trouble, but we also don’t want anyone making a mistake.” She thought she remembered the old book using the word ‘punctilious’ to describe barghests. At least, she knew that she’d seen the word in the book somewhere, but she’d glanced through most of the entries and couldn’t be sure where exactly she’d read it.
Fur seemed to ruffle along the barghest’s neck, but Cluny couldn’t be sure about that, either. The creature looked like a shadow, after all, a flat, see-through, black and gray cut-out figure of a dog or a wolf standing and glaring at her with those guttering eyes. But when he moved, he took on a fleeting thre
e-dimensionality, a suggestion of bone-white teeth and muscled shoulders that made the squirrellier parts of her want to race gibbering up the nearest tree.
She forced the impulse down. “You see,” she went on, “your summoner was acting out of baseless and unreasoning panic when he brought you into the Material Realm, and he—”
“Typical.” The barghest’s growl made Cluny’s throat clench shut. “Wizards, I’ve found, spend a great deal of their time rushing about like chickens with their heads ripped off.” He licked at those not-quite-invisible teeth. “Still, them getting bent outta shape and twitchy gives me a bit to do now and again, don’t it? Might be I don’t care for the hours or the pay, but, well, beats not working at all, says I.”
Sweat was starting to form at the base of Cluny’s whiskers. “But what exactly—if you wouldn’t mind, please, sir—were the conditions of your summoning? What task do you have to perform before you can return to your own plane of existence?”
The barghest’s ears folded, and he settled his haunches in the grass beside the brick pathway. “Sure, and that detail’s foggier’n I’d like. Only instructions I got from my summoner say ‘get rid of,’ and I’ll not argue it could mean this, that, or the other. Still, I reckon it’s the usual sort of job: one wizard pops me in to messily dispose of another, and I can head back to my shadows soon as I’m done.”
“Reckon?” Cluny sat forward in her pocket, the magic of that word prickling her fur with its uncertainty. “Surely that can’t be proper in a summoning of this magnitude?”
The beast seemed to shrug those big, shaggy shoulders. “All jobs’re odd in their own ways.” He puffed out another breath. “Why, I recall a time I was summoned to the Isle of—”
“Crocker?” a voice asked from off to their left: a male human voice and pretty much the last thing Cluny wanted to hear at that moment. Snapping her head over, she saw Goulet stepping from his now-opened front doorway, Polaris held close to the thin young man’s chest. “What are you doing here?”
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