Volume 1: Pickpocketing

by R. A. Consell

  Ms. Crawley was impossibly patient. She’d watched him fail to cast the spell a hundred times and never wavered in her encouragement. She was alert and attentive to his every motion. She made tiny corrections to his form and celebrated when he made progress. Kuro had never had anyone pay so much attention to him, or care about his success. He started to wonder if this was what it was like to have a parent.

  An hour in, and he was just about ready to give up when something happened. He felt it. The words meant something. They connected to the growing hunger inside him and became entangled in the motion of his hands. They knotted together, and a wisp of blue mist drifted from his hands and evaporated.

  Ms. Crawley applauded loudly. “That’s it. That is it. Did you feel it?”

  “Yeah,” said Kuro. “I think I did.”

  “Do you want to try it on a dragonfey?” Ms. Crawley asked.

  “Yeah,” repeated Kuro. “I think I do”

  He faced his tiny adversary in its cage. It scrambled to attack him through the mesh and made an angry squeaking noise. Kuro relaxed, got lazy, let the word form in his mind and then in his mouth. He waved his hands and said in a long breathy sigh, “Gráðr.”

  A stream of blue mist flowed out and encircled the little monster. As it settled, it stopped trying to attack Kuro through the cage and started scrambling for something to eat.

  “Well done.” Ms. Crawley smiled as she pushed a toffee into the cage. It wasn’t just a tiny smirk but one that reached all the way up through her cheeks to her eyes, turning them into joyful crescent moons. “I am very proud of you.”

  Kuro felt his eyes get wet and his chest get heavy. He tried to thank her, but he kept choking on the words as his heart seemed to be trying to crawl up his throat. All he could do was nod.

  “Keep practising and you’ll have it mastered by next week,” said Ms. Crawley, patting him on the back and handing him his bag. “Now go get some dinner before it’s gone.”

  Kuro was just about to leave the class when Ms. Crawley called him back. “One more thing before you go, and I don’t think I need to say this to you, but if I find that anyone has been rendered catatonic with grief, you’ll be in front of the principal so fast your head will spin.”

  Fourteen

  Mr. Flint

  Kuro dashed back to Autumn Lodge as fast as his feet would let him. He’d have sprinted the full distance, but his legs kept insisting on skipping gleefully instead of running, which slowed him down. The delight at actual success made him giddy all over.

  He reached the dining hall just as everyone was clearing out from dinner. He spotted Charlie amid the swarm and fought through the surge of students towards her. He scampered up to her and began to tell her all he’d learned that day, forgetting all about their plans to pretend to be enemies. He’d barely gotten three words out when something grabbed him by the collar and hauled him backwards. “Thinking of skipping detention, are you?” said the assailant in a nasal and malicious voice.

  Kuro craned his neck to identify his assailant. The man looked prematurely old. His hair sat unevenly, brushed up from one side in a poor attempt to hide his balding head. His face was creased with lines from permanently scowling eyes and sneering lips. He wore glasses low on his nose so he could gaze disdainfully over them at students. It was Mr. Flint, the vice principal.

  Kuro hadn’t yet had the displeasure of meeting Ms. McCutcheon’s lackey, but he had heard of him. If Ms. McCutcheon was the judge of Avalon Junior High, Flint was the executioner. By all reports, he revelled in his duty to punish the students, and his familiar, a sneaky little ferret, was constantly on the prowl looking for children putting a foot out of line. “You’re mine tonight, boy.” Flint’s face twisted into an approximation of a grin.

  Kuro’s heart sank. It was the first Tuesday of November. He had detention. All the delight at finally casting a spell eroded under Flint’s twitching scowl. He slumped and allowed himself to be led off by the vice principal.

  Flint led Kuro all the way back to the school and up to the fourth floor, where the alchemy laboratories were held. He shoved open the door of one of the rooms and pushed Kuro inside.

  Something had gone terribly wrong in that room. The class normally smelled of dubious concoctions, but tonight it stank like rotting manticore entrails and mouldering socks. Kuro was slightly glad that he had missed dinner, as there was nothing in his stomach to expel. Bluish black ooze dripped from the walls. It covered the desks and soaked the books and bags that had been abandoned by the class in which the pungent catastrophe had happened. “Explosion in a third-year class,” said Flint in a sadistically gleeful tone. “Clean it up. No magic.”

  He shoved a bucket of soapy water and a sponge over to Kuro, before fleeing the stinking room. He left his ferret to stand guard and ensure that Kuro did his duty, though the conjured creature couldn’t bear the smell either and watched from the hallway.

  Kuro started to scrub, beginning at edge of the class and working inwards, climbing on shelves and hanging from beams to get to the many splashes of putrid goop. The bucket must have been enchanted, for no matter how many times he rinsed his sponge, the water stayed clear and clean. He worked slowly towards the epicentre of the explosion, a split and mangled silver beaker sitting on a desk in the third row. The work was tiring, but not nearly as bad as he had expected. He wasn’t being whipped or tortured, and he was allowed to swing from the rafters and climb on desks. If it hadn’t been for the smell, he might have even enjoyed himself.

  It was nearly midnight by the time Flint was satisfied with his work. “That’ll teach you for stealing, boy,” he said menacingly. “Count yourself lucky. In the old days they’d have had you caned and expelled.” He licked his teeth as though he longed for the opportunity.

  “That’s sort of more what I was expecting,” said Kuro. “This wasn’t really that bad.” He realized as soon as the words had left his mouth that it that it had been a foolish thing to say.

  “Not that bad, eh?” Flint’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I’ll be seeing you again on Thursday, won’t I? We’ll see if we can’t find something more appropriate to your crimes. Now get to bed.” He shot one last haunting glare at Kuro and vanished down the darkened hallway.

  Kuro began making his way through the empty school. The halls were dark, and even his nearly silent steps seemed to echo loudly through them. It felt more like home, in Detritus, quiet and full of secrets. He knew that he should head back straight away. He was tired and hungry, and if he was caught out and about, he risked more detentions, but he couldn’t help the urge to wander freely, without the weight of suspicion from the other students pulling him down.

  He found a staircase he’d never taken and climbed it until he reached the roof. He breathed in the cool spring air, heavy with the smells of fresh blossoms and the sounds of cheerful frogs singing. On the edge of the building, he sat and dangled his feet over the high wall, looking up at the silhouette of the high school on the plateau, with a nearly full moon glowing behind it.

  The freedom of the night was intoxicating. Kuro leapt from the wall and landed like a cat on the soft grass. He strolled casually back to Autumn Lodge, enjoying the peace and solitude.

  The island was a different world at night. The huge moon bathed it in cool blue light. Glowbugs danced with each other in the grass. Pixies left glittering trails as they flitted between flowers, drinking nectar and collecting berries. Thorny quillblossom bushes, normally a barricade of needles, opened their delicate white blooms, which glowed brightly in the moonlight.

  The air warmed as he moved to the Summer Quarter, and the songs of frogs shifted to the rhythmic buzz of cicadas. The air grew heavy and humid, but the normally oppressive heat of the quarter was broken by a gentle cool breeze. Kuro was startled by movement in the woods. They were still and quiet in the day but had come alive in the night. Eelvines, docile and lazy in the sun, shifted and slithered along branches as they vied for better bask
ing locations. A family of skunks wandered past, waddling with confidence and barely giving Kuro a second glance. Larger things moved deeper in the woods, too, but Kuro thought better of investigating. Charlie would judge him harshly for his lack of curiosity, but if a single one of her stories was true, he did not want to meet what roamed the woods at night.

  Autumn Quarter was different again, but unlike the other two, it was quiet. The only sounds were of the rustling leaves. If anything was alive in the autumn night, they were much better at keeping hidden than in the warmer quarters. The chill air cut through Kuro’s uniform, and he hurried to the lodge.

  He crept into the lounge, trying not to disturb anyone. A couple of high school students were exchanging affections in a dark corner, and a senior slept amid a pile of textbooks and paper, pen still in hand.

  Kuro shook the worst of the leaves and dirt from his clothes into a low-burning fire and climbed behind a couch. He had been sleeping there the past few weeks since being exiled from the dorms by the other boys for fear of him stealing their things. He couldn’t complain too much, though. The fire was warm and the cushions soft. It was still better than his old bed in Detritus.

  Kuro woke early and starving. He sat alone at breakfast, gorging himself on split-pea waffles and watching Charlie and the others from afar. Kuro desperately wanted to talk to his friends but couldn’t find an opportunity. People or their familiars always seemed to be around, and his friends were doing a good job of keeping up the ruse of being enemies. It would be the weekend before another of their planned meetings, and Kuro had to keep all his news bottled up for days. He also had another detention before then.

  He made sure to show up to his next appointment with Flint on time and with a full stomach. He faced the vice principal on the steps of the school with steely resolve, ready for whatever misery he could dish out.

  “Last time was too easy for you, eh?” Flint sneered. He carried a pair of thick rubbery gas masks and a large canister with a pump on the top. A long hose attached to it had what looked like a shower head at the end. “Not a proper punishment, was it? Well, let’s see how you feel about dragonfey. There’s an infestation of them in the Vertheim greenhouse and—”

  “Dragonfey?” Kuro interrupted. “No problem. One minute.” He ran into the schoolhouse, despite Flint cursing after him to stay put. He returned minutes later hauling a large empty cage and bag of sweets from Ms. Crawley’s desk.

  “What’s that?” Flint demanded.

  “It’s a cage,” explained Kuro. “Don’t worry. I left a note.”

  Flint was not at all happy with Kuro’s eagerness, but he didn’t seem to know what to do with a student who walked willingly to his detention. He just sneered and muttered to his ferret about the falling standards at the school, then led Kuro out to the greenhouse in the Winter Quarter. A “Caution, Dragonfey. No Entry” sign had been added to the door since the last time Kuro had visited.

  “A couple of elves had to go to the nurse last night after they disturbed the nest.” Flint looked eager to throw Kuro into the greenhouse and leave him to be devoured. “We’re to clear them out.”

  He handed Kuro a gas mask and shoved the spray canister over to him before pulling on a mask of his own and drawing an amber rod with a wooden handle. “You spray the plants with pesticide, and I’ll deal with the flying ones.” He illustrated his intention by launching a crackling shower of electric arcs from the tip of his rod.

  Kuro looked at the canister and rod uncertainly. “Do we have to kill them?” he asked, already feeling bad enough for having grieved the one so badly with his magic.

  “What else do you do with pests?” demanded the vice principal, his harsh nasal voice muffled by the mask.

  “You put them in cages,” answered Kuro, “and feed them well enough to keep them from causing trouble.”

  Mr. Flint had no response and could do nothing but watch as Kuro abandoned the pesticide and pushed inside the greenhouse armed only with his cage and candies.

  The dragonfey were not hard to find; the greenhouse was absolutely buzzing with them. They were everywhere, flitting about, tearing leaves from holly trees, making a mess of snowblossom bushes, and devastating the poinsettias in their hunt for prey.

  Flint charged his rod. Electric sparks arced from it, ready to shock anything that dared to enter his space, likely to its demise. Kuro ignored the violent man and instead made a pile of unwrapped toffees in the cage.

  One dragonfey took offence to the trespassing of humans into their domain and buzzed towards them, screeching and gnashing its teeth. Kuro did his best to stay calm. His plan had seemed quite reasonable before he was actually facing an uncaged and angry monster. He started to wave his hands as he’d been taught and to sing the single word. He felt the connection and the idea of hunger following his palms through their path. With growing confidence he sang out, “Gráðr!” as he pushed his hands forward.

  The dragonfey crashed into the wave of blue mist that washed forward from Kuro’s hands and started to buzz manically in circles, its territorial zeal forgotten and replaced with frantic hunger. Kuro approached it and offered a toffee. It attacked the little brown ball with ferocious glee, its teeth and claws quickly becoming stuck in the surface. Kuro picked up the incapacitated creature and gently placed it in the cage.

  Flint gave a dissatisfied snort but did not interfere as Kuro continued to ensorcel and bait the dragonfey into the cage. Half an hour later, Kuro was confident that he’d caught all of them. Together, Kuro and Flint cautiously pulled the large leafy nest from its hiding place in a holly tree and tossed it into the snow outside.

  Flint’s eyes held almost a glimmer of approval as he finally removed the unnecessary gas mask, but it vanished as Kuro began the motions to cast again.

  Kuro had spotted a huge dragonfey, more than twice the size of the others, with an extra pair of wings and a bloated abdomen, creeping down the roof of the greenhouse towards them, crawling on its six limbs. It was right behind Mr. Flint.

  “Attack me, will you boy?” Flint yelled, his whiny voice cracking as he ducked away from the puff of mist from Kuro’s spell. “Think a wizardling like you could best me?” The tip of his lightning rod began sparking violently. “Time to get what you really deserve.”

  The dragonfey leapt straight through the cloud but instead of searching for food, it became even more enraged and dove straight for Flint’s back, fangs bared.

  Flint meanwhile had charged his lightning rod, and a bolt of lightning split the air, narrowly missing Kuro as he dove out of the path of the arc, launching himself forward and placing himself between the dragonfey and the vice principal. He cast the only evocation he could in the moment that might buy him some time. He focused his thoughts and tried to lift a leaf in front of him, and the evocation misfired as it always did. The air between them exploded. A burst of wind knocked Flint sprawling onto his hands and knees, while Kuro and the dragonfey queen were sent crashing into the greenhouse wall.

  Flint rolled to reclaim his rod and growled at his familiar to attack. Kuro ignored him, instead scrambling to find the calm needed to cast a spell. If hunger wouldn’t distract the queen, he would need something stronger. He stood shakily and let himself remember the horror of laughter.

  Neither the dragonfey queen nor Flint was so patient as to give Kuro time to find his focus.

  Flint chased Kuro around the greenhouse, peppering the garden with bolts of lightning, singeing plants and leaving charred craters in trees.

  The queen, now both angry and ravenous, chased Flint, half slithering, half galloping along the ground.

  The creature was intercepted by an unexpected ally. Flint’s ferret, apparently more observant than Flint himself, shot past Kuro and attacked the dragonfey. They tangled into a ball of claws, fangs, scales, and fur as they tore into each other.

  Flint, unable to see the raging battle through the flower beds, shouted at his familiar, “Sigmund, wha
t do you think you’re—”

  Flint’s words caught in his throat as his familiar’s was torn out by the vicious dragonfey queen. The conjured ferret burst in a puff of spiritual smoke that returned to its creator, bringing all the experiences of the familiar back with it.

  Flint’s momentary shock at the sudden flood of new memories was enough for Kuro to take a shot. The slavering dragonfey queen took off and flew for the throat of the dazed Mr. Flint.

  Kuro pointed at the giant dragonfey, let the horror of his master’s laughter flow through his arm, and said, “Hlàtr.”

  The queen crumpled mid-flight. She thumped harmlessly off Flint and fell, sobbing, to the soil.

  Fifteen

  Solstice

  The principal paced back and forth in front of Kuro, tapping her fingers on her desk sharply as she passed. Kuro had been pulled out of evocations class and was sitting on a hard wooden chair in her office. She made several passes of Kuro, alternately scowling at and scrutinizing him as if she were hoping he would give up some kind of secret just from inspection. Her mood was so foul that it was sucking the warmth from the room.

  “Kuro.” She said his name as if it were an accusation. “I woke this morning to find that Sycamore Flint had penned a formal recommendation to excuse you from completing your assigned detention. Do you know how many times this has happened in the history of his tenure?” She did not wait for Kuro to respond. “Once. And it was because the student had broken both of their arms while carrying out his instructions.”

  She paused, waiting for some admission of guilt from Kuro. But Kuro wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be guilty of.

  “Furthermore, Beatrice Crawley is asking why she has fully two dozen more dragonfey in her classroom than she did last night, and Gustave De Rigueur is asking permission to do a new class activity with the unfertilized eggs of a live dragonfey queen which he has mysteriously acquired.”

  Kuro couldn’t believe that he was being scolded for helping. “Why don’t you ask Mr. Flint? He was there.”