They had to feed themselves since the lutin fasted after Solstice and weren’t too keen on cooking during that time either. Kuro found that he enjoyed his turn to help prepare meals. He was actually reasonably good at it, and cooking with all the right ingredients, none of which he had to steal, was a novel experience.
Despite their fun, and Charlie’s unflappable attitude, Kuro worried about her. She acted as though everything were fine, that what Kuro had said about her mother had not bothered her at all. But even though she played, laughed, and complained as normal, her hand often went to her chest, where her locket hung, to make sure it was still there. Kuro also noticed that when she thought nobody was around, her bluster would fade, and she would look very sad and lonely.
They had also been working on the returning spell with Meredith. Despite its difficulty, Charlie had a decent handle on it and could make Kuro’s shoes walk over to him and his book bag inch its way towards him, but not even Meredith had managed to get it to return an IOU note back to the writer. “Time for some expert advice,” Meredith said over breakfast on New Year’s Eve. “We’re not getting anywhere with the spell we have, and everyone will be back soon. Maybe it doesn’t work on paper, or maybe notes just don’t know who owns them. I don’t know. I’m going to ask Crawley if there are other spells that might do the trick.”
Charlie and Kuro celebrated their dwindling hours of freedom as best they could, running through the snow-covered fields around Vertheim, climbing trees to pick fresh fruit near Summerhill, and splashing around in the fountains of the Chateau du Printemps.
As night settled on the last day in December, they were startled by explosions outside. They ran to the windows to see fire dancing in the sky over Avalon. Brilliant red, blue, and yellow flames chased each other above the treetops. Charlie grabbed Kuro and pulled him outside to get a closer look.
In the snowy fields outside Vertheim, they found a group of high school students showing off their evocation skills. Charlie added the little balls of light she could conjure to the display.
One by one, the other leftover students joined them in the snow, filling the sky with light. The streaks of flame were joined by arcs of lightning, dancing sheets of rainbow colours, and streams of mist that left trails of snowflakes glittering in the moonlight.
Soon, their display started to attract teachers. Ms. Crawley and Mr. Ogonov took it as an opportunity to show off and launched a display of their own, trying to upstage each other. Far from the simple evocations of the students, they performed complex spells that required continuous motion and chanting. Ms. Crawley conjured a great soaring bird of smoke and flame, which dwarfed Vertheim and bathed the snow in an orange glow, while Ogonov created a massive dragon of mist, which thundered with the lightning that flashed constantly within. De Rigueur provided commentary, mostly noting how the Chinese wizards had mastered enchanting fireworks and how he had the honour of joining the emperor for a display during a Lantern Festival in his youth.
It all ended with a startling climax, as an enormous white tiger made of smoke and light roared down from the clouds. Students dove for cover as it crashed down on top of them, filling the field with a thick haze.
The smoke began to swirl in a tighter and tighter vortex until it coalesced into Principal McCutcheon. Her entrance earned a round of polite applause from the other teachers while the students picked themselves up off the ground and out of the bushes they had dived into.
“Happy New Year, everyone,” she said with a tight smile. “It is now past midnight, and I would encourage all students to return to their dormitories.” She said it in the typical Ms. McCutcheon fashion, making argument and dissention all but impossible.
They shuffled back into their dorms, at first complaining about having to do so, but then moving on to complain about how cold and tired they were from standing out in the snow for so long.
Kuro was just as tired as the rest of them, but that didn’t help him sleep. He had gotten comfortable with Avalon being so empty. The idea of swarms of students returning tomorrow clung to him and crawled through his mind like centipedes chasing sleep away. After hours of restlessness, he decided to give up and raid the kitchen for some leftover Solstice treats.
As he wandered out of the dormitories, he found that he was not the only one failing to sleep. Charlie was sitting at one of the tables in the lounge, illuminated by a beam of moonlight falling through a half-shuttered window. She had her locket open and was looking at the pictures inside with such sadness that it hurt Kuro’s chest to watch.
He froze, not sure what to do. Should he quietly retreat and leave her to her thoughts? Or should he try to talk to her? What would he even say? “I’m sorry I stole your mother and got her killed” didn’t seem like a very comforting way to open the new year. His decision was made for him, though, by a log in the low-burning fire that decided it would be a good time to pop and crack.
Charlie’s head snapped up, startled by the noise. Seeing Kuro, she quickly stowed her locket and put on a brave face.
“Hey!” she said brightly. “I didn’t know you were still up.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” replied Kuro. “I was going to see if there were still any swiss rolls left from Solstice.”
Neither moved for a while, both wanting to say something but neither able to. Eventually, the weight of silence became too much, and Kuro managed to ask, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” said Charlie, waving it off as if it were a silly question. “Just . . . thinking.”
“Okay. I’ll let you think,” said Kuro moving towards the kitchen, but wishing he could do more for his friend.
He turned to leave, but as he reached for the handle of the door to the dining hall, Charlie spoke. “Kuro,” she said in an unusually quiet voice. “Principal McCutcheon said . . . I shouldn’t ask you things. That it could hurt you.”
Kuro stopped. It was true. There were a lot of things that he wanted to tell her but couldn’t. He wished Ms. McCutcheon hadn’t said anything. “It might, yeah. But it’s fine. I don’t mind,” he said.
“No! No. Don’t worry about it.” Charlie tried to hide the pleading in her voice, but she was a bad liar. “Sleep well!”
Kuro moved to leave again, but his legs were like lead. “What do you want to know?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she insisted. “It’s fine, really.”
Kuro thought hard about what Phineas’s orders had been. Keep him secret, never reveal anything about him or what he does or where he goes. Phineas had only ever been concerned with himself; he’d never thought to order Kuro to silence about the woman that had died other than Phineas’s involvement in it. With some creativity, Kuro could work around his orders. Just as he never talked directly to anybody or actually stole anything, he could talk about Helena Vigdis.
He walked over and sat on the floor at Charlie’s feet. “Asking won’t hurt me. Only answering. Ask me whatever you want. If I can’t tell you, I won’t. But if I can, I want to.”
Charlie had run out of energy to pretend. She pulled out the locket again and looked into it. “It’s just . . . I never got to know her. What was she like?”
Kuro found he could tell Charlie that with ease. “I don’t remember that well,” he started, grabbing a warm quilt from a sofa and wrapping himself in it. “I was very young when . . . when she was around. But I remember her being soft, and her voice was pretty. She told me stories. Some were in that Balthazar book. She was really patient. She taught me to read and count and cook and clean.”
They talked long into the night. Kuro drew out every faint memory he had of her and carefully wove Phineas out of the stories. Charlie listened, teary eyed but always asking for more. The sky was getting light by the time he got to the end of his stories.
“Thank you” was all that Charlie was able to say at the end of it all. She slid off her chair and smiled weakly at Kuro before shuffling off to bed, still clutching her locket.
; Eighteen
An Empty Library
On the first of January, the other children returned, and the grounds of Avalon were once more abuzz with the noise of students.
Kuro and Charlie met Arthur and Marie down at the docks, having all but forgotten their artificial enmity over the break. Charlie took one look at Marie and exclaimed, “Your hair looks amazing!”
Marie’s thick black hair had been woven into dozens of ropelike braids that coiled around her head and tumbled down her back. “Oh my gosh! So does yours!” Marie replied immediately.
Charlie’s strawlike blonde hair was standing on end in a violet-tipped Mohawk. She had been using Arthur’s magic brush every day, and it never failed to produce something noteworthy.
Their enthusiasm was interrupted by insipid tittering from nearby. They turned to find Evelyn standing directly behind them. Normally she kept herself as far from them as possible, so Kuro doubted that it had been by accident. She tossed her flawless cascade of golden curls back over her shoulders and beamed at them with her vibrant smile.
“So good to see you again,” she said with malicious civility. “And it’s so nice to see that you’ve done . . . something with your hair.” Charlie almost thanked her, mistaking it for a genuine compliment, but Evelyn continued before she had a chance. “It’s so heartening to see people like you aspire to something more than what you are.”
She and her entourage erupted with laughter. Marie was barely fazed. She responded with a rude gesture and turned her back on them. Charlie was more deeply wounded and sulked, slouching deeply and tripping over her feet.
Kuro, hoping to lighten the mood, asked Arthur about his holiday.
“It was great,” he said without a hint of emotion. “It’s nice to see my family again. Did you like your present? Was it useful?”
Kuro admitted that the moustache wax was indeed useful. “But how did you know I’d need a beard?” he asked.
“My dad told me about the feast,” said Arthur as though it were obvious. “He used to stay at the lodge over the break when he was a student.”
Kuro wanted to ask more, but he was cut off by Evelyn loudly recounting her Solstice holiday to her current collection of friends. Kuro did his best to ignore her. Her haughty voice was worse than nails on a chalkboard. It became impossible to block her out, though, as she was speaking to make sure all around could hear her. “Papa was telling me all sort of stories about the school. Did you know that Ms. Crawley was a suspect in the kidnapping of the heir to Summer? Oh yes, apparently she was tried for treason but got off on some technicality.”
Kuro scowled at the suggestion. Ms. Crawley was Kuro’s favourite teacher. He assumed that Evelyn didn’t like her because Ms. Crawley was too clever to fall for Evelyn’s false charm. He resisted the urge to argue with Evelyn. He couldn’t think of anything to say that was better than screaming “No” at her anyway.
She continued, her voice becoming even more arrogant and contemptuous, “Even worse, Papa says that the school has admitted a changeling.” She said the last word loudly enough to get the attention of everyone around her and stared at Kuro, waiting for a reaction of some kind.
Kuro did react. He was at first dumbfounded by the accusation. He’d no idea what she was talking about. Then he laughed at her, thinking that she’d made a very silly mistake in imagining that he was a changeling. Then doubt crept in. He didn’t know very much about changelings. Maybe he was one, after all. Finally he realized that his flurry of emotions and lack of retort probably made him look suspicious.
Thankfully, Evelyn and her crew peeled away to mount a chateau carriage, though the suggestion of a changeling in their midst had stirred the students around them into fervent speculation.
In hopes of dodging further suspicion, Kuro attempted to join back into the conversation that Charlie had been quite successfully maintaining on her own. Yet, he noticed that something wasn’t quite right in their group. Arthur was walking even more mechanically than usual, staring straight ahead and taking long measured breaths.
“Are you all right, Arthur?” asked Kuro, letting Charlie’s recounting of the Solstice Eve snowball fight cover his voice from eavesdroppers. “Arthur?” he repeated when Arthur did not respond.
“What?” Arthur’s head snapped around suddenly, eyes wide with panic for a moment. He turned back and steadied himself just as quickly. “Yes. Thank you, I’d love to,” he said in his unwavering monotone.
Kuro was not quite sure what to do. “What’s going on?” Kuro whispered as he leaned closer.
“Nothing,” said Arthur sharply. “I mean, . . . I’ll tell you later. After dinner, let’s go for a walk. I could use a walk.”
Kuro’s curiosity made the journey back to the lodge pass agonizingly slow. Dinner dragged on intolerably, and even the corn and cashew-stuffed ham seemed flavourless in anticipation.
After dinner, Arthur led them to the school to explain himself, but he was thwarted by the locked doors. “I didn’t think of that,” he said as he stared helplessly at the heavy wooden doors.
Kuro’s time with Flint in detention had taught him many things about the school, not the least of which was that it was anything but secure. He left his friends at the front door and climbed. The door to the roof was never locked. He went inside, darted through the empty halls, and moments later was bowing his friends into the darkened building.
Arthur led them to the library and searched out a book. He knew exactly where to find it, walking straight to a specific shelf and grabbing a huge leather-bound book with a large rose on the cover: The Continuing History of the Summer Court.
He flipped quickly to a specific page near the back of the book and passed it to Charlie, pointing out a specific paragraph. “Could you read this, please?”
Charlie took the book with glee and began to read in her best storyteller voice. “The confirmation of the Summer heir was to be held on the day of the first summer equinox after their birth. As the sole survivor of the royal family after the Coup d’ Été, the heir would have held the throne of Tirnanog from that day forward.
“The event drew representatives from many noble houses, including some from across the oceans. During the confirmation, though, the infant was revealed to be an imposter.
“Shortly before the child was to be presented to the assembled nobility under the noon sun of the equinox, a young guardsman, Sergeant Talen Dubois, interrupted the ceremony.
“He had been tracking the exiled and shamed former Marquis of the Golden Valley, Claudius Roche. His scent was found in the Summer Palace, and the guardsman tracked it to the heir’s crib. Out of fear of Sergeant Dubois’s wolf-shaped familiar, the baby in the crib grew claws and fangs to fend off the beast, revealing itself as a changeling.
“The search for the true Summer heir continues. Many associates of Claudius Roche have been captured and questioned, but no more information on where Roche or the heir are has come to light.”
“That’s me,” said Arthur as he took the book from Marie.
“You’re the heir to the Sun Throne?” Charlie exclaimed as she grabbed and shook Arthur with delight.
“No,” he replied, “I’m the changeling. That’s why I brought you up here. It’s what Evelyn said. I think she knows, so soon the whole school will, too. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but, well, my dad thought it would be good for me if I could keep it a secret.” Arthur fell silent. He tensed as though preparing for a blow.
“That. Is. So. Cool!” Charlie exclaimed as she grabbed Arthur by each shoulder and beamed at him.
“That makes sense,” said Kuro, nodding along. He understood not wanting to stand out. “But don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure Evelyn thinks I’m the changeling.”
Arthur shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. You look too weird. Changelings try to look like normal people.”
Kuro tried not to be insulted. Arthur wasn’t wrong. He wouldn’t have been
anyone’s first choice as a disguise if they were looking to blend in.
Marie sighed audibly. She had been waiting quietly in hopes that someone would explain what was going on, but as that hadn’t happened, she asked, “What is a changeling?”
“It means he’s a shapeshifter,” explained Charlie, not waiting for Arthur. “He can transform into anyone. Can you? Can you do it?”
Arthur was looking more stiff and tense than usual, staring solidly at the floor. “Yes,” he said hesitantly. “But, I’m not good at it. It’s hard. Most changelings don’t ever change. They just copy somebody in the Blandlands and stay that way forever. They can’t change shape out in the Blandlands.”
“So you’re a wizard and a changeling?” Charlie stared at him as though he were an exotic animal at a zoo. “That’s supposed to be really rare, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he replied.
Arthur stopped talking and steeled himself for something. He lifted his eyes to face his friends, and then did something that none of them expected. Something they didn’t even imagine him capable of. Arthur relaxed.
The tenseness in his posture and brow faded. His stiff expression and intense eyes softened, and the features on his face began to change. His nose broadened and flattened a little like Marie’s. His eyes became larger and brighter, like Charlie’s. His hair fell out of its perfect part and became longer, thicker, and brown like Kuro’s. His features continued to shift between conflicting facsimiles of theirs. He smiled weakly at his friends.
“I’ve been trying to look normal all year,” Arthur explained. “It takes a lot of concentration. If I get too excited or anything, I start changing shape kind of uncontrollably. It’s really embarrassing.”
Kuro was trying to process it all. It was hard to imagine Arthur being anything but entirely ordinary. The boy staring at him now seemed the opposite of everything Kuro had known him to be. He was slouching and disordered, and his face was full of feeling. Kuro felt a pang of betrayal that Arthur had kept this a secret from them, that he had pretended to be someone he wasn’t. On the other hand, Kuro knew that it would be wrong to hold that against anyone, especially Arthur, who had stood by Kuro when he had been exposed as a thief. He had been a good friend, and Kuro wasn’t about to turn on him now.
Volume 1: Pickpocketing Page 23
