Volume 1: Pickpocketing

by R. A. Consell

  All he needed to do was make it to the hidden stairs beneath the pulpit before the bird saw what he was doing. He could toss the bag down, and Charlie would be safe so long as Kuro led the crow away.

  He didn’t make it.

  “Stand still, you insolent weasel!” shouted Phineas from the doorway.

  Kuro’s feet ground to a halt. He tried to move, to think of a way around the order. He hadn’t said for how long again. Kuro managed only one step before Phineas added, “And stay still!”

  Kuro turned as best he could to see his master. He was no longer the well-dressed gentleman who had taken him from the school. He was filthy, singed, and bleeding. He looked haggard and out of breath. He limped in the doorway and levelled his cane at Kuro. Kuro glanced around, hoping for rescue, but there was no sign of Ms. Crawley or Ms. McCutcheon.

  “They’re miles away. They don’t know the lane like we do, and Sabine is leading them on a merry chase.” He raised his cane, and with incredible malice in his voice, he began to chant a dirge of a spell.

  Kuro shut his eyes and waited for the end. He felt cold, a cold that ran straight to the bone and numbed the mind, but it did not hurt. It was slightly peaceful. That was, until the screaming started.

  “How dare you commit violence in my church!” cried Father John.

  Kuro opened his eyes. He was not dead; he was inside the ghostly priest. Kuro saw a violet glow on Father John’s chest where the dark spell had landed. It was rapidly fading. Father John’s flaming skull was blazing brighter and brighter with righteous fury, filling the burned-out church with ghastly light. “How dare you assault one of my parishioners!” he screamed so loudly that Kuro’s ears were left ringing.

  The other ghosts were rising from their pews. Their normally placid faces were twisting and turning monstrous with anger. “How dare you!” Father John screeched once more before charging. The ghost screamed so loudly that Phineas dropped his cane and covered his ears.

  Father John passed straight through Phineas, and the wizard staggered backwards, shocked by the cold. He shook off the feeling and tried to cast a spell that could ward off a spirit, but another flew through him, and another and another. His crow tried to come to his defence, shedding its feathers and fighting the ghosts spirit to spirit, but it was quickly overwhelmed. The entire congregation was flying through Phineas again and again. He was clutching his chest and shivering, but still he staggered toward Kuro with hate in his eyes.

  While the ghostly assault was not enough to stop Phineas entirely, it slowed him enough for a counterattack, though Kuro was still fixed in place, trying to think his way out of the orders he’d been given.

  Kuro saw his bag, lying on the ground nearby, move. Some blond bangs and a nose poked out of the opening. A heavy wooden pew lifted off the ground and flew straight at the embattled wizard. It knocked him from his feet and pinned him to the stone wall of the church.

  Phineas howled with pain and anger. He fought to push the pew off him with the force of his own mind. Even with the continued assault of the ghosts, it was clear that Phineas would soon overpower Charlie’s defence. Kuro did not want to know what Phineas would do to her in retribution if he freed himself. Kuro did not want to give him the chance.

  He wanted to disobey, but his body was refusing to move. “Charlie,” he said through clenched teeth. “I need you to raise my hand, point it at him.”

  “I can’t do it to other people,” she said. “I could hurt you.”

  “It’s okay, I trust you,” Kuro assured her. “And if we don’t do something, he’s gonna hurt us both.”

  Kuro felt a tug in his arm, like a cold hook through his wrist hauling it upward. Charlie levelled his hand at Phineas. Through the pain in his wrist and the thought of the betrayal he was about to commit, he could not find the focus he needed for the spell. The words escaped him. All he had was the fear of the moment. His head spun with his disobedience. His breaths became shallow, and his racing heart was slowing to a sluggish walk.

  Phineas saw Kuro weak and shaking, with a trembling hand outstretched. He saw him there and laughed. “You cannot stand against me, can you, boy? I made you. I own you.” He laughed again.

  It was the hollow, callous laugh of a man who knew nothing of joy. It was the laugh that haunted Kuro’s dreams and shook him to the core of his being. It was exactly the laugh that Kuro needed to align his mind and feelings into a single focused thought.

  “Hlàtr,” he sang out with all the sadness and despair he carried with him. An ashy torrent flowed from Kuro’s finger and poured over Phineas. Tears welled up in Hearn’s eyes, and his face twisted in anguish before the sadness overtook him completely and he went limp.

  Kuro felt the penalty for his disobedience crash over him like a wave. He smiled with victorious freedom as the world sank to black, and he, too, tumbled to the ground.

  Twenty-four

  Headaches

  Kuro woke not long after with his head throbbing, and his chest felt as though someone were sitting on it. Sabine and a pair of wizards in white he didn’t know were tending to him. Sabine looked battered and distressed but relieved when Kuro awoke.

  Kuro sat up and looked around. The church was busy with people. A dozen dangerous-looking mages in green uniform coats were talking to each other: Hounds. Several of them pointed charged wands or loaded crossbows threateningly at Phineas, while their canine familiars, including one large wolf, held him in place. Despite being bound and gagged, his eyes burned with a fury that made Kuro want to run.

  Ms. Crawley was standing apart from the others, looking very dark and unsettled. She was leafing through Phineas’s journal and scowling at what she saw.

  Father John was trying to calm the other spirits in the church without screaming too much, with mixed success. Ms. McCutcheon was there as well, unkempt, but apparently unharmed, judging by how furiously she was arguing.

  The man she was engaged with was, of course, Talen Dubois. He was attempting to treat her dismissively and was failing completely, to the obvious amusement of some of the other Hounds.

  “You knew. You bloody well knew, and you didn’t tell me,” scolded the principal.

  “I suspected, Liath. It was only a suspicion,” soothed Dubois. “I couldn’t be—”

  “Don’t ‘Liath’ me, Talen Dubois.” Her brow furrowed so deeply that Kuro thought her eyebrows would touch. “He could have died. He very nearly did. What could be gained from keeping a secret like this?”

  Something about that accusation struck a chord with the Hound. “Look,” he said testily. “I thought it would be better if he didn’t have it hanging over his head.”

  “And we would have been much better prepared to deal with it if we had known.” Ms. McCutcheon grabbed him by the collar and pointed at Phineas with obvious disgust. “And wasn’t he supposed to be in your prison?”

  Dubois cringed at the accusation.

  Kuro could have watched this all day. Seeing Dubois dismantled like a truant child was delightful. He wasn’t allowed to enjoy it for long, though. Sabine, who was helping him to sit up, cleared her throat politely to get the arguing pair’s attention and said, “He’s awake.”

  Ms. McCutcheon looked deeply relieved, and she swept over to him. “Kuro, how are you feeling?” She doted over him, checking his wounds and looking so worried and maternal that Kuro thought she might now be ensorcelled.

  “I’m fine,” answered Kuro, though the splitting pain in his head said otherwise. He felt like his brains were going to leak out his nose.

  “Kuro . . .” She paused and looked very apprehensive. “Do you know what happened to Charlie? We can’t find her. She disappeared with you at the beginning of the fight and—”

  “She’s in my bag,” interrupted Kuro. He looked around for it and found that he was lying on top of it. He opened it up and yelled inside. “Hey Charlie, you okay?”

  Charlie was sitting on the floor inside his bag, le
aning against some shelves. “Yeah, fine. Did we win?” she shouted back. They didn’t need to shout, but something about the space inside the bag made things seem farther away.

  “Yup. Everything is fine now, I think. Do you want to come out?” He laid the bag on its side and allowed Charlie to crawl out.

  Ms. McCutcheon’s caring expression slid from her face. She did not look at all pleased. “Where did you get that?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know,” said Kuro, pulling it tight to his chest protectively. He didn’t want it taken away, and he definitely didn’t want to get Ms. Wong from the lost and found in trouble for it. “I got it for Solstice. There was no name on the card.”

  She turned away, her expression frozen in frustration. “Dubois!” she bellowed.

  “How did you—” Dubois started before collecting himself. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You sent a twelve-year-old boy an illegal magical artifact as a Yule gift?” Ms. McCutcheon had returned to her full principalness and was scolding him harshly. “What were you thinking, putting a magical field container in the hands of a child?”

  “It’s not illegal,” Dubois defended. “It’s properly registered.”

  “So you’re abusing your influence as a commander of the Guard, then?”

  Kuro looked at his bag, conflicted. Dubois had given it to him? Why? Did it matter? It was one of the two things he owned that he really cared about. Having it come from Dubois kind of spoiled it. Even so, he hoped desperately that it wouldn’t be taken from him.

  “Look,” said Dubois, attempting to stand up to Ms. McCutcheon. “He stumbled across it in the lost and found and seemed quite fond of it. I just thought he might not have much of a Solstice, so I sent something along.”

  They continued to bicker back and forth, but Charlie distracted Kuro from the show. She stood beside him, her eyes fixed on Phineas, who was still being held in place by several Hounds. “That’s really him, isn’t it?” she said a little distantly.

  Kuro nodded slightly.

  Charlie’s fists clenched, and her eyes started to shine with moisture. She walked shakily between the arguing adults and stood facing the bound wizard. She stared for a few moments, then began to shake, whether out of rage or sorrow or both, Kuro couldn’t tell. Without warning, she lunged forward and swung wildly with her clenched fist. She landed a solid hit right in his face before a pair of Hounds grabbed her and dragged her away. “You stole my mother!” she screamed.

  Sabine ran to her and put her arms around her, letting Charlie sob into her shoulder.

  “What was that about?” asked Dubois, shocked by the display.

  Ms. McCutcheon got very close to Dubois, forcing him to look her in the eye. “That is Charlotte Cook, Mr. Head of the Hounds. She is Helena Vigdis’s daughter.”

  “Oh” was all Dubois could manage.

  “Kuro’s best friend.”

  “Oh,” repeated Dubois, looking very uncomfortable.

  “Again, something we could have been prepared for if you weren’t keeping secrets from me.” The principal’s words were crisp and cutting.

  Dubois was rescued from further assault by one of the Hounds. “Boss, why are we keeping Hearn here? Can we bring him back to Niflheim, already?” said the grizzled, angry-looking woman with a slobbering boarhound at her heel.

  “Because I want him to remove the curse from Kuro,” explained Dubois.

  “What curse?” demanded Ms. McCutcheon, rounding on Dubois once more, their brief ceasefire ended.

  “Kuro is cursed,” Dubois explained. “A curse we couldn’t identify.”

  “And you saw no reason to let us know that there was a potentially dangerous curse wandering around campus?” complained Ms. McCutcheon. “Or did you need to keep it to yourself in case you could ever use it to your advantage?”

  “I thought he would be safe at Avalon,” said Dubois accusingly.

  “I thought Niflheim was inescapable,” countered Ms. McCutcheon.

  “Please stop fighting in front of the children,” interrupted Sabine sweetly. “They have had a very difficult day.”

  Dubois calmed a bit at Sabine’s scolding and glanced almost apologetically at Kuro. “Look, the curse was too dangerous to Kuro for us to remove, and I wasn’t going to let Phineas know we had Kuro in custody or give him any access to him. We weren’t even certain that Kuro and Phineas were related. But since that cat’s out of the bag, as it were, now seems a fine time to undo this thing.”

  Dubois turned his attention to the bound Phineas, and the captain’s familiar, the large wolf Garmr, growled menacingly. “How about you do your one good deed for the day and tell us how to break that curse?” Dubois suggested with ice in his voice. Phineas replied only with a cruel and victorious grin.

  “He can’t.” Ms. Crawley had remained silent and unnoticed until now. She closed Phineas’s journal and walked over to where Kuro was sitting. She knelt down and spoke directly to Kuro, where the others had only spoken to each other. “It’s baked right in,” she said. Her eyes were full of deep sadness and Kuro had a hard time looking into them. “Worked into every cell of your body from the moment you were conceived.

  “What are you talking about?” interrupted Ms. McCutcheon.

  Ms. Crawley responded to Ms. McCutcheon but didn’t look away from Kuro. “We created you. It took years of experimentation to mix Blandlands science and technology with magic to make you. You were our only success. None of the others survived incubation. You’re the world’s only half-lutin.”

  It was true. Phineas hadn’t been lying when he’d said that Kuro was just an experiment. “Why did you do it?” asked Kuro.

  Ms. Crawley sighed very deeply before continuing. “We were going to overthrow the government. We needed soldiers. Powerful wizards who could go anywhere and do anything they were ordered and be perfectly loyal to their masters. So we combined the genetics of a witch and a lutin and built in a curse from the beginning to make him unable to disobey. The hope was to make a unit that could cast like a wizard, travel like a lutin, follow orders without question, and be indistinguishable from a human. It looks like we may have failed more or less on every front. Particularly that obedience part.” She tousled Kuro’s hair affectionately.

  “You are saying ‘we’ a lot,” said Dubois suspiciously.

  “Yes,” Ms. Crawley responded, not turning away from Kuro. “I helped. I was on the team. It was Phineas, a master neuromancer; Roche, a master enchanter; Vincent, a stray geneticist; and myself, a spellcraft specialist. Until today I had believed that I was under Phineas’s control the whole time. All I remembered of those two years were hazy dreams. It seems the truth was that they had stolen my memories. They were returned this afternoon.”

  “If you were on Phineas’s side, why did you help me today?” asked Kuro.

  “Because, Kuro,” Ms. Crawley smiled softly. “I have had twelve years to become a better person. I made some very bad choices when I was younger. I don’t think it was their intention, but they gave me another chance at doing better when they took my memories. Phineas thought I would join him again once I remembered. I almost did. But I have spent the last decade learning and teaching. I’ve taught students to defend themselves from people like him. I am not the person he thought he knew.”

  “Are you going to have to go to Niflheim?” asked Kuro quietly.

  “Probably, yes,” answered Ms. Crawley as she brushed some of Kuro’s hair out of his face.

  “So you’re not coming back to teach next year?”

  “I’m sorry, no,” she said softly.

  “So. . . .” Kuro’s mind was turning over ideas slowly, still several steps behind in the conversation. “If you helped create me, does that make you my mother?” He wasn’t sure why he asked it. A small part of him just thought that it wouldn’t be so bad if he had one, and that she wouldn’t be the worst option.

  She put her arms arou
nd him and hugged him tightly. Kuro had never been hugged like that before. He didn’t really know what to do. He felt glad and sad at the same time, and tears started flowing freely from his eyes, though he wasn’t crying.

  “No, Kuro,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m no more your mother than Phineas was your father. I’ve no right to be, either. I did terrible things, Kuro. But at least one good thing came of my mistakes. I’m very proud of who you have become. You’re already a better person than I’ve ever been.” She released him and held him at arm's length, as if to appraise him, and nodded approvingly.

  “Will I ever see you again?” asked Kuro.

  “I hope so,” said Ms. Crawley with a forced smile. She turned away from Kuro to face Dubois. Her teary eyes turned hard, and her face stiffened with resolve. “Here,” she said, handing him Phineas’s journal. “This should explain a great deal. I recommend destroying it. I’m ready to go when you are.”

  “Thank you, Beatrice.” Dubois looked conflicted. “You’re a very clever witch,” he said. “If you made a run for the Blandlands now, I’m not sure I’d be able to track you down.”

  She did not act on Dubois’s suggestion. Instead, she presented her hands to be bound. “I expect I will need to be gagged as well.”

  “Yes, I suppose you will,” said Dubois, accepting her surrender reluctantly. Dubois turned to Ms. McCutcheon. “Will you be all right bringing the children back on your own? I could provide an escort.”

  “Thank you, Talen,” said Ms. McCutcheon, her voice finally friendly towards the Hound. “Sabine, would you be able to take Miss Cook home to her father? I think she may need to spend a few days with her family. I will be along as soon as I can to explain what has happened.”

  Charlie and Kuro hugged before they left. “Thanks for coming to save me,” he said.

  “Anytime,” she answered, and they hugged again. “I’ll see you soon. Don’t have any fun without me.”