Father John screeched his farewells too, and wished Kuro well. Kuro promised to visit whenever he could, and this seemed to please the tortured spirit very much.
Some Hounds drove Kuro and Ms. McCutcheon back to the ferry dock. Dani’s motorboat was moored there, and she was waiting for them at her Blandlands dock when they arrived, at last, back at Avalon. She held Graeae and paced anxiously.
Upon their arrival, Dani hugged both of them in relief and informed them that they were never to do that to her again.
Kuro looked up at Ms. McCutcheon. The tyrant he thought he knew wore a warm and gentle expression and hugged Dani back with equal relief. He wondered how many other students had been allowed to see her like this: dishevelled, warm, and smiling. He suspected it was very few, for the moment they passed back through the veil, her appearance righted itself. She muttered as she walked away from the ferry dock, and as she did, she slowly reverted back to the Ms. McCutcheon he knew. Hey grey-streaked hair returned itself to a tight bun, her clothes righted and mended themselves, and the warmth and fatigue drained from her face, leaving her once again grim and proper. Once finished with herself, she did the same to Kuro, and his filthy, tattered clothes mended and cleaned themselves.
“That should save us some questions,” said the renewed Ms. McCutcheon in a businesslike tone. “I will take you to the infirmary. Your wounds should be properly attended to by a nurse, and I suspect a quiet night’s sleep would do you some good.”
They didn’t receive a single suspicious look on the way to the infirmary. Nobody they passed seemed to have even noticed them missing. The nurse took him in and had him drink a concoction that made him very sleepy.
He fought it for a little while. His head was racing with the day’s events, but he had been exhausted before the drink, and its encouragement to sleep was more than he could contend with. His last thoughts as he drifted off to sleep were of Ms. Crawley and what she had said. He laughed to himself about the idea of him being a soldier. For once, he was glad to be a failed experiment.
Twenty-five
School’s Out
Kuro stayed in the infirmary the next day. He was well enough to leave, but he wasn’t ready to face a full day of class, or deal with whomever they had enlisted to replace Ms. Crawley.
He refused to explain to Arthur or Marie what had happened until Charlie returned. He gave the reason that Charlie would tell it better than he could, which was true. He also felt that parts of the story were Charlie’s to tell, and he didn’t have the right to give them away.
Kuro was right to wait for Charlie. She returned that weekend filled with her usual zeal. Her recounting of the story required her to leap between tables and swing from rafters. They spent considerably less time running from a rhinoceros in her version, and much more time beating up Phineas. Kuro decided her version was by far superior to the actual events.
Arthur was thrilled by the story and oddly happy that Kuro was a half-lutin science experiment. He liked that he wasn’t the only one with a weird heritage. Marie was reluctant to get caught up in the excitement of it and said that wizards were all completely nuts. She insisted that it wasn’t normal to have your counsellor mind controlled or your principal get into duels in the streets. Despite that, she was the first to demand more whenever Charlie included a dramatic pause in her telling.
Before they knew it, they were back to classes as though nothing had happened. Exams were fast approaching, introducing Kuro to a new form of misery. He had never studied for anything in his life, and he was having a hard time convincing himself that it was important after all he had been through. Marie, however, had no intention of letting him fail and dragged him and a similarly unfocused Charlie through their work. “I don’t want to have to go making new friends next year if all of you fail,” she explained.
Kuro’s heart ached every time they had to go to spellcraft. Ogonov had replaced Ms. Crawley for the remainder of the term. He was very capable and knowledgeable, though he spent more time showing off than Ms. Crawley had, and he didn’t have the patience that she did. Kuro couldn’t help but think about Ms. Crawley languishing in a cell in Niflheim. He wished that she had run when Dubois had given her the chance and hoped that she was being treated well.
Exam time came, and with it, hours of sitting in silence in a prisonlike room. It took all his resolve for Kuro not to flee from every exam and run into the Badlands to play among the fledgling birds there. With great restraint and threats from Marie that she would tie him to his chair, he managed to make it through all of them.
The final day of school came faster than Kuro wished. He would have been happy if that last month had gone on forever. Kuro was surprised to discover, in the end, that he had failed only a single subject: evocation. He would be repeating it next year, but that wasn’t so bad, he thought. He might be ahead of the class this time. Also, it reminded him that he would actually be coming back next year, a thought that he couldn’t have imagined himself being happy about ten months prior.
He did have a victory to celebrate when they received their final grades, though it had nothing to do with his own marks. Evelyn had finished top of their year in every subject except one: alchemy. Arthur had received top marks in that class, a fact he felt extremely guilty about, given that Kuro was solidly at the bottom.
The ferry ride back across the bay the next day was bittersweet. Charlie, Arthur, and Marie were all happy to be seeing their families again, but none was happy to be leaving the others behind. Arthur finally got to ride with them on the same trip, and it became very clear why he hadn’t before. As he passed through the veil, his ever-shifting appearance scrambled and got stuck. He spent the ride looking much more like Marie than she was at all comfortable with.
Kuro had a growing sense of apprehension about leaving Avalon. It felt like home now, and a part of him feared that if he left, it wouldn’t be there when he came back. He watched it fade into the distance behind them until it was completely out of sight.
All four promised to try to visit each other, but none knew if they would be able to. They weren’t even certain they could write to each other. Charlie and Arthur could exchange mail via lutin post, but Marie informed them that they would have to use ordinary mail if they wanted to send letters. She also tried to explain about computers and email, but computers didn’t work properly behind the veil; they had too much energy whizzing around inside of them and started having thoughts of their own. Kuro didn’t even know where to tell them to send letters yet, but he took all of their addresses.
As they disembarked, Kuro was quickly abandoned. Charlie and Arthur ran to meet their waiting families. Marie was put on a bus with the other fireflies and driven off toward their Blandlands exit.
Charlie pulled her father over to meet Kuro before they left. He was a broad strong man who wore work boots and well-worn jeans and smelled like hay and dirt. He smiled at Kuro and extended a hand, but his eyes were despondent. Kuro thought that he must know who Kuro was and what had happened to his wife because of him. Kuro accepted the handshake and said “pleased to meet you” as apologetically as he could.
Charlie noticed none of this and began recounting the last couple of weeks to her father as soon as the handshake broke. Kuro started missing her the moment she turned away. He could hear her boisterous voice even after they closed the doors on their rusty pickup truck.
Arthur’s adoptive family was there to pick him up. His mother and little sister were waiting, though his father was notably absent. Arthur’s hair turned a swirl of neon colours as he ran up to greet them.
Despite not being there to meet his son, Dubois was not entirely absent. A familiar lumberjack was standing alone on the dock. The disguised Dubois nodded to Kuro, inviting him to come speak to the Hound.
The other children of the orphanage were still saying goodbyes to friends or waiting for Meredith, who had taken it on herself to speak to every parent of every first-year Lodger, so he l
acked an excuse to refuse.
“Dubois?” Kuro asked accusingly when he was close enough to speak to him without being overheard. “Shouldn’t you be with Arthur?”
Dubois chuckled. “It’s best if people don’t connect him too much with me. He has enough to deal with without everyone knowing he’s the son of the Dread Wolf.”
Kuro couldn’t argue but was annoyed that it meant he was stuck talking to Dubois instead. “What do you want?”
Dubois smiled wolfishly. “Just keeping an eye on you.”
“Still?” complained Kuro. “Am I still on parole?”
Dubois sighed heavily and put a hand on Kuro’s shoulder. “You were never a prisoner. I’ve been trying to protect you.”
“Didn’t work very well, did it?” Kuro scowled at the Hound.
“No, it didn’t,” Dubois admitted. “Look, I’m used to keeping secrets. It’s part of my job. It’s also something of a bad habit, if you ask my wife.” He tried to laugh casually, as if that were a joke of some kind.
“Or Ms. McCutcheon,” added Kuro.
Dubois tensed as though he was going to defend himself, but he let it go. “Fair,” he conceded. “The point I’m trying to make here is that they’re right, and there are some more things you should know. When we returned Phineas to Niflheim, he was still in his cell. Somebody had cursed a stray to look like him and swapped them.”
“I thought that was impossible,” Kuro replied, skeptical of anything Dubois had to say. “You can’t alter living things.”
Dubois corrected him in a low voice. “It’s not that you can’t. It’s that you shouldn’t. It’s complicated and dangerous magic to mess with. A tiny mistake can do terrible harm. The man in the cell was not well at all.”
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Kuro suspiciously.
“Because it means you still might not be safe,” Dubois explained. “It means that someone helped Phineas. Somebody with access to Niflheim. Somebody inside the Guard. Somebody willing to let a stray die just to get Phineas out. Also, Beatrice told us that Claudius Roche was working with them to create you, and we’ve never caught him. I don’t think he’ll come after you again, but, well, we have people keeping an eye out anyway.”
“Where is Ms. Crawley?” interrupted Kuro. “Is she okay?”
Dubois looked away from Kuro. “She’s under house arrest. She’s being very helpful in our investigations, and her record is very good, but. . .” Dubois sighed. “My authority only goes so far. She’ll have to stand trial. I’ll do all I can for her, I promise.”
Kuro nodded sadly. Dubois sounded truly unhappy about the situation. It might have been the first thing he’d ever said that Kuro fully believed.
“I believe your fellows are calling for you,” said Dubois. “Good luck. And take care of yourself. And . . . don’t do anything reckless.”
Kuro left Dubois and joined the dozen or so other orphans as they hauled their overstuffed trunks and suitcases onto a big yellow bus, which took them to the outskirts of Bytown.
Standing alone at the end of an empty country road was what looked like a small fortress. A high stone wall stood against intrusion or, more likely, prevented the residents’ escape. The front doors were heavy iron and looked to have a dozen locks. A thick, wild, thorny hedge surrounded the base of the wall. Above the door hung a roughly carved wooden sign: “Bytown Royal Orphanage.”
To Kuro’s baffled astonishment, the other children ran happily to the door of the terrifying prison and pulled their things inside. Kuro followed, feeling numb and much less hopeful for his coming summer months.
He stepped through the door and out into another world. Inside, the walls were bright white stone and barbed-wire free. The grounds were filled with well-tended gardens and old trees. Several small cottages surrounded a central manor, where a kind-looking matron stood waiting to greet the returning students.
Meredith was immediately set upon by several small children, the oldest of which couldn’t have been more than six. She laughed and picked them all up in one arm, hugging them so tightly they looked like they might pop. Another girl not much younger than Kuro ran to greet Bella. They looked very similar, and Kuro guessed them to be sisters. Bella proudly showed off her scarred eye to the girl.
Right in the centre of it all, surrounded by a small pond filled with purple fish, was a statue of a familiar wizard. It was tall and bronze. On its base was a metal plaque that read “In recognition of our founder and key sponsor, this statue is dedicated to Talen Dubois.”
Kuro stared at the statue. “Dubois,” he grumbled. “Why is it always Dubois?” At least, he thought, he would have something to practise his evocations on over the summer.
Volume 1: Pickpocketing Page 30
