The Villain Keeper

by Laurie McKay

  “You turned off your phone.”

  Yes, Caden had. He could learn this tech, too, but he’d no time for idle talk. He told them about the vials in Rath Dunn’s desk. He told them of Ms. Primrose and her office. He told them of the forgotten languages she claimed to have spoken.

  As he spoke, Brynne’s expression became more and more concerned. “Forgotten languages?” she said. “What’s that mean?”

  Truthfully, Caden didn’t fully know. He crossed his arms. “Languages that hurt the head to hear and the tongue to speak. One sounded musical, the other abrasive.”

  “That sounds like the tongues of power, spoken by the Elderkind.” She peered at Caden for a long while. “And you said Rath Dunn had a vial marked ‘Essence of Dragon’?”

  “Yes.”

  Tito, too, was frowning. He and Brynne looked at each other like their thoughts were aligned. Tito spoke first. “One of my foster mothers wore a perfume called ‘essence of desire.’”

  The perfume. That’s why Rath Dunn wanted it. It was part of the ingredients he was collecting.

  Brynne twisted her hands together. “She really is an Elderdragon, isn’t she?” That realization had slowly been building in Caden’s mind, too. And if that was the case, it was likely her perfume was a powerful spell component.

  “Dude,” Tito said, not seeming to realize the weight of this realization, “you’re not slaying Ms. Primrose.”

  Caden frowned. “I doubt I could.”

  “Well, good. Then don’t try it.”

  Brynne looked pale. She paced across the porch. “She could kill us all,” she said.

  When trying to save a stolen girl, one must expect to encounter anything, even enemies and Elderdragons. Caden considered Ms. Primrose’s silver hair and iridescent skin. Like Rath Dunn, she hadn’t killed them. “I’m certain she’s the Silver.”

  The tension and worry in Brynne seemed to lessen slightly. The Silver Elderdragon was known for much more mercy than the vicious and chilling blue.

  Caden looked out at the sculptures. Ms. Primrose did seem to want to eat someone. “Either the Silver or the Blue.”

  Brynne widened her eyes. “She can’t be the Blue,” she said, but Caden was unsure.

  Brynne bit her lip and looked fearfully around. “The Blue? Are you certain?”

  After a day of dragons and explosions and an aching arm, Caden found her response amusing. The dragon wasn’t on the road or hiding in the woods. “She wants to meet you.”

  “What?” Brynne said. Her eyes narrowed and her cheeks turned red. “What did you tell her about me?”

  Perhaps it was better to be kind. He set his hand on her shoulder. “Nothing,” he said. “I told her nothing.”

  Caden was saved from Brynne’s then-building wrath by Rosa. She came back to the porch while Officer Levine drove away, then gathered them around the small kitchen table. She stared at Caden for a moment. “You look pale.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Caden could have sworn that she did have magic of the mind, for she said, “Show me your arm.”

  “I already did,” Caden said.

  “Again,” she said.

  Reluctantly, he removed his coat. The large contract Ms. Primrose had given him hung heavily inside as he leaned it over his chair. The purple detention sheet crinkled from the other pocket. Rosa looked only at his wound. The color drained from her face. She grabbed a cloth, knelt next to him, and wrapped it around his arm.

  He fidgeted away from her tending. He had no mother, and he didn’t need one. “An Elite Paladin ignores his pain, he concentrates on his duty, he fights the—”

  She held up her palm. “I want you to stop that.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop Razzon. Keep your answers confined to this realm.” She squinted at him and, after a moment of silence, she said, “I can see the appeal of a world of kings and magic. This world can be gut wrenching.”

  “In one of the lower kingdoms, the penalty for desertion is to be split open across the belly. That’s gut wrenching.”

  “This realm of yours seems violent.”

  “Yet, you don’t believe it exists,” he said.

  She gently taped the bandage. “I want you to face what’s happening here and now.” He let her fuss for a moment. His arm did feel better wrapped and tended. It occurred to him it was a good time to give her the detention slip. While she worried, perhaps she wouldn’t get mad.

  He reached for his coat and pulled out his detention slip and pink-bejeweled phone. “I need you to sign the form,” he said. He smiled and pushed it and the phone to her. “Ms. Primrose was adamant.”

  Then again, maybe she would get mad. Rosa turned as red as an elvish firestone. She took the phone and seemed to scan through it. Brynne quietly left the kitchen. Tito started laughing.

  Rosa turned her full military gaze at him. “Tell me, Tito,” she said, “do you also have a phone?”

  Tito stopped laughing. He, too, went pale. “I wouldn’t swipe a phone, Rosa,” he said.

  “That’s not what I asked, and you’re listed in Caden’s contacts,” she said, and she said it quite astutely in Caden’s royal opinion.

  They were grounded yet again.

  “I don’t see how this is punishment,” Caden said.

  He rested back on his ugly pink and orange quilt. The attic room felt cozy, but it was difficult to get comfortable. Today was Friday. The new moon would rise Monday night. He released a breath and let the events of the day play through his mind.

  Tito was also ill at ease. He huffed and turned into his pillow. “No computer, no TV, no phone.”

  “Brynne will steal the phones back. Lest you forget, she’s a thief and a magic user.”

  Tito seemed unpleased by that. He turned around enough to glare in Caden’s general direction. “That’s a bad idea. Rosa’s already irked,” he said. Tito flopped back on his bed. “Rosa’s mad and we’re one day closer to losing Jane for good. I shouldn’t have taken that stupid phone.”

  Caden thought about Rath Dunn. He was connected to Jane’s disappearance. Caden was almost certain. But how? And what was the purpose of the vials? “Rath Dunn is up to some evil plot. I’m sure of it.”

  “With the vials?”

  “Maybe they’re spell ingredients.” Caden closed his eyes. Rath Dunn wanted Ms. Primrose’s perfume—that was the essence of a dragon. He’d taken Caden’s blood. It seemed it hadn’t worked, but that partially explained the “Blood of Son.” What about the “Magical Locks” and “Tears of Elf”?

  Caden opened his eyes and looked at Tito. There was something he’d forgotten. “There’s more. I heard Officer Levine speak to Ms. Primrose.” He told Tito about the janitor and the backpack.

  Tito was visibly troubled. “That sounds like Jane’s pack.”

  “I know it’s worrisome,” Caden said. “She disappeared at night, no doubt snared in the magic sand trap of the mountain. Why would her backpack be disposed of at the school?”

  “I was more concerned about what it means about Jane.”

  “We have until the new moon to find her.”

  “That’s only three more days.”

  Caden held Tito’s gaze. “We have the contract Ms. Primrose gave me—she meant it to help us in some way. Jane yet lives. We’ll find her.”

  Tito leaned forward; his hair fell over his face. Bent and hunched, he looked as if he’d been punched in the gut. “She’s been missing for over a week,” he said. “If she’s okay, why’d someone throw away her stuff?”

  Caden worried over the conditions in which Jane was being kept. He didn’t voice his worries to Tito. “We need to interview the janitor. Maybe he knows something more. According to Tonya, he’s Ward’s father, and he knows the teachers are villains.”

  At that, Tito shook his head. “The janitor’s like seven feet tall and he doesn’t speak to anyone, especially students.”

  Caden was confident he could get this janitor to speak, and what
did the janitor being seven feet tall have to do with anything? Caden’s second oldest brother, Maden, was over seven feet tall and Caden spoke to him all the time.

  “He speaks some—he spoke to Officer Levine,” Caden said.

  “Like I said, I’ll try anything.” Tito sounded defeated and certain. “But we’d have better luck just asking Ward, and he doesn’t talk either.”

  “Ward talks to me,” Caden said. “He’ll help us.”

  “Bro, he thinks you’re nuts.”

  “Quiet!” Rosa yelled up.

  Tito looked down at his hands like he was lost.

  Caden’s father often said, “A prince serves his people. A prince is compassionate.” Caden needed to show compassion now. Tito needed it. “Rosa will not kick us out,” Caden said. “Not for the phones.”

  Tito looked unsure. He glanced at his stacks of books and traced a finger along a purple thread on his ugly quilt. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said.

  Caden got up, crossed the taped line to Tito’s messy side of the room, and sat beside him.

  “What are you doing?” Tito leaned away. “You’ve got the same freaky look you had when you knighted me with the broom.”

  “My sword was taken,” Caden snapped. He took a calming breath and placed a hand on Tito’s shoulder. This was a serious matter. Proper decorum was important. “Dear foster brother,” he began.

  Tito groaned. “Whatever you’re going to say, please don’t.”

  Caden ignored him. “If we are kicked out, which is highly unlikely,” he pointed out, “you may live in the woods and eat tubers with Sir Horace, Brynne, and me. After we find Jane, she may live with us as well.”

  Tito looked surprised, still somber, but surprised.

  “I will show you how to build a shelter,” Caden added. “It’s a needed skill for an Elite Paladin.”

  “No offense,” Tito said, and scooted away, “but I’m not living in a shelter in the woods and eating tubers. Neither is Jane. We’re not rabbits. Go back to your side of the room. You’re invading my personal space.”

  Caden knew of no rabbit that ate tubers, but perhaps Ashevillian rabbits weren’t carnivorous. He stood back up. “You’re picky like a rabbit,” he said.

  Tito’s shoulders still slumped, his voice still sounded weary. Caden supposed he could sacrifice his food preferences to reassure his friend.

  “Fine,” Caden said. “If you do not wish to eat tubers, I suppose you could just eat rabbit. You must understand, though, it upsets Sir Horace when I hunt.”

  Tito blinked at him. Some of the heaviness weighing on him seemed to let up. “Bro,” he said, “I don’t believe for one minute you’d kill a rabbit.”

  “I’ve hunted with my father and brothers for years.”

  “So you’re telling me, you’ve killed a rabbit?”

  Truly, Caden was insulted. He was a soon-to-be Elite Paladin. He challenged dragons and despots. His goal was to slay a dragon—or lizard—or whatever he was to name the vile beasts. He didn’t like hunting much when it involved the small and furry, but that was beside the point.

  Caden crossed his arms. “I’m trained to survive.”

  “I bet you cried like a baby.”

  Caden went back to his clean side of the room. Tito was grumpy and irritating. If Tito wanted to eat rabbit, he would have to hunt for his own. He stretched and began his evening exercise regime. “Elite Paladins do not cry like babies,” he said, and turned away. “They cry like men.”

  Caden dreamed of the Winter Castle, of his father and his brothers, of Chadwin alive and the world as it should be—draped in the dark blues and sparkling silvers and golds of Razzon. When he awoke all was wrong. His bed was small. The room smelled of dust, must, and wool. Even in the faint light his quilt was unmistakably orange and pink.

  “Go back to sleep,” Tito said.

  For the briefest of moments, Caden wondered how Tito got to the Winter Castle. Then he pushed off the warmth of his quilt and sat straight up. He was not in his childhood room. He was in Asheville, land of the banished, and Tito was awake on the other side of the room. Caden’s family was a realm away, and Chadwin was six months buried. He blinked and rubbed the ache for home from his face.

  From Tito’s side—across the tape barrier—came the sounds of swishing papers and the flashes of stray light beams. Sounds and flashes that had pulled Caden from his dreams of family and home.

  He was about to ask Tito what he was doing, why Caden’s sleep was being disturbed, but when he looked over he understood. Tito was propped up in his bed. His hair was pulled back from his face. He’d converted one of his book stacks into a makeshift desk; his flashlight was in his right hand lighting up the area, his blue pen in his left.

  The contract was on top, split into a read pile and an unread pile. His red and green pens lay beside them in easy reach. Tito flipped through the pages with impressive speed and marked them like the pages in one of his school notebooks.

  “What have you learned?” Caden said.

  Tito paused, looked to the window, and twisted his mouth into a lopsided frown. “Nothing yet,” he said.

  Outside, the moon was a mere sliver. However, there was no reason to dwell on things they couldn’t change. He and Tito had no control over the movement of time. Nor was there any reason for Caden to let his memories of home deter him from his duty. The empty sky of the new moon would come with or without them, as later would the half-moon and his curse. They had to concentrate on the most pressing matter—finding Jane, and finding her soon.

  He shook off the homesickness and turned on the lamp beside his bed. If Tito was to spend the night working, Caden would provide him with proper lighting. He shielded his eyes as it washed the slanted walls in a warm, yellow glow.

  Tito grunted and flipped off his flashlight. He switched to his green pen, underlined some text, and set another page into the read stack.

  “How can I help?” Caden said.

  “By going back to sleep.”

  Although that was what he said, it wasn’t what he meant. Caden narrowed his eyes and extracted himself from the bed. “You wish me to be silent.”

  “It’s almost Saturday. We’re running out of time and I need to concentrate. The only time you shut up is when you’re sleeping.”

  “You say that as if I talk constantly.”

  Tito’s response was a pointed look. He stared for a moment. “You look weird. Well, weirder. You okay?”

  Caden’s sadness must have shown on his face. He squared his shoulders and smiled. “Of course,” he said. It was best he focus on the here and now. He reached under his bed. While Tito watched, his expression growing ever more suspicious, Caden hauled out spare sheets, towels, and fabric scraps he’d collected while exploring the house. “I, too, have things to do.”

  Already, he’d tied some of the sheets together. Once finished, the patchwork would make a fine escape rope. The knots needed to be unyielding, though, the braiding taut.

  Tito directed his pen at the burgeoning escape rope as if it was something smelly. “What’s that?” he said.

  “We need to be able to sneak in and out of the room.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Tito turned back to the contract. “I’m not climbing down that. If we need to leave, we can sneak out the front door.”

  “That would be expected.” Caden tightened the first knot. “And we were caught coming back in that way.”

  With a derisive snort, Tito shook his head.

  “You’ll see I’m right,” Caden said.

  “Sure, whatever you say, your chattiness.”

  For a moment, they worked in silence. Caden, however, could not let his friend’s veiled insult go unanswered. “I am not chatty,” he said.

  “No?” Tito didn’t look up. “I still hear you.”

  “I’m defending my character.”

  Tito let loose an exasperated sigh. “If the moon was half full, I’d order you to shut it,” he said.

  “The moon i
s quite near the opposite, so you’re out of luck.”

  Early the next morning, Rosa knocked on their door. Caden stuffed his escape rope beneath the bed. Tito covered the contract with his purple quilt.

  She peeked inside. “You’re awake, good,” she said, and tossed Caden her army sweatshirt. “You’ve got cleaning to do.”

  Truly, they had no time for housework, but Rosa gave Caden no opportunity to argue. These were the punishments as so decreed by her, foster mother and house warden: Caden was to clean the bathrooms, Brynne the kitchen, and Tito the living area. There was to be no television, no computer, and no other like distractions.

  Caden’s brothers also remained in his thoughts. If they knew he was doing the work of servants, their ridicule would never end. He had more important tasks to complete. Before Rosa turned to the stairs, he found a break to speak. “My maids usually do that,” he said.

  Rosa turned and her face had hardened to iron. “Are you trying to aggravate me?”

  Caden considered. “I suppose not.”

  “Stop it then,” she said. “Be down in five. Brynne’s already up.” She closed the door, and he heard her stomp down the steps.

  Tito walked over and, with surprising force, smacked Caden on the arm. Tito’s eyes were rimmed red from overuse, and there were dark circles beneath as proof of how little he’d slept. “Just do what Rosa says,” he said. “We need to get this done as quickly as possible.”

  Caden pulled the army sweatshirt over his head. “Royalty doesn’t clean houses. That’s the way it is.”

  “So? You like to clean. I saw you sweeping the room with the sparring broom, don’t deny it,” Tito said as he dressed into his dark sweat clothes with impressive efficiency. Truly, if he could learn discipline, he would one day make a fine Paladin. “Look, it’s better than being staked to the ground and left for the dogs to eat, isn’t it? And she’s leaving for the day. We’ll plan after she’s gone.”

  Tito had a point.

  “You have a point,” Caden said.

  “Uh-huh,” Tito said. On the top of the steps, he paused, his dark eyes concerned, his expression etched with sleeplessness and worry. “I finished reading it,” he said.