Chapter III

They left the Elite’s station with little ceremony. Kizu noticed a few glares and as many bemused glances, but, other than that, nobody made any note of their departure. They just let Kizu’s parent’s pass through and out of the building.

Then, surprisingly, they didn’t just jump home. Instead, they kept walking. Down the street, and into the city. Kizu didn’t complain about it, it was interesting to see so many people walking about, doing simple things like buying groceries or running errands. The sheer volume of people overwhelmed him. He hadn’t seen more than a dozen people at a time for the last decade. And it seemed like most people walked around the city. He saw the occasional horse and about as many people flying above. He wondered why they all were content just walking. The crone barely ever bothered with it. When she didn’t just jump, she often grew wings and just flew wherever she wanted.

As they left the office building area of town, they entered the market district. One man harked on about his enchantment wrist watches which supposedly could keep one safe from time manipulation. Another lady peddled incense which created vivid hallucinations.

His stomach rumbled as they passed by street food stalls. Kizu had to force his feet to keep walking and his mouth to not drop into a gawking stare. As if the aromas of the street weren’t enough, visually, he saw troll heads being roasted on a skillet, multicolored eggs popping as they fried on a pan, a moving leafy vegetable attempt to hop out of reach of a cook, a different cook used dandelion seeds as seasonings over a plate of yellow burbling soup.

“Here,” his father said, picking up a gray spiky fruit from a stall. He flicked the vendor a coin that glinted in the sun as it flew. “Eat this, Kizu. It’s good for the heart. Helps it pump blood back into your system. You must be feeling drained after that little stunt.”

Kizu took the fruit, careful not to let the spikes spear his palm. He eyed it. Nothing like it grew down in the basin.

“Go ahead,” his father urged. “Bite it.”

He bit into it. The juice ran down his chin. The chunk in his mouth tasted slightly sour, but not overwhelmingly so. It took a while to chew before he managed a swallow. The seeds of it got caught between his teeth.

“Wipe your face off,” his mother said, passing him a clean handkerchief. She seemed to have an unlimited supply of those.

Kizu obeyed. As the fruit settled in his stomach, he realized the hunger he felt was only an echo. Mort. Staying silent in his satchel, Mort was quietly fasting.

“Do you mind if I grab a banana too?”

“We’ll be eating dinner out tonight, to celebrate your homecoming. And I don’t want you spoiling your supper.” His mother scolded him like he was still a six year old.

“It’s for Mort.”

“Mort?” his father asked.

“My familiar. Did the Elites not tell you about him?”

“A familiar!” Finn burst. “I wanted a dog last year and you said that familiars are nothing but messy and troublemakers! Why does he get one?”

“Finn, you already embarrassed me once today,” their father warned. “Don’t irritate me now by asking idiotic questions. Now, son, nobody told us anything about a familiar. What kind of familiar is this?”

“An owl monkey.”

“A monkey!” His mother’s eyes widened and Kizu thought she might faint right in the street.

“How bonded are you?” But Kizu knew what his father really asked was, how hard would it be to break the bond.

“Extremely. I feel his hunger right now.”

His mother groaned piteously.

“There’s no helping it for now,” his father relented with a sigh. “In a few days he’ll be in the dorms anyway and not mucking up our house.”

His mother stopped and, for a second, Kizu thought she might lash out at her husband, But instead, she gestured at a building. “Here.”

Notably, Mort did not get his banana.

Kizu’s mother herded him inside the small building. Immediately, all the unique incense and spices of the market were wiped from the air as they stepped inside. Instead, it just smelled clean. Some sort of enchantment, Kizu guessed. He wondered if it was just on the doorframe, or if something insulated the building as well to keep the scents out.

His mother exchanged meaningless pleasantries with what Kizu assumed to be the owner, a thin scarecrow of a woman wearing a dress that hung loose on her. He paid no attention, instead examining the bland paintings on the wall. They were landscapes of rice fields. He wondered what exactly the purpose of this single room was.

Then the lady surprised him, walking right behind and tugging on his hair.

“Ouch!” Kizu yelped involuntarily.

“Hm, I could change it, certainly. Black, I assume? Like the rest of you?”

“Yes,” his mother replied. “Though any color would be preferable to that sickly shade. Just vile. Like vomit.”

The lady jabbed two fingers into Kizu’s scalp. After the initial jolt, he felt a warm trickle from her fingers. Then she grabbed a chunk of his hair and leaned in close. He felt the heat from her breath next to his face.

“Hm. I changed it, certainly, but it won't stick.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here.” The lady tugged the chunk she held. “I already see it reverting in the roots. It repels external magic. You see this sometimes, rarely. He has instinctual defenses up and they’re reverting my spell back to his own self-image. A lucky little defense against simple hexes, but not so helpful for my line of work. I assume from what you told me earlier that he doesn’t know how to drop those defenses?”

His mother held her face in her hands. “You can’t mean we will have to present our son looking like a bog witch? What did I do to deserve this?”

“In Tross, everyone dyes their hair,” his father said. “It’s considered scandalous to walk outside with your natural hair. Akin to walking around naked.”

“We’re not in Tross, Kubou. We’re in Hon, where clowns wear nonsense dyed in their hair. Not respectable people. Aoi will never let me hear the end of it if he’s seen like this. Not to mention Hana.” And on she continued, listing off all who might laugh or mock her.

Kizu, grateful that they wouldn’t be able to alter his hair without his permission, zoned out their conversation and dropped a hand down to his satchel. It held the half eaten fruit. He wasn’t completely certain if Mort could eat it, but he thought maybe he’d have Mort give it a nibble.

Whether because of Kizu’s own trepidation or because of an innate instinct, Mort pushed the fruit to the side, refusing it. Kizu sighed. Maybe for dinner they’d eat something vegetarian.

His hopes were dashed.

The dinner his parents brought him to served exclusively seafood. He tried to pass off a piece of seaweed to Mort, but again he rejected it. His parents continued to talk, telling him all about their latest trading ventures and how successful the last shipment of silk was. He’d forgotten they were merchants. He filed away the information and continued picking around his rolls of food with his chopsticks. Back with the crone, he only ever ate with a spoon or a knife. And he couldn’t dredge up any memories of eating with sticks from back when he’d been six.

He watched his brother intently. Finn ate with chopsticks with absolutely no issue. He raised the food to his mouth with ease and seemed to follow along their parents’ conversation attentively. When he noticed Kizu’s staring, he returned a glare then pointedly went back to listening.

Eventually, when no one was looking, he popped one of the fish rolls into his mouth. It tasted pungent. Unlike the river fish down in the basin that he grilled, this tasted raw and cold. But he swallowed without complaint. He repeated the process. No point in starving just because it was different than he was used to.

His father paid the bill and spoke loudly and graciously about how delicious the meal had been.

Outside, a carriage drawn by a giant lizard waited for them. Kizu could still not understand why they didn’t simply jump wherever they wanted to go like the crone did. Sure, it was uncomfortable, but definitely worked faster than relying on an animal to tow you around.

“We certainly are fortunate you arrived back home when you did,” his mother said. “A few days later and you would have missed the beginning of the new semester.”

Kizu said nothing to that. He wondered if they would have signed him up anyway if he had shown up a few weeks later.

After a bumpy ride full of his mother and father continuing to talk about business deals and accounting, the carriage drew to a stop. He pushed back the window’s curtain and looked out at the massive house. The gardens in the grounds around the building were primly cut and all the bushes trimmed down.

As they stepped out of the carriage, the footpath leading up to the front door illuminated and lights flickered on in the building’s windows.

He looked behind him and realized that a cliff fell immediately behind the carriage. No road led up here. The giant lizard licked its eye, then drew the carriage over the edge. Kizu watched in fascination as the wheels of the carriage stuck to the side of the cliff and slowly dropped down below.

The other three had walked away while he stared after the carriage and he had to jog to catch up to them. Nobody seemed to notice he lagged behind.

“Surely you remember where your room is?” his mother asked as they hung up their jackets. “You’ll find it unchanged. After you left, someone made certain nobody else could enter. There’s an enchantment that only allows you to enter. Everyone else gets turned into a toad.”

“A waste of talent,” his father grumbled.

“Don’t complain to us about the dust. We tried hiring curse breakers, but they all proved incompetent.”

“Um,” Kizu said. “Which door is it?”

His mother huffed. “Finn, show him where to go.”

Finn, who had been walking away, sulked at the command but obeyed. He changed his direction; however, he didn’t bother checking to see if Kizu followed him.

“So,” Kizu said. “Are you excited to move into the villa? Right on the beach with tidepools and everything.”

He didn’t respond.

“What do you like to do for fun? Any sports?” Kizu tried again.

Again, no response.

“You like dogs, right? Down in the basin we had these little fox animals called jungle dogs. They-”

“Stop,” he said. He turned to face Kizu, glowering. “I don’t want to talk to you about dogs or sports or anything else. Just leave me alone.”

And so they walked the rest of the way in silence. Kizu recognized things at random. The dining room table’s side carvings, the piano in the corner of the music room, the painting of an old man hobbling down a mountain. It was like picking up threads of memory out of the quilt of his childhood.

He knew his room as soon as the doorway came into view. Finn gestured at it without slowing down, then kept going without looking back.

Kizu took a deep breath and pushed open his bedroom door. He stepped inside the dark room and blinked a few times, letting his eyes adjust. Thankfully, he remained un-toad-like as he paced the room.

A plume of dust rose as he sat down on his tiny bed. The room’s proportions appeared designed for a tall gnome. Still, in comparison to the cupboard by the fireplace in the crone’s hut, his room seemed massive.

His mother hadn’t lied. Everything remained exactly as he’d left it ten years ago. He saw old toys and picture books. But then he noticed a letter on his bedside table. Curious about what he’d written ten years ago, he picked it up and cut it open with a finger.

A paper spilled out. It appeared to be utter nonsense written in a swooping handwriting until the final line which was signed simply, Anna. Then, beside it, an ink stamp with her name. He flipped to the next page which was a painting of the two down at the beach. She was kneeling with her arm around him. Both of them looked wet and tanned. They looked remarkably similar. Only a few years younger in the photo than he was now, she looked just like him. If it was possible to see the two of them at the same age, people would likely assume them twins. They both had the same jaw structures and hairlines. Somehow they even had the same crooked smile. The chief difference between the two of them were his eyes. Naturally, they would have been like hers, but his bond with Mort lightened them now to a bronze.

Kizu tucked the painting and note away into his satchel. As he did so, Mort crawled up his arm and perched on his shoulder.

Mort hummed and cocked his head at him.

“You’re right, let’s go scavenge some food.” He opened the window and the two of them climbed out into the night.