he look a bit… wild?”
An uproar ensued over whether he was innocent or guilty, and as much as Barclay wanted to lie and claim it had all been a misunderstanding, he couldn’t. They were all right to be afraid of him. He was dangerous and wild and out of control.
“We should throw him in the river!” someone suggested. “Lore Keepers don’t float!”
“If the boy had any parents…,” Mrs. Kraus mumbled.
“You can’t honestly believe this is true,” Mrs. Havener growled.
“It is true!” a voice bellowed, and everyone turned to see the mayor arrive, Selby and his parents close behind him. The mayor, a serious-looking man barely taller than Barclay, marched to the center of the crowd, dragging Selby by the wrist. “This boy told me everything! Barclay has bonded with a Beast from the Woods!”
Selby let out a high-pitched wail.
Selby told his parents, Barclay realized. It was no wonder Selby had looked so nervous this morning. He’d broken his promise.
Barclay wasn’t angry, though. Even if Selby hadn’t spilled Barclay’s secret, Barclay had already managed to ruin his life entirely on his own.
“By the power vested in me, and by the tenants of Dullshire’s principle rule,” the mayor declared, “I pronounce you, Barclay Thorne, guilty of—”
But Barclay didn’t stay to hear his punishment. It was too much—the destruction, the stares, the horror. Breaking yet another rule, he sprinted away, too fast for anyone to catch him. And he didn’t stop until he had thrown open the door to Master Pilzmann’s house.
“I need your help,” Barclay rasped, nearly in tears. “I ran after Selby into the Woods, and something happened, and now I’m a Lore Keeper, and…”
His voice vanished when he saw Master Pilzmann standing beside Gustav with a grave expression on his face. He held a traveler’s bag. It looked full.
“I already know, my boy. The mayor and Selby’s family were just here.” He thrust the bag into Barclay’s arms. “You need to leave, and you can never come back.”
SIX
L-leave?” Barclay sputtered. The traveler’s bag dropped from his hands, sending clothes and canisters spilling across the floor. “It was an accident! Isn’t there… There must be a way to reverse the magic!”
“I don’t know how to reverse it, and we don’t allow magic here. That is a rule, and there are no exceptions.”
Although Master Pilzmann’s voice wasn’t unkind, Barclay wasn’t prepared for such harsh words from him. Dullshire was his home, and Master Pilzmann was the closest thing to a parent he’d had in a long time.
But Barclay didn’t have parents. No exceptions.
“Don’t make me leave,” Barclay pleaded as Master Pilzmann picked up Barclay’s possessions and shoved them back into the bag. “I didn’t mean to hurt Falk. And the clocktower, it can be fixed, can’t it?”
“What happened to the clocktower?” asked Master Pilzmann sharply.
With a fresh wave of shame, Barclay explained the events of the festival.
Master Pilzmann shook his head. “If Selby had come straight to me, I could have…” A shadow swept over his face. “Well, I don’t know what I could have done, but I certainly can’t do anything now. After Selby’s parents reported you, the mayor came straight here. And if his mind wasn’t made up before, I’m quite sure it is now. The laws about magic… They’re very strict, I’m afraid.”
Then Barclay realized that Master Pilzmann wasn’t trying to evict him.
He was trying to save him.
“This is not your fault,” Master Pilzmann told him gently.
“Then why do they want me to leave?” Barclay’s voice rose to a shout. He would normally never shout at Master Pilzmann, and now he had done it twice in two days. Hopelessness seeped into him as the reality of his situation set in.
“I’m supposed to stay here,” Barclay whispered. “And when I have children, they’ll live here too. Just like my parents and my grandparents and my—”
“You were never supposed to stay here, Barclay.” Master Pilzmann closed the drawstrings of his bag and slipped its straps over Barclay’s trembling shoulders. “Do you want to know the real reason I kept turning you away when you asked to be my apprentice?”
“Because I’m an orphan who’s always breaking the rules?”
Master Pilzmann’s face softened. “I turned you away because you aren’t meant for this. You think staying in Dullshire is the life you were supposed to have if your parents had never died. There are other ways to honor their memories than following the same path they did. They’re proud of you, I’m sure, but they’d rather you find a path of your own.”
As if