Barclay had gone red all the way to his ears. “I…” He searched the crowds for a friendly face, but Selby and his family were gone.

Then Mrs. Havener stepped forward, looking disheveled and missing a few mittens from the winds. “There must be some kind of mistake. Barclay is just a boy.”

“But look at him,” Mrs. Kraus said uneasily, her hand clutched to her heart. “Doesn’t 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.