Lord Alistair Finchley raised a fist, a clumsy gesture, half-threat, half-empty bravado. Before his knuckles could truly clench, Lord Julian Beaumont’s gloved hand descended, tapping Alistair’s forearm with a precise, almost indolent flick. The nascent aggression deflated at once.
Finchley’s bluster dissolved. A strange, strangled sound escaped him, like a pheasant caught in a snare. Sir Gareth Blackwood and Viscount Percival Croft burst into laughter, their mirth echoing too loudly within the gilded study. Finchley spun, eyes flashing.
“Amusement, is it? You find this droll?” He aimed a light cuff at Croft’s shoulder.
Their boisterous commotion soon swept from the room. Before disappearing through the arched doorway, Croft glanced back, offering a casual wave. Lysander, caught in the sudden quiet, returned the gesture, a small, almost imperceptible dip of his hand. He settled into the plush velvet chair, drawing a vellum manuscript towards him.
His fingers closed around a polished charcoal stick. Before sketching the first intricate detail, his gaze drifted upwards, sweeping over the ornate cornices and the high, arched windows of the academy’s private study.
He lowered his head to the desk.
A faint tapping of charcoal against paper accompanied his absentminded progression through a third delicate border design. His eyes lifted suddenly.
Beyond the leaded panes, the academy grounds shimmered under a crisp autumn sky. Elm leaves, brittle and ochre, danced in a capricious breeze. The scent of damp earth and distant woodsmoke drifted in, stark against the brilliant azure overhead.
“A young ladies’ seminary would be a blessed sanctuary compared to this den of vipers.”
Old Professor Abernathy, who lectured on ancient history, often grumbled such sentiments.
“It is a veritable jungle, I tell you. A jungle. These noble sons, they must establish their hierarchy first. By Midsummer, a fragile peace might settle. But until then? Endless posturing, petty squabbles, testing the very patience of their tutors. My head aches. And I endure this spectacle anew with each fresh intake of pupils. Let us see… what year of the Zodiac were they born under again?”
He would unfurl his palm, counting each knuckle with a muttered incantation.
“Boar, Rat, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Dragon, Serpent… Let us see, that means—”
Lysander mimicked the motion, stretching his own hand, tracing the faint lines across his knuckles. He found no discernible pattern. He flipped his hand over, counting the subtle ridges on the back instead.
One, five, eight, two, seven, four, nine, three… ten.
He never would have imagined, in the languid haze of early summer, that late September would feel like the turbulent dawn of spring once more.
“Young gentlemen are nothing but untamed beasts. Irrational, emotional, utterly impulsive.”
His gaze fixated on a prominent bone in his middle finger. He tapped the desktop, a soft, rhythmic patter, like a distant piano key.
The professor’s voice, raspy from a perpetual seasonal cold, droned on, punctuated by the faint scratch of quill against parchment from a distant scrivener.
Lysander’s eyes drifted to an empty chair near the front. For a fleeting moment, he imagined an imprint of a head against the velvet—one side pressed deep, the other hovering, weightless.
His fingers stilled.
He turned his head.
Julian Beaumont sat across the room, hunched over a folio, his face half-buried in its pages. His eyelids drooped, heavy with slumber.
He would fix his eyes on a passage with an intensity that promised absorption, only to slump forward again, his forehead pressing into the ancient vellum.
Lysander watched, a quiet fascination, as Julian’s nose met the stiff pages, his head cushioned by the thick, yellowed leaves.
He looked away.
“…Did I drift for a moment?”
A strange disquiet settled within him. He placed a tiny, perfect star next to his third design and moved to the fourth.
Luncheon was a delicate consommé followed by sweetened blancmange.
Julian, having dispatched his blancmange with surprising speed, spoke abruptly.
“Tell me, you are second in our cohort, are you not?”
“Indeed. Yes.”
“And across the entire academy?”
“Also second.”
“Heavens.”
“Is something amiss?”
“So, the top student in our cohort is also the very first across the whole institution?”
“You were unaware? Lady Eleanor Vance has always eclipsed my efforts.”
“She is even more burdened with lessons than yourself, I hear?”
“Yes. Her private tutors do not release her until the darkest hours.”
“Gods. That is formidable.”
“She is diligent.”
Lysander had no desire to extend the discourse. He scooped a small portion of spiced duck into his mouth. Julian merely nodded, thankfully, pressing the matter no further.
“Aaah—”
The silence that followed felt abrupt, discomfiting. He weighed the merits of speaking, or allowing the quiet to linger. Lysander abhorred awkwardness. Without quite thinking, he blurted out, “And your standing, Lord Beaumont? Where do you place?”
Julian’s silver fork paused mid-air. Lysander found his gaze drawn to the elegant hand, the way it held the implement with such precise, effortless grace. If Julian Beaumont excelled at one thing, it was indeed his impeccable table manners.
“In the cohort…”
“Yes?”
“Ninth.”
“…What?”
“Why do you regard me so?”
Lysander quickly averted his eyes from Julian’s hand. Was this jest? Or truth? The surprise almost escaped him as a question, but he bit it back, his jaw clenching. He came dangerously close to offending the man. Should he slip, a tempest of aristocratic disdain would surely follow.
He hesitated. Would Julian prefer praise? Or a cool indifference, as if such a standing were unremarkable? His mind, always calculating, weighed the delicate social response. Julian seemed to hold his customary associates in some contempt. Indifference, then, might be the safer path.
“Hmph. You fare better than I would have presumed.”
“Presumed? Did you imagine me a complete dullard?”
“I did not deem you dull, merely… I understood you found ancient history particularly trying?”
“That is my only failing, Lysander. Only ancient history.”
“Yet you attend no private academy tutors for it.”
“Lack of a tutor does not preclude one from study. Good heavens, did you truly believe me an imbecile?”
“No, no, not at all.” Lysander waved a placating hand. “It is impressive, however, to achieve such a standing without additional instruction.”
“…Indeed?”
“Yes. Truly impressive.”
Julian, for some obscure reason, began mashing his spoon into the remaining blancmange. A faint blush crept, Lysander observed, to the tips of his ears. Now that he reflected, Lord Caspian de Valois had barely scraped past the thirty-second mark in their cohort. And only because a handful of others had proved even less capable. Thirty-second out of thirty-six.
He realized, with a sudden, sharp pang, how little he had truly regarded Caspian beyond the confines of his own obsessive yearning. He had drowned in the very pathetic, infatuated despair he once so scorned. Meanwhile, Julian Beaumont, utterly oblivious to Lysander’s existential crisis, had clearly found a surge of confidence.
His tone shifted, brimming with self-satisfaction. “Ah, yes! You would not know—I excel in the classical languages.”
“Oh? To what degree?”
“An unblemished record. I have never lost a single mark in the Latin or Greek tongues.”
“Khhkk!”
Lysander choked. The words caught him, and a spray of water from his glass escaped his lips. Julian scowled, jerking his tray away.
“Good gracious, what sort of reaction is that?”
“I merely… was not expecting such an admission.”
“Is it truly so astonishing?” Julian frowned, a slight pout to his lips. “My history scores are abysmal, but I care not.” There was an odd, almost artful self-deprecation in his voice. Lysander countered with a jest.
“Perhaps you might try perusing a dusty tome now and again.”
“What nonsense do you utter? I am an ardent student of literature.”
“Literature? I have never observed you with a book.”
“That, Lysander, is because I read in the deepest privacy of my chambers.”
“And why, pray tell, must it be kept a secret?”
Julian Beaumont’s eyes, which had been curved in amusement, drooped slightly as he spooned a morsel of fruit tart. He pressed his lips, slowly, casually, over the edge of the spoon. Something about the gesture disquieted Lysander. He bit the inside of his cheek.
Julian met his gaze as he withdrew the spoon. Then, lowering his eyes, he pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to its tip. “Even scandalous romances possess literary merit.”
It was a calculated provocation. A flush crept up Lysander’s neck. To conceal his sudden heat, he snatched a crumpled napkin from beside his tray and tossed it towards Julian. It struck just beneath his long, narrow eyes, drifting harmlessly onto the polished mahogany. Julian’s left eye twitched, almost imperceptibly.
Lysander feigned remorse, though his pique was genuine. “Desist from such vulgar displays. Especially in a gentleman’s academy. It is… most unbecoming.”
“Oh? You mean this? You mean Lord de Valois’s little affectation?”
“I care not whose affectation it is. Simply cease.”
“But is this not, Lysander, quite the fashionable affectation among us now?”
Lysander stared, attempting to decipher whether Julian jested or spoke with earnest intent.
He found himself sleeping less. A clear indication that his constitution had found some strange, unsettling comfort. Mornings, once heavy and shrouded in a leaden fog, now felt strangely crisp, almost invigorating. It was a welcome shift—for in his estimation, the gravest sins at his age were complacency and indolence.
“Ah, confound it—”
His jaw clicked painfully as he brushed his teeth. Ever since Lord Caspian de Valois’s regrettable outburst, his jaw produced an odd, grinding sound whenever he opened his mouth too wide. Beyond that minor irritation, this day held promise.
Yet, even amidst his newfound quietude, sudden prickles of vexation arose. Their root cause invariably stemmed from Caspian. Or rather, the disagreeable incidents born of his very existence.
Most of those, alas, transpired within the academy walls.
“Ah, yes. I saw Caspian de Valois last night,” Lord Silas Montrose remarked, biting into a rather dubious meat pie procured from a street vendor. Lord Alistair Finchley, who had been playfully jabbing Montrose’s ankle, striking imaginary blows with his open palm, suddenly perked up.
“Holy heavens—you reminded me! I was on the very cusp of relaying this. I heard through the servant’s whispers—you know Sir Cedric Holloway, do you not? The rather… unconventional sort? I heard de Valois is lodging at his townhouse.”
“Sir Cedric? That feckless Park Cedric?” Julian Beaumont’s voice, emerging from a rustle of paper, held a casual query. When his hand withdrew, it held two small, crystallized fruit drops. And for some inscrutable reason, he offered one to Lysander.
Lysander stared at it, bewildered. “—What is this?” He looked to Julian for explanation, but the other simply gave a slight nod, as if that sufficed. The most vocal reaction came from Finchley, whose satchel of treats had been raided.
“Confound it all! I purchased those! Why do you fellows always pilfer my provisions, you scoundrels?”
“Oh, as if you have never purloined from my stores, you glutton.” Montrose made another mock blow at Finchley’s throat. Finchley instantly spun, seized Montrose’s collar, and swung a feigned punch towards his face. Naturally, neither intended to inflict true harm. Such was their peculiar camaraderie.
Lysander disregarded their tedious bickering, his gaze fixed on the fruit drop in his hand. The paper wrapper bore a tiny, perfectly rendered lemon, halved. He peeled it open, popped the candy into his mouth, and lifted his head.
“What say you? The very taste of first love?” Julian offered a roguish grin.
“I find lemon quite unappealing.” Lysander’s response encompassed more than the candy; it was his quiet critique of Julian’s joke. And more than anything, he found no amusement in the notion of first love. That sticky, cloying bitterness clung to the back of his throat, spoiling his appetite.
He could not finish the candy. He dropped it into a waste bin.
“Oh, such a waste,” Julian mocked, cupping his cheeks with both hands. Ignoring him, Lysander reached into Finchley’s satchel for another confection. All were either lemon or lime. Lime was, by far, the lesser evil. He unwrapped one and placed it on his tongue.
“At any rate, Sir Cedric, you say? Sounds perfectly aligned with de Valois.”
“What, because they are both known for unconventional liaisons?” Julian’s words were sharp, delivered with a peculiar chill. Uncomfortable, Lysander turned to observe him. Julian sucked on his fruit drop, an utterly expressionless facade, twirling the slender stick between his lips. Lysander pulled his own candy from his mouth. Something felt wrong.
Julian seemed unbothered. He tilted his fruit drop in the air, like a miniature rapier, making small, jabbing motions. “He entertains certain… clients—regardless of gender. And when he discovers a particularly agreeable specimen, he dispatches them straight to de Valois. It is a rather open arrangement. A mutual exchange of… favours.”
“So, Sir Cedric is also… of that persuasion?” Lord Alistair Finchley interjected suddenly. Whether he had concluded his playful skirmish with Montrose, or simply paused mid-jab, Lysander could not discern. Finchley rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as if genuinely pondering the implications of this revelation.