Alistair Finch’s arm, stiff from clutching the rough tweed of his waistcoat, felt like a foreign limb. A dull ache throbbed where a bruise from his ignominious fall had deepened, a phantom reminder of the dawn encounter. He shifted in the hard oak seat, a knot of apprehension tightening in his stomach, sour with yesterday’s tepid gruel and lingering humiliation. This vast hall, meant for intellectual enlightenment, served instead as a crucible. Here, within Aethelgard’s ancient walls, the unwritten rules of social strata were etched in every glance, every whispered aside. Each student, a creature of privilege or ambition, navigated a precarious existence. Eighteen days had passed since the term began, each one a tightly drawn string, threatening to snap. For Alistair, this delicate balancing act had begun years ago, the moment he understood the brutal mechanics of belonging. It had become his routine, a quiet, desperate dance of self-preservation. This hallowed classroom was a cubic jungle, concealing a subtle, merciless pyramid. Professor Thorne, a wizened Classics master, droned on from the dais, his voice a muffled murmur behind a broadsheet he held aloft. Most students scratched diligently at their vellum, attempting to decipher the intricacies of Hellenic verse. Others, defeated by the morning’s early start or the previous night’s revelries, slumped against the dark wood, lost to slumber. “A sound mind in a sound body, gentlemen,” Professor Thorne declared, turning a page with a rustle, his gaze sweeping over the dozing forms without true censure. “Wakefulness is a virtue.” It was the fifth lecture of the day. Alistair had finished parsing the penultimate strophe, his quill resting beside his inkpot. His gaze, however, drifted past the intricate script, drawn to the empty spaces among the rows. Two particular seats, usually occupied with an almost regal insolence, remained starkly vacant. Elias Thorne’s, near the front, and Lord Cassian’s, a few rows back, were conspicuous in their absence. They had not attended yesterday. They would, Alistair presumed, be absent tomorrow. Elias’s unpredictable moods often led to extended disappearances, yet never had they been so absolute, nor so public. The reasons for their prolonged truancy were a subject of fervent, hushed speculation throughout the academy. He lowered his eyes to his notes, the elegant curves of Attic Greek blurring. A wave of unexpected nausea rolled through him. There had been a time, not so long ago, when Alistair had believed he understood Elias better than anyone. He had nurtured a quiet, dangerous pride in that intimacy, even when comparing himself to Percival Blackwood, who was ostensibly Elias’s closest confidante. In truth, that fragile pride had been the scaffolding around his endurance, allowing him to observe Elias and Blackwood’s easy camaraderie without succumbing entirely to envy. Deep down, Alistair had savored the secret knowledge that he possessed a singular insight into Elias’s mercurial nature. His chin propped on a clenched fist, Alistair felt a familiar wave of self-loathing. The insidious nature of such thoughts disgusted him. What judgment would rain down if his true sentiments were known? The answer was chillingly clear. He would be cast down, stripped of his carefully constructed façade, relegated to the widest, lowest stratum of Aethelgard’s unforgiving hierarchy. The prospect was terrifying. This particular strain of corrosive ambition, unique to a scheming scholar, demanded absolute concealment. He had to bury it, so deep that not even Elias, the object of his warped intellectual fascination, would ever glimpse its depths. Ultimately, he had to conceal it so thoroughly that even he might forget its existence. Yet, Elias Thorne had made no such effort. Everyone at Aethelgard knew of his desires, his excesses, his flagrant disregard. Alistair’s head lifted a fraction, his eyes scanning the hunched backs. No one seemed to notice his momentary lapse. His lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line, he faced forward once more. On the worn wooden floor, nestled between two desks in a far corner, lay a leather-bound volume of Latin verse, its vellum cover smudged with shoe prints, forlorn and forgotten. Suddenly, as if sensing an invisible gaze upon him, Alistair buried his face in his arms like the other feigning sleepers, a cold shiver tracing its path down his spine. He turned his neck, tilting his head just enough to glimpse the back rows. There, a figure slumped, partially obscured by an arm, as if overcome mid-collapse. The face, when he could discern it, appeared delicate and sorrowful, almost spectral in its pallor. Percival Blackwood. Alistair found himself studying Blackwood’s profile, his gaze drifting to his arm. Had Blackwood, already tall, grown even more? The academy uniform, tailored perfectly at the term’s commencement, now left his wrists conspicuously exposed. Around one, a rosary of carved jet beads, gleaming faintly, stood out—a somber, unmistakable symbol, integral to Blackwood’s carefully cultivated persona. Before learning of his family’s ancient lineage, Alistair had mistakenly assumed Blackwood resided in one of the grander, older estates bordering the academy grounds, much like Lord Cassian. Despite his formidable aura, Blackwood possessed an understated elegance, not the ostentatious display of new wealth. His eyes, often shadowed beneath heavy lids, held a perpetual, haunted quality. The thin sliver of sclera visible beneath his pupils added to his sharp, almost gaunt appearance. Blackwood projected an atmosphere of grim, intellectual intimidation, though it lacked the coarseness associated with mere brute strength. Instead, his face seemed etched with a profound sense of self-possession, exuding a kind of melancholic gravity. Combined with his imposing stature—he was undoubtedly one of the tallest students in the academy—it rendered him doubly formidable. Fortunately, unlike Elias, Blackwood’s sharp features possessed a classically handsome symmetry. Without that, Alistair suspected, people might actively recoil. Even so, Blackwood’s countenance was unsettling, intimidating, and infused with a nervous, almost predatory, energy. Yet, Blackwood’s temperament was an intricate contradiction. It was not simply an indifference to trivialities; it was as if he actively expunged events from his memory, whether intentionally or not. He cultivated an air of “detached ownership of nothing,” a trait that paradoxically added to his mystique. Most notably, Blackwood appeared entirely unconcerned with pecuniary matters. He never noted the sums others spent or requested. If the whim struck him, he would casually toss a sovereign to someone nearby without a second thought, as if the concept of currency held no meaning. At times, he lent money, then genuinely forgot the transaction entirely. Stories circulated of students attempting to return borrowed funds, only for Blackwood to inquire, genuinely puzzled, why they were offering him coin. Still, his generosity was not indiscriminate. He indulged random requests when in a favorable mood but offered a cold refusal to those genuinely desperate. Even with friends, Blackwood could be starkly unsentimental. Alistair once overheard a tale of Theodore, a younger student, who, upon spotting Blackwood’s prized Arabian stallion—a creature Blackwood rarely brought to the stables—eagerly attempted to mount it without permission. Blackwood, without a word, dismounted the boy himself, sending him sprawling into the mud like a startled frog. At the apex of Aethelgard’s intricate social hierarchy, individuals like Blackwood and Elias Thorne shared one crucial trait: a profound disregard for the opinions of others. This very indifference, in its own unsettling way, was precisely what cemented their places at the pyramid’s unforgiving peak. Why did they, the rest of them, willingly cede the keys to their world to such uncontrollable predators? Alistair had pondered this countless times, and still, he could not comprehend it. And yet, Percival Blackwood often spoke of his deep adherence to the Anglican rites. His jet rosary was a constant presence. He was the type of academic who, despite his reputation for pragmatic ruthlessness, slept with a leather-bound prayer book beneath his pillow, yet claimed devotion. He abstained from spirits, did not smoke tobacco, eschewed the casual liaisons common among students, and never engaged in the petty extortion that plagued younger boys. Yet, the doctrine he supposedly followed seemed fluid; anyone could attest to the academy’s own lax interpretation of certain tenets. They said the Church viewed certain affections as a sin. Was that why Elias Thorne’s overt libertinism seemed to elicit such a cool, almost intellectual disgust from Blackwood? Alistair licked his dry lips, considering. He felt a strange, cold relief that he had not been utterly exposed, not trampled like that discarded textbook. And yet, even in that moment of perverse satisfaction, a treacherous question arose: if Elias and he had remained close, as they were just a few short weeks ago, would Elias have offered him protection? The thought surfaced unbidden, dragging with it shards of memory Alistair desperately wished to forget. He drew a deep, shuddering breath, attempting to suppress the familiar wave of nausea that threatened to bring forth his meager breakfast. No, of course not. How utterly laughable, that he had once harbored such an arrogant delusion. To Elias, Alistair had been nothing more than a convenient diversion, a sharp mind to engage during idle hours. He knew this now, brutally, from the detached amusement in Elias’s eyes during their last, ugly encounter. He had resisted the truth, but it had stared him down, stark and undeniable. Elias sinned openly, his transgressions known to all. Alistair, too, was a sinner—but he concealed it, meticulously. And so, Elias was now punished by the academy’s cruel judgment, while Alistair, for now, was spared. A faint, almost imperceptible laugh escaped his lips, a sound audible only to himself. “...So, as long as I remain uncompromised, that is all that truly matters.” Perhaps the world, in its indifferent cruelty, possessed a personality not unlike Percival Blackwood’s. His gaze shifted again to the desks near the professor’s podium. Today, in an unusual twist, Alistair felt a pang of something akin to pity for Lord Cassian. Poor, hapless soul, caught in the infernal clutches of Elias. You lacked the strength to resist that monstrous, seductive power. Fragile, helpless Cassian, despite your towering lineage. You should have fled the moment I offered that oblique warning, you fool. He knew himself. He was not a good person. Selfish and self-serving, yes, and perhaps that was his own hidden punishment. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he even entertained this perverse thought: if one was to succumb to such illicit affections, why not choose someone sly and calculating, like Alistair himself? At least then, life might be simpler, more survivable. Why fall for someone so transparently earnest, only to suffer so exquisitely for it? These days, his thoughts had shifted, hardened. Yes. Of course, no one could ever genuinely care for someone like him. He knew himself too intimately to believe otherwise. There was a time when he had believed he could possess it all. Arrogant, conceited Alistair. Alistair, who had deluded himself into understanding Aethelgard at eighteen. Wicked, vile Alistair. Pitiful Alistair, who had no one to console him, so he endured everything alone. That day, he could not bring himself to complete the final strophe. He used his feigned fatigue as an excuse to lie slumped over his desk, finding a cold, bitter comfort in the thought: at least I am not as thoroughly ruined as Elias or Cassian. Rumors concerning Elias and Lord Cassian spread like wildfire through the ancient halls. Whether they were exaggerated or grounded in truth, no one could definitively say. There was no one left to confirm or deny; Elias’s inner circle had vanished from the academy, as if uprooted. The few who remained were too preoccupied forming new alliances to concern themselves with the fallen, inadvertently fueling the scandalous whispers even further. “Mr. Thorne, pardon me, but who amongst your acquaintances was closest to Elias?” Alistair overheard this query from Professor Thorne to a younger student as he walked past the open door of the lecture hall, heading for dismissal. The boy stammered, “Mr… no, Percival Blackwood.” Pretending he hadn’t registered the exchange, Alistair walked into the room. Professor Thorne’s gaze flickered nervously between Alistair and the empty seats, his fingers drumming against the podium. Then, as if abandoning some unspoken thought, he declared, “Let us conclude.” The moment dismissal bells rang, Alistair gathered his satchel. As he slung it over his shoulder, a cool hand tapped him lightly on the back. “Finch. Care to walk with me?” Alistair turned, meeting Percival Blackwood’s unnervingly perceptive gaze. He knew. He had always observed Elias and Blackwood’s every interaction, so he knew that the person Blackwood most frequently sought out for company was always Elias. After a brief, calculated pause, Alistair offered a dismissive gesture. “I cannot. I have duties at the library.” “After that?” “Further study. Go, seek out one of your more agreeable companions.” “Unnecessary.” “Why ever not?” “Clinging to lesser men merely diminishes one’s own standing.” “Ha.” A short, sharp laugh escaped Alistair’s lips at the brutal honesty. This, then, was the truth. Right. This was precisely why Alistair had always found a strange, unsettling resonance with Blackwood. Their twisted values, their shared pragmatism, seemed to align in profoundly unsettling ways. “So, Theodore? Edmund? Phineas? They are all ‘lesser men’ to you?” “If you insist on such precise terminology, then yes, largely. You, however, are different.” The backhanded compliment felt less like praise and more like a precise, surgical observation, leaving Alistair acutely uncomfortable. “What is that supposed to mean? You are utterly appalling, Blackwood.” “I assure you, I am not.” “You are, quite definitively, appalling.” “Hmm. It is written, ‘Thou shalt not lie.’ I merely speak with candor, Finch.” Honestly, Blackwood was worse than Alistair. At least Alistair did not blatantly categorize his supposed friends as mere social fodder. “That is precisely why I consider myself a man of principle.” “...Naturally.” “Since I am such a man of principle, may I accompany you to your rooms?” Percival Blackwood blinked twice, his gaze unwavering. Alistair considered his request for a moment, then gave a curt nod. “As you wish.” As long as Blackwood did not interfere with his carefully constructed solitude, there was no reason to refuse. To secure one’s place in the hierarchy, there were moments when calculated alliances became a necessary evil.

The Weight of Empty Seats