“I can’t believe you fell asleep during the exam,” another voice said. I jerked upright, and sensed Blaise also jerking away in surprise from the final man on our side of the table, Marcus’ twin Emeric. I liked to think I missed him out of sheer stupidity, mistaking him for Marcus. But they weren’t identical twins, or even close, with Emeric’s sandy blonde hair and shoulders twice as broad as Marcus’. Being identical twins wouldn’t be a good excuse anyway, not for a friend.

Oblivious, Emeric slapped his thigh as he laughed. Yes, very funny, my eminent failure.

“Emeric, when did you get here?” Blaise asked.

He frowned. “I’ve been here the whole time.”

“Oh right,” Blaise lied. “I’m only teasing you.”

If Emeric could bottle up his ability to blend into thin air, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting into the guild, or leaving any kind of legacy at all. He’d be hailed as a genius.

Levi added, “The way Roux’s face went purple! Daniel, he had to yell at you three times before you jerked awake.”

“Give him a break,” Blaise said. “He was up all night.”

Levi sniffed. “There’s not that much to study.”

“Like you’re in the position to say that,” Marcus said. “I saw your project. You’re lucky if Roux doesn’t boot you on the way out.”

His thumb sped up on the rutile. “It’s not as if I’m in last place. I’m still cutting it.”

From where I had laid my head, I saw them all tense, as if avoiding glancing to me, the last place dunce.

“I don’t know, Levi,” Marcus teased. “Your spellwork looked a little loosey goosey to me.”

“My spellwork was perfect.” Levi’s thumb was white from the pressure on the stone.

Marcus put his hands up. “Vampire’s tits. Tetchy much?”

Levi shrugged a shoulder, trying to look nonchalant, but even I could see the lines of worry, even without the rutile confirming it.

Marcus perked, catching sight of something outside of my view. He pursed his lips, pointing behind me. “I think we’ve found our entertainment.”

Levi curled one side of his lip up, his hand stilling over the rutile.

My head screamed ‘no, stay still!’, but I pushed myself upright and found the target of Levi’s amusement, then groaned.

“Signorina Dominique,” Marcus crowed.

Levi sauntered over to the pale man stalking the shelves. One might say Dominic Fournier had pale skin like Valere’s, but the comparison didn’t do Valere any justice. Valere was a blizzard made flesh, and Dominic simply lacked sunshine and pimple cream.

Likewise, his greasy black hair could be compared to Marcus’, but his locks lay limp in his face, the grease the product of not bathing nearly often enough. The one student who made me look attractive.

Dominic’s thin upper lip pulled up in a snarl, more beast than man. “Fuck off.”

“Now why would I do that, Fornicator?” Levi asked.

“Let me repeat myself,” Dominic said. “Fuck you.”

“Eww, of course not.” Levi jerked his hands, as if trying to shake off the rot of Dominic’s words. “God cursed sodomite.”

I froze in my seat, the fists I’d propped myself on trembling. Thank Le Savant no one looked my way, all eyes fixed on Dominic. Even Valere had turned in his seat.

“You wish I was,” Dominic said. “How many nights do you lay awake thinking about me, Levi?”

Levi slipped the rutile into his pocket. “Not even a vampire would want to touch you.”

“You always were lower than scum.” Levi scowled. Dominic turned to Valere. “Come on, I need you alone.”

Marcus laughed in disbelief.

Levi shoved Dominic against the book shelves. Dominic grunted, his lip pulling back farther. He swiped at Levi, but unlike Dominic and me, Levi was on the handball team. He’d spent years developing his reflexes and strength, and easily thwarted Dominic’s attempts to slap him. Dominic held only one advantage over Levi – his second place class standing, which unfortunately was useless in fisticuffs.

“Let go of me!” Dominic feinted to the right, but when he tried to slide out to the left, Levi was already there, an impenetrable wall.

“And let you get your sleazy sodomite hands all over the proper god-fearing folk?” Levi slammed Dominic against the bookshelf again, scattering books on the wide shelves, but the shelves themselves had been built solid enough to withstand a vampire attack. “I’m doing the world a favour.”

“So you want your hands all over me?” Dominic laughed, sharp like a dog’s bark. “That’s what your mother said too.”

“Oooh,” Marcus cooed. “Il puttanane has got you there, amico.”

“Are you just going to take that?” Emeric asked.

Levi grinned, not a jovial grin, but the sort of grin I imagined vampires would give while taunting their prey.

I opened my mouth, but my mouth went suddenly dry. The other boys still seated at the table all laughed and grinned in anticipation, except for Valere. I couldn’t see his expression from this angle, only the tension between his shoulders. The only sign he thought anything was wrong.

Levi reached into his pocket with one hand, withdrawing not the rutile, but a metallic stone. He caught Dominic in a stranglehold with the other hand. Dominic squawked in indignation, or perhaps it was another crude joke about Levi’s mother. I winced. Levi laughed, then popped the stone inside Dominic’s mouth.

Dominic tried to spit out the stone, but with Levi’s hand wrapped around his neck, he didn’t have the leverage. The effects were nearly immediate, black veins popping up around Dominic’s lips, his eyes constricted in terror.

“I made this just for you,” Levi said.

Under the table, my knees shook. I counted it a miracle they didn’t jar the table. I took a deep breath, but the black shadows at the side of my vision crept forward. I tried to breathe again, but my chest felt too constricted, and I could only gulp airlessly as if trapped in a vacuum.

“Serves you right, you sodomite—” Blaise paused, hiding in the shadows. Where did everyone go? “Daniel — Daniel!”

I keeled over, registering I hit the floor. It didn’t hurt, it should have hurt, I—

Soft lips. They should have felt hard. Rough. Just like the man himself, a glorious statue of pale muscle—

“Daniel!” Pain flared in my cheek, dull compared to the throb rattling through the rest of my head.

I peeled my eyes open, just as Blaise wound up for another blow. “Fuck off!”

Blaise blinked in surprise, and Marcus took hold of Blaise’s elbow. Blaise jerked, but didn’t try to slap me again.

“I mean…” I curled onto my side, clutching the back of my head.

“Damn it to the vampires, Daniel.” From the corner of my eye, I caught Blaise’s lower lip trembling, and the rest of him looked about as shaky as I felt. As if he were the one waking up on the floor with a throbbing head…

That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his fault. “S-sorry. W-what—”

“You collapsed,” Blaise said. “You fucking collapsed!”

“Are you all right? Should we get the nurse?” Marcus descended into rapid-fire Venetian I failed to follow.

Emeric said, “The nurse already left for the holiday, that lazy pill.”

I tried to wave them off, but my hand felt oddly light. It should have made it easier to wave, but it felt like it was disconnected from my brain. “No, I’m fine. I—”

“Need to sleep,” Blaise said. “How many nights has it been? Three? Four?”

More, at least, since I’d caught anything but a nap. I had needed to study. Any moment not cramming facts into my brain could be the difference between passing and failing. “A while.”

“A while, he says,” Marcus said. “Porca miseria. No wonder you crashed during the exam.”

And nearly failed it to boot. What was wrong with me? Vespasian went for weeks with only midnight catnaps when lost in the throes of his research. I could barely make it through a week.

“Come on.” Blaise offered me his hand. “Let’s tuck you into bed. When is your mother coming?”

“Tomorrow,” I said. Like my hand, my cheeks seemed like a distant memory, but I would wager a sackful of gold my cheeks were ablaze. None of the other students needed to wait upon their mothers to return home.

Blaise looped an arm around my shoulders, Emeric joining with another arm. Between the two of them, they hoisted me to my feet like I weighed no more than a sack of potatoes, a mere warm-up.

On my feet, white light washed over my vision, my knees crumpling, but Blaise’s grip kept me upright.

“You can get a good night’s sleep then. I wish I had time to take a nap,” Blaise said.

Marcus rolled his eyes.

On my feet, my vision returned, I noticed we were alone. I knit my brow. We hadn’t been. There’d been… Valere. And Dominic. Levi had been hexing him. “Dominic?”

“Who would care?” Blaise let out an exasperated sigh. “Fled, like a Larian rat, when you went down.”

I nodded slowly, but neither the white nor black returned.

“Come on,” he said again. He and Emeric helped me step forward. “Are you going to be in Tutelle?”

I nodded again. Of course I would be. The pageant was the event of the year for all four divine disciplines, the hunters, sorcerers, merchants and chirurgeons. Each of the four guilds chose one of their own to play the avatars of the four gods battling the evil Larian forces during the Vampire War.

This year, Vespasian was certain he’d finally be chosen for the honour of playing Le Savant’s avatar.

“Good,” Blaise said. “I have to take my brothers, but Mother never said I couldn’t ditch them first thing.”

“You’d think she’d learn by now,” Marcus said.

Blaise shrugged. “So long as she doesn’t make me swear by Le Savant.”

I chuckled. There was nothing more comforting than pretending to be normal, as if my future didn’t lay across a craggy canyon, the only way to cross a thread-worn rope.

“But you,” Blaise said, turning his attention back to me. “You will sleep, you hear me? There’s no more exams. Cross my heart, swear to Le Savant. So sleep.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, adding just enough of a mocking tone to make Blaise grin.