Like everything around West Ridge, Le Savant had designed L’Oeil with his own peculiar touch, despite his companion’s best efforts. The town was arranged in a circular pattern similar to his symbols, dotted in the middle with the old guild house cum temple that featured a clock tower visible throughout the town.

Le Savant and Oswin had together devised it with the ability to tell not only the time and date, like most clocks, but also with predictions of weather and astronomical events, if one had the theological training to understand it.

This day, it signalled clear skies, the coming of spring, and that we’d be back at West Ridge well before dinner, preferably with a thesis in hand.

Dominic, Valere and I ambled down one of the main spoke streets crowded with townspeople doing their utmost to ignore the three West Ridge students still in uniform, and especially the one loudly condemning his fellows.

And that someone wasn’t me, and it definitely wasn’t Valere, who hadn’t spoken except to agree with that particular someone. Friends. It was the only explanation.

“So,” I interrupted, before Dominic entered his third segue into how he wished Levi had dragged Marcus down as well when he’d run away, “What are we doing? The public house is just a little way away. I’ll buy the first round.”

A well-dressed elderly gentleman bumped into Dominic as Dominic spat at him, “Drunkard.”

Valere took Dominic by the arm and shielded him from the crowd. Really, who would dare touch such a divine creature? I swallowed down such a thought, although while Dominic and I were both jostled, Valere alone remained unmolested.

However, this left me alone to battle the crowds intent on separating us, while Dominic only had to lean to whisper to Valere. “We should have just left him… now he’s going to… bloody Marcus. Ugh.”

As if I would tell Marcus anything. I wouldn’t even tell Blaise, seeing how he’d acted when I even mentioned speaking to Valere about our project.

Dominic stopped to look through the bulging iron stays of a cafe window. A cafe? Was Dominic putting on airs?

Dominic started toward the door, but Valere stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

Valere eyed the cafe like he would a vampire poised to attack.

“Why?” Dominic shrugged Valere’s hand off.

Valere’s eyes flicked over to me, as if I was bound to run to Marcus and Blaise at any second with this piece of gossip. Again, I hardly cared, and they would care even less. They loved a shot of the Venetian imported espresso on the way back to school from the public house, which they found both dangerous and practical in fending off intoxication. I preferred the pudding.

Dominic shrugged and approached the door, before Valere started, “But you’re—”

Valere cut himself off. I almost laughed, hearing Valere stumble in speech was so strange.

“I’m what, Braud, what?” Dominic glared at his friend, as if daring him.

What? Did caffeine make Dominic giddy? Or was Dominic so scant he couldn’t afford a pot? I glanced between the two, biting my lip, my own purse feeling heavier and heavier in my pocket.

When Valere didn’t answer, Dominic huffed and finally strode inside, the smell of fresh-baked pudding, coffee and tea wafting over us before he slammed the door behind him.

I turned to ask Valere what was going on, but Valere had already followed him, leaving me to stand awkwardly outside. I hurried in behind them.

The maître d’ looked stunned, Dominic having stormed past him to stand stiffly, chin raised, in front of the table next to the windows.

The table was not empty. Now Valere’s concerns made perfect sense.

Two young ladies without a chaperone sipped at their coffees. My eyes roved over them, unable to determine which of those details proved the most scandalous aspect. Certainly, even the most polite gentleman would hesitate to call them ‘ladies’.

I would say it was their hair. They lacked proper headwear, their coiffure bare to the world — if one could call it a coiffure. They had cut their hair so short it bobbed around their ear lobes.

I dared not look down to check if they wore ankle-length dresses. I somehow doubted it. How did they ever gain entrance to such a proper establishment?

I’d heard of such a specimen before. Suffragettes. Women who believed they should be allowed to train in the four sacred disciplines just like men. A species far more dangerous than espresso.

The brunette girl took a drag of her cigarette and exhaled the smoke in a well-formed ring. “Yes?”

Since they were sitting and Dominic, tall even for a man, stood over them, Dominic should have towered over them. But Dominic never would, whether he stood on a platform and they in a hole. Not with the way their eyes watched him, chins lifted, as if they had the advantage. Not the look ever found on a lady, but more like a she-wolf watching her prey. The brunette even possessed the requisite hazel eyes.

“Well?” Mademoiselle Alpha Wolf asked.

Dominic stammered, “Can I — Can I—”

“Can — can you what? Speak? I wouldn’t know. You haven’t seemed capable so far.”

The other suffragette, a blonde girl whose short cut would make her look jolly, if not for the bloodthirsty look in her eyes, giggled. Mademoiselle Alpha only smiled, her lips pulled back to bare her teeth.

“Of course I can,” Dominic said. “I just — I—”

Mademoiselle Alpha sighed, so loud and long even the waiters probably heard her over the faint din of quiet conversation and clinking porcelain.

Then Dominic yanked me in front of him, shoving me toward the table, as if he expected I possessed the magic words to soothe these wild wolves. Even if I had, even if I pitied Dominic for his lacklustre performance, why would I bother? I glanced back to Valere, who waited grimly, already expecting the inevitable.

I clenched my hands together. Perhaps Valere would be so relieved he’d feel he owed me a favour. Or rather, if Dominic were distracted, I’d have Valere all to myself.

I smiled at the two girls. “Good evening, ladies.”

The she-wolves exchanged unimpressed looks.

“Would you…” Damn, what would Blaise say? What would Marcus? Ah, both terrible examples with flawless records of striking out with the public house wenches. “I mean, would it be amenable, er—”

Just when I’d been getting into the hang of it, Dominic made a disgusted sound and shoved me aside. Face as red as a tomato, he slammed both hands down on the table, making the poor china clink. “Can I buy you a cup of tea?”

My jaw dropped. So did the blond girl’s. Her fingers wrapped around the stem of her coffee cup, ready to splash it in his face. Despite her appearance, she must have come from a gentry family, since she was so properly affronted by Dominic’s offer of paying for her tea. Gentleman didn’t do such things.

Mademoiselle Alpha kept her composure. “Excuse me. Can you what?”

“I made myself clear.”

“Clear enough.” The blond turned to search for a waiter to confront Dominic, as any proper lady would.

“Easy, Clara.” Mademoiselle Alpha swept her eyes over Dominic, no doubt picking up the pimples, the pale skin, the greasy strands and worn patches on his uniform, but she said, “A West Ridge uniform? Who did you mug for that?”

Oh, this was just getting better and better. I motioned my hands to shepherd Valere and Dominic away, but neither party paid any attention to me.

“E-excuse me?” Dominic sputtered.

“You can’t possibly be a student. West Ridge Academy has standards.”

Couldn’t leave, nor could I allow Dominic to spew whatever curses boiled under his tongue at the moment. I stepped forward. “He is, indeed. He’s even top of our class. Well, second.”

But Mademoiselle Alpha paid me very little regard. Why would she, when her attention had found Valere, standing supportively behind Dominic’s other shoulder. “Now isn’t he a fine specimen of Le Savant’s legacy.”

Dominic went still.

“Why don’t you join us?” she asked Valere.

Valere stared at them, and started to say, “No—”

Dominic stomped his foot, gave Valere a bone-withering look, then stormed out of the cafe before Valere could even speak his second word.

I stared between the two. Were they or were they not friends?

Valere started to follow Dominic, but paused at the door. He tapped his fingers on the frame.

Grab him, grab him now, and drag him off. To discuss our thesis. Of course.

But before I took that step to freedom, he whirled back and returned to the table. “I’ll have tea with you, if you vow that at least one of you will have tea with Dominic.”

Er, what?

Mademoiselle Alpha and Mademoiselle Clara both had the same reaction as I. They glanced at each other, before Mademoiselle Alpha said, “Look, you are rather easy on the eyes, but to dine with him… Did that scoundrel give you that bruise?”

I looked at Valere’s black eye. Did he? No, Dominic couldn’t possibly have such a good hook, or he would have used it on Marcus.

“Dominic,” Valere said, “is not someone for you to look down upon. Every day, every single day, he is beaten down. Again and again. Dominic never whimpers, never bows his back. He always stands back up. He always fights back. He refuses to let anyone make him suffer.”

All three of us stared at Valere. It was the most I’d ever heard him say, and the most passionate. Not perhaps emotional, but with a force underneath.

“Can you not recognise his strength, his defiance… The very things you value in yourself? It’s a farce. It’s a farce that you try to beat him down too. Dominic is so very special. A one-of-a-kind diamond that was impossible to ever make, and will never come along again. You should be honoured to have tea with him.”

But Dominic had stormed off. Why was Valere doing exactly as Oswin would have done for Le Savant, in any other situation?

Mademoiselle Alpha took a deep breath, perhaps needing to steady herself, like I did, for having the benefit of two such impassioned speeches from Valere in only two minutes. She shook her head, then motioned the two empty chairs. “Please, sit.”

Valere did not grace them with a smile, or a thank you, but did as she asked.

I stared longingly at the door, to the path back to West Ridge where the thesis project awaited. But we didn’t have a thesis yet. Before the ladies had the chance to protest, I took the chair next to Valere. I would make him talk to me about the project, no matter what it took.