Chapter Eight – Instruction Day

He’d been right to wear his uniform since everyone else did the same. Fencing whites were promptly provided to all the students attending Maestro Alvarez’s lesson, and they were already changing in the designated room when he and Ali arrived. It wasn’t because he was shy that he waited for the others to change before following their example. It was better if the Golden Circle – and others – didn’t gawk at him like he was from outer space. Some hid it better, like Anton, but people like Vivien, who considered him an alien, seemed plentiful at the academy. More than once, Lawrence caught one or two of them staring openly.

Ali had offered his help but gave up easily. Lawrence hadn’t refused him that strongly, but when he turned to see what Ali was looking at over his head, since he was sitting on one of the long benches in the changing room, he noticed Bastien. However, the Sun King wasn’t looking at him and Ali, seemingly too taken with his conversation with Felix. Strangely enough, Ali seemed to ignore his twin, and Felix did the same. Watching them act like strangers to each other gave Lawrence a mental itch he couldn’t shake off.

In the end, he had remained last. Bastien ignored him just like the day before, but this time, Lawrence no longer held it against him. If the Golden Circle was meant to keep their leader away from danger – or temptation – they might as well have the means to make things difficult for Bastien. It was, supposedly, one thing for Bastien to be intimate with a member of the ruling class, and a completely different one to become involved with an outsider.

He’d been assigned a full set of fencing clothes, which had to mean that they had made those to order, the same as his uniform. No one at Veridien seemed to be his size.

The jacket’s padding was stiff, so he worked a bit to adjust it over his chest. Yes, his fencing whites were definitely new, just as the glove, which he slid over his hand. It didn’t fit perfectly, and the seams might rub against his wrist during training, but seeing how accommodating the academy was to his needs, he couldn’t – wouldn’t – complain.

Fastening the breeches at the knees, the way Ali had explained it to him, was easy. Like any other new clothes, they felt unfamiliar, but at least he looked like the others now that he was in full gear.

Not exactly. As the students left the changing room one by one, Lawrence noticed them holding their masks under one arm. So his should be—

He saw it at the end of the bench, lying there as if it had been placed in that spot on purpose. Since no other mask seemed to be in sight, that must have been left behind for him. But by whom?

Maestro Alvarez was a stickler for punctuality. That meant he couldn’t afford to dally, so Lawrence took the mask. It felt different than his new clothes. The padding was supple to the touch, so it had been worn before. Lawrence made a move to place it over his head, and then his eyes caught something.

Just above the brow padding, a piece of cloth had been stitched into the fabric. An able hand – not a machine – had made sure only one person would wear the mask in question.

Lukas von Keller. Lawrence stared at the object in his hand. Someone was playing a nasty trick on him, it seemed. Had Bastien left the mask behind for him to find it? No, the joke would be too crude, too soulless. Ali, perhaps? Lawrence didn’t want to dismiss him as a potential spy yet. However, Ali had been with him all the time before leaving the changing room where they’d arrived together.

Anton. Or his dog, Abelard. It looked like the kind of trick they’d pull on the new arrival. They were warning him to stay away from Bastien – maybe. Lawrence wanted to cover all angles before drawing a conclusion.

A darker option was: insist on getting close to our king, and you’ll meet the same fate as the previous owner of this mask.

Or maybe he was just reading too much into it. Maybe masks weren’t so easy to make, and that was the only spare available.

Lawrence looked at the elegant stitching for a moment longer. Then he put the mask on. People who believed in the memory of objects and other things just as nonsensical might say that touching something that belonged to Lukas would somehow put him, the investigator of his death, in touch with the victim’s spirit.

It fit him better than he thought. Yes, it did flatten his hair, but he didn’t mind that. He wasn’t a slave to the importance of looks, though appearance seemed to be everything at Veridien. The padding set well against his brow and cheeks. The world looked different through the steel grid, partially obscured. The sound of his own breathing came out muffled, leaving warmth on his face before slipping away through the metal lattice now covering his face. When he moved his head, the mask resisted lightly, reminding him of its weight.

“What did you see before you fell, Lukas?”

Even his voice seemed to come from farther away with the mask set firmly against his ears.

Well, that medium crap was just that. His soft-spoken words didn’t serve as an incantation for Lukas’s spirit. The objects the victim had owned didn’t serve as conduits, nor could they act as messengers to tell him things he didn’t know.

Only that they could. Lawrence stopped, the pressure of not being late for his first fencing lesson slipping from his mind. If the prestige rules that governed Veridien were strongly enforced, as he suspected, Lukas’s room had to have remained unoccupied. After all, Lawrence was the only new transfer, and no one had hurried to offer him the late student’s room.

And the rooms had objects in them. Surely, the family must have taken most of them, but what if Lukas hid things? Everyone did. Despite the rigorous discipline at Veridien, there wasn’t one student Lawrence had met so far who didn’t appear keen on protecting his secrets.

He needed to see Lukas’s quarters. Since rooms could only be locked from the inside, it should be easy to gain access. The more difficult part would be to do that undetected.

Later, he decided. Now was the time for getting bullied during his first-ever fencing lesson.

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