Page 21 of The Villains of Winter

Yet, James gripped his silverware as if they were weapons of war. “Finch Hudskin is dying, and that is why you cowards will send him for your ceremony.”

Kitty whispered the laws of the institution. “You’re eligible for the honorarium this year. Please, don’t do this.”

James forced himself to calm down; he untied his expensive bow tie. A swan fluttered in the distance. The flutists and clarinetists delivered their enchanting swan song to the autumn.

However, Lucien stole a morsel of the nineteenth century chocolate. He curved his impetuous mouth around the confection.

“Listen to the girl,” Lucien condescended, patting James’s shoulder. “Even she has the basic sense you need, Wilde. Finch will gasp his dying breath and there is no reason another one of us should die instead. Why let two deaths happen for a welder?”

“Your death should happen,” James fumed in hatred beneath his breath, trying and failing to control his righteous anger. Finch had been James’s friend longer than anyone in his life. “Every year, all of you stand by and witness as a student is put to death in the name of that sadist tradition–and you do nothing. You are complicit in their killing.”

The entire reason James worked himself nearly to death to become a senator was to gain enough influence to end the rituals. With money and fame, he could speak the language of the government power structure, but he couldn’t do that if none of the students even supported their own liberation.

He couldn’t enact any sort of change without strength in numbers. He cursed beneath his breath as he removed his batwing cuff links. “Spineless fucking cowards.”

Lucien appeared outwardly unaffected, though Elliott noticed Lucien’s teeth were set tight at the accusation of cowardice. “Provost Tytheridge would never allow us to question the sacrifice.”

What he truly meant to say was their wealth class would never allow it, either. The ceremony kept the younger generations in line. The older generation lived in fear that the younger generation would remove them from power and return the power to the labor class, effectively eradicating their own economic class. The first era without a wealth class.

“The provost is slaughterous and callous. By definition, he’s an execut–” James held his breath at the last second, feeling Elliott squeeze his knuckles as tightly as possible. James forced out a short breath of restraint. He kept the word executioner between his teeth. “Finch is a single child. You’ll devastate his parents and his aunt. Don’t you even care?”

“Finch is nearly twenty-two,” Lucien retorted with an air of dismissal. “Two decades is generous in his condition. He was fine when he was an enforcer on an undefeated team; but he isn’t a star hockey player any longer. This is an act of mercy for his lungs in the upcoming harsh winter.”

“Then this winter you should have no trouble offering yourself at twenty-one, a few months shy of twenty-two yourself,” James sniped at him. He disregarded the third course of venison from the servers, his voice intensified. “There are twelve other electors, you are not necessary in the college. Your precious letters can smolder with you.”

Lucien leaned towards James’s ear with impertinence.

“Why deny you the opportunity to volunteer yourself, James? Everyone knows you ache for death.” Lucien stepped closer. He straightened James’s dark bow tie, tightening the knot. “However, it would be a shame to not see your beauty in the tragedy recitations. Therefore, I will warn you to be grateful that you were not selected instead. Heretic.”

Heretic? Elliott questioned.

James snorted, then swallowed his scorched Austrian coffee. “Keep your gratitude.”

“It’s a victory not to be chosen, Wilde, remember that. You must’ve forgotten what victory felt like when your arm went through a windshield.”

“At the cost of your soul and mind, the survival is a Pyrrhic victory at best.”

A wicked smile stretched Lucien’s thin lips. “It’s a Cadmean victory, it’s a Pyrrhic victory, no one cares after midnight. They’re simply grateful to survive. Except Finch Hudskin, of course.”

James speared into his tenderloin with more violence than necessary. “Get bent.”

“If you’ll do the honors, Wilde.” Lucien polished the undergraduate professor assistant pin on his chest. James ignored him as though he no longer existed.

Thankful, Elliott pressed a hand against James’s back, relieved he kept himself seated in the end. Beneath his hand, Elliott felt his erratic, angry breaths rising and falling in his tight chest. Elliott reassured him, “We will think of something to save Finch. I swear it.”

At that moment, Lucien should have left. He’d already won. James had backed down instead of threatening Lucien or Provost Tytheridge himself. Lucien had tasted his precious victory over the indecency of sending a young man to die simply because he was incurably ill. He had won.

A professional opera singer emerged in the waters, beautified in enchanting makeup and attired as Carmilla herself, a soprano’s serenade in her throat. Lucien could have easily departed the refectory in a victory aria.

Instead, Lucien touched his palm onto Kitty’s dyed hair. “If you ever need a mentor, the rector’s office could use fresh skin. You can lick envelopes for me with that soft tongue of yours after.”

Elliott knew then that James would lunge for him. Elliott was right beside him, ready to fracture Lucien’s teeth himself with all of his strength. Except, he did not expect James’s dinner knife to thrust straight into Lucien’s abdomen.

He did not anticipate that James would bleed him.

​​ CHAPTER TWELVE

IT WAS A MERCY THAT Lucien Montclair had not bled to death.