Page 77 of The Villains of Winter

That Elliott could forget about murder.

Elliott seemed healthier, his cheeks had color in them, his throat had mended in the weeks since the strangulation. His peachy brown skin still had an attractive complexion beyond the pallor of his soft face. His smoke brown hair was a bit shorter than it was before. He looked less like he’d been hit head-on in a collision and more like his old self again. His handsome smile was lopsided.

Yet his eyes told the excruciating truth. The pallid circles beneath his eyes, wan with inner anguish, revealed everything that tormented him. “How have you been? I’ve really missed you, James.”

Words were incapable of expressing the chasmal depth of how greatly James missed Elliott. The days came and went without consequence. Weeks bled into each other without notice. Months burned with hardly any significance. All James was aware of was the immense loss of the presence of his best friend. He couldn’t sleep without Elliott’s clothes.

His world had turned monochromatic. With Elliott there now, the atmosphere was warm and brilliant again. James grinned at him. For Elliott’s sake, he lightly punched him. “You’re the birthday boy, I’m supposed to have missed you.”

Elliott was exhausted, but finally in good spirits as he smiled deeper. “I completely forgot it was my birthday. That’s today, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” James slid down the wall beside him. He hadn’t answered Elliott’s first question, but he answered his second. He excavated a leather-bound box out of his pocket. “Happy birthday, Starfall.”

“What is it?” Elliott’s eyes expanded as he learned the astronomically expensive gift was a Henault constellation wristwatch speckled with actual moon dust from space. James had purchased it in Paris. “I can’t accept this, James. It’s too much.”

“Does it fit you?” James asked as if Elliott hadn’t spoken. He wasn’t embarrassed by the steep price, Elliott only turned twenty-one once.

“It fits, but–”

“Then it’s yours.” James patted his shoulder. As Elliott’s mouth formed a protest, James interrupted him. “Don’t be horrible with a gift, Elliott. Accept it.” James pressed his mouth against Elliott’s temple. “Semper una. We will be together soon. That’s all that matters.”

What James didn’t know then was that there was a matrix of secrets that Elliott held within himself like a catacomb. The first secret was that Elliott still planned to meet with the reporter to confess to what happened on July thirteenth. No matter what James said or did.

Elliott would pin the entire murder on himself.

The second secret was that Elliott received more than a cassette, he received letters from the College itself.

The third secret was that Elliott had already decided he would be the payment to the Montclairs.

Elliott would be their honorarium.

​​ CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

JAMES SWALLOWED A SCOTCH ON the rocks to drown the panic.

As Elliott slept in his hotel bed, bundled beneath the sheets, James went through Elliott’s belongings. He needed to know every thread of thought inside of Elliott’s head. He wanted to know how he had been. He had to know how Elliott felt.

He didn’t expect the letters.

Elliott had a stack of letters from a stalker. Lucien Claude Montclair was the bravest among us. His actions were the very symbolism of the hibernal ceremony–sacrifice. He will be fondly remembered. The cabal had handwritten to Elliott directly in an encrypted letter. James recognized the recondite Cervidae insignia. What greater sacrifice than of one’s life for another? Let us honor him. Return to Æscwulf College.

A miracle had occurred. Deus ex machina, the letter rejoiced. A god from the machine.

However, that was not a god. That was not an act of benevolence. It was dated on the New Year in January of that year. The same night that Professor Ilaria had arrived at James’s dormitory with the knowledge of the homicide.

“What is this?” James demanded, waking Elliott out of bed, rousing him out of his restive sleep. “There were letters from Æscwulf College?”

“The College pardoned me.” Elliott had held onto the letter for months.

“Pardoned you?” James repeated, feeling his heart abandon his chest. Did Elliott truly believe them? Nothing the institution did was for altruism. “You can’t trust their response. Everyone still believes the burnt remains are yours, Elliott. For fuck’s sake, that’s what they need to believe.”

Elliott rose out of bed. The letter meant Elliott had more time with James before he confessed everything. The letter had informed Elliott of the address of the hotel James had been in, even the exact room number with a complimentary elevator credential. That was all that mattered to him. “The provost offered to issue a statement that Lucien walked into the fire to spare my life. That as a Mormon, Lucien couldn’t bring himself to end someone’s life, and therefore, he sacrificed his own. His selfless act symbolized ‘the virtue and purpose’ of the sacrifice ceremony.”

He was right. That was the content of the letters.

James had gone numb when he read the first letter welcoming Elliott Taylor Archway back to Æscwulf College to resume his undergraduate degree. Elliott would need to enroll in his missed spring classes in the summer term. All of it sounded banal and mundane.

The second letter welcomed Elliott to attend a vigil in memory of Lucien Claude Montclair, his own attempted murderer. Now hailed as a self-sacrificial humanitarian.