Chapter 8 The Weight of Crowns #3
“Eight years!” he shouted, the anger tearing out of him like shrapnel.
“Eight years, I’ve been in that house. Eight years of…
of…” He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t name it.
But the shape of it hung between them, vast and obscene.
“You sold me! You knew what he was, what he would do, and you sold me anyway. And for what?” He shoved the dresser, and it crashed to the floor.
His mother screamed and scrambled to the wall. “Stop it!”
“Eight years, for what?! For this? For—” He kicked at the debris on the floor. “For drugs?”
“We needed help!” His mother’s voice rose to match his, ragged and desperate. “We would have starved—”
“I would rather have starved!” The truth ripped from his throat.
Tears burned down his cheeks. Twin streaks of weakness he could no longer keep bottled up inside. He hated that after everything, he could still break like this.
“You were supposed to protect me!” His voice shattered. “That’s… That’s what mothers do. That’s the one thing…”
He couldn’t finish.
Eight years of silence, of emptiness, of learning to survive through numbness. It was all coming to the surface, and he didn’t know what to do with so many sharp emotions.
Too much.
He collapsed to the floor, covering his face as he wailed with frustration. Sob after bleating sob. Despite his deeper voice, he was still just a boy. A boy who would never understand how a mother could allow this to happen.
Cold hands grabbed at his arms, forcing him to look at her. “Sweet baby.” Her withered arms pulled him against her hollow frame as they sobbed in a tangle of limbs and grief.
“You let it happen. You said it would stop, but you lied. You’re a liar. Just like him.”
“No, baby. I didn’t mean it.” Apologies tumbled out of her in broken fragments. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, sweet baby. I wish I was stronger for you. I wish I was better.”
Despite his anger, he hugged her tightly—a little boy desperate for the shelter of a safe adult. Beyond forming words, he let her rock him as he moaned through the pain poisoning his mind.
“Shh—shh—shh…” She stroked his hair and held him tight, the way she used to when he was small enough to fit in her lap. “Mummy’s here.”
“I can’t… I can’t do it anymore,” he sobbed. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t… I can’t.”
“Shh, baby, don’t think of it anymore. You’re home now.”
He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, crying in his mother’s arms. When he woke up the next morning, he had no recollection of getting off the floor or moving to his room.
They never talked about that moment again.
No resolutions were made, and no promises were left unbroken.
Eventually, he returned to the estate.
None of it mattered. Not his pain. Not his words. And not his tears.
He was powerless.
Just a boy, moving from one prison to another.
Half his life was trapped by poverty. Dripping pipes and distant screams. The scrabble of rats in the walls and the scent of hunger hanging low in the air like a fog that never faded.
The other half of his life hung in a gilded cage, dripping with luxury and privilege, where his screams were the only ones crying out in the night.
After taking his bag to his room, he twisted the gold knob and stood at the threshold. A dizzying chill crawled over his skin as he tried to make sense of what he saw—or didn’t see.
His bookshelves were empty, gaping like a mocking grin of missing teeth.
The table where they’d spent countless hours studying was bare, wiped clean, as if years of lessons had never happened.
Fear sparked inside of him, igniting a brushfire of rage that compelled him down the hall until he was standing in the chancellor’s office.
“Where are Mr. Carrow’s books?”
“Carrow,” the chancellor spat as he finished signing his name to the paperwork on his desk. “That pretentious little worm. I should have fired him years ago.”
The floor dropped out from beneath Jack’s feet. “Fired?”
“Creative differences.” The chancellor sneered. “I should sue him for promising something he couldn’t deliver.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My autobiography.”
“Is it finished?”
“Finished?” He barked out a laugh. “The little Cambridge shit never started it. Years of dictation and taking notes, and for what?”
“But—”
“He’s gone now.”
“Gone where?”
None of this made any sense.
Mr. Carrow had been working on the book for years. Jack saw the pages amass, witnessed him make endless revisions.
“Not my concern. I had the servants pack up his garbage. Books, papers, all of it.” He waved a dismissive hand. “We’ll find you a new tutor. Someone who won’t fill your head with useless drivel.”
Jack couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
Gone.
Mr. Carrow was gone.
The one person in the world who saw him, who truly cared about him.
He hadn’t even been given the chance to say goodbye.
Where would he go? Jack didn’t know where he lived. He only knew he could count on his showing up.
“Why?”
The chancellor frowned, only then realizing how much this upset him. He sat back and eyed him critically. “Careful, boy.”
Jack swallowed back his rage, but it only pushed further up his throat. A lump that refused to go down.
He never wanted to hurt someone as much as he did in that moment. He imagined lunging at the chancellor and strangling his saggy neck until his beady eyes popped out of his hog-headed skull. But he knew how that would end.
He was the devil incarnate, and there was no winning in hell. Only losing. And layers upon layers beneath rock bottom, that the chancellor’s opposers eventually met.
So he turned and left, hardly able to make it back to his bedroom before dissolving into tears.
Golden fixtures blurred around him as he fell onto his bed and screamed into the pillows. His fist pounded on the mattress, but it wasn’t enough.
He wanted to hit the wall hard enough to break the world into a million pieces and then carve the chancellor’s eyes out with the shards.
The painted cherubs watched from above, silent witnesses to another death. Mocking him with their bright eyes and unwavering grins.
A pain unlike anything he’d ever felt crushed his chest. He rubbed the spot, but it wouldn’t ease.
Mr. Carrow was gone.
His teacher. His friend.
The ache consumed him as he wiped away tear after tear. Every trace of him had vanished. Erased. Confiscated like a sin and sent far away, where Jack couldn’t go.
Paralyzed by helplessness, all he could do was cry. Cry for the man who gave him so much. Cry for the gratitude he never fully got to show. Why? Why him?
It wasn’t fair. Nothing was.
And no matter how long he cried, the ache in his chest refused to ease.
Rolling to his side, he stared through blurry eyes at the wall. Numb and exhausted. His hand slid beneath the pillow where the silk sheets were cool—
His fingers bumped a weighted edge, heavy and smooth.
Jack’s heart stopped as he quickly sat up, throwing the pillow aside.
A box.
The top lifted easily with a soft whisper, and there, nestled within the cardboard, was the manuscript, THE ART OF THE CROWN.
Jack lifted the flimsy manuscript, thick with hundreds of pages, each one neatly inked with Mr. Carrow’s words despite the author’s name being that of the fraudulent Chancellor Rupert Aurin.
“You did write it.” He fanned through the many pages and a stiff envelope fell onto the bed. Jack’s heart stopped again, this time at the sight of Mr. Carrow’s careful handwriting scribbled on the front.
THE GREAT JACK THORNE
Jack tore open the envelope with unsteady hands, his gaze darting to the closed door. He ripped the paper out, his grip tightening on the last words hidden inside.
Dear Jack,
If you’re reading this, I’ve been dismissed. I’m sorry. I’d hoped for more time.
After eight years of writing a monument to a narcissist’s grandiose delusions, I found myself at a moral crossroads.
Do you remember what I taught you about Oppenheimer? The man who built the bomb only to pass the rest of his life regretting it? I have done something similar, Jack. I’ve written something lethal—a monster’s autobiography that would only teach others how to be just as evil.
Some things are simply too dangerous to release into the world. We must keep dangerous weapons from dangerous people, Jack. Which is why I’m entrusting this book to you.
If you read it, do so carefully. If you plan to apply it…
I understand. Take care of yourself, Jack.
Knowledge can be a dangerous thing. A weapon.
A bribe. A noose. A bullet. A bomb. Be very careful, Jack.
Use your head and never forget the lessons I taught you about power. It is, indeed, a great weight to carry.
I am sorry, Jack. I should have done more. You deserve better. Had I known how to save you from a giant without endangering your life in the process, I would have. Now, I must sit with that regret for the rest of my life. Perhaps one day you can forgive me, even if I never forgive myself.
But more than forgiveness, I hope one day you can free yourself.
Sun Tzu once said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
This manuscript holds every twisted secret of your enemy, Jack. It’s a complete manifesto of his strengths and weaknesses.
Study it.
Learn it.
And never let anyone know you have it. Then—when you’re ready—use it.
Your teacher and friend,
Mr. Carrow
—Nick