Chapter 6
SIX
KINGSTON
On a weekday afternoon, I drive off-campus. Out of Sarrasford. Another town or two over. An anonymous parish, far enough away from Caliburn that no one would peg me as a student per se.
I sit in the parking lot for a while, hands on the steering wheel. Not moving.
Inside, the church is quiet, cold. A few old women doing the Stations. Votive candles flickering. The familiar smell of incense. The font sits beneath a wall carved with a scroll of the Ten Commandments.
I bless myself with holy water first. Wait a moment, as if I think I’ll feel something.
Nothing. It’s just water.
A few paces away, the confessional is empty. No line. I could walk right in.
I stand there. Rehearse it in my mind.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been—
How long? Since St. Ignaty's. Since before. Since I decided what I was willing to do.
—three weeks since my last confession. I accuse myself of the following sins:
The words are right there. I killed my father. Five syllables. I could say them and the priest would ask if I'm truly sorry and I'd have to say—
What? Yes, and make the absolution a lie? No, and be told I can't be forgiven until I am?
I clench my fists.
There is only one thing I can do, must do, in light of what I’ve committed.
But for what?
Saving my own soul would only make things worse for everyone else.
I stand in front of the curtain for eleven minutes. I know because I count every one.
Then I leave.
Nothing has changed about the fencing salle. It has the same tall windows, the same orderly rows of pistes on the ground, the same score boxes and wires, and--were I to go through the doorway--the same lockers, sinks, and showers just beyond, I'm sure.
The only thing that's different is the missing equipment. And the fact that for just under two weeks, I haven't set foot inside.
"So good of you to join us." Kai steps out from the back corner, beyond the weight machines, where the set of French doors leads into the sweep of grass by the lake.
I look at the clock on the wall. Three minutes to four. "I'm not late," I remark. “Unless I had the time wrong--"
"No, you're not late," he interrupts. "I'm just messing with you. Relax."
I dip my head a little, and Kai scowls. "That's what you call relaxing?"
"I'm relaxed," I say. Perhaps a bit tersely.
"Suit yourself." Kai puts his hands in his back pockets and rocks on his heels.
"Anyway, no, I just couldn't sleep, so I've been here since the asscrack of dawn.
" He thumbs over his shoulder to the corner he emerged from, where I can now see crates and boxes stacked almost as tall as we are.
"They really fell over themselves to expedite some of this stuff, so. Hope you like breaking down boxes."
I stare at the packages: stenciled with all the major brands, the logos I've seen on the cuffs of jackets or the bibs of masks or the pads inside bell guards for my entire life. "You got all this out here in a week?"
"Yeah, well," Kai lifts a shoulder. "I mean, we can't fence without equipment, so..."
"The season's over," I point out.
"Yeah, but still," Kai looks down at his toes. "I mean, we want to stay in shape, don't we?" He looks up at me.
I don't respond right away, because if I'm perfectly honest, I haven't thought about fencing.
It's like I can't, somehow. Like there's a block.
Like the idea of bouting again, let alone competing, tournaments, another season, it's all suddenly inaccessible to me.
Something that just can't happen or won't happen.
Because it's just not the same.
I've owned weapons my whole life. Practicing with them since I was five, bouting casually at six, competing by ten.
But I'd only ever, ever thought of them as equipment.
Thought of fencing as a sport. A noble sport, to be sure.
An art, even. But not something that was supposed to hurt.
To injure. Not beyond the occasional bloody nose or scrape from over lunging and falling--well, more than occasional in my case.
A single eye flashes in my memory. And suddenly, I'm back there, in the cold, scrambling, parrying, lunging, feeling the give of flesh against blade—
I close my eyes, banishing it.
I take a deep breath.
I force myself back.
"Thank you for doing this, Kai," I hear myself say. I open my eyes. "How can I help?"
"Thank me later," Kai says, "because you probably won't feel like it." He tosses me a box cutter, and we get to work.
The first few are jackets—pristine, thick, toothy white fabric—each with one of our surnames and USA sewn on the back. Then masks, bundled tightly with foam and paper and plastic to keep the mesh intact and un-dented.
"These are lighter," Kai says, hefting one up on his fingertips as if it's a basketball he’s about to spin. "Am I wrong?"
He tosses the mask to me, and I barely manage to catch it before it hits the ground and dents. I balance it in my palm, considering.
"I'm not sure," I say truthfully. "It could be."
"Well, I am sure," Kai says. He motions for it back, and I hand--not throw--it to him.
He peers inside to the padding by the cheek of the mask, squinting at a label.
"Yeah, look." He points at a tiny inscription.
"Next year's model. They gave us a little upgrade.
" He presses a hand to his heart. "How sweet.
" He sets the mask on the ground, delicately, for once, and pushes up to stand and open the next box.
"Thank you for doing this," I say.
"Already said that, King." Kai's busy stooping over a box and slicing with the blade. "Get too grateful, and I'm going to get cranky."
"I'm sorry," I say, automatically. "It's just--you're doing such a good job. You thought through all of this. You took all this care--"
"Yeah, yeah. Doesn't everyone care about their gear?” Kai says. He rips open the flaps of the next box and frowns. "Ah, fuck. They sent it all unassembled." He runs a hand through his hair. "I mean, I guess that's better, because who knows what kind of shit could come unsoldered in transit, but—”
"I don't," I admit.
Kai pauses. "Don't what? Don't know what could come unsoldered?"
"No," I say. "I don't really care about my gear. I mean, not like this. I usually just took what I was given from Father or whichever coach."
"Huh." Kai looks up from the crate. "Well, I guess that's the difference, then."
I frown. "What do you mean?"
He rummages around in the box, starts pulling out blades and handles and pommels.
"I mean, if you only have one set of shit, you're going to make sure it's the absolute best and guard it with your life, right?
" He shrugs. "There was a long time there where I broke a blade and the blade was broken, period.
Unless someone in the club took pity on me and gave me a loaner. "
"Ah," I say. "Of course."
We unpack the rest of the box in silence, except for the rustling packing material and the occasional clink of blade on blade.
Kai's not wrong. It will be a lot of work to put all of these back together, and we'll want each man to test his own weapon, obviously.
Every fencer should know basic weapon repair, but actually assembling a full armory is a bit of a specialized task.
Lanz is pretty good at it, a way to make himself useful as the alternate if he's not actively competing for the day.
Callahan, not so much. He's too new. And me, I'm serviceable. Nothing special.
Kai, though.
He’s good.
A few feet away, Kai squints at two grips. "I think we're short one," he says. "You want a French and a pistol, I assume?"
"I wouldn't mind it," I say.
"Yeah, I figured." He pulls a slip of paper from his pocket and scribbles something down. "All right, next one. Can you hand me that--"
"Did you hear back from the Consistory?” I all but blurt it out. The question's been weighing on me for too long. Especially after my failed confession this morning. "What did they say?"
Because this is what’s lingering in the back of my mind. I wonder. I wonder if they knew. If this was the plan all along, if Father’d brokered a deal with the Brothers years ago to hand over everything he owned, if they were expecting that bequest.
If that’s the case…if that’s the case, I couldn’t even be surprised. He all but gave them his firstborn son.
Kai studies the ergo grip a little more intensely, turning it over and over in his fingers.
"Kai," I say a bit more sharply. "The White Brothers. You wrote to them to tell them everything, didn't you? Have they answered yet?”
Secretly, I hope they haven’t. I am hoping for long delays, inadequate postage, a mail carriers’ strike.
If they’ve answered, if that matter is settled, then we have to tell them. We are obligated to tell them.
So I don’t want to know. I don’t want to have to know.
"Yeah, they did," Kai says at last, still staring at the hand grip. "They did."
I wait. And wait.
"Kai," I mutter, trying not to let frustration get the better of me. "Come on. What did they—”
"I didn't tell them," he interrupts.
I'm stunned into silence. "You didn't--what?"
"I didn't tell them," he repeats. "I didn't tell them--"
“You didn’t tell that that Father left them everything in his will,” I finish for him. My heart plunges.
Kai winces. “Well, yeah, I definitely didn't tell them that. Because that would have required telling them that he was dead in the first place."
My mouth actually falls open.
"What are you talking about, Kai?" I bite out. "You can't be suggesting—"
"I'm not suggesting," Kai interrupts. "I'm telling you.
I'm telling you exactly what I told them, which is that Luther Pendragon is alive and well and has nothing to report from the campus of Caliburn University.
Or no, technically—" He squints. "Technically, Luther Pendragon himself told them that.
In my approximation of his handwriting."
"What?" I practically spit the word. Fury, fury and something more frantic, is bubbling into my chest. "Kai, why would you think that's even close to a good idea? What the hell got into you?"
Now Kai looks up from the grip, his eyes burning on mine.
“Why would I think that?” Kai repeats, sounding almost incredulous. “Why does that even matter? Because if memory serves, Kingston, you were in no state to do anything. You told me, and I quote, ‘I trust your judgment.’”
I tighten my jaw, tighten my fists. Tighten everything. But I don't say a word. I just look at him intently.
My teammate. My brother.
Because that is what he is.
No one else could interfere with my life so entirely.
And now...
My head spins. I can't even begin to pick apart all the ways in which pretending my father is still alive, forging his existence, has made everything worse, more complex, needlessly complex. Now we're lying. We are really and truly lying.
And what is Kai’s end game, exactly? To do this forever? That's absurd.
I glare at him again—reckless, careless, selfish, who-gives-a-damn Kai Pendragon—and feel the anger coiling tight in my gut.
But when the silence finally breaks, it's him, not me, who speaks.
“I told you, King,” he says, his voice low. “No offense? But you’re a fucking mess right now. I know you’re like, processing shit or whatever, and I get that, truly I do, but—”
I clench my fists. Now, suddenly, he’s sympathetic? When just a few days ago, he was carping on me, on Gwenna, about how he’d love to just fuck the pain away like you two are—
“You need to apologize,” I hear myself say. Practically bark.
Kai gives me a look between a sneer and a scowl. “What?”
“Not to me,” I snap. “To Gwenna.”
His face falls.
And when he speaks, his voice is tiny.
“What?”
“You do,” I repeat, firmly. "For what you said the other day on Easter, implying that—” I clear my throat. “It’s not like that. She’s not like that. And you know it.”
A slow look of horror creeps over Kai's face. “Christ. I didn't mean it like—”
“I don't care what you meant,” I cut him off, “but I know what I heard, and you should have been a lot more thoughtful before speaking up like that.”
This isn’t relevant. On some level I know that. I don’t even know that she was insulted by it, for that matter. More likely she just wrote it off as Kai’s usual unserious flippancy.
But if he doesn’t care how his thoughtlessness hurts the four of us, maybe he’ll care if it hurts her.
Or maybe, when all else fails me, I just want to be self-righteous.
Kai says nothing, just catches his lip piercing in his teeth and worries it back and forth, the way he knows I hate because it looks like he's going to pull his lip clean off his face one day.
I shouldn't say what I say next. I know I shouldn't, but I say it anyway.
“If you're jealous,” I say, “then that's your problem, not hers. Not something you take out on her. If anyone, on me.”
Kai narrows his eyes. “Jealous?” he says softly. “I'm not. I would never--we have an agreement here, Kingston,” he says, again sounding incredulous.
“I understand that,” I say, “but that doesn't mean she's obligated to do anything with any—”
“No, no, no, God. No,” Kai says, waving his hands in the air.
“We have an agreement.” He points back and forth between our chests.
“As in, you and I, and Lanz and Callahan.
To stick together. To not be jealous. You think I don't take that seriously, King?” His voice has gone thin again. "To you, especially?"
I don't know what to say to that.
And I don't have to. Because from upstairs, there's a loud thud, like someone falling. Then a crash, and a cry of pain.