CHAPTER FIFTY
“I THINK JAMES KILLED LUCIEN.”
Elliott froze. Callum was bandaging his wounded arm in the dark. The light fixture was broken, shards of glass speckled across the walnut oil paintings of Elliott’s dormitory.
“How–um–why do you think that?”
Callum stared at Elliott for a full minute.
“You must’ve fled the ceremony before Lucien was found in the Eisenhower Woods.
James was naked. He swung an axe at Perseus and me.
He stripped us for our winter clothes as if it didn’t matter if we died out there.
It’s not hard to believe he killed Lucien beforehand. ”
Elliott shook his head. “No, Lucien walked into the flame for me. James believed the burning body was mine. That’s why he was furious–”
His lie went unheard. Callum was deeper in his thoughts.
“There’s more than that. You were still in high school throughout my first year of college.
You weren’t there for what happened.” Callum swallowed.
His eyes hunted. “I had a best friend. Niall Eastman. Our mothers played tennis every weekend and our fathers golfed every Sunday. We competed together in lacrosse for eight years. Niall was there when my mother was sworn in as mayor. I was there when his father became the district attorney. He was Perseus Swann’s best friend as well. ”
Callum took hold of Elliott’s hand, sanitizing the wound. He ran his hand over the old scars, clearing the fresh blood from the scratches.
Elliott mentioned that everyone was there for the inauguration when Sun Lina was inducted as mayor.
It was a historic event. His corporate father, Han Tiankai, funded the eight-day celebration.
Elliott had attended Mayor Sun’s Chinese New Year event where he’d learned to write her name Li 丽 pretty and Na 娜 elegant and her surname Sūn 孙 descendant.
However, it was as though Callum couldn’t hear him, he was lost in his pained memory.
“One night, Niall broke into my room–white as a specter. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t articulate his words. Niall overheard Perseus and one of his professors in deliberation about a cult murder.” Elliott’s eyes widened. “By the winter ceremony, he was dead.”
Callum discarded the blood-flecked towels.
“Last December, Lucien broke into my art practicum, and he was raving and ranting about cults and tortured students.” He picked up a packet of gauze for his own arm.
“He claimed James was an alchemist that tortured our peers to death. By the winter ceremony, Lucien was dead.”
“Callum–it’s not like that–” Everyone had it wrong. James never premeditated the murder of Lucien. He killed him in the spur of the moment to spare Elliott’s life.
None of it was planned.
All of it happened in the moment.
Callum gripped Elliott’s shoulders. “There is a cult in our college and they are killing students for finding out.” Callum toiled through his words.
“Listen, I voted for Lucien. I would’ve voted for him a hundred times.
However, I didn’t vote to cover up serial murders.
I didn’t become an elector to conceal student killings. ”
Elliott refused to listen, anxiously tidying his room until it almost appeared as if there had been no kidnapping attempt at all.
All he could think of was how laudative and compassionate Perseus had been to him.
Perseus always called Elliott his talented hallmate.
Perseus had even patted Elliott’s shoulder, smiling amiably, before shaking his hand in his agreement to vote for Lucien.
These peers of ours with only three or four generations of wealth forget where they came from.
I understand the grit of labor. Perseus’s forefathers were oil barons, former prime ministers, and railway heirs, but Perseus had always committed to his own work, Elliott believed.
Perseus never relied on his privileged name.
In the history of the winter ritual, the labor class and middle class students are sacrificed to the solstice without regard for life. In the name of fairness and solidarity, I will be sure to vote for the Frenchman, Elliott.
You have my word.
Perseus wasn’t a murderous cultist, Elliott trusted.
Eventually, the words leaked out of him as Callum cleaned the blood from his hairline with the last set of towels.
“Lucien accused James of inhumane acts. He was messing with me. He was messing with you, mimicking what Niall believed. Why else wouldn’t he have reported it to the College? –”
“The College is a part of it. That’s why.” Callum was confident of that. “He would’ve been murdered.”
“Murdered for reporting?” Elliott repeated.
“The College couldn’t murder thirteen students if every elector confronted them about the cult.”
“The College could and would murder thirteen students to protect their crimes. Thirteen is negligible to the infamy. I imagine that a death cult at an elite college would make international headlines for decades. Documentaries, films, limited series, and bestseller memoirs would be distributed for the rest of time.”
Donors would pull their donations to conceal their affiliation.
The faculty would be disgraced for the facilitation of the cult.
Elliott persisted. “James isn’t part of a political cult. I’ve been around him for years–”
“You didn’t ask James about it, did you?” Callum stopped clearing the blood. “Tell me that you didn’t speak a word of it to him, right?”
“Yeah, I asked him right away–”
“Are you out of your mind? Why would you do that?” Callum returned his grip to Elliott’s shoulders. “Why would you ask an accused killer if he’s the killer? Do you think he’s going to say, ‘Elliott, I apologize. I’ve killed a student every year. Let’s turn me in?’”
Before Elliott could defend him, Callum commanded him, “Do not ask either of them, Perseus or James, about anything related to the cult. I can’t prove it. I can’t confirm–but trust me, alright?” Callum breathed. “Two deaths is a coincidence. I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Elliott nodded. He retrieved iced meat for the bridge of Callum’s nose. His nose was marginally fractured, if not slightly broken by Claude’s fist. His nose stopped bleeding after an hour.
Afterward, Elliott changed out of his clothes and he offered Callum his laundered pajamas to change into as Callum ditched his bloodied clothes. Callum shoved the final evidence of the fight–the torn clothes, shrapnel of glass, the stained towels, the plastic gauze containers–into a trash bag.
“What do we do then?” Elliott asked after Callum tugged on a pair of Elliott’s boxers, hauling a fresh shirt over his head as he put his legs through the navy flannels.
For a few moments, Callum was silent, staring at the cedars and the bird nests at the window sill. He kept himself silent in deliberation.
“We let Claude Montclair risk his own life finding out what happened to his son. All we know is that we can’t trust Perseus or James–”
“I wouldn’t trust me either,” James said, stepping into Elliott’s room from the dark. He stood at the front door with the Exeter Athenaeum badge. “Admittedly, though, you’ve injured my feelings, Callum. Why can’t we trust me?”
Elliott parted his lips, but Callum stood in front of him. “Claude Montclair has convinced himself I killed his son. As I told Elliott, all I did was find the body. We can’t trust you or Perseus to cover for us when you hardly know anything yourself.” Callum set his eyes on him. “Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right.” James’s expression remained composed. “How does any of that relate to Elliott?”
Callum handed him the electoral vote. “Claude Montclair learned I voted for his son. He’s hell-bent on proving I conspired to steal the senior elector position from him.
He has this violent fantasy in his head that I took matters into my own hands.
” Elliott heard the firmness of Callum’s voice between them.
“Elliott and I know that’s not true. Elliott came to me and he asked me to vote for Lucien.
I conspired with Elliott and the rest of the electors to send the tyrant as the honorarium. ” Sic semper tyrannis.
James attempted to glance at Elliott to confirm that was their conversation, but Callum blocked his path.
Callum stood as though he would protect Elliott from the fellow upperclassman with his own body, if needed.
Adrenaline still coursed through his veins.
He hadn’t protected Niall three years before. He hadn’t believed him.
“You conspired with Elliott?” James questioned. “How did Claude know your vote after the matter?”
“That’s what I want to find out,” Callum said, an edge to his words as he glared at James.
He silently wondered if James had broken into the electoral chamber, given that James had broken into the office of the registrar plenty of times before.
“No one is permitted to see the individual votes before the ceremony, not even Lucien.”
“Who signed the final vote?” James asked. That would be the last person to have the entirety of the votes.
“Perseus Swann.” Callum regarded him with equivalent distrust as he regarded James. “Perseus retrieved the votes to hand to Lucien. However, he couldn’t have known the votes, the encasement was locked.”
“He knew.” James spoke far beneath his breath. Neither of them heard him. None of this is personal, you know that, right? It’s unfortunate when these tragedies happen, but it’s for the best. Callum, Valeria, and the rest were outvoted. You understand these matters.
James’s jaw clenched.
Lucien Montclair uncovered the cabal and he extorted me throughout midterms last trimester. I had to shut him up. He wanted the drummer kid, what did it matter if he was your friend? Lucien would’ve exposed all of us…
“Are you wearing one of Elliott’s shirts?” James realized he recognized the comic book characters. “I take it you’re wearing his boxers under his pajama trousers. Did you spend the night with him?” Did Elliott have a night terror and James hadn’t been there?