Jesse’s sunny expression went into an eclipse.
“Fencing with Seiji was always such a revelation,” Bastien said. “I’d be thrilled to fence with his partner. After drills, what do you say you and I have a match, Nicholas? Everybody enjoys watching a good match.”
His first practice bout! Nicholas’s heart raced with excitement. “Yeah, totally!”
Sometimes people remarked that Nicholas ran recklessly toward disaster. Nicholas didn’t see their point.
“Wonderful,” Bastien said happily. “Well, I want to go introduce myself to someone. Catch you later, Nicholas. Excited to find out what you can do.”
He swung easily up off the bench and launched himself toward Aiden’s retreating back.
Nicholas’s heart was pounding, his body was alive with nerves and anticipation. It felt like pins and needles, but in a pleasant way. His first bout. His first match with everyone watching! Nicholas couldn’t wait, but he had a full day of training ahead of him, the sort of training that had forged fencers like Seiji and Jesse. The sort of training that prepared people for the Olympics.
Bastien had called this the Old World, with an inflection that suggested Nicholas’s world could not compare. With its ancient stone buildings and system of rules inflexible as the stone, it did seem like an entirely different world. But Nicholas felt at home in Kings Row now. He could prove himself at Camp Menton, as well.
When Nicholas looked up from his plate, he found Jesse watching him. Jesse, who Seiji had said Nicholas couldn’t compete with.
“What?” Nicholas asked.
Jesse opened his blue eyes very wide. “I’m just looking forward to watching your match,” Jesse answered innocently. “So excited for everybody to find out exactly what you can do.”
16 AIDEN
Aiden was exhausted before the training drills at Camp Menton even started. He worried the drills might actually kill him. He hadn’t slept well in the bed Harvard had exiled him to, as far away from Harvard as he could be. He got up early to walk the cliffs restlessly, staring out at the sea, and when he finally came to breakfast, he discovered Harvard eating with his new best friend, Arune. Great. Good for Harvard. Aiden resisted the urge to storm off and sauntered away casually instead.
Some guys tried to talk to Aiden, as usual, but he was busy. Aiden had to find his own new best friend, coffee.
“You’re late,” observed a coach with steely gray eyes when Aiden eventually wandered into the salle d’armes clutching his cup of coffee. “That incurs penalties for your whole team.”
Aiden cast a look at his team, huddling close together in the dense chill that only gathered in old stone buildings.
Aiden, refusing to draw closer to them or show the least apprehension, drawled, “What penalties?”
“Can’t be worse than suicides,” muttered Nicholas.
“Suicides,” replied the coach succinctly.
Ah. The only thing worse than suicides. More suicides. Aiden and Nicholas shared an eye roll, united in disapproval of the camp rules in general and suicides in particular. Nicholas gave Aiden a little grin afterward.
“You have already missed part of the drills,” said the coach. “It’s essential you give your best efforts to the remaining portion.”
Aiden wasn’t in a best efforts frame of mind. He wasn’t in an efforts frame of mind.
“What is our aim?” shouted the coach. Aiden dimly recalled from yesterday that his name was Robillard.
“Speed, strength, technique!” shouted the other teams.
“You missed orientation,” mumbled Nicholas.
“I’ll be honest with you, Nicholas, I wouldn’t have listened anyway,” muttered Aiden.
They started with fencing-specific exercises in which they executed moves similar to fencing moves. Once perfected, they would then move on to fencing-transferable exercises, in which they did nonfencing moves in order to increase strength and flexibility. For fencing. Then, and only then, would they be allowed to pick up blades.
So this was hell.
Aiden probably deserved to be there, but Harvard did not.
They started with lateral broad jumps, five sets of fifteen repetitions. Halfway into the first set, Aiden felt dizzy. Maybe he should’ve eaten breakfast. Maybe he should’ve eaten yesterday.
Nicholas looked like he was going to throw up. Harvard left his own strip to see to Nicholas, murmuring advice. He hesitated by Aiden for a fraction of an instant, but Aiden clearly wasn’t worth the bother. Harvard moved on.
Coach Robillard penalized Harvard for pausing. They were assigned more suicides.
Standing long jumps were a little better, but the last week was really catching up to Aiden, and honestly, why bother? Why love fencing? Why love anything?
When they were made to do five sets of reverse long jumps, Aiden started idly fluttering his eyelashes at random boys in the salle d’armes, in order to see which ones he could make stumble. The answer was… most of them.
“Mr. Kane!” snapped Coach Robillard.
“Don’t make me run suicides because I’m beautiful,” said Aiden.
The Kings Row team was assigned more suicides.
Pistol squats, vertical jumps, band thrusts, and anterior planks followed. The Kings Row team sucked. It would have been embarrassing if Aiden had cared at all.
He didn’t dare let his eyes linger on Harvard, muscles moving, sleek under the dancing colors shed by the stained-glass windows. He couldn’t watch Harvard move, or watch his constant attentive kindness for everyone but Aiden. But Aiden himself was terrible, and Nicholas was flailing. He clearly hadn’t done half these exercises before.
Only Seiji moved with absolute, elegant precision. He should have been drawing looks of admiration. Instead, due to the company he was in, he was drawing looks of pity.
Seiji kept his gaze focused straight ahead, his expression neutral. With each pitying glance Seiji got, Nicholas’s face clouded with misery and fury. Nicholas was making more and more mistakes.
Exton and MLC were keeping up far better. The MLC fencers weren’t up to the standards of the European fencers, but they looked good compared to Kings Row. Exton was miles ahead, smooth and polished. Led by their captain, Jesse, a shining figure who moved smoothly on the piste as though he were skating on ice, Exton looked like winners.
As the captain of the Kings Row team, Aiden knew Harvard had been so hoping to win the state championships this year. Aiden had been hoping a little himself. But clearly, if you asked anyone at Camp Menton, they would tell you Kings Row had no chance at the championship.
Luckily, Aiden had decided to stop hoping for anything before he arrived.
The coach wrapped up the drills and said, “Excellent work, everyone. Kings Row, I expect more from you. Mr. Kane, you will not be late to our classes again.”
With that, it was time for a break.
“Where’s Eugene?” Aiden asked idly as Harvard encouraged the others to hydrate. “Did he fake sick? I suspect Eugene is a secret genius.”
Harvard frowned in Aiden’s direction, which was the first time he’d really looked at Aiden all day. “Eugene fainted, and he had to go to the infirmary.”
Aiden felt confirmed in his belief Eugene was a secret genius.
“I should try fainting to get out of these classes, too,” he drawled. “You can catch me.”