“What’s it to you?” Nicholas asked.
Jesse’s eyes were frozen lakes. “Who are you, exactly?”
Nicholas stared at the contempt on the face of his father’s son.
Jesse continued, “I know the truth about you.”
Nicholas’s heart felt stuck in his throat. His voice had to scrape past it to come through. “You do?”
“Everything I care to know,” said Jesse. “You’re some scholarship boy from nowhere, who’s all over someone immeasurably more talented like a rash. What, you expect me to believe you wanna be pals because you enjoy Seiji’s sparkling personality? You want to be close to him because you want to steal some of his glory. Seiji doesn’t need users like you around him. He needs me.”
Marcel coughed. “I hear a social acquaintance calling, I think…,” he said. “I should see what they want. Since they’re an acquaintance. Who I know socially.”
Neither Jesse nor Nicholas acknowledged his departure. Nicholas was watching Jesse too closely for that, as though he were observing Jesse through the mesh of a face mask, waiting for Jesse to make a sudden move. Jesse, who had all Nicholas’s speed and everything Nicholas would never have. Jesse, who was dismissing Nicholas in the way Seiji had dismissed him once. Except Jesse, unlike Seiji, was always charming people. Jesse was being cutting to Nicholas on purpose.
Nicholas bristled. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Except perhaps that wasn’t true. How Seiji fenced was the first thing Nicholas had noticed about Seiji. He didn’t care about glory, but he cared about seeing how Seiji fenced, being part of a perfect whirlwind of precisely honed skill. He cared about having the diamond intensity of Seiji’s focus trained on Nicholas alone. Sometimes it was all he thought about.
Maybe that wasn’t a great way to think about your friend. Maybe Nicholas wasn’t a great friend. Standing here, facing Jesse, he felt once more as if it were his father telling him all the ways in which Nicholas couldn’t measure up. Being disappointed in him and embarrassed by him.
Ice-blue eyes narrowing, Jesse said quietly, “Give it up and leave Seiji alone. It’s no use. You’re never going to be good enough to get what you want.”
It was very clear to Nicholas that he should punch Jesse in the face. Nicholas could picture doing so with vivid clarity, could already feel the grind of his fist connecting with Jesse’s teeth, the hot blood spurting onto his knuckles. But Camp Menton had strict rules. If Nicholas got thrown out for punching people, he would be letting down his team. He would embarrass Seiji.
So Nicholas clenched his fists, turned around, and stormed out of the party.
23 SEIJI
Certain people only wanted to be seen with Seiji after they realized what he could do on the piste. Seiji could always tell and always found it tiresome to endure their company. He couldn’t stand the pretending.
When a pair of German fencers cornered Seiji at the party, though, he let them. The alternative was facing Jesse. They talked about plans for the Olympics until the Germans left and Seiji had to brace himself and turn back to the group. His one comfort was that when he turned, Nicholas would be there.
He turned around, and Nicholas was gone.
“Where’s Nicholas?” Seiji asked sharply, instead of the casual, party-conversation remark he’d been planning to make.
“He left,” said Jesse, his eyes glinting, catching silver on blue in the party lights. “Which gives us an opportunity to talk. I think we should.”
“I should find Nicholas,” said Seiji.
He wanted an explanation. Nicholas had promised Seiji he would stay. But he hadn’t.
“I don’t get it,” Jesse told him. “You never had any use for the hangers-on.”
“Who are you talking about?” Seiji snapped.
Surely not Nicholas.
“Who else?” Jesse’s mouth twisted. “That boy. The one who’s always with you.”
Nicholas, a hanger-on? How odd. Seiji had taken people at Jesse’s valuation for years. It had never occurred to him before that Jesse could be comically wrong.
Seiji’s lip curled.
Jesse’s voice rose with outrage. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Sorry. I’ll stop looking at you. I’ll start looking for Nicholas,” Seiji said in a level voice. “I don’t think there’s any need for us to talk.”
“You’re right,” said Jesse unexpectedly, voice still confident, and Seiji blinked in surprise.
Jesse was like that. Always the same, golden and sure of himself, no matter what country they were in or what age they were. Seiji had always watched him, trying to learn that golden certainty the same way he learned fencing moves.
But Seiji had never been able to learn how Jesse could turn any situation to his advantage. He was always caught off guard when Jesse turned the tables on him.
Jesse put a hand on his arm. Seiji went still.
“Do you fence with that boy because he’s left-handed like me?” Jesse asked intently.
That made Seiji remember one fencing match in particular, where Nicholas had moved like Jesse, left-handed and lightning fast. It made Seiji recall, too vividly, how it felt to have a fencing partner who was a mirror of yourself turned quicksilver.
How it felt to have such a partner, and how it felt to lose one.
“Nicholas is nothing like you,” snapped Seiji.
“I know. I can fence. Which is what I came here to do. With you. Fence a match with me,” Jesse replied.
Seiji felt his insides twist with panic.
“I’m not going to fence you,” Seiji answered, keeping his voice even.
“Why not?” Jesse pursued. “Afraid you’ll lose to me? Again?”
Seiji’s answer was as fast, and as badly thought out, as one of Nicholas’s fencing moves. “No.”
“So you’ll fence with me.” Jesse smiled, a little relieved and a great deal triumphant. He was used to winning faster than this, but he was seeing victory in view now.
“Why do you want to fence with me, Jesse?” Seiji asked distantly. “So you can humiliate me in front of everyone? Again?”
Like Nicholas had been humiliated today. Seiji’s hand closed, as though on the hilt of a sword that was slipping from his grasp.
“No!” Jesse snapped. “That wasn’t—I didn’t—look. We don’t have to do it in front of anyone. We can sneak into the salle d’armes at night. Nobody will see.”
That was against the rules, Seiji wanted to protest, but then he thought of losing again in front of an uncaring audience. He wouldn’t argue for that.
“If nobody would see,” said Seiji, “why do you want to do it?”
“If you win a match,” Jesse responded, “you can ask for a reward.”
He knew that look. Seiji had seen Jesse close to victory a thousand times.
“What do you want, Jesse?” Seiji asked, feeling too much to show any of it.
“The same thing I’ve wanted all this time,” said Jesse. “I want you. If I win, you leave Kings Row. You come back with me and join the team at Exton.”
Seiji looked around for Nicholas, but he was nowhere to be found. Seiji felt extremely betrayed. Nicholas had offered to help Seiji in social situations. This was the worst possible social situation Seiji could imagine, yet Nicholas wasn’t helping him at all.