Perhaps that was true, too. Harvard had always been sure of Aiden, and sure of how they worked together… until this last week.
Harvard was tired of feeling uncertain.
Harvard met Bastien attack for attack, lunge for lunge, and saw Bastien’s movements check as he startled. Clearly, he hadn’t expected this from Harvard. Harvard was supposed to be reliable, nice, a good sport, a middle-of-the-road fencer. Harvard knew he hadn’t fenced like this since he’d come to Camp Menton. Maybe Harvard hadn’t fenced like this ever.
Bastien ran him up and down the strip, but Harvard had plenty of endurance. Bastien was very good, landing the most fluid of attacks imaginable, but Harvard had been learning as much as he could at Camp Menton and practicing at Kings Row with skill-smooth Seiji and lightning-fast Nicholas. Defense had always been his specialty. When Bastien went low, Harvard remembered Seiji’s stern instructions about his low lines. He could defend against any attack Bastien made.
The points were flying between them, Coach Williams and Coach Robillard both roaring approval and advice. Melodie was yelling encouragement to Bastien like a motivational French banshee, while Eugene yelled even louder for Harvard.
The points were pretty even. But Harvard couldn’t keep being on defense forever. The trick was not only to defend, but to make a move against Bastien and make it count.
A captain had to lead by example. This was for his team and for himself. This was how Harvard would prove he was a worthy captain to lead them to victory at the state championships.
Bastien tried for an attack by lunge, which Harvard used all his skill to parry. Then immediately, without pause for breath or doubt, he went for the riposte, the offensive attack made directly after a parry.
His riposte was fast, fast enough that Bastien couldn’t counter it. That move was for Nicholas.
Even with the way Harvard had been fencing throughout the match, Bastien hadn’t expected such instant aggression. Harvard got through his guard and scored the final point.
He won.
A buzzing rose in his head as though the electrical current in his jacket had gotten into his blood. He couldn’t quite believe he’d won. The gleam of the state championship trophy seemed closer somehow, like something in Harvard’s future rather than in his dreams.
Harvard pulled off his mask and emerged, blinking, into what felt like new light. Arune and the MLC guys were cheering wildly. So were several of the other fencers, who Harvard had imagined pitied him. Turned out they simply liked him instead.
“I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you,” remarked Coach Robillard, but in an approving way, even though Bastien was his son.
“I always knew he had it in him!” Coach Williams shouted. “Pay up!”
“Good match,” Harvard told Bastien, and offered his hand to shake.
As he clasped Harvard’s hand, Bastien inclined his darkly handsome head. “Your coach is right to be proud of you.”
“Nice that someone believes in me, I guess,” Harvard said.
Bastien’s mouth pulled out of shape, as though he’d been sampling the fruit on the lemon trees. “Do you know what Aiden whispered to me before the match?”
Harvard remembered with painful acuteness how Aiden had pulled Bastien in to murmur a lilting lover’s secret in his ear. Suddenly, Harvard’s little triumph felt hollow.
In the end, what did it matter if Harvard had won some stupid match, something that wasn’t part of any tournament and wouldn’t count toward their hoped-for victory at state? He’d lost Aiden. His best friend would leave Kings Row and would be with a hundred boys like this one, and Harvard had damaged the friendship between them irreparably.
Then Harvard realized Bastien’s eyes weren’t gloating. They were bleak.
“Aiden whispered in my ear, ‘You’re going to lose.’”
Just then, the missing Kings Row students appeared. His team. Nicholas was giving some kind of war cry. Harvard couldn’t make it out, because he couldn’t look away from Aiden, who was smiling directly at him.
Coach Williams gave Harvard a hug, and the rest took this as their cue to pounce. Nicholas and Eugene both hit Harvard on the back with perhaps too much enthusiasm. Seiji seemed disturbed to be caught in the middle of a group-hug situation. Aiden was laughing.
“O captain! our captain!” Aiden said in his beautiful voice, low and sweet and mocking.
Harvard didn’t know where his team had been, but they were here now.
He just wished he could keep them. He wished he wasn’t losing the most important one.
33 AIDEN
Aiden couldn’t believe he was missing out on Harvard’s match to deal with errant freshmen. Yet the freshmen had been mysteriously absent, and Harvard had enough to deal with, so it had been up to Aiden to track them down. And now it was up to Aiden to deal with them.
He studied the guilty faces of his freshmen and the Exton freshmen, who had nothing to do with him. Aiden crossed his arms and glared them all down.
“I heard everything. Sneaking off tonight to have a duel, are we? I see my duty clearly. It’s obvious I have to”—Aiden braced himself and sighed and took responsibility—“come with you.”
Nicholas and Jesse looked oddly similar when they were surprised, their usual swagger collapsing. Aiden supposed Seiji Katayama had a fencing-partner type. It was a toss-up whether Seiji had traded up or traded down, in Aiden’s opinion. Nicholas was a better person, but Jesse had better hair. Maybe it didn’t matter, since nobody was getting any action other than fencing action. Tragic individuals, all three of them.
Nicholas cleared his throat. “You’re not, uh, gonna stop us?”
“Nah, I don’t really feel I can stop you from breaking rules without being a huge hypocrite,” said Aiden. “You have no idea how many rules I’ve broken. I couldn’t even tell you about half of them. It would blow your tiny freshman minds. I’m banned from ever returning to Camp Menton, and I’m expelled from Kings Row.”
“So, you often get caught breaking the rules?” Jesse asked skeptically.
Aiden shot him an annoyed glance. “No,” he said. “I’ve been off my game lately.”
Jesse scowled, so Aiden transferred his smile to the other Exton boy, who might be more deserving.
“I’m—” Aiden began.
The Exton boy stared back at him. “I’m Marcel Berré. And you’re Aiden Kane,” he said. “You dated Alexander Kostansis. He goes to Exton.”
Aiden blinked. “I dated who?”
“He told me you ruined his life and crushed his soul!”
“I’m sorry,” said Aiden, “but you’re going to have to be more specific than that. You’re just describing a random Wednesday for me.”
Marcel gave him a look that was part fascination and part terror. Jesse’s scowl intensified, and he dragged Marcel protectively away. Aiden walked alongside his freshmen through the lemon trees, trying to think of a way to take that desolate, set expression off Seiji’s face. Harvard made it look so easy, comforting someone, making them believe they were special. Aiden always knew what people were feeling, but Harvard knew how to make them feel better.
Aiden couldn’t do it Harvard’s way, but perhaps he could use his own talents for good instead of evil for a change. He thought about what he said to people when he was trying to psych them out, so they would flinch during a fencing match and give him the victory, and then tried to reverse the strategy in his mind.