When the Masks Come Off

"Hale. Hale. Hale, wait."

Ronald Fisk had followed him from the dining hall to the washroom door, a distance of two hundred yards and one flight of stairs, and had not stopped talking once.

"I'm not prying," he said breathlessly, trotting to keep up. "I'm only asking. What's it like in there? In the chapel? Is it true there's a pit? I heard it's a pit, with bones, and a well at the bottom you can hear singing from. Henry Aldous in Room 98 said his cousin saw it. And what did you have to do? Did they make you swear? Did you have to cut your hand?"

"No."

"Not even a little?"

"Ronald."

"I'm just curious!" Ronald skidded to a halt as Cassian turned to face him. His round face was pink and shining, his eyes bright as a squirrel's. "You can't blame me. You get a cloak like that and a whole table and the Deacon's telephone, and then you walk around like nothing happened. Don't you want to tell somebody? Because I'd love to hear."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I said I wouldn't."

"To who?"

Cassian looked at him.

For a moment he saw the boy as the Chosen must see him: a plump, eager, chatty fifteen-year-old who could not keep a secret to save his life, and who would repeat any scrap he overheard to anyone who gave him a smile. It was both his charm and his danger. And Cassian, who had stood at the foot of a bed in the dark and watched this boy hold a blanket to his chest, felt something tighten behind his ribs.

"Listen," he said. "You can't ask me this stuff. Not here. Not anywhere."

"I won't tell."

"You'll tell. You won't mean to. But you will." He kept his voice low. "If they ask you what I said, you'll answer. You can't help it. So don't make me say anything."

Ronald's face fell. "That's not fair."

"No."

"I'm your friend."

"I know."

"You're acting like you're not."

"I know that too." Cassian turned away. He couldn't bear the look. "Go to class, Ronald."

He pushed through the washroom door and stood with his hands on the cold basin, staring at the cracked mirror, until he heard the sound of small, hurt footsteps retreating down the hall.

…

Karl was different.

Karl was warm. Karl came up to Cassian at dinner that evening with a plate of boiled cabbage in one hand and an expression of such open, generous delight that it was almost physically painful to witness.

"Hale! Congratulations!"

"Thanks."

"Seriously. I can't tell you how glad I am." Karl set down his plate, adjusted his glasses, and shook Cassian's hand, a firm, correct, businesslike pump. His palm was cool and dry. "When I heard, I said to Fisk: of all the people in this school, Hale is the one who deserves it. Fresh from Iowa, no connections, no money. It's a lesson to us all."

"I didn't do anything."

"Don't be modest. Modesty is a form of vanity." He beamed. "You'll let me know if I can be of any use, won't you? I know the ropes. I've been here two years. I'd be happy to show you the library, the filing system, the unwritten rules. The Council runs on unwritten rules."

"I'll keep it in mind."

"Please do." Karl patted his arm and went off with his plate. Cassian watched him go.

It was only later, when he turned his head, that he saw the rest of it.

Karl had not gone back to his seat. He had crossed the dining hall in a dozen quick strides and stopped beside Tessa Quill, who was sitting alone at the end of the gray table with her tray untouched. He bent over her. He said something. She looked up, startled.

And she laughed.

It was a short, harsh, surprised laugh, with something broken in it, as though she had forgotten how. Karl sat down opposite her. He leaned in, spoke quickly, his glasses winking. She nodded. He talked on. For the first time in weeks, her shoulders eased.

Tessa Quill. Karl Brandt.

The two people in Blackthorne who most resented him, sitting with their heads together.

He watched Karl's gaze lift, once, across the room. It slid over the silver collar at Cassian's neck. It lingered there. And in the pale gray eyes behind the glasses was a look of such raw, flickering want that the smile on Karl's mouth seemed to curdle. His fingers twitched on the edge of the table. Cassian could see them, white at the tips.

Then Karl turned his face back to Tessa, and the smile came on bright as a lamp.

…

That night the room was cold.

The hymn had begun. The lamp in the corridor was dark. Cassian lay on his back in the new woolen blanket with the cloak folded at the foot of his bed. He had expected not to sleep. It was strange to be in this place, among these four boys, with the weight of the evening on him.

He heard it around ten.

A small sound. Choked. Muffled by cloth. It came from the corner opposite, where Albert slept, and it rose and fell, hitching, a child's sound, a sound you make with your face pressed into a pillow so no one will hear.

Albert was crying.

He lay absolutely still, and listened. He had meant to ignore it. There was nothing to say. He had pulled Albert off the floor of a corridor three weeks ago and been rewarded with a sneer and a flurry of hate. He owed this boy nothing.

The crying went on.

"Hey," he said, at last, softly.

Silence.

Then, in a low, thick, furious whisper: "Shut up."

"I didn't—"

"Don't talk to me. Don't even look at me." The blanket rustled. "You've got the cloak. You've got the table. You've got everything. You don't get to feel sorry for me."

"I'm not."

"Yes you are!" The whisper cracked. "You're lying there with your good blanket and your good boots and you're sorry, I can hear it. Well, don't. I don't want it. I was chosen before you."

Cassian said nothing.

"I was first. They picked me in September. The Rector put his hand on my head. My mother's family has been in this valley two hundred years. My uncle was a Prefect. I read the Invocation eighty times before you even got off the bus." He was shaking; Cassian could hear it. "They told me I was special. They said I'd be a Hand. They took me to the practice table and showed me where to stand and I..."

He stopped.

The silence went on for a long time. The hymn throbbed through the walls. When Albert spoke again, it was very small.

"You don't know anything. You think you've been given something. You don't know what it is."

"Then tell me."

"I can't." The whisper was ragged. "I can't, I can't, I can't. If I say it..."

He broke off. Cassian heard him turn over, heard the rustle of the blanket pulled over his head. After that there was only breathing, uneven and wet and slowly steadying, and then, finally, sleep.

He lay awake a long time.

…

He found the note on Tuesday morning.

It was under the pillow. He found it when he lifted his head, a scrap of gray paper no bigger than his thumb, folded small and tucked beneath the edge of the straw. The writing was cramped, upright, in a blunt pencil. It was the only message he had ever seen in that hand, but he knew it at once.

Don't say the meaning out loud.

That was all.

He sat on the edge of the bed with the scrap in his fingers. The room was empty. Ronald and Karl had gone to wash. Albert had left before dawn, silent as a ghost. Only Leo remained, sitting on his bed by the window with his back to the light, tying his bootlaces with slow, careful fingers.

Cassian crossed the floor.

"Leo."

The boy didn't look up.

"What does it mean? 'The meaning'? Which meaning?" He held out the paper. "I don't know what you're talking about. Is it the hymn? The Latin?"

Leo finished the knot. He drew the lace tight. He sat for a moment with his hands resting on his knees, and Cassian thought he might not answer. Then the boy lifted his head.

His eyes were very dark, almost black, rimmed with long lashes, the kind of eyes that would have been beautiful on a girl. They searched Cassian's face, and for an instant there was a naked, desperate, terrified need in them, a plea so intense that Cassian took a half-step back.

Then it closed. Like a door pulled shut.

Leo stood. He lifted his satchel from the bed. He walked past Cassian and out of the room, soundlessly, without a glance, and the door swung shut behind him.

Cassian stood holding the paper.

He's trying to warn me.

Or to stop me.

Or both.

On the sill of the window, where Leo had been sitting, a single gray feather lay curled in the dust. A dove's feather, small and soft. He picked it up. It was cold, and faintly damp, and smelled of the chapel.