The Study

The Rector sent for him on Saturday at four.

It was the last day of October. The sky was the color of dishwater, and a thin fine rain fell on the gravel. He crossed the quad with his collar turned up and his hands in his pockets, past the chapel steps where a pair of Prefects were laying out the long white runner for the evening, and up the stair to the old man's study. The Deacon's chair in the vestibule stood empty. The door was ajar.

"Come in, child. Come in out of the wet."

The fire was lit.

Kell sat in his leather chair with a rug over his knees and the tea tray beside him, his round pink face lamplit, his spectacles winking. A thick book lay open on his lap. He closed it gently when Cassian entered, and laid his hand on the cover, and looked up with an expression of great and gentle affection.

"Sit. You are shivering."

Cassian sat.

Neither of them spoke while the old man poured. The tea was hot and sweet. The fire popped. Somewhere in the hall below, a clock struck the quarter. He wrapped his hands round the cup and held it, because they would not stay still, and waited.

"You have had a difficult week," said Kell.

"Yes, sir."

"The poor Fisk boy. A tragedy. I'm told you were fond of him."

Cassian's breath caught.

"I was his roommate."

"Of course." The Rector sipped. "Of course you were. I had hoped, when the matter was first brought to me, that you might have had some part in the arrangements, but I understand now that that was an old man's fancy. These things happen. The vault door is heavy. A boy walks in his sleep. It swings behind him." He sighed. "These old houses."

"He didn't walk in his sleep."

"No?"

"He followed me."

The old man looked at him over his cup.

It was a strange look. It was neither anger nor surprise. It was the look of a teacher who has waited a long while for a pupil to arrive at an answer, and who is pleased, and a little sorry, to see him arrive.

"Ah," said Kell softly. "You do know."

…

"I do not reproach you," he said. "I want you to understand that."

He set down the cup. He folded his small hands over the book.

"I have been at this a very long time, Cassian. I have seen what it does to children when they first understand. Some break at once. Some turn to anger. A few, a very few, go quite still, and I have learned to watch them with particular care." He smiled. "You went still."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Last night. In the tunnel. Do you suppose that a house with this much on its conscience keeps no watch on its own cellars?" His voice was mild. "There is a little window in the wall. A very old one, an architect's whim, from the founder's day. I sat at it from midnight. I saw you come down the shaft. I saw you stand at the door of the vault. I saw what the Guest was about to do." A pause. "And I saw what you did."

Cassian said nothing.

"You shut the door."

"Yes."

"You did not hesitate."

"I did."

"Not long." The old man's eyes were soft. "A heartbeat, perhaps. It is of no importance. What matters is the thing itself. You were faced with a choice between a boy who had followed you and the safety of the whole house, and you chose the house." His hand rose in a small blessing. "That is what the Hand does, child. That is all it has ever done. It closes the door."

"I didn't choose the house."

"No?"

"I chose me."

Kell's smile deepened.

"My dear boy. In the end it is the same thing."

…

The fire hissed.

For a long moment Cassian looked at the old man's face. It was a good face. He had thought so from the first day: round, pink, kind, a face from a Christmas card, with the little lines of laughter at the eyes. He saw now what he had not seen then, that the lines were not of laughter at all. They were the lines of a man who had spent half a century choosing and had never once been forgiven.

"Did you do it too?" he said.

"Do what?"

"Shut the door."

The old man did not answer for a long while.

"I was seventeen," he said at last. "My father was Rector before me. A kitchen boy had been taken. A good boy. I knew his mother. He came to me at midnight, in the corridor, and said, Please. Don't let them. I said, Go to bed." He lifted his eyes to the fire. "I have said it every year since."

The coals shifted.

"I find that I do not mind it as I used to. One grows accustomed. It becomes a sort of... prayer." He smiled faintly. "The Guest does not forget a gift, you know. It remembers every one. And it will remember yours."

A cold finger touched Cassian's spine.

"Mine."

"The Fisk boy was not taken," said the Rector gently. "He was given. By the Hand, at the door. It has been a very long time since the Guest received an offering so freely made, and so unasked. It is pleased. It is more than pleased. It has taken a liking to you."

"I didn't give him."

"You closed the door."

"I—"

"Child." The old man leaned forward. "I do not say this to wound you. I say it because it is true, and because you are a boy who values truth. What you did was a gift. A small one, as such things go. But the Guest keeps accounts of every kind, and in the Ledger of this house, you are now entered, in your own right, as a giver."

Cassian was on his feet.

He did not know when he had risen. The cup lay shattered on the hearth, tea steaming on the tiles. His hands were shaking. He opened his mouth and something rose in his chest, thick and hot, and for a moment he thought he would be sick.

"Sit down," said Kell, very kindly. "Sit. Finish your tea."

"I'm leaving."

"Are you?"

"I'm going to walk out of this place."

"Very well."

The old man leaned back in his chair. His face was calm.

"The gate is not locked, Cassian. It never has been. No one has ever been kept at Blackthorne by a lock." He folded his hands. "You may go whenever you please. The road is at the bottom of the hill. Your mother is a day's journey. Go, by all means." A gentle pause. "And remember that we will be here. Singing."

…

He did not remember leaving.

He remembered the stair, and the rain, and the gravel crunching underfoot. He remembered passing the chapel, and the long white runner, spread out across the steps like a tongue. He remembered seeing, at the far end of the lawn, two figures: a tall boy in a gray cloak, walking close beside a slight one in a plain brown coat, leaning toward him, whispering. Karl Brandt, his hand on Albert Sterling's shoulder, leading him towards the door of the vestry.

Albert did not look round.

Tonight.

It's tonight.

He stood on the wet grass, with the rain running down his face and the old man's voice in his head. In the Ledger of this house, you are now entered, in your own right, as a giver.

He turned his face up. The rain fell into his open mouth. It tasted of iron.