The Fitzgerald manor stood skeletal against Londons gunmetal sky its onceproud Georgian facade now sagging under the weight of neglect and grief Lucians wheelchair left twin tracks in the frostbitten gravel as Pembroke maneuvered him through the derelict gates The earls breath fogged in the air each exhale a ghost of the man whod once toasted engagements in these very halls
Inside the grand foyer shadows pooled like spilled ink A chandelier missing half its crystals swayed in the draft its remaining prisms casting fractured light over waterstained walls Pembroke muttered a prayer as Lady Cordelia the snowwhite Samoyed bounded ahead her cheerful barks echoing through corpsequiet corridors
Scent of damp plaster and dead roses Lucian noted cataloguing decay with a connoisseurs eye His gloved hand brushed the staircase newel post where Malcolm had once carved their initials during a drunken Oxford weekend The memory cut sharper than the winters chill
The search party fanned out—three exmilitary security detail combing bedrooms stripped bare by creditors Lucian remained below watching dust motes dance in his torchlight The beam caught something wedged behind a crumbling wainscot
A teddy bear missing one eye its matted fur the color of dried blood Black marker on its back proclaimed "Finn Fitzgerald" in childish strokes Lucian turned it over revealing a hidden compartment stuffed with yellowing train tickets Brighton to London return dates spanning a decade
Pembroke materialized from the shadows His arthritisknotted fingers trembled as he accepted the relic Master Finns mobile wasnt among the
No matter Lucian tucked the bear beneath his tartan lap rug Its enough
As Daimler headlights sliced through Mayfairs evening fog the earl dictated notes into his voice recorder Initiate surveillance on Jiangsu factory managers Audit Harrows scholarship committee The bear sat judge on the leather seat its remaining eye glinting like a shard of the past
Across town Finn Fitzgerald hunched over a splintered desk in Harrows East Quadrangle The "C Stream" classroom smelled of mildew and defeat Around him scholarship students scratched at equations like prisoners tallying days His new physics textbook lay open to page one its pristine margins already filled with frantic annotations
A flyer fluttered to his desk—mockingly crisp compared to the rooms decayed grandeur Charity Case Tutorial: Basic Arithmetic Fridays 3 PM Room B7
Finn crushed it into his blazer pocket just as the headmasters nephew swaggered past Nice digs street rat Bet the A Stream loos dont stink of piss
The bell tolled its ironclad verdict Finn joined the procession of threadbare blazers heading to the quad Snow had begun falling again each flake a silent indictment of his fallen status
By the frozen fountain Allister Beaumont held court with cronies Well if it isnt the earls lapdog Got tired of licking silver spoons
Finns signet ring bit into his palm Hybrid monster the earls voice whispered through memory
He walked on
Dinner in the scholars mess tasted of boiled despair Finn shoveled greyish stew while mentally conjugating Latin verbs Across the hall A Stream students dined on venison and wit their cutlery clinking like stock exchange tickers
Returning to East Quad he found his dormitory door ajar Textbooks lay scattered like fallen soldiers someone had urinated on his bed
Finn stood in the doorway breathing through nausea that had nothing to do with the stench From the corridor Beaumonts laughter ricocheted off stone
Methodically he gathered sodden pages blotted them dry with stolen chapel towels At midnight under a single bare bulb he recopied notes onto margins of hymn sheets The teddy bear watched from his trunk its hidden compartment now holding the earls latest encrypted text
Survival is mathematics Subtract weakness Multiply rage
Dawn found Finn ankledeep in slush behind the cricket pavilion The groundskeeper tossed him a rusted shovel Earn your keep street rat
For three hours he scraped ice alongside holloweyed C Streamers Their breath plumed like ghostly signatures on winters contract When the chapel bell rang none moved
The groundskeeper reappeared flask in hand Not done yet
Finn drove his shovel into black ice Where are the A Streamers
The mans chuckle sprayed whiskey vapor Youre the show ponys problem now
By third period Finns hands bled through stolen bandages In trigonometry he parsed equations through feverish haze Variables danced—x as betrayal y as vengeance z as the exact temperature hope freezes
At lunch he limped to the gates where a black Daimler idled like a patient predator The earls gloved hand emerged bearing a thermos of bone broth
You look like hell
Finn accepted the flask So Im fitting in
Lucian produced a leatherbound volume Caesars Gallic Wars Annotated Your brother smuggled this to me after the Eton Latin debacle
The pages fell open to a pressed gardenia its petals translucent as saints skin Malcolm had underlined a passage in red ink Omnia mutantur nos et mutamur in illis All things change and we change with them
As snow began its final assault Finn walked the earl to Headmaster Vaughns office Their footsteps synced across iced gravel—one sharp click of dress shoes one muffled wheel revolution
Youre letting them break you Lucian observed
Finn watched his breath curl toward leaden skies Break me The hybrid monster bared its teeth Theyre giving me hammers
In the headmasters oakpaneled lair Lucian placed the sodden Latin text on Vaughns desk Your groundskeepers seem confused about which students require characterbuilding
Vaughn blanched at the urine stains Lord Sinclair I assure you
The earls cane tapped the schools crest carved into the desk Your bursar assures me Harrows charitable mission could benefit from renewed scrutiny
Outside Finn leaned against the Daimler watching the first A Streamers receive detention notices in a decade When Lucian emerged smelling of victory and sandalwood soap Finn didnt smile
But he took the earls offered hand
The drive home passed in silence broken only by the bears occasional tumble from shelf to floor At Mayfair House Lucian wheeled to the library fireplace where flames devoured Vaughns apology letter
Finn stood at the window watching snow erase all tracks The hybrid monster in the glass wore his face now Its fangs gleamed silver in the moonlight