Chapter 10

The frost-rimed windows of Harrow's East Quadrangle rattled in the Thames-side wind, their warped panes distorting the skeletal trees beyond into grasping hands. Finn Fitzgerald hunched over his desk, the teddy bear's camera eye peeking from his satchel as he mouthed Latin conjugations. Around him, C Stream's flotsam drifted through another afternoon—Allister Beaumont's cronies snickering over The Sun's Page Three, scholarship students scribbling equations in margins stolen from chapel hymn sheets.

A snowball exploded against the window.

"Oi Fitzgerald!" A groundskeeper's face pressed to the glass, nose flattened like a carnival grotesque. "Quadrangle duty! Move your posh arse!"

Finn tucked Malcolm's annotated Principia Mathematica beneath his jumper. Let them jeer. Let them think him mad. The hybrid monster fed on their disdain.

***

The quadrangle reeked of diesel and despair. Finn joined the shivering ranks of C Stream's damned, their threadbare blazers flapping like surrender flags. Groundskeeper Mick tossed him a rusted shovel.

"Make it shine, your lordship."

Pang Dong—"Fatty" to A Stream's glittering horde—leaned on his broom. "They'll have us chipping ice from hell's doorstep next."

Finn scraped blackened slush, his breath pluming in the carcinogenic dusk. Somewhere beyond Harrow's spires, Lucian's Daimler would be gliding past Parliament, the earl's gloved fingers doubtless toying with whatever fresh poison he'd brewed for the evening.

"New boy's cracked," muttered Wang Luohe, C Stream's self-appointed prefect. He nodded to where Finn knelt deciphering ice-encased equations. "Seen him muttering to that stuffed rat he carries."

Pang snorted. "Rather cracked than cowed. You seen his marks?"

"Twenty-three in maths. Five in physics." Wang's smirk faltered. "Still...there's something in how he..."

"Burns?" Pang flicked an ice chip at Finn's back. "Like he's swallowed a star?"

The chapel bell tolled its iron verdict. Finn's shovel clanged against stone as the last slush surrendered. Groundskeeper Mick spat a gob of phlegm onto his handiwork.

"Mind the frostbite, milord."

***

Headmaster Vaughn's office smelled of beeswax and betrayal. Finn stood at parade rest before the mahogany monolith, tracking the man's reflection in a framed Times front page—Sinclair Acquitted!

"Your guardian," Vaughn tapped Lucian's embossed card, "requires inclusion in our parent portal."

Finn's throat tightened. The earl's private number—coveted by Cabinet ministers and tabloid editors alike—gleamed like a live grenade.

"I need to confirm—"

"Already have." Vaughn's smile exposed nicotine-stained dentures. "Lord Sinclair was most...enthusiastic about participating."

The lie detector in Finn's skull screamed. Lucian's idea of parental involvement involved security sweeps and poison pen letters, not school portals.

***

Mayfair House's study hummed with the static of thirty-seven surveillance feeds. Lucian paused the boardroom merger—Japanese zaibatsus could wait—to tap the blinking Harrow portal notification.

SLZ stared back from the login screen—Malcolm's pet name from Oxford days. Saint Lucian the Zealous. The earl's gloved finger hovered over the keyboard.

Pembroke materialized with the evening's neural cocktail. "Master Finn's headmaster called regarding—"

"Not now."

The butler retreated as Lucian navigated the digital labyrinth—parental consent forms, dietary restrictions, a particularly alarming field trip waiver involving the Tate Modern's Yayoi Kusama exhibit.

His phone buzzed. Finn's encrypted alert: They're making me add you.

Lucian's response came swift as a guillotine: Proceed.

***

The C Stream Parental Collective chat erupted at 21:47 GMT.

Mrs. Patel (Anika's Mum):Does anyone know if the History trip requires packed lunch?

Mr. O'Connor (Sean's Dad):Check portal love

SLZ (Fu Tinglin's Guardian):The 1562 siege of Haarlem bears remarkable parallels to current geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea.

Finn choked on his stolen brandy. The earl's unsolicited dissertation on Dutch water management scrolled onward, each paragraph punctuated by bewildered emojis.

Mrs. Kapoor (Dev's Mum):???

SLZ:Relevant to Anika's query regarding sustenance logistics. Armies marched on their stomachs, as they say.

Pang's message pinged Finn's burner phone: Your dad off his meds?

***

Dawn found Finn in the chemistry lab, the teddy bear's camera eye trained on his latest experiment. Royal blue liquid bubbled in a repurposed communion chalice—Lucian's birthday gift, "borrowed" from the chapel.

The door creaked. Wang Luohe hovered like an anxious sparrow. "Headmaster's doing locker checks."

Finn didn't look up. "Let him."

"They'll expel you!"

"Wouldn't that solve everyone's problems?" The hybrid monster bared its teeth.

Wang fled.

***

The exam hall reeked of sweat and shattered dreams. Finn stared at the calculus paper, Malcolm's marginalia swimming before his eyes—See Appendix C for neurotoxin delivery systems.

"Five minutes!"

He scrawled the final answer in methylene blue—Lucian's preferred shade for death threats. Let the examiners choke on their red pens.

***

Mayfair House's rehabilitation suite hummed with the drone of TENS machines. Lucian hung in his web of electrodes, watching Finn's exam footage stream across ceiling monitors.

"Derivative question was rigged," he muttered to the empty room.

The boy's camera-eyed bear stared from the side table. Lucian adjusted its lopsided bow tie—Pembroke's idea of humor. "You'd have preferred a written warning, I suppose?"

***

Results night.

The C Stream Parental Collective detonated at 21:03.

**Headmaster Vaughn:Scores attached. Parent-teacher conferences Monday.

Mrs. Kapoor:** *OMG Anika passed!!!!

Mr. O'Connor:Sean mate you're dead

SLZ:Fu Tinglin's 23% in mathematics reflects systemic flaws in Harrow's pedagogical approach. See attached 87-page analysis.

Finn's burner phone lit with Pang's scream: YOUR DAD'S MENTAL

***

The crypt's chill bit through Finn's blazer. Lucian's wheelchair left skid marks on ancestral bones as he tossed over a Manila envelope.

"Your future."

Finn scanned the documents—Oxbridge applications, chemical engineering scholarships, a Swiss boarding school prospectus. "I'm not your—"

"Investment?" The earl's morphine drip hissed. "Everything's transactional, boy. Even grief."

Outside, ice cracked on the Serpentine. Somewhere over Chelsea, a police helicopter circled like a carrion bird.