The Half-Class by Kayvion Lewis
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Not everyone was ready to leave the dining hall, but when King Dreux wanted to leave, everyone had to go.
His Majesty strode out before the rest of us. Lady Lilith was the first to follow. Cass let the rest adjourn from the table before helping me from my seat. We lagged behind the rest. I barely grasped the arm he offered to me as we walked back to the great room.
“Evie, I’m sorry,” Cass said the moment the last pair of court drifted far enough ahead of us.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Aside from being related to that monster.
His shoulders dropped. “I didn’t know he was going to ask any of that.”
“He can ask me whatever he wants, and I’ll ask him what I want in return. That is how conversations work.”
Cass stopped and pulled me into a nook in the hallway. My eyes batted wide as he grabbed my shoulders.
“Evelyn.” His green eyes glimmered with concern. “Evie.”
My already wide attention grew at the call of my more common name.
“I know you’re only rising to his challenge, which I adore, but in this case, please, tread carefully. For both of our sakes.”
Both?
My eyes drifted to the corner of his face. His hair covered most, but I was close enough to see it under a few of the strands. A deep blue bruise.
I nodded carefully. Cass sighed and stepped back. I took his arm again, and we started back down the hall as if nothing happened.
The games had already been decided on during the minute Cass and I spent in the hallway. The party had divided—ladies gathered around one table and the men around another. King Dreux watched us as we entered the great room, late again, but said nothing. Some part of me was grateful as I settled with the ladies of the court. To be away from His Majesty was a needed relief, even if it meant having to part with the good company of Donnie, Cass, and Sir West as well.
Lady Kaya shuffled an oversized deck and leaned over the small table between the sofas we settled in. “Let’s play a memory game.” She spread the cards over the sunburnt wood.
“We’ve played this a dozen times today,” Lady Irene lamented.
“And you won every time,” Lady Lilith added.
“Who doesn’t like a game of memory?” Lady Kaya said. She didn’t stop assembling the cards. “You enjoy memory games, right, Lady Anne?”
The old woman only raised her fragile hand, which was enough for Lady Kaya.
“What else would we play?” Kaya asked.
“There’s always a game of wager,” I offered.
“I hope you’re joking,” Lady Lilith sneered. “We all know you have nothing to wager.”
Oh, the contradiction was infuriating. I wanted to remind her exactly how I’d met her prince, but to do so would likely only paint me as lowlier in her eyes.
“I’ll go first,” I said, starting this lady-like game.
Lady Irene and Lady Kaya carried the conversation. I tried to pay attention, but it was dull without the boys. The pleasant air of the previous hour we’d spent in the great room nothing more than a memory.
First, I thought I was the only one dying of boredom, but glancing at the other group, I could tell they weren’t having as much fun either. It wasn’t the location that changed things; it was the king. No one acted quite the same around him. They were too reserved. Too careful.
The great room doors creaked open, and a figure slipped inside the room. Not a servant, he was dressed too officially. An officer.
He stopped only a few paces from the door. Though he was a whole room away from me, the strain in his body was clear. He looked like he’d been riding for hours and was returning tense and exhausted. No one besides me seemed to notice his entrance except for His Majesty. The king rose from his group and strode to the door, then left with the ruffled man.
What was that about? Something told me I should follow…
“Evelyn,” Kaya said. “It’s your turn.”
With no excuse to leave the game, I resumed playing. At least ten minutes passed, yet His Majesty did not return. When it seemed that he would be gone for a while, the mood of the room slowly lifted. Lady Kaya and Irene laughed louder than earlier, and Sir West’s voice wasn’t afraid to carry across the room.
Soon, the vivaciousness was back with full force. As our second memory game approached its end, the men, unrestricted now, decided to migrate to our side of the room.
Sir West hovered over our table and pondered the pairs of cards below. “Oh, they’re playing a matching game,” he proclaimed. “The dullest game in the world.”
Lady Kaya shot Sir West the most frustrated glare she could muster and smiled even wider as Cass took a place behind my spot at our sofa.
He tickled the back of my neck with his fingertips. I could melt right there.
“Don’t you ever get bored of this?” Donnie yawned.
“Yes.” Lady Lilith and Irene answered in unison.
“Why don’t we play something else then?” Cass proposed. “Any ideas?”
I had an idea. An idea that would grant me the opportunity I needed.
“Let’s play hide and seek,” I said.
Lady Lilith scoffed. “The children’s game?”
She was not going to squash my proposal. “Childish things can be the most entertaining, Lady Lilith. It keeps us young. You could use some youth.” I focused my eyes on every wrinkle and line begging to form in her face. She fumbled, looking like she wanted to strangle me. But she didn’t try to counter again, and Donnie didn’t come to his mother’s rescue either.
“I’d like to play hide and seek,” Lady Anne said. She took Sir Bundy’s hand, and he helped her to her feet. “I could use some youthfulness as well.”
With Lady Anne’s confession, the consensus was unanimous. Everyone seemed excited to play—except for Lady Lilith and Lady Kaya.
“But we haven’t finished this game yet,” Lady Kaya whined.
Sir West reached down and flipped over the remaining six cards on the table, revealing all the matches. “There you go, all finished.”
“West!” Lady Kaya pouted, but no one seemed to notice.
“Who will be the seeker?” Sir Percy asked.
It couldn’t be me; I had other work to do. And it would be best if there wasn’t a partner who wanted to hide with me.
“I nominate our prince,” I said and rose to my feet.
Cass frowned. “Why me?”
“Because it’s your castle, you should know it better than the rest of us. You’ll have the best chance of finding everyone.”
“Ha!” Donnie laughed. Of all the people inhabiting the castle for the season, we both knew that Cass likely knew it the least.
I turned back to the group. “All those who agree?” I raised my hand.
Donnie’s popped up too, then all of the court immediately raised theirs in agreeance, save Lady Lilith.
“I abstain,” she said. “I won’t be playing.” She glanced at her son, but he looked like he was trying very hard not to match her gaze.
“Suit yourself, Lilith,” Sir West said. The loss of her participation bothered him about as much as it did me. “Let’s start this game.”
The rules were set. All bed chambers were off-limits, no one would venture outside of the castle walls, and our seeker would count to two hundred before he set off to find us. If we weren’t all found within half an hour, we’d return to the great room. Everyone was content with these rules, and so, after we forced Cass to cover his eyes with his hands and promise not to cheat in his counting, we dispersed from the great room. Half of my fellow hiders set out through the doors Cass and I had first entered through, but I, Sir West, Donnie, Lady Anne, and Sir Bundy chose the other exit.
Out of the great room, we flew down the hallway with all the enthusiasm in the world. Even Lady Anne and Sir Bundy managed a quick step. A pair of passing maids pressed themselves against the walls as we ripped past them. What thoughts must have crossed their mind, seeing the court in such a fashion?
The rustle of Lady Anne and my skirts and the whip of West’s, Donnie’s, and Sir Bundy’s coats were almost enough to muffle the clatter of our shoes against the floor. Had I not been on a mission, I might have been having fun.
Lady Anne and Sir Bundy broke off from our group, choosing to find a hiding place somewhere on the first floor. I waved goodbye to them, and the three of us continued up the stairs. By the time we made it to the second floor, Sir West was gasping for air, Donnie’s dreads were a wild mess, and my arms ached from hoisting up my skirts. Donnie and Sir West turned to climb the next level, but I stopped.
“This is where I leave you.” I panted.
“Here?” Donnie frowned. “There are much better places to conceal yourself on the third level.”
“All the more reason I won’t be suspected.” I lifted my skirts scurried away from the staircase. Sir West chuckled, but it was soon drowned out by the stammer of their boots ascending the stairs.
The floor sat in empty silence. The tremble of the light from the candelabras scattered over end tables and standing against the walls was the only movement, and the only sound was the rustle of my satin. I flew across the rugs and down the halls. How far was Cass into his counting by now? I hurried my pace, doing my best to retrace my steps from before. Finally, I turned into the desired hall, lined with thick-curtained windows on one side and spacious doors on the other.
I froze. What if King Dreux had returned here with that officer? Damn, I still had to check. I crept carefully along the side with the doors, sharpening my ears. Each step brought me closer to the room we’d seen him in before. The room I needed to enter.
Silence.
The door was closed. I took a deep breath, grabbed the doorknob, and swung open the door. Should anyone be waiting inside, I’d just apologize and claim I was looking for a place to hide.
It was empty.
I hurried inside and pressed the door shut behind me. Candles burned in the corners of the room. The scent of honey and wax tickled my nose.
My slippers sunk into the thick carpet. Creamy maps and diagrams covered the walls. I recognized most as depictions of Ryland, both the main country and its territories, but a few other countries were represented too. I approached the long desk situated near the far end of the room. It was the only real piece of furniture besides the cushioned chairs, which had somehow found themselves pushed away from the center of the room, along with a few stacks of thick, official-looking books. Was this some sort of study?
I approached down at the lone desk. Papers and stencils sat in uneven rows near the desk’s edges. A leather-bound black tome as tall as my hand laid strewn over the center. I heaved it up and balanced it before my face.
Ordinances, Volume II
Such interesting reading the king did. And he taunted Cass for his.
I started to put the book back down, but something underneath caught my eye. A thin stack of papers had been hidden underneath it. Barely a stack at all, they layered over one another, no edges lining up. I picked up the top sheet, rubbing the thin paper between my fingers. What were these—little maps? A vague shape dotted with words and lines colored the paper.
My body went cold. I knew this shape. This was Morra. I recognized the words too. Villages and towns, followed by populations. Populations divided by class. At the edge of the map, a column listed the “artificial” population of each city. Each row down, the number dwindled. First, cut in half, then only a quarter, then only a dash. The light-class and dark-class populations didn’t change.
I scoured through the other papers. The remainder of the pile was all duplicates of the sheet I had.
What did this mean?
I rummaged through the rest of the papers littering the desk. More diagrams, duplicate maps, lists of names and people who meant nothing to me. Then I found it, hidden under a layer of papers at the corner of the desk. Another map, similar to the one before, but different. No numbers accompanied the cities this time. In fact, the attention wasn’t on the cities at all but rather on other tiny dots littering the edges of the country. Some were black, others red. Their placements were odd. They weren't cities or towns, but I swear I knew the locations of some of the black dots. A cluster of them cluttered the south border.
It hit me. Camps. These were work camps. If the black dots were already existing camps, then the red must be new ones.
And there were dozens of red.
He was going to clear all the half-classes out of his cities. How perfect the class system would fall into place then, without all of us mudding the lines. Without all of us, he could sharpen it into well-oiled perfection. Step one of organization: get rid of anything that doesn’t fit.
It took everything in me not to grip the paper until it crumpled into dust. This was how he would have done it. Not anymore.
I ran my hand over the flair of my dress until I found the little slit in the fabric. A pocket in an evening gown was unusual, according to one of Geane’s assistants, but Kat recommended it. It was invisible in the waves of satin. I folded up one of the duplicate maps and slid it into my hidden pocket. I’d made a mess of the desk but did my best to arrange everything back to how I’d found it.
When I was sure the desk looked as untouched as possible. I left it be and turned back for the door. Just as my fingers touched the doorknob, a scream rippled down the hall. I tensed as the stammer of footsteps flew down from the distant stairs.
She screamed again—Lady Irene. I cracked open the door and listened as she ran from her pursuer.
“You’ll never catch me!” she yelled, laughing and trotting down the stairs. The other pair of feet was right behind her. Cass bolted down the steps, and the two faded away down to the lower level.
Perfect.
I slipped out of the study and snuck down the hall to the final set of doors. The library welcomed me back, and the volume of Taliver Cass had been reading still rested on the table between the two armchairs. It was only a matter of time before Cass found me here.
I paced the room. After a few minutes, a distant shuffle of boots sounded down the hallway. Sir West had likely been discovered as well, or Donnie perhaps, but nothing was headed my way. The minutes ticked by, and the end of our half-hour neared. Maybe I really had picked the best hiding spot, inadvertently.
Somehow, I made my way to the second level of the little library. The wrap-around balcony was slim. The edges of my dress brushed against the bottom shelves and the balcony railing. I didn’t know why I climbed up. Each minute made it harder to stay still.
I traced my fingers over the slit of my pocket. How long had the king been planning this? Since he seized us? Since before that? Since we raided the municipal building?
Since Gilow killed those men?
No, there was no way he put this together in such a short time. But I feared that Gilow and the rest of us had given him reason to expedite his plans.
Did Cass know?
He had to. He was the goddamn prince. He had to have known something about such a major change to his kingdom. I gripped the fabric of my dress, feeling the paper crumple inside. He knew enough not to want me seen passing that room. The question was, did he care?
My eyes fell blankly to the crimson carpet. Not caring didn’t mean he didn’t care about me. But how could he truly care about me if he didn’t care about something that was a part of me?
I pressed a hand to my chest. Something deep inside me seemed to whither at that thought.
The little library’s doors flew open. Cass stepped inside. His gaze found me and my bold purple dress quickly.
He smirked. “Found you.”
I put my smile back on. “Took you long enough. You’re almost out of time.”
Cass ran across the room and stormed up the spiraling staircase. I moved to the side of the balcony opposite from him as he ascended onto the level. “I didn’t think you would return here to hide. It would be the first place I’d look for you.”
“And that’s why I knew it would be the last.”
He stepped toward me, and I stepped away.
“Are you always going to be one step ahead of me?” he asked.
Our dance around the balcony continued. Each step he took closer, I took another back. We circled all the way around the balcony until the staircase was nearest to me.
“Not one step,” I said. “I’ll be ten.”
I rushed down the staircase as fast as I could. Cass raced behind me. I didn’t risk looking back and dashed out of the library as soon as my shoes hit the ground. I skidded into the hallway and ran, with my skirts clutched in my hands, like I was running for my life itself. For a second, I felt like I genuinely was trying to get away from him. I glanced back only once before flying down the grand staircase. Cass was merely a few paces behind me. Was he trying to catch me or letting me run?
I dashed back through the castle. The great room was only seconds away. Cass was inching closer, but I was faster. A pair of maids lunged out of the way for me, and I pulled open the great room doors. With Cass right at my heels, I flew inside.
I almost tripped—.
“Caught you,” Cass breathed, wrapping his arms around my waist.
I tilted my head up to him. “Too late.”
Before I could really take in the moment, Cass’s smile dropped, and he unlocked his arms from around me.
I followed his gaze into the great room. All of the court stood waiting inside. Accompanied by King Dreux.
Cass cleared his throat and led us back to the waiting party.
“I didn’t know you were waiting for us,” he said with a hitch in his voice.
The king glared at us.
“Luckily for you, I haven’t been waiting long.” I wasn’t sure which of us that was directed at. “Lady Lilith told me your silly game was soon to be over.” He dropped his gaze firmly to me. “Evelyn’s idea, I assume.”
“With all of our approval,” Cass’s fingers locked around mine.
King Dreux watched us, watched Cass, for what felt like an eternity. His expression was so divided between intrigue and irritation that I had no idea what to make of it. What had we done wrong besides delaying our presence by a few minutes? Why was Cass so tense?
There was so much I didn’t understand about this king, about the way Cass was around him and how attuned the court was to dropping their laughter and smiles around him. I’d expected him to have a distaste for me, but why did his own court, and his own son, seem more threatened by him than anyone in the country he’d conquered?
A pin-prick smile crossed the king’s face, almost of the genuine sort. Lines crinkled the edges of his eyes. Though his new expression had all the appearances of warmth, the dramatic change in countenance sent a pang through my heart.
“I hope you haven’t tuckered yourselves out,” he said. “I have one final game for us to play before we end the night.”
The king raised his hand to the opposite set of doors. Lady Kaya frowned at Sir Percy, and Donnie rubbed his chin. It seemed no one had the slightest clue what King Dreux was referring to. Judging by their reactions, it was out of character.
King Dreux took the lead and led the court, followed closely by Cass and I, out of the great room.
“Cass, what are we doing?” I whispered.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Some of the courtiers exchanged light whispers, but I stayed quiet as we followed His Majesty through the halls. Had he reprimanded the rest about our game before Cass and I arrived? Maybe Donnie or Sir West would tell me later, but for now, we had to get through this mysterious final game.
He took us through parts of the castle I had yet to see, bordered with more ominous paintings and ornate furniture. But as a set of doors towered ahead of us, and I soon realized that he wasn’t taking us deeper into the castle. The king was taking us outside.
Guards pulled apart another set of double doors, and we stepped out into the night. Over the heads of my companions, the castle walls loomed over and around us. I didn’t know the castle had a courtyard. A massive, moonlit courtyard. The windows gazed down at us, some flickering with candlelight, others shrouded in darkness. Dozens lined each wall. Just over them, the towers of the castle stood tall. I knew the castle was larger than it appeared, but I didn’t know it was this large. Guards and torches dotted the walls sparsely, from what I could see. The court in front of us blocked much of my sight as I stepped down into the grass.
A horrified gasp pierced through the air.
“My God,” Sir West murmured. All were frozen in place. What were they seeing?
I let go of Cass’s hand and pushed through the court. They moved aside, and I quickly made it to the front of the group, seeing the cause of the shock.
Two boys were strung up in the dead center of the courtyard. Each was bound to post, with their arms pulled around it and their backs to us. Blood and dirt speckled their shirts and skin. I couldn’t see their faces, but I didn’t need to recognize them. Their identical curly brown hair gave them away.
Brison and Richal.
“My friends,” the king said, lifting his hand to the boys and grinning with wild, ravenous glee. “I give you our final game.”