Page 41 of The Villains of Winter

“You only hate him because I care about him.”

“That’s not the only reason.”

“Why, are you erratically in love with him then?” Elliott shot back.

Lucien’s nostrils expelled clouds of white.

“How do you think James actually became accepted into the political inner circles with the current governor for debates? What do you think he did in exchange for Æscwulf College to position him that high among ambassadors and emissaries?” Before Elliott could open his mouth, Lucien cut him off coldly. “Think about it for a fucking second. He was implicated in someone’s incidental murder and he still meets with lawmakers and foreign councilmen. Why would a dark college like Æscwulf would want a murderer? As a politician?”

“He’s not a murderer. He worked hard. Not to mention, his grandfather was the former governor. You’re resentful because he’s going to become senator one day.” Elliott’s heart hammered as he realized Lucien knew the redacted material in James’s record. How?

Lucien speared another question into Elliott like a lance to the sternum.

“What do you think the theater department actually performs?” Lucien asked him with spiteful amusement when he realized Elliott didn’t understand. “The honorariums aren’t merely slaughtered; they’re kept alive for weeks–dissected, exsanguinated, and examined in pursuit of alchemy. The pagan cultists intend to prolong their lives; that has always been the original intent in the establishment of Æscwulf. Think of dictators, despots, and autocrats that pay the endowment. The victims are dismembered slowly in torture.” That was their pleasure of art. Exhilaration filled his eyes as he watched Elliott’s lips part. “Do you know what the most incult element is–even if the alchemy rumors are nonsense, the real intention is to reinforce their loyalty and commitment to the cult. To indoctrinate them into corruption and power. The bodies don’t even matter.”

A tear trembled at the edge of Elliott’s chin, plummeting into the snow.

“What, he never told you what he was?”

“He’s not…”

“He’s a cult pledge. He was initiated into a political cult.”

Elliott pretended the senior elector did not exist. That he hadn’t said a word. James was not a cult pledge. He was not an alchemy practitioner; he wasn’t an examiner of the arcane; he was a normal philosophy student. If anything, James despised any abuse of power, James’ would never disarticulate the human body of a student for dark, esoteric research. He didn’t strive for power that intensely. Elliott’s mind fought back the words James had uttered in agony. I am sick. I am depraved. I am abhorrent.

“What do you think all those Hellenistic lectures on pain, madness, and chaos theory were about? You think we studied Aristocles for historical enrichment and culture?”

“Æscwulf is a secular college. It’s no longer pagan.”

“Æscwulf is an alchemy institution reconstituted into a prestigious college.”

“You’re lying.”

Lucien’s sickening smile stretched. “I’m not. The ancient philosophy students sacrifice their own bodies to alchemy as well. Did you forget that I read the rector’s letters?” His words were punctuated with malice. “Their elixirs, their alchemist studies, their human disseverments, their vivisection remains are preserved in containers and jars. Their telestic practices–all of it has infected them over the years. James will not live long, his body has likely become ill by now.”

I am sick. I am sick. I am a heathen.

All at once, Elliott thought of the chalk smeared over James’s tomes in his philosophy assistant private study and the cacography of indecipherable cursive scribbles Elliott didn’t comprehend. ἐπιστήμη–μυστική, ἱɛρά.

“He would never do that. He would never be part of someone’s murder…” Again.

Elliott hyperventilated. It wasn’t true. James would’ve refused. His heart rabbited. James had integrity. He wouldn’t intentionally kill someone for his political aspirations. None of it was true.

James Wilde was a dangerously charming, excessively handsome politician. He was explosively popular in the College. He was meteorically rising through his socialist career. He was an ambitious young socialist. Of course, he had enemies. The country lied about the benefits of socialism in order to protect capitalist interests, it made sense that James drew envious eyes and deceitful tongues that spread lies in attempts to tarnish his golden character and his socialist beliefs.

“At Rædwine, James disavowed the ritual. You heard it yourself.”

“Yes, because it finally directly concerned him. He’s a hypocrite. He cared because it was his friend.”

“You don’t know anything about him.”

Lucien licked a snowflake from his lip with a smirk. “You will never find out the real him. We have arrived.”

Elliott saw a flash of obsidian. “You will cut my throat?”

“I am afraid I will drown you first.” His smile darkened. “I will delight in the sound, Elliott Archway. Farewell.”

Before Elliott could drag in another breath, Lucien snatched him by his collar and thrust him into the ice of the river, until his skull cracked the surface. Lucien thirsted for vengeance for his stabbing at Rædwine, and he seized the moment.