Page 96 of The Villains of Winter

​​ CHAPTER FIFTY

“I THINK JAMES KILLED LUCIEN.”

Elliott froze. Callum was bandaging his wounded arm in the dark. The light fixture was broken, shards of glass speckled across the walnut oil paintings of Elliott’s dormitory.

“How–um–why do you think that?”

Callum stared at Elliott for a full minute. “You must’ve fled the ceremony before Lucien was found in the Eisenhower Woods. James was naked. He swung an axe at Perseus and me. He stripped us for our winter clothes as if it didn’t matter if we died out there. It’s not hard to believe he killed Lucien beforehand.”

Elliott shook his head. “No, Lucien walked into the flame for me. James believed the burning body was mine. That’s why he was furious–”

His lie went unheard. Callum was deeper in his thoughts. “There’s more than that. You were still in high school throughout my first year of college. You weren’t there for what happened.” Callum swallowed. His eyes hunted. “I had a best friend. Niall Eastman. Our mothers played tennis every weekend and our fathers golfed every Sunday. We competed together in lacrosse for eight years. Niall was there when my mother was sworn in as mayor. I was there when his father became the district attorney. He was Perseus Swann’s best friend as well.”

Callum took hold of Elliott’s hand, sanitizing the wound. He ran his hand over the old scars, clearing the fresh blood from the scratches.

Elliott mentioned that everyone was there for the inauguration when Sun Lina was inducted as mayor. It was a historic event. His corporate father, Han Tiankai, funded the eight-day celebration. Elliott had attended Mayor Sun’s Chinese New Year event where he’d learned to write her name Li 丽 pretty and Na 娜 elegant and her surname Sūn 孙 descendant. However, it was as though Callum couldn’t hear him, he was lost in his pained memory.

“One night, Niall broke into my room–white as a specter. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t articulate his words. Niall overheard Perseus and one of his professors in deliberation about a cult murder.” Elliott’s eyes widened. “By the winter ceremony, he was dead.”

Callum discarded the blood-flecked towels. “Last December, Lucien broke into my art practicum, and he was raving and ranting about cults and tortured students.” He picked up a packet of gauze for his own arm. “He claimed James was an alchemist that tortured our peers to death. By the winter ceremony, Lucien was dead.”

“Callum–it’s not like that–” Everyone had it wrong. James never premeditated the murder of Lucien. He killed him in the spur of the moment to spare Elliott’s life.

None of it was planned.

All of it happened in the moment.

Callum gripped Elliott’s shoulders. “There is a cult in our college and they are killing students for finding out.” Callum toiled through his words. “Listen, I voted for Lucien. I would’ve voted for him a hundred times. However, I didn’t vote to cover up serial murders. I didn’t become an elector to conceal student killings.”

Elliott refused to listen, anxiously tidying his room until it almost appeared as if there had been no kidnapping attempt at all. All he could think of was how laudative and compassionate Perseus had been to him. Perseus always called Elliott his talented hallmate. Perseus had even patted Elliott’s shoulder, smiling amiably, before shaking his hand in his agreement to vote for Lucien.

These peers of ours with only three or four generations of wealth forget where they came from. I understand the grit of labor. Perseus’s forefathers were oil barons, former prime ministers, and railway heirs, but Perseus had always committed to his own work, Elliott believed. Perseus never relied on his privileged name.

In the history of the winter ritual, the labor class and middle class students are sacrificed to the solstice without regard for life. In the name of fairness and solidarity, I will be sure to vote for the Frenchman, Elliott.

You have my word.

Perseus wasn’t a murderous cultist, Elliott trusted. Eventually, the words leaked out of him as Callum cleaned the blood from his hairline with the last set of towels. “Lucien accused James of inhumane acts. He was messing with me. He was messing with you, mimicking what Niall believed. Why else wouldn’t he have reported it to the College?–”

“The College is a part of it. That’s why.” Callum was confident of that. “He would’ve been murdered.”

“Murdered for reporting?” Elliott repeated.

“The College couldn’t murder thirteen students if every elector confronted them about the cult.”

“The College could and would murder thirteen students to protect their crimes. Thirteen is negligible to the infamy. I imagine that a death cult at an elite college would make international headlines for decades. Documentaries, films, limited series, and bestseller memoirs would be distributed for the rest of time.”

Donors would pull their donations to conceal their affiliation.

The faculty would be disgraced for the facilitation of the cult.

Elliott persisted. “James isn’t part of a political cult. I’ve been around him for years–”

“You didn’t ask James about it, did you?” Callum stopped clearing the blood. “Tell me that you didn’t speak a word of it to him, right?”

“Yeah, I asked him right away–”

“Are you out of your mind? Why would you do that?” Callum returned his grip to Elliott’s shoulders. “Why would you ask an accused killer if he’s the killer? Do you think he’s going to say, ‘Elliott, I apologize. I’ve killed a student every year. Let’s turn me in?’”