Page 19

Chapter 19

THE ART OF WAR

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27

Outside of class and weekly STRIP deliveries to and from both campuses, Blaze A. Destroyer frequents the Dixon Writing Gazebo by Au Sable Forks Lake, and no one knows why. That’s what Xavier claims when he invites me to sit with him during dinner and I ask where I can most easily hunt down Blaze.

According to Jasper, P.M. Laframboise sells thousands of copies despite barely anyone understanding what he means, let alone how he feels. Why can’t I cover up my lack of feelings toward romance the same way? If anything can help me, it’s Blaze’s bizarre yet admittedly extravagant language skills.

But when I walk the path up to the Dixon Writing Gazebo, the place seems abandoned. The empty trellis gazebo is simply surrounded by diamond topiaries, the sounds of nighttime insects in the woods, and the setting sun reflected along the water.

The same lakeside where Jasper and I kissed.

A pang strikes my heart. We never sat on this side. Workshops were on the sister campus. But the air carries the same earthy undertones, and the waves roll over the same sand mostly made up of gravel. Jasper always whined that sitting on it was like getting a hot stone massage.

Then those three girls came to me on the last day of camp, and they showed me the letters he’d been sending them the whole time.

Forcing myself to shake the memory away, I step through the gazebo entry entwined with vines. First Dixon Dining Hall, and now Dixon Gazebo, fit for a prince.

Unspoken Guideline 13: Be nice to Bingo A. Dixon when I finally meet him. Whoever his family is, they have a long history here—and a rich-as-hell one.

Rustling erupts behind me. I whip my head around, but the topiaries are motionless. No classmates on the shore.

“Hello?” I call out.

No response.

I warily approach the bushes.

A blur of reds and blacks torpedoes out of one, and I screech as I’m tackled onto the gazebo floorboards. A figure pins down my wrists and digs his knees into my thighs to keep me in place. His black-dyed hair is so floppy that I barely make out his childlike face, but the blazer tied around his neck like a cape is a dead giveaway.

“Blaze?” I mumble.

“Usurper! How dare thou speak my unceremonious title. Your lowly rank shall denote me as Chief Magistrate of the Brotherhood of Ancestral Darkness.”

“Can I at least ask why you pounced me?”

“My ancestral ring forewarned me of your attendance.” Blaze releases my hands to do his familiar, fluttering butterfly pose, showing off the ruby varsity ring that matches mine. The only difference between ours is how Blaze wears it on his thumb. His fingers must be too small.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“’Tis the flames burning alongside the blood in my ring. Thus, I am cognizant of bloodlust from up to seventy kilometers.”

So, not a butterfly. Flames. “I just wanted to ask you a question.”

Blaze pulls out a slingshot and marble from his slacks pocket and aims the marble at my face. “Wherefore shall I, Blaze Alpha Destroyer (of Worlds), heed your qualms?”

This isn’t working.

With the other twelve-year-olds I tutored in Queens, talking to them like an equal was key. Maybe the only way to speak with someone like him is to match him. “I desire your aid. I… must write to… womenfolk.”

“Women—?” Blaze suddenly lets out a half cry, half bleat, and jumps off my body so speedily that his bangs scatter, revealing a pudgy face that could only belong to someone as young as him. His slingshot and marble clink to the floorboards. He points at my left hand—my varsity ring. “A Ring of Ancestral Darkness has passed down through your lineage too?”

“This isn’t—” I stop. “Indeed. It was my mom’s. Your family went here?”

“My kin gifted this gazebo. And the dining quarters.”

“Wait, Dixon is your family?”

His eyes blow out. “No.”

“You’re Bingo A. Dixon. Our second year’s Rank Three. Luis’s roommate.”

“I’m Blaze A. Destroyer (of Worlds).”

“Right,” I say slowly. This whole time, I assumed he was a first year. He skipped even more grades than I thought.

Blaze sighs. “I have been detached from the Brotherhood for epochs, comrade. I do not even wish to be here. No one comprehends me. STRIP tries. After all, I did join those valiant warriors upon my arrival straightaway, for I was moved by their battle against Valentine’s law. However, I fear they still fail to comprehend my own war against the arachnids.”

It reveals more than Blaze says with his whirlwind of words. Like me, he seems to feel alone here. STRIP may even be a way for him to belong despite still being a kid. If that’s the case, then for once, I can actually sympathize with someone wanting to join this ridiculous program. “You never wanted to go to school here?”

“I was never bestowed a choice. In Father’s eyes, an education such as Valentine’s is compulsory for Wall Street.”

Wall Street. I suppose Blaze is Rank Three. “I get that. Kind of.”

“You too are fighting for an occupation?”

I like tutoring. And I like books like Mom. But when Mom chased books, she tripped and came crashing down, even though I worked alongside her in the store when I could. Of course, without her asking. Mom would never ask for help.

“Maybe something smart?” I say, trying to think of a path as impressive as Robby’s MIT or as lucrative as Blaze’s Wall Street. But all I can think to say is, “Um. Math?”

I expect Blaze to laugh at me, but he just helps me to my feet. The moment my weight hits him, he falls back on top of me. Groaning, I rise up on my palms. Blaze’s cape blazer is flipped over his head, spilling across my chest along with his seaweed hair.

He rolls off my body, then taps his ring against my own. “I will contribute to any mission under your command, comrade. But perhaps from here on the floor.”

“Then, if you were to confess your feelings to someone, how would you say it?”

He considers before dramatically clearing his throat. “ Whilst lunation echoes along the lakefront, I contemplate your light. My moon, my moon, never wane from my sight .”

Jesus. “Why don’t you help with the letters again?”

“I am midmost fighting a war. Warriors have no time.” Blaze grabs his slingshot and aims for the shore. “The day that the arachnids come from the west is nigh. I must keep watch here.”

I grab my notebook off the bench and open to my unfinished one-on-one prompts. “I’ve agreed to help write letters for STRIP for a bit.” Even though Jasper told me not to tell the other members, I’m too desperate to care. “If you give me ideas for these, and don’t tell Jasper about it, I’ll help you on the predestined day. How does that sound?”

Blaze agrees with a nod quicker than I expected. The moment I pass him my notebook and pencil, his little hands take off. No wonder he skipped two grades. He may be a worthy challenger for Jasper. Rank Three would be.

Jealousy creeps into the back of my mind as a current Rank Twenty-Eight. “How long have you been frie—acquainted with—Jasper, by the way?”

“My first year here, we encountered one another.”

A question burns within me—one that has for a while. “Has he ever, you know, courted womenfolk here with his own letters?”

Everyone at Valentine has known Jasper longer than I have, so they must have an answer. If I want to shape these love letters to Jasper’s liking once Blaze’s handiwork is done, then having as much information on his love life as possible will only be a plus.

That’s the only reason why I ask.

Blaze laughs so hard that it comes out like a squeal. “Jasper refuses to court anyone.”

I sit there a moment, floored. “Why?”

Blaze just shrugs.

It’s as Jasper claimed yesterday. Is he really not breaking hearts anymore?

And how do I find out the truth?