Page 74 of Oleander

“Oxford? You’re going to Oxford.”

Another shrug. “It’s where all Deverauxs go. It’s where Gideon went. And my mother before...” He trailed off. “Anyway, he’s already paid my tuition. I’ve had a place reserved there since the minute I was born, I think.” This was said with a measure of derision.

I couldn’t remember having a conversation as normal as this with him before. I listened, hungry for whatever he would feed me next.

“But truthfully, I’d like to go to the Lervairè Conservatory. It’s a music school in Boston. They only admit thirty students per year; it’s quite prestigious.”

“Thirty per year?” There were more than that in my registration class.

“Costs a fortune if you aren’t awarded a scholarship,” he said. “Not that money is the issue, of course. It is the skill I lack.”

“You have plenty of skill.”

The side of his mouth lifted a fraction as though he might smile, but then it was gone. “I have a degree of it, but not enough for Lervairè.”

“Well, Lervairè sounds like a wanker.”

He let out the first laugh I’d ever heard from him, and it very nearly stopped my heart.

He was about to say something when there was a rap on his door, then someone shouted in French. Or whatever other language they spoke there.

“They’re putting the lights out,” he grumbled. “They insist on treating us like criminals. We’re fed like them, too. I mean, the food is passable, but it’s the herding of us into the dining hall at one and six like prime cattle that is the issue. Some of us like a late dinner.”

I caught myself smiling because hearing him talk like this, as though I were a friend he could just talk with, gave me a pleasant warmth in my stomach I never wanted to go.

“Gideon is coming to see you tomorrow?”

He nodded. “Though not by choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is some kind of parental mediation session. He has to attend it, or they’ll attempt to expel me again.”

My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “Expel you?What did you do?”

“This time or the last time?”

I laughed. “Um, this time?”

“I broke the Austrian ambassador’s son’s nose with a Lacrosse stick.” When he saw my expression, he added. “I hadn’t properly warmed up, and my grip was loose. It was an accident.”

“Right.”

Caspien said nothing.

“Do you have to go?” I asked, remembering the lights-out call.

“I should. I have a 7 a.m. skiing class.”

“Can I...call you again? Tomorrow?” I held my breath.

He stared.

“Yes,” he said at last. “If you like.”

I bit back my smile. “Well, I guess I’ll let you go, then.”

“Haven’t you forgotten something?” he said.