Excerpt: Frozen Flames

“Hey, Dev, you coming to the fireworks later?”

“Nah, I’ve got a paper to research.”

“Oh, c’mon, live a little. Your paper can wait a day. There won’t be fireworks again for almost a month. And you can’t possibly pass up a chance to stop by the Royal – King John’s slavemasters always pick the prettiest girls.”

“I really do have to study.” Fireworks, girls (slave-girls at that) and drinking – did they never think about anything else?

“What’s the point of attending the Royal University if you don’t take advantage of the perks?” Perks like access to the Royal Brothel. “No one comes here to study, Devan. No one but common-born scholarship brats, anyway.”

“Leave him alone, Ned.” Devan looked up – he’d kept his eyes on the ground through the whole exchange so far – to see who’d spoken up in his support. Louis. Strange; he never said much, certainly not to Devan. Louis was no more noble born than Devan, though he did at least have family and money. Maybe that was why he was sticking up for Devan. Maybe.

“You’ll be there tonight, won’t you, Louis?” Ned said, as if the answer was obvious – anyone with any sense at all would do exactly what Ned wanted.

“I promised Devan I’d help with his paper.” An outright lie, but Devan wasn’t about to say so, and he was sure Louis knew it.

“Yeah? Huh.” Ned shrugged, and turned to one of the other students, clearly having dismissed Devan and Louis from his mind. They both fell back, letting the rest of the group go ahead without them.

“So, what’s this paper on? And do you mind that I just invited myself along to help?”

“It, uh...” Louis had strikingly pale skin; Devan had never been close enough to notice it before. It made a sharp contrast with his dark red hair. “There, um, is no paper, actually.”

“Yeah?” Louis smiled; Devan caught himself half-smiling in reply, and made himself stop. He’d learned that lesson years ago. No one really wanted to be friends with him. Not unless they wanted something from him. “I’m sure we can find something to study, anyway.”

Devan made a face. “If I have to look at another book, I think I might end up throwing it through the nearest window. And I’d rather not have to pay to fix the window and replace the book.”

“I thought you liked studying? You certainly do enough of it.”

“I don’t, but I like it better than...”

“Crowds?”

“Yeah. Crowds.” It wasn’t the crowds he had a problem with, but he wasn’t about to say that.

“I’ve been looking for an excuse to avoid them –“ unclear whether “them” meant crowds in general or the specific crowd of students vanishing in the distance ahead of them – “for a while now, but I couldn’t stand to even pretend to do that much studying. Besides, my father would hear I was spending all my time studying, and wonder why my marks hadn’t gone up.”

“I have to keep my marks up anyway.” Devan didn’t elaborate, but let the phrase “scholarship brat” hang in the air between them – better that than letting Louis ask about his family.

“Yeah.” Louis fell silent for a moment, awkwardly. “So...how about we go back to my room and pretend to study together? It’s reasonably clean, and I’m sure we can come up with something to do.”

The sound of leaves crunching underfoot seemed unnaturally loud as they walked. Devan tried to pick his steps a bit more carefully – it’s not like the paths were entirely covered in leaves; most of them were still on the trees, this early in the fall – but what leaves there were on the ground seemed inevitably to end up under his boots.

Louis’s room really was tidy – not as much as Devan’s, but he wasn’t about to point that out, not when Louis had clearly gone to all the trouble of kicking the laundry under the bed even though he hadn’t expected to be bringing back company. The stone fireplace against one wall stood empty, for which Devan was grateful; even this early in the year, some people would have had a fire lit for warmth. He took one of the two chairs, turning so his back was to the fireplace – otherwise he’d just stare at it, even unlit as it was.