Death by Silver (31 page)

More than that, it would be entirely unjust, and he had to believe that mattered. There had to be some measure of justice beyond who one liked or disliked, some rules that weren’t the arbitrary creations of schoolboys. And a rule against murder had to be one of them, or the streets of London would surely run with blood.

After all, they’d come close enough to being murderers themselves.

It was sometime in their second year that Julian had started talking about it. Ned couldn’t remember now exactly what had prompted it, only that it had been a comforting fantasy at a time when they’d both been on the edge of despair.

“We really could kill him,” Julian said. “It’s been done before, I expect. Look at all the chapel markers for students who died while they were at school.”

“The school’s been here for hundreds of years,” Ned pointed out. “Some of them were bound to die of something.” He cupped his hands around the candle end that lit the tiny room, the heat scorching his palms. It was really the unfinished space between two attic rooms, which Julian had found a way into the year before; it was cramped and cold, but it gave them a place to sit and talk in private, and was becoming a magpie’s nest of books and small luxuries smuggled up from below.

“Even so,” Julian said. “It would solve everything, don’t you think? Get him up on the roof and push him off –”

“Why would Nevett follow you onto the roof?”

“All right, no. Stab him in his sleep?”

“Too messy,” Ned said, warming to the spirit of the game. “Pushing him down the stairs would be better.”

“You’d be seen. And he might just break a leg or something.”

“That would be an improvement,” Ned said. “For that matter, breaking your own might be. At least you’d be sent home.”

“I don’t want to go home,” Julian said. “And suppose I wasn’t? Suppose I had to get around with a crutch, or was in bed in the infirmary and couldn’t even get up?” He looked grim enough at the thought that Ned reached for his hand, twining his fingers through Julian’s in a way that wasn’t exactly against the rules, but still was beginning to seem to him perhaps not entirely licit, either.

“Also you might be killed,” Ned said. “And I suppose I really meant me, anyway. And it’s a stupid idea. Better to do away with Nevett.”

“There’s always poison,” Julian said. “We could poison the lot of them.”

“There’s a nice thought,” Ned said. “We’ll be rid of them eventually anyway when they leave school.” The prospect seemed so far away, though. Julian came back from every session in the prefects’ parlor hard-eyed and furious, even when he wasn’t much hurt, and Ned couldn’t help thinking that he’d do a great deal to have it all be over.

Julian pressed his shoulder hard against Ned’s. “Eventually’s not soon enough,” he said. “We ought to kill them.”

“There’s something nice to think about,” Ned said.

It made a pleasantly macabre bedtime story to tell himself, in which the prefects died in a variety of improbable ways, killed by elaborate traps Julian and he had set or stabbed through the heart with a cursed toasting-fork, and Toms’ became very peaceful thereafter. Ned wasn’t sure how long he went on thinking of it that way, only that it ended the night that he found a small box wrapped in brown paper tucked into a corner of their attic retreat.

“What’s this, then?” he said, sniffing at it.

“Don’t do that,” Julian said, more sharply than usual. “It’s arsenic.”

“What?”

“Arsenic. They sell it for poisoning rats. I got it easily enough.”

“What for?”

“Because it’s the best thing. You can’t taste it, and it makes you sick at your stomach first. It would make it easy for people to believe they’d just eaten something that had turned, and gotten food poisoning from it. There might not even be an inquest, that way.”

“You’re serious,” Ned said, a cold knot settling in his stomach.

Julian frowned at him. “Of course I’m serious. What did you think?”

“I didn’t think… Lynes, you can’t.”

“Why not? The prefects keep their own tea and sugar in their parlor. All we’d have to do is sneak in –”

“Oh, is that all.”

“I can do it. Put the arsenic in their sugar, burn the package it came in, and wait for them to poison themselves. They all take sugar in their tea, you’ve seen them at breakfast a hundred times. It’ll work.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?” Julian looked up at him, his dark eyes intent. “We’d be rid of them. So would everyone else. I expect more than one of the New Men would thank you.”

“Yes, but…it would be murder.”

“Self-defense,” Julian said, so quickly that Ned knew he was ready for the accusation. “You can’t tell me you’d really be sorry if Nevett died. Or Staniforth, or any of them.”

“I wouldn’t be,” Ned admitted. “But murder won’t do. Non licit.”

“I don’t care about the school rules.”

“It’s against the law.”

“The same law that says that you’re not allowed to steal people’s things? Or that says you’re not allowed to walk up to a man and trip him, or have him beaten for your own amusement? The law doesn’t apply to us, Mathey. This is school.”

“It’s wrong,” Ned said.

“It would make it stop.”

“It’s still wrong. And we’d get caught. You’d get caught. What if someone remembers you buying the arsenic?”

“I didn’t get it at the village shop,” Julian said.

“Wherever you got it. Someone will remember.”

“And get themselves into trouble by admitting they sold it to me, when I’m underage and didn’t sign a poisons register?”

“Are you willing to risk it? What if someone catches you coming out of the prefects’ parlor – no, don’t say they wouldn’t. They might. We’re not the only ones who are ever up after lights out.”

“They wouldn’t,” Julian said, but there was a note of doubt in his voice for the first time.

“They might. And if they did, or someone remembered you buying the arsenic, then you’d probably be hanged. We both would, if I helped you.” Ned shook his head. “It’s not worth it. Nevett and Staniforth can’t kill us.”

“They could,” Julian said. “They just probably won’t.”

“They probably won’t,” Ned said. “And if you do this, you probably will get caught. And even if you don’t get caught, you’ll always know you’re a murderer.” He shook his head. “I can’t let you do it, old man.”

He held out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Julian handed over the box. He looked both disappointed and at least a little relieved, as if he weren’t entirely sorry for someone to stop him.

“You’ll always know you could have done it, though,” Ned said.

“There’s that,” Julian said, and looked as if he took at least some comfort in the thought.

He thought – at least, he hoped – that Julian was glad now that he hadn’t become a murderer at thirteen, and not only because he probably would have been caught. They’d both tried to be better than that. And were, he thought.

Decided, he made for the back gates and the omnibus stop. He’d given Julian enough time to cool off; he might be ready to hear reason, now, as unwelcome as it might be. They weren’t going to let Victor Nevett hang for someone else’s crimes, although he thought it might still be some comfort to Julian to savor the thought that they
could
have.

He wasn’t planning to savor it himself, he told himself, and could almost make himself believe it.

Julian sprawled on the sofa, the morocco box open on the table in front of him. He was tempted to write himself another enchantment, one that would numb his feelings just a little longer. But he was exhausted already, the shock of Victor’s confession and the quarrel with Ned piled on top of the lack of sleep the night before, and expending more energy would only make thing worse. As it was, he was likely to want a reviving charm in the morning anyway. And that was a sure way to ruin his health, or at best require a long, restorative holiday.

He pushed himself upright, avoiding the
Urtica mordax
, and went to the sideboard to light the spirit lamp under his coffee maker. It probably wasn’t all that much better for him than another enchantment, but he felt thick and stupid. The coffee would cure at least some of that. But mostly – if he was honest with himself, he was mostly ashamed. He had wanted to kill Victor Nevett before – Staniforth and Noyes and Larriby, for starters, and Victor had been on the list for Ned’s sake – but at least then it would have solved an immediate problem. This would be pure revenge, and that – was not acceptable. He filled the vacuum chamber, set it to heat while he prepared the grounds, then fitted the pieces together and tightened the delicate screws. He’d always told himself he’d chosen this profession to serve justice, not to subvert it.

“Mr Lynes!” Mrs Digby’s voice was followed by her heavy knock. “Mr Mathey is here.”

Julian glanced once around the chaos of his parlor, and went reluctantly to the door. “Come in.”

Ned hung his hat on the tree by the door, and if his eyes lingered for a moment on the enchantment set, Julian could pretend he didn’t see.

“Make yourself at home,” he said. “I’ve started some coffee.”

“Maybe in a bit,” Ned said. He took a deep breath, and Julian glared at him.

“Don’t say it.”

“You don’t know what I was going to say,” Ned protested.

“I do so.” Julian shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling as though he were thirteen again. “You were going to bring up Nevett.”

“I was,” Ned said, after a moment. “And we have to talk about it sometime.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Yes, we do.” Ned paused. “What’s that hissing?”

“Damn it!” Julian swung around just as the coffee machine’s safety valve released, sending up a spray of brown steam. He slapped at the off switch, and the steam died with a mournful sigh, leaving a fan of coffee-speckled damp across the wallpaper. The paper was already blistering in spots. “God damn it –” He turned, ready with a cutting answer if Ned showed any signs of amusement, but the other man merely looked concerned.

“You didn’t burn yourself –”

“No.” For a moment, his reaction hung in the balance, and then the sheer ridiculousness of it all overwhelmed him. It was bizarre and foolish and funny, and he shook his head, laughing. “Oh, dear God, Mrs Digby is going – is not going to be happy with me.”

“Not at all.” Ned relaxed into laughter himself, and settled onto the sofa. “Has it occurred to you that there might be better ways to make coffee?”

“It’s very scientific,” Julian answered. He poked cautiously at the device, decided that it was indeed safe, and began unscrewing the pieces. He could see what he’d done – forgotten to open the siphon once the pressure rose sufficiently – and looked over his shoulder. “I could make more?”

“By no means!” Ned answered, with more fervor than courtesy, and Julian snickered again.

“Perhaps not,” he agreed, and came to join Ned on the sofa. “I wonder if there’s a glamor for repairing wallpaper.”

“Miss Frost might know one,” Ned answered. “She knows a shocking number of useful things.” He paused. “Lynes –”