of the room. Seiji, already wearing his ironed-looking blue pajamas, was sitting on his bed with a book on his lap. Even propped up against a pillow, Seiji had weirdly excellent posture, as though someone had trained him by making him balance a book on his head. Or possibly his posture came from being super good at fencing. Seiji’s face was intent—he was very focused in everything he did—on his book. He had a little bedside lamp with a twisty neck that cast a tiny gold pool of light on the side of his face and the open collar of his pajamas. The moonlight was a silver outline around his black hair. Seiji, Nicholas’s new friend.
Nicholas had never had friends before Kings Row. He and Mom were always getting evicted. Finding new cheap places around the city meant switching school districts. It was tough to make friends when you were always on the move.
Here at Kings Row, for the first time in his life, Nicholas got to keep people around. He had his first friend, Bobby, who was little and vivid and as wild about fencing as Nicholas was himself. And now he had Seiji, too.
Seiji lifted his almost-black eyes from the page. “Nicholas. Stay on your side of the room. Do not move the curtain.”
“Um, yeah,” said Nicholas. “Right. That’s the way we still do things, obviously.”
Seiji nodded with unconcealed impatience. Nicholas walked into Seiji’s side of the room.
“Nicholas! That is the exact opposite of what I said to do.”
“Yeah, totally.” Nicholas wandered over to Seiji’s bookshelf. “I thought maybe I could borrow some of your books to help when I’m writing my essay about childhood. You’ve gotta let me! Because we’re teammates, and we’re bonding.”
They had to write these essays, but Nicholas wasn’t awesome with words. The only thing he’d ever been good at was fencing. Fencing words were used to describe conversation all the time—parry, riposte—so he should be able to figure out language eventually. Other fencers could do it: Seiji spoke really well, using words that stung Nicholas or sliced into him like real swords (I’m so far ahead of you, I’m surprised you can see me at all, Seiji had told Nicholas the first time they met, and that burn made Nicholas try getting into Kings Row.). It wasn’t just Seiji: Coach Williams spoke, and the world shifted in Nicholas’s mind. Their captain, Harvard, knew exactly when to reassure and when to command. Aiden never shut the hell up.
And one look at Jesse Coste and you knew he’d never wanted for anything in his life, including the right word at the right time.
So, Nicholas could do it, too. He was good at fencing—not great, but someday he was gonna be great. And he wasn’t good with words, but someday he could be.
Nicholas read the titles on the spines of Seiji’s books. Seiji had lots of books about interesting stuff, like the rules of fencing, the history of fencing, and famous fencers.
Seiji breathed out hard through his nose. “There’s no need to go through my things. We have a school library.”
“I knew that.”
Nicholas hadn’t known that.
“Of course, their section about fencing is utterly inadequate,” mused Seiji.
“Well, there you go,” said Nicholas. “It’s inadequate. Nothing I can do about that, Seiji!”
Utterly was a fancy way of saying totally, he was pretty sure. Nicholas didn’t see what was wrong with just saying totally, but he made a private note to write utterly in his essay. The way I grew up was utterly fine. Yep, that sounded good.
“I still don’t want to do team bonding,” Seiji muttered.
“That’s great news, Seiji.”
A look that wanted to be startled began on Seiji’s face, and then was sternly repressed.
“Team bonding lessons are part of fencing,” Nicholas explained. “When you suck at team bonding, I’ll beat you. So will Harvard.”
Seiji closed his book.
“And Eugene!” Nicholas continued triumphantly.
Seiji’s eye twitched.
“It’ll just be you and Aiden, coming in dead last at team bonding, and Aiden doesn’t even attend matches,” Nicholas said with scorn. “Embarrassing for you. Don’t worry; I guess you can still be my rival. Even if you suck at team bonding.”
“I’m going to crush you at team bonding!” Seiji snapped.
“That’s the spirit!” said Nicholas. “See? We’re bonding already.”
Seiji’s books were lined up in an orderly fashion like soldiers. Some of his possessions were lined up in front of them, as though they were guarding his library.
“Don’t disarrange the books.”
“Oh, are they arranged in some special way?”
“… Alphabetically?”
“Weird,” said Nicholas.
There was a book called The