it wasn’t funny. How could anything be funny after Professor Stratford’s revelation about their marks at Knightley, about the weight of their actions?

Someone was out to get them, to make sure they failed. This wasn’t some dumb prank war or a schoolboy grudge.

It was real, and the stakes were terrifying.

On the fencing master’s orders, Henry and Rohan mechanically walked over to the equipment cupboard to pick up their foils with the rest of the class.

But Henry’s foil was missing. He stared at the empty cubby, a sense of dread thick in his stomach. Their saboteur had struck again.

“Mr. Grim! Is there a problem?” the fencing master called.

“Yes, sir,” Henry said with a sigh. “My foil is missing, and it’s the only left-handed sword.”

The fencing master frowned.

“It was here this morning, and I’ve misplaced the key to the storeroom, so you’ll have to make do with one of the right-handed foils today.”

Henry opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it. It was just too convenient that the key to the storeroom had gone missing as well.

“Yes, sir.”

Henry picked up a spare right-handed foil and tried to grasp it in his left hand. But it was no use—the grip plate was all wrong. Instead of providing grooves for his fingers, the grip dug into them.

He frowned at the sword and tried a few passes, but it felt as though the sword might fly from his hand at any moment. As an experiment, he switched the foil to his right hand, where his fingers easily nestled in the grip. Switching his stance to suit, Henry tried an advance-retreat-lunge and nearly tripped over his own feet.

Rohan caught Henry’s eye.

“Bad luck,” he said with a sympathetic smile. “Are you going to be able to fence?”

“I’ll have to,” Henry said through gritted teeth.

The fencing master, apparently satisfied that he had fixed the problem, led the class through a form warm-up.

Henry fumbled along as best he could. It wasn’t too hard to do the handwork without the footwork added in.

The fencing master called an end to the drill and divided the class by skill level. Henry and the rest of the intermediates were to partner up and fence to three hits, then rotate.

Henry took his place across from Rohan.

“Go easy on me,” Henry said through his visor, his every instinct being to put his left foot forward, as he had learned.

Rohan nodded and gave a broad salute, which Henry returned.

And then Rohan started forward.

Henry fumbled his footwork and, with a useless riposte that missed Rohan’s blade by miles, was quickly struck square in his target zone. Rohan did go easy on him, but Henry doubted he could have landed a hit against Lawrence Shipley, the worst of the beginners, so long as he was fencing right-handed.

Henry and Rohan shook hands, and Rohan moved on to fence James St. Fitzroy, the undefeated checkers champion of the common room. But no one wanted to fence Henry.

“Sorry, but you could kill me with that thing.”

“I preferred you left-handed, Grim.”

“Maybe next time?”

“I’ve already promised Theobold next bout.”

Henry was grateful for the mesh visor that hid his expression as classmate after classmate refused the next bout.

It wasn’t as though he blamed them—what was the fun of an easy defeat against an opponent who couldn’t put up a fight?—but it still felt awful. As he stood there, his face going hot beneath his mask, Henry had the horrible sensation that he was back at the orphanage in Mid-summer, a small, gangly boy who was always picked last for teams, a boy who had learned to prefer the company of books to the company of the bullying, cruel orphans.

“I’ll have a go,” Valmont said, poking Henry in the back with the tip of his foil to command attention.

Henry nearly refused. “Kick your enemies while they’re down, is that the idea?” he asked, walking to position across from Valmont.

“More like watch you fall on your arse.”

Valmont gave a weak salute, which Henry returned.

“I want a rematch at chess,” Valmont said, surging forward and landing an easy hit into Henry’s stomach.

“I’ll play you again, but it isn’t a rematch,” Henry replied. “I beat you fairly the first time.”

“Hit!” Valmont crowed.

Henry scowled and willed himself to do better. He couldn’t let Valmont beat him 3–0.

One hit, Henry thought desperately. One lucky hit, that’s all I need.

Henry concentrated on his footwork and managed a passable advance. Through some miracle, he was able to disengage his weapon and put his back arm down to signal attack, giving him