Chapter 97: The List (17)
The air outside the gymnasium was mercifully cooler, though the corridor was thick with the muffled roar of the brawl still raging behind them.
Every few steps, a thud echoed from the double doors, punctuated by the judge’s hoarse shouting and the unmistakable sound of students throwing themselves into chaos.
Lucien and the girl stumbled forward, Phillip sagging heavily between them, half-conscious and groaning faintly.
Their footsteps scuffed unevenly on the polished wooden floor as the pair tried, and failed,to coordinate.
“You’re leaning too much on me,” Lucien muttered, his shoulder burning with every lurching step.
The girl shot him a sharp look, strands of hair falling across her flushed face.
“I am not! You’re the one dumping his weight on me like a sack of flour!”
Lucien barked out a strained laugh.
“Really? You think this twig frame of yours is carrying more of him than me? You’re barely holding up your own side, let alone his.”
Her cheeks puffed in indignation.
“At least I’m not dragging him! You’re going to make him trip, he’s going to hurt worse if you keep stumbling like that.”
Lucien glanced down at Phillip, whose head lolled to the side, eyes fluttering as though he were only half tethered to the world.
“News flash,” Lucien grumbled, “he’s already hurt worse. I don’t think his feet care at this point.”
That earned him a sharp tug on her side, nearly jerking him off balance.
Lucien hissed through his teeth, pain flaring in his ribs.
“Stop pulling,” he snapped.
“Stop pushing,” she shot back.
“I’m not pushing!”
“Yes, you are!”
They staggered another few steps in tense silence, Phillip groaning softly as if caught between two arguing parents.
Then, somewhere in the middle of their clumsy shuffle, Lucien frowned.
A thought cut through the haze of fatigue and sarcasm.
“…Wait,” he muttered, squinting at her.
“What’s your name again?”
The girl’s head snapped toward him, her expression incredulous.
“Seriously? You don’t even know my name?”
Lucien shrugged, or tried to, though the gesture ended in a pained wince.
“Not exactly top of my priority list while your boyfriend was trying to split my head open.”
Her lips tightened.
“For you, it’s Lady Vivien Astor.”
Lucien rolled his eyes.
“Lady, huh? Doesn’t suit you.”
Her nostrils flared.
“Excuse me?”
“Just saying,” he drawled, lips quivering into a wry smile.
“You’re not very… lady-like. Kind of misleading to slap ‘Lady’ in front of your name. Truth in advertising, you know?”
Her face flushed crimson as she snapped back instantly, “And you are hardly gentlemanly! I could tell that the very first time we met.”
Lucien’s grin widened despite the throbbing pain in his shoulder.
He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice just enough to make it sting.
“Oh, right. I should have knocked on the bush before jumping across it, of course.”
Vivien froze, her mouth opening wordlessly as her cheeks went scarlet.
She huffed like an offended cat, then deliberately shoved Phillip’s weight more onto Lucien.
He yelped, nearly collapsing under the sudden shift.
“Ow—dammit! I’m already broken enough, thank you very much!”
Her lips curled into a self-satisfied smile, but Lucien’s expression shifted—worn, tired, the sarcasm ebbing out for a moment.
He tightened his hold on Phillip, steadying them all before letting out a long, quiet sigh.
“…Sorry,” he said.
The word hung in the corridor, heavy enough to startle her.
Vivien blinked, thrown off balance in a way even sharper than the duel.
Lucien kept talking, his voice rasped but earnest.
“That night… Vaelira and I didn’t mean to intrude. We were looking for a place to hide, and things… got out of hand. Wasn’t how we wanted it to go. And it sure as hell wasn’t how I wanted you to see me.”
Vivien opened her mouth, then closed it again, caught off guard by the raw sincerity laced through his exhaustion.
She wasn’t sure what reply she’d even meant to form.
He continued, almost muttering now, eyes fixed ahead on the dim corridor.
“Doesn’t excuse anything. But… yeah. I’m sorry about it.”
The silence that followed was so unexpected it nearly knocked Vivien off balance.
She had braced herself for more sarcasm, another smug jab, not… that.
Not an apology.
Not from him.
She swallowed hard, lips parting as though to say something, anything, but the words tangled in her throat.
And before she could untangle them, before she could even begin to reconcile the sharp-edged boy in her head with the one dragging her injured fiancé alongside her, they arrived at the infirmary door.
The heavy wooden frame loomed ahead, a haven of order and antiseptic calm against the chaos of the duel and the gymnasium brawl.
Lucien shifted his grip on Phillip, letting out a low groan.
“Finally.”
Vivien just stared at the door for a moment, her mind whirling far more chaotically than the riot they’d left behind.
***
The infirmary smelled faintly of herbs and candle wax, its wide chamber bathed in the steady glow of enchanted lanterns suspended along the walls.
As Lucien and Vivien dragged Phillip across the threshold, the murmur of voices and the rustle of linen cloaks shifted instantly into a flurry of controlled chaos.
“Over here!”
One of the nurses called, rushing forward with two others in tow.
Within moments, Phillip was lifted neatly from their faltering grasp and transferred onto a wide cot near the center of the hall.
Lucien stumbled as the sudden weight disappeared from his grip, clutching his shoulder with a hiss.
Another nurse, older, with thin-rimmed spectacles perched precariously on her nose, was at his side immediately, tutting under her breath.
“You too. Sit down before you collapse.”
“I’m fine-”
Lucien began, only for her to seize his good arm and yank him toward a neighboring bed with surprising strength.
“You are blue in the shoulder, young man,” she snapped, “and nobody is fine when they’re turning that color.”
Lucien winced as she pressed him down.
The scene bustled around them.
Two healers knelt beside Phillip, one hovering a glowing palm just above his temple while the other murmured low incantations.
A gentle warmth filled the air, steadying the boy’s shallow breathing as the healer frowned.
“Concussion. Not severe, but enough to keep him out for a while.”
Meanwhile, Lucien grit his teeth as his nurse prodded his shoulder.
He sucked in a sharp breath when she rolled the joint, pain shooting like lightning down his arm.
“Fractured socket,” she announced briskly.
“And swelling is already deep into the muscle. This will need hanging.”
“Oh…”
Lucien muttered dryly as they tied his arm against a rigid brace and suspended it upward from a frame above the bed.
He lay there like some broken marionette, glaring at the ceiling as the nurse wrapped cooling poultices across the bruised flesh.
Across from him, Vivien sat stiffly on the edge of Phillip’s bed.
Her hands twisted in her lap as she glanced between the boy she loved, his face pale and slack against the pillow, and the boy beside him, laid up in almost as sorry a state.
Her gaze lingered on Lucien, conflicted.
The words she wanted to say, accusations, barbs, blame, sat hot on her tongue.
After all, wasn’t he the reason Phillip had ended up like this?
Weren’t his actions, the spark that ignited the duel?
And yet… the image wouldn’t leave her mind. His voice in the corridor.
The quiet, earnest apology.
The way he had held Phillip upright despite his own injuries, despite having no obligation to do so.
Her fingers clenched tighter.
“You should feel guilty,” she muttered under her breath before she could stop herself.
Lucien’s head turned slowly on the pillow, one brow arching despite the dark bruises spreading across his temple.
“Hm? What’s that, Lady Vivien?”
His voice was soft, sardonic as ever, though fatigue dulled its edge.
Vivien’s eyes flashed, but her heart stuttered.
“I said… Phillip wouldn’t be lying here if not for you.”
Lucien exhaled sharply through his nose, the ghost of a smile tugging his lips.
“Oh, really?”
Her cheeks flushed.
“You provoked him”
She faltered.
Her eyes dropped back to Phillip, pale and unmoving.
Lucien’s expression softened ever so slightly.
“You know…”
His voice dropped low, meant only for her.
“If you want to blame me, then do it. I’m used to it.”
He leaned closer, his words edged with restraint.
“But don’t pretend Phillip had no choice in this. He did. Just as I did.”
Vivien’s lips parted, though no words escaped.
Lucien pressed on, quiet but unrelenting.
“Don’t strip him of the courage it took to stand before me. He wasn’t dragged into this, I didn’t call him out. He came to me, for your honor. That was his decision, his effort, his love. To lay it all at my feet is to deny the very reason he raised his hand in the first place.”
His jaw tightened.
“Choices always carry the weight of consequence. And this,” his eyes averted to Phillip, “...was his.”
She wanted to rage, to defend Phillip, to curse the boy who had shattered the neat image of her world, but her heart stumbled at the sight of him lying there, battered yet honest, the mocking veil slipping just enough to let something raw through.
She sat back down beside Phillip, hands trembling faintly.
For once, she had nothing to say.
Lucien closed his eyes.
