Page 25 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

9

Meet me in the Death Room.

It’s not the words you expect to hear from the whisky-soaked mouth of the Prime Minister, but there it is. An invitation into a secret lair, a world far away from the press, the world of a man who is a monster in the public’s perception. An invitation extended to me — of all people, me.

I dwell on it all night, staring up at the dark canopy of my four-poster bed, my hands tucked behind my head, unsleeping. The Lochkelvin manor is too interesting to me, too exciting, for me to lie unconscious for hours at a time, time falling away in sheets when I could think instead, I could ponder and discover and uncover the truth of this house. I want to know more, I want to engage with everyone.

Always, I want the truth.

The hunger for it is a scratching, itching, scrabbling sensation in the back of my mind. Must uncover, must know, must devour. It’s the same kind of fury that drove me, once upon a time, onto debate teams and into activist spaces.

It’s an emotion from the before times.

It’s an emotion Dad nurtured in me, cultivating every logical retort of mine like a clipping from the rarest plant.

It’s an emotion that withered when he left this earth, nutrients no longer in soil, rain no longer in clouds.

But it’s here now, a budding green shoot, and maybe that makes sense. Maybe it makes sense for it to be unearthed by the Prime Minister of all people. Because if someone of his power and magnitude isn’t able to coax light and life from me, then who is?

At some point, my mind must fade into sleep. Because when I wake, there’s a new addition to the manor.

* * *

“Where is he?” Luke demands bluntly as a large boiled egg in a white lace-like doily is revealed from a cloche. It’s a pure white egg, bigger than any I’ve ever seen from a chicken, which makes me wonder if it’s from a different species of bird or just extremely well-bred Lochkelvin hens.

The staff act nervously around Luke. “The Master is unavailable. The Young Master is also unavailable and will remain so until later tonight,” Armstrong informs him.

“Fetch him at once,” Luke snaps. “We have business to attend to.”

“As does he,” Armstrong answers, a tightness to his mouth that underlines his disapproval. He’s there to be ordered around but only by a select few. And anyway, I know it’s a lie. I know where Rory is: hiking through barley and hay, over thistles and gorse, traipsing in the countryside with Captain Porthos by his side to investigate the new arrival of the eagle chicks.

I imagine it’s not quite on the same scale as Luke’s supposed business.

“He’ll be back,” I reassure Luke, and Luke directs his scowl onto me. But the more he looks at me, the more his scowl softens until he switches his attention onto his giant, perfectly yellow-yolked egg.

He slams down his spoon a moment later.

“Unfortunately, you have no idea what he has been interfering with,” Luke mutters, with a dark glance at a newspaper by his elbow. “I have been hearing the most wicked rumors.”

I swallow my toast and say nothing, because I know all too well what Rory’s been up to. Just casually plotting to bring down Luke’s entire family, no biggie.

But then, I’ve been hearing the most wicked rumors too, about how Luke isn’t who he says he is.

By the time I finish breakfast, Finlay arrives. His hair is as dark and sleep-tousled as ever, and he runs an agitated hand through it when he notices Luke.

“Oh. You actually came.”

“Yes, I actually came,” Luke hisses, tossing a newspaper in Finlay’s direction. Finlay catches it single-handedly. “What is this nonsense about a dossier being bandied around? Contents allegedly hush-hush but enough to make Palace officials nervous?”

Finlay pauses, scanning the article for a brief moment. He drops it, perhaps deliberately, close to me.

“Interesting.”

The headline reads:Sweeping Reforms Proposed for Constitutional Monarchy.

“‘Interesting’? I was advised against coming here. Has Rory said anything to you? What do you know? Because my mother refuses to tell me anything — in fact, the only words she speaks these days are swear words, which is most unbecoming, but perhaps necessary, because no one will tell me a bloody thing about my family!”

There’s a ringing silence after this rant. In my peripheral vision, I note Armstrong’s flinch.

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