Nicholas dreamed of a trophy gleaming gold, which said, in Seiji’s voice, “He’s better than you are,” and his father’s newspaper clipping, which folded itself into a paper airplane so that it could fly away from Kings Row to find Jesse.
He woke up in a hopeless fight with the bedsheets, the sunlight shining through their curtains yellow as lemons or ducks, and realized he had slept through his alarm.
Oh no. Seiji.
Seiji got up every morning at four AM to train, but recently the two of them had been waking up early to train together. Nicholas had even been able to persuade Seiji to eat breakfast at a reasonable hour. He sat at Bobby and Dante’s table with Nicholas and sometimes Eugene. Occasionally the captain even sat with them—and with the captain came Aiden, so it was the whole team. Those mornings were the coolest, but Seiji wasn’t used to hanging out in a crowd. Nicholas had made a bargain with Seiji: Seiji would help him during practice, a hand on his shoulder or an arm correcting his form. In exchange, Nicholas would intercept any fist bumps or people talking to him when Seiji didn’t want them to. Unless Nicholas was there, Seiji would eat by himself.
Nicholas leaped out of bed and hurriedly flung on clothes, then rushed out of his and Seiji’s room. As Nicholas approached, he saw many people were gathered for breakfast in the common area between the buildings, enjoying their breakfasts at the carved beech picnic tables set in the orchard. A rich spread was laid out on the creaking tables. There were croissants, and pastries that were kind of like croissants but chocolate, and dozens of other pastries like cream tarts and éclairs. There were cuts of meat and slices of cheese heaped like dragons’ gold. Most of all, there was an enormous amount of lemon-related foods: lemon tarts, lemon curd Danishes, lemon meringue pie, puff pastry lemon knots, lemon cake, madeleines with lemon glaze, lemon bars, lemon meringue tarts, lemon poppy-seed scones, lemon muffins, and lemon ricotta pancakes—no, crêpes—folded up into tidy triangles. There were golden apples and peaches and dusky grapes and violet, black-veined figs, with a juice bar, an espresso machine, and an urn of hot chocolate to the side.
Nicholas decided he was starving; he couldn’t fence or find Seiji and the rest of the team if he was starving.
Once he’d acquired a few pastries to fend off starvation, Nicholas quested for help, but the first few groups of people he passed were speaking different languages. He recognized Spanish. He didn’t recognize several more. It was as if Nicholas was lost in a sea of strangeness. A girl asked him a question, in which he discerned the words parlez-vous français, and since Nicholas definitely didn’t parlez any français, he could only stare back at her.
Then he heard people speaking English by the juice bar.
“Hey, I’m looking for Seiji Katayama,” said Nicholas to a knot of boys wearing purple-and-green school ties and speaking in British accents that seemed to be mostly coming through their noses.
One boy with straw-colored hair blinked and said, “Oh, I know who you mean. The American who can actually fence. He’s over there, sitting with the Bordeaux Blades—Bastien, Marcel, and Melodie. They’re three fencers who have all been training in Bordeaux with the famous Coach Robillard since they were small. Can you imagine the luck? Bastien Robillard is the coach’s son, and the other two are his friends. Marcel had to go live in America, poor guy, and I don’t know much about the girl, but everyone says Bastien’s one of the best fencers in Europe.”
The boy pointed to a table under a tree. Nicholas saw Seiji first, the way he held himself unmistakable. Across the table from Seiji was an Exton boy, thankfully not Jesse. Nicholas recognized him as Marcel Berré, the aloof French guy who was the oldest member of the Exton fencing team. Assembled around Marcel was Melodie, the girl from yesterday, and an unfamiliar boy. The three of them didn’t look anything alike—Melodie, blond and fair-skinned; Marcel, black-haired and dark-skinned; and the strange boy, brown-haired with a summer tan—but they had a similar air of confidence. Maybe that was the training. Nicholas remembered the stern-voiced coach from the salle yesterday.
The boy Nicholas didn’t know, who must be Bastien Robillard, was talking to Seiji.
Beside Melodie sat Eugene. Nicholas was relieved that his bro looked better than he had the day before. Then his attention snapped to Seiji again. His back was to Nicholas, but he could tell that Seiji was listening intently to whatever the fencer from Bordeaux were saying to him. Seiji seemed all right. His shoulders didn’t have the tension they had when he was plunged into an uncomfortable situation.
“Bastien Robillard and Seiji Katayama. That is a table of fencing geniuses,” confided the boy, sounding awed. “I’m Rupert, by the way.”
“Hey, Rupert, I’m Nicholas.”
“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Rupert as realization dawned on his face. “You’re American. Sorry about what I said before! I’m sure you’re a great fencer, too.”
“I’m gonna be,” Nicholas told him with a wink, and departed for Seiji’s table.
Nicholas approached with a weird, disoriented sensation. He’d expected to find Seiji sitting alone. Instead Seiji was paying attention to the stranger seated next to Marcel. Seiji was even having a conversation with him. In French. Seiji appeared to be exchanging social pleasantries. That seemed more alien than anything else.
“Nicholas, you’re late,” said Seiji, switching to English and narrowing his eyes in annoyance.
Nicholas relaxed at this familiar greeting in a world of strangeness under foreign trees. “I sure am.”
Seiji’s breakfast was always healthy and wholly unsatisfactory, so Nicholas couldn’t steal from it. Nicholas had once expressed his feelings on this subject, and Seiji had told him to stop stealing food. That wasn’t happening, so they had reached a compromise: Seiji would bring a single small breakfast roll for Nicholas to steal, but Nicholas had to promise to steal it, because Seiji wasn’t eating it and unbalancing his lean, mean fencing-machine diet.
Nicholas checked Seiji’s plate and saw his roll, snagged it, and felt prepared to face the French stranger.
“Hey, I’m Nicholas Cox,” said Nicholas. “Sorry, I don’t speak French.”
The boy nodded in a friendly way. He looked a year or so older than Nicholas and Seiji. “Seiji was just talking about you. I hear you fence at Kings Row with Seiji.”
Seiji said, “If you can call what Nicholas does fencing.”
Nicholas rolled his eyes. He expected the other boy to do what the students at Kings Row did when faced with Seiji’s attitude. They would back up, rebounding from Seiji as though they’d expected air and instead walked into an ice wall.
The boy smiled and winked. “Genius has its privileges, one of which is saying exactly what genius thinks. No matter how unflattering it is to those of us who are merely talented. Nice to meet you, Nicholas. I’m Bastien Robillard.”
Bastien seemed cool. What was he doing hanging out with Seiji?
Nicholas personally thought Seiji was really cool, but he’d gotten used to others not sharing that opinion. Nicholas felt weirdly worried, as though he had something that might be snatched away, but he wasn’t gonna be like a mean junkyard dog, growling at anyone who came near his bone.
“How do you know Seiji?” Nicholas asked.
“I lived in France for a year, how many times must I tell you?” said Seiji. “His father was my coach. Bastien and I used to train together. It’s true—Bastien is talented.”
Bastien seemed pleased rather than insulted by Seiji’s implicit acceptance of Bastien saying that Seiji was a genius and Bastien was beneath him. Two other boys went by, calling out, “Bonjour, Seiji!” And they didn’t look offended when Seiji only inclined his head at them in return. They took it as though they were used to it.
Nicholas figured it made sense that a lot of people at Camp Menton knew Seiji. It was just unsettling seeing Seiji be popular. What did he need Nicholas for now?
But Seiji deserved to be popular. This just meant France was an awesome place, as Nicholas had always believed. There was no reason for this gnawing sensation of unease.
At that moment, Bobby and Dante arrived at the table. Nicholas stood to greet the two of them. Bobby was wearing long, narrow ribbons in blue, white, and red, the colors of the French flag. He looked very cool. People at the training camp didn’t wear uniforms, since a whole new outfit for a long weekend would be a bit much even for rich kids. They wore Camp Menton badges over their own clothes. The badge was a pewter replica of twin blades meeting in a match, with the motto Labor omnia vincit written beneath in flowing script.
There were a whole lot of crisp shirts and khakis going on.
“Did you hear about Eugene?” Bobby whispered.
Nicholas frowned. “I knew he was feeling kind of sick, but—”
Bobby’s big brown eyes were bright with sympathy. “It’s as bad as it could be!”
Nicholas almost dropped his plate. “He’s dying?”
“He is right there, guys.” Dante pointed down the table.
“He ate something with pineapple and had an allergic reaction!” exclaimed Bobby. “He fainted and had to be taken to the infirmary. They say they’re not going to let him fence this weekend.”
“Oh my God, that’s worse than dying,” Nicholas murmured.
Bobby nodded sadly. Dante shook his head wearily at both of them.
Eugene saw them staring at him in horror and said, “Abroha.” He sounded quieter than usual but seemed cheerful despite dark circles under his eyes. Melodie was holding his hand. For comfort, Nicholas supposed.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, I’m sorry I didn’t know about the pineapples,” Nicholas burst out in a flood of relief.
“Yeah, it sucks not getting to fence,” said Eugene. “But I’ll sit and watch with Bobby. I bet I’ll learn a lot. Always keep grinding! Even with your mind. Anyway, at least I got to meet Melodie out of it. That makes it worth it.”
He and Melodie smiled fondly at each other, then Melodie returned to her conversation in French.
“I’m so sorry I left you,” Nicholas said in a lower voice.
Eugene gestured dismissively with a fancy bread thing with chocolate in it. “Whatever. Shame you missed me hitting the floor; I’m told it was pretty dramatic. Melodie and my Camp Menton bro had to drag me to the infirmary. It was actually all pretty amazing.”
Nicholas didn’t know how fainting could be amazing. Eugene must have realized this from Nicholas’s expression.
“Melodie has all this je ne sais quoi.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying, Eugene.”
“I’m saying blondes are great,” said Eugene. “Everybody loves blondes.”
Nicholas couldn’t help thinking of Jesse Coste, hair catching the sun, impossible to avoid. He frowned.
“I don’t.”
“It’s horrible this illness will keep you from working out while you’re here,” Melodie said sympathetically.
“Just this once, I think the gains can wait,” Eugene said.
He and Melodie smiled at each other again. Marcel, the boy from Jesse’s team at Exton, gave them a cool look.
“Really, Melodie,” Marcel murmured. “A Kings Row boy? On the reserves?”
“Eugene tells me his team is the greatest,” Melodie returned calmly.
Marcel met Nicholas’s gaze and raised an eyebrow as he settled back into his seat, as if sizing him up. Nicholas sized him up right back. Marcel was on the Exton team. One day, their teams would face off in the state championships.
Why wait? Nicholas could fence Marcel—or any of the Exton boys—at Camp Menton. Coach Arquette had said people fenced each other in practice matches here all the time. It was encouraged. Nicholas felt his pulse kick up, racing with excitement at just the idea of fencing someone from Exton. He hoped he would get to fence Marcel before camp came to an end.
“You know, Nicholas”—the sound of Bastien’s voice snapped Nicholas out of his reverie—“France is the birthplace of modern fencing. Our skills have been honed for generations. Our ancestors fought duels across the Old World. We Europeans are, I’m afraid, a little prejudiced against American fencers. Seiji certainly set us straight. I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do.”
Bobby looked as alarmed as Nicholas felt.
“Nicholas is fast as lightning, but he’s new to fencing,” Bobby said loyally.
Bastien smiled at Bobby, and Bobby went as red as his ribbon.
“But that’s marvelous,” said Bastien. “That’s what all the stories are about, are they not? The raw, natural talent who comes late to the sport and dazzles everyone set in their ways. Don’t you agree, Seiji?”
“No,” said Seiji. “People need to train. That’s how sports work.” Seiji surveyed Nicholas’s plate with an air of extreme distaste. “Cheese Danish shouldn’t mean Danish with eight different types of cheese piled on top of it.”
“Quit blighting my cultural experience,” said Nicholas, grinning at Seiji and eating his Danish. The Comté cheese was delicious.
Bobby was talking for two and Dante for none as usual. Seiji was smiling in that way that used neither his eyes nor his mouth but was simply a relaxing of the usual frown. Bastien was a nice dude, and Melodie and Eugene were getting on like a house on fire. It seemed for a moment that everything was going to be okay.
Then Jesse Coste strolled up, French sunlight turning his hair into a fancy gold helmet. The day went dim around him. He and Marcel nodded at each other in Exton solidarity.
“Hello, Jesse,” said Bastien. “Jesse goes to Exton with my friend Marcel. Your schools are close, aren’t they? Do you all know each other?”
Jesse looked at Nicholas with polite blankness. “Do I know you?”
“I’m on the team that’s going to beat you at state,” Nicholas shot back.
“In any case, I do know Seiji. He and I have been fencing partners since we were small,” announced Jesse. He gave Seiji a possessive look, as though Seiji were an épée or a trophy.
Bastien frowned. “How strange he never mentioned you.”
“That is strange,” said Jesse with supreme composure. “Hello again, Seiji.”
“Hello,” said Seiji in a wooden voice.
All light now seemed leeched from the orchard.
“Is it nice being back in France?” Bobby asked Marcel brightly, covering the brief pause.
Marcel unbent slightly. Bobby had that effect on people. “I’ve been looking forward to coming home all year.”
“But you’re on the best team in America, so it’s not all bad,” Jesse said with his sunny smile.
The table full of Kings Row students bristled.
Bobby tried again. “I love your hair. What kind of shampoo do you use?” he asked Melodie valiantly.
“I don’t know…” Melodie seemed faintly perplexed. “The kind in the showers of my salle?”
Bastien laughed, looping an arm around Melodie’s waist. “Melodie learned footwork when she was three. Fencing is all she thinks about. She’s very good.”
Melodie beamed at him. “Bastien’s coached me almost as much as his father.”
Sometimes Nicholas imagined having learned fencing from early childhood. Having the same time-polished skills as Jesse so that Seiji wouldn’t ever look down on him.
“I know the Robillards are a famous fencing family,” Jesse said with his super-bright smile that made Nicholas’s head hurt. Bastien smiled back.
“The Costes are no slouches themselves. Like father, like son, from all I hear.”
“People do say that,” Jesse admitted modestly. He glanced sharply over at Nicholas as though he could feel the weight of Nicholas’s stare on him and wished to remove an irritant. “Do you have any family to speak of?”
“No. Not to speak of,” said Nicholas distantly.
He knew his voice sounded weird. He was saved by Bastien addressing Dante in Italian, speaking chattily at length and finishing a sentence on an upward tilt, as though asking a friendly question. Dante glanced up from his plate and answered briefly. Bastien appeared taken aback.
“What did Dante say?” Nicholas whispered.
Bobby whispered back, “He said, I hate fencing.”
“Right,” said Nicholas. “Classic Dante.”
Marcel, Bastien, and Melodie stared at Dante. They seemed too well-mannered to point out that this was a training camp for fencers.
“This is a training camp for fencers,” said Jesse Coste.
Dante shrugged. Jesse returned to staring at the back of Seiji’s head with the focused air of someone attempting mind control, as though Jesse thought his force of will gave him superpowers.
“It’s really great to see so many Americans here,” Bastien continued with determination. “Usually it’s the same people over and over. Fencers come to the Camp Menton from France of course, and from Italy and Germany and England, but never before from America. We’re all looking forward to seeing your skills.”
From what the English boy at the buffet table was saying, they didn’t seem to be expecting much. Nicholas felt a jolt of horror at the thought of living down to everyone’s expectations.
“Americans don’t take the sport seriously,” remarked Marcel.
“I take everything seriously,” said Seiji.
That was so undeniably true, it silenced the whole table. Nicholas wished the captain were here. Harvard was so steady; he anchored their whole team.
Harvard was sitting at another table and talking to a guy Nicholas thought he recognized from their match with MLC. Maybe he was wrong, though, and Harvard had struck up a friendship with a random person. Their captain had a winning personality. Even Aiden liked him, and Aiden didn’t like anybody. Sometimes Nicholas got the feeling Aiden didn’t even like Aiden much.
Where was Aiden? He was always late to everything these days. He said he was sleeping in, but he didn’t look as though he was sleeping much. Nicholas couldn’t figure it out.
The silence that had fallen on their table seemed to spread until the only sound was the leaves rustling in a rippling warm breeze. Nicholas gazed around to see why and noted that Aiden had come to breakfast at last.
Aiden didn’t look as though he’d slept much, but that was the norm these days, so maybe it wasn’t jet lag but his party lifestyle that was affecting him. Being tired actually suited Aiden, turning his face mysterious with angles and hollows in it. Leaves from the lemon trees fluttered down, seemingly in slow motion, and got caught in his fancy bedhead. People paused with forks frozen halfway to their fallen-open mouths as Aiden passed by.
But Aiden was still annoying, so what was the big deal?
Bastien had taken hold of the edge of the picnic table as though he were clinging to the edge of a cliff. “Oh, and I say this with feeling, mon Dieu.”
Nicholas wasn’t sure what that meant.
Bobby leaned in to whisper to Nicholas. “Do you see the way Bastien’s staring at Aiden? And Bastien’s incredibly good-looking, isn’t he?”
“Is he?” Nicholas checked.
French sunshine seemed different from American sunshine, at once brighter and paler, primrose colored. The sunlight was splashing through the leaves of the boughs above the picnic table. Bastien’s shoulders were broad beneath his white polo shirt, and his brown curly hair was untidy in an on-purpose way. He had a cleft chin.
“Almost as good-looking as Seiji,” Bobby confirmed in a very low voice.
“What? No way,” said Nicholas.
“Do you think Bastien and Aiden will date?”
Nicholas shrugged. “Probably. Aiden dates everybody, right?”
Aiden had even dated the captain, but that hadn’t lasted long. Nicholas felt another prickle of unease. Harvard and Aiden had seemed really happy when they were dating. Would the captain feel okay about seeing Aiden go off with other guys the way he used to?
Even familiar things felt strange in France.
The hush that had fallen over the table was broken by Melodie opining that Aiden was too skinny for her taste, and Jesse asking imperiously what everyone was staring at.
“Your captain, though, his shoulders have great potential.” Melodie sneaked a glance at Eugene. “So many men neglect their delts.”
“That’s what I’m always saying!” Eugene exclaimed.
Bastien was still staring over at Aiden, but with a mighty effort to be polite, he wrenched his attention back to their table.
“Your pardon.” Bastien turned to Nicholas with an apologetic smile. “Got distracted for a second there. Nicholas, before you came, Seiji was telling me you’re his fencing partner.”
Jesse’s sunny expression went into an eclipse.
“Fencing with Seiji was always such a revelation,” Bastien said. “I’d be thrilled to fence with his partner. After drills, what do you say you and I have a match, Nicholas? Everybody enjoys watching a good match.”
His first practice bout! Nicholas’s heart raced with excitement. “Yeah, totally!”
Sometimes people remarked that Nicholas ran recklessly toward disaster. Nicholas didn’t see their point.
“Wonderful,” Bastien said happily. “Well, I want to go introduce myself to someone. Catch you later, Nicholas. Excited to find out what you can do.”
He swung easily up off the bench and launched himself toward Aiden’s retreating back.
Nicholas’s heart was pounding, his body was alive with nerves and anticipation. It felt like pins and needles, but in a pleasant way. His first bout. His first match with everyone watching! Nicholas couldn’t wait, but he had a full day of training ahead of him, the sort of training that had forged fencers like Seiji and Jesse. The sort of training that prepared people for the Olympics.
Bastien had called this the Old World, with an inflection that suggested Nicholas’s world could not compare. With its ancient stone buildings and system of rules inflexible as the stone, it did seem like an entirely different world. But Nicholas felt at home in Kings Row now. He could prove himself at Camp Menton, as well.
When Nicholas looked up from his plate, he found Jesse watching him. Jesse, who Seiji had said Nicholas couldn’t compete with.
“What?” Nicholas asked.
Jesse opened his blue eyes very wide. “I’m just looking forward to watching your match,” Jesse answered innocently. “So excited for everybody to find out exactly what you can do.”