During one physical education lesson, the professor told Clive and I to head to the Headmaster's study. My finger had healed within a month but I exercised without my hand. Clive and I ran laps sometimes, even gently practiced swords with our right.

Either way, after nodding we shot each other quick looks. To get called to the Head of the academy was not a common occurrence.

In fact, students would usually cower because they were either getting expelled or their parents would be there.

Clive and I, however, were the best of the crop. We didn't fear it but were confused as we left the huge gymnasium. My guess was that due to the fuss Clive made about my finger getting cut the Headmaster wanted to see my injury.

Clive seemed pretty happy as we walked the halls.

"I don't know what it's about but I know it'll be something good. Maybe time off exercising? Getting Carlo thrown out?" he joked, and I felt lighter.

I wondered if by some chance, Clive's patron had come. Then I realized Clive seemed so utterly alone, at summer, at winter holidays last year, and even at time like this no one could come and reprimand. Where did Clive really live? Where would be go after graduating?

"Don't look so worried, Nathan." Clive poked at my face for fun and I sighed.

We got to the Headmaster's study and I knocked before hearing the familiar voice say "Come in."

The Headmaster sat there, back to the sunlight, his figure dark against the backdrop. His mask was on but his eyes were strictly on us. They seemed expressionless as usual.

"Welcome, Clive Vagrant and Nathaniel Edgar Rottings. I'll honor the two of you with a secret and job. Our school does allow extremely exceptional teams to go and help out with activities in town, places knights cannot go to without attracting attention. They are called Knights In Training."

I had heard of that and accepted it although they are are not Knights, it was a path some had to take. Jonathan had friends who were official Knight In Trainings, were just called Knights. He would tell me how they got the grunt of the job.

Clive was confused.

"Jobs? Do we get paid?"

There was awkward and hesitant silence. The Headmaster sighed.

"Sure. Twenty coppers per person. Only if you succeed. Now don't go telling about your friends, even as of now there are only a mere ten pairs in this whole academy, so only twenty students are in this project. Telling your peers would terminate this contract."

With a smile the Headmaster took two pieces of paper and slid it our way, two fountain pens on each.

My eyes went over every word and by the time I finished reading in the dim room, Clive had signed it. He wrote "Twenty coppers per completion of mission" on it and had the Headmaster nod.

I finished and decided it would not take a toll on me and signed, to which the Headmaster spoke.

"Rottings, your finger is injured?"

"Yes, it was in an accident during our first time with a dagger, sir," I said.

"Carlo did it to him, sir," Clive piped up.

The Headmaster nodded. "Vagrant, you must take good care of Rottings, understood?"

"Yes, sir."

I blushed, realizing the Headmaster was probably considerate of my family status. I hated it when people treated Clive as my bodyguard or that he should sacrifice himself for me.

"And here are your masks. Please put them as well as these cloaks on when you come to the study hall downstairs tonight. It's the first meeting of the year and don't worry, you'll be exempt from study hall classes."

The masks the Headmaster pushed to us were strange. They looked just like the Headmaster's, but they were of black felt or something similar but lined with satin, and once I tied them behind me the eye holes allowed me to see Clive, who laughed at me.

"Don't laugh, we are in the presence of the Headmaster," I whispered to Clive.

"So with this we won't recognize the others," Clive said. "The cloak also has a hood to cover my hair. I suppose I can't recognize them."

"Vagrant," the Headmaster said softly, "please don't disappoint your patron as well as me. It may be easy for you, but your confidence can be your downfall, especially if you are in a team."

"Don't worry," I found myself answering, "Clive may joke around but when he's serious nothing shakes him."

"Really? Vagrant, Rottings, I was amused by your antics last year for your tests. This year as well, there were no mistakes in any tests." The Headmaster smiled, wrinkles lining his face. He seemed to be fifty and I wondered if he knew of Jonathan and Daniel or maybe the Headmaster had changed.

All Headmasters of our school were veteran knights, but not all wore masks. The masked Headmaster was a mysterious through and through, but I trusted the system that the school had since years ago, and these fights would serve as good practice.

"At midnight I hope to see you two at my office."

"Yes, sir," we both said.

We walked out with the cloak and mask and couldn't stop talking.

"This is it! We are finally getting real experience, Nathan!" Clive was grinning. "I'm going to fight next to you."

"Kill, you mean," I said, also shaking a little from actually getting accepted.

We headed for our dorm to put down our stuff, but Clive was smirking in a way I knew wasn't good. I turned away.

"We should return to do some sword fighting," I quickly whispered, but Clive hugged me from behind. "Clive?"

"It's all fine, the professor allowed us to rest. Now, isn't it nice to have free time? Look, there's no one else in the halls!"

"Fine," I sighed. "But don't you dare nap, we need to go out at midnight and so far, all your naps end up six hours long."

Clive was not an annoying roommate but he couldn't sleep at night because he always fell asleep after classes for three or four hours.

"I'm not that dumb," Clive laughed off. "And you're too serious. We're exempt from all study hall classes, it's so fun!"

"Is it?"

"And money—I wanted a silver coin but that might be too much. Twenty coppers can't buy me anything."

If only Clive knew how rich we got quickly.

"Let's go and play chess," Clive said.

"I wanted you to teach me how to hold a dagger. It's longer than a knife yet shorter than a sword so I am unsure—"

"Sure!" Clive cut me off to my surprise, smiling mysteriously.

We got to our rooms and he tossed off his jacket, we had gotten silver cufflinks and striped ties already, which he also discarded.

"It's fine to undress, we need to go out in cloaks anyway," he said.

I hesitated before taking both off too. Holding a dagger he quickly got into stance. I watched in awe and took out mine and tried to hold it like him.

Clive laughed as he held my hand. "You're holding it like a sword, don't put so much pressure on the handle."

"Why? I'll be stabbing and using force," I said, loosening my grip.

"You want to do this."

Clive held his dagger pointing at me, then spun it, slicing air before it pointed at his heart.

"That was so fast!" I said in awe.

"I told you, I'm good at slum fighting. This technique is easy to master if you want to spin a dagger around, but for a good grip so it doesn't get smacked out of your hand you hand to practice."

Clive stood behind me and played with me, trying to spin the dagger by showing his hand next to mine and which fingers held the dagger and which ones pushed the spin.

His breath was on me as he whispered, "Best of all, daggers come in handy for a quick kill. I always used daggers. I didn't even know of swords, I only knew to slice necks and it was scary when I experimented."

I had never heard of that.

"Clive?"

"In the country I was in I killed people for water." Clive held me from behind and wondered if this was one of the stories he wanted to keep from me.

"How many?" I asked. "How many people did you kill?"

"I don't want to say."

"But you were only thirteen before you left!"

"And you think I don't kill as a child? Water wasn't given to children as charity. People are selfish." Clive scoffed.

"Ten? Twenty? You couldn't have killed more—"

A cold dagger was on my neck, but the tip was only softly dragged from the front of my neck to the left side.

"Like this. I could do it standing behind someone as easily as before them," Clive murmured, voice hard.

Who was this boy? This wasn't the boy running and dancing in flowers, and the whole summer seemed like a lie here, and I looked at the masks on the cloaks, which made me recoil. It was as thought the Headmaster was there, directing Clive to do this.

"You've sinned, Clive." I was strangely calm under his hold, and turned as he quickly stepped back with the dagger hidden behind me, although ashamed. He couldn't look in my eyes.

It reminded me of how my first dog would act after misbehaving. We didn't keep it for more than two years, though, because Daniels was coming back from the academy.

I wanted to reach out, to forgive, but it wasn't my place.

"I don't get it. Why?"

"To survive. I was a child too, I didn't think we had a life unlike that," Clive was cold. "If you grew up in the jungle and you'd think we all had to fight tooth and nail."

He turned and I saw the sun had set.

"Want to do some reading instead?" I asked. "I'm sorry, it was my bad."

"No, it's not your bad. You know why I don't bring up my old life." Clive laughed to ease the mood. "I don't want anyone to know about my past. I only ever told you, and it wasn't to impress you, I wanted you to know—this is me. Can you still trust me despite that?"

I was worried, that he'd pull away or suddenly say 'Nevermind' and leave.

So I held out a hand. "Handshake?"

I wanted to die in a pot of spikes but on second thought I wanted to be killed by Clive. He'd make it fast and painless.

"No, sorry, I'm just bad at expressing myself. What was I thinking," I said as though it was just a joke. Play it cool, Nathan.

"A hug would be nice," Clive said.

"You're asking for too much," I said and rolled my eyes.

Yet I opened my arms nervously, never having hugged even my father. Clive dove in and we hugged, and it was the tighten and warmest hug I felt in my life.