Chapter SIX: The Name They Give Me

Caspian Thorne POV:

By Friday afternoon, half of Veyrenholt had decided I was going to win the leadership competition, and the other half had decided I would find a way to get disqualified first.

They knew I could speak in front of a room without notes. They knew I had been warned twice for leaving supervised study early and once for climbing through the old gym entrance after it had been locked. They knew I rarely looked nervous, even when a teacher was reading out my name in the tone reserved for disappointing announcements.

They had turned those details into a whole personality.

I let them. It was easier than explaining myself to people who had already made up their minds.

At lunch, Rafe dropped into the seat opposite me, his tie loose and his hair still damp from training. Two boys from the upper year glanced over before lowering their voices. I caught my name, followed by a quiet laugh.

Rafe caught it too. “You could make their lives difficult.”

“They’re managing that themselves.”

“You know what I mean.”

I looked across the dining hall. The boys were watching to see if I would react. I lifted my glass, took a drink, and turned back to Rafe. Their interest faded when I refused to perform for them.

That afternoon, the trouble started in the west corridor.

I was heading to the courtyard when I heard raised voices near the equipment room. A group of boys had gathered around Adrian Bell, a prefect who had decided that being trusted with a badge meant he could speak to anyone however he liked. In front of him stood Malik, a first-year who played on the junior football team. Malik’s sports bag lay open on the floor, its contents scattered beside the wall.

“You were told not to take the team equipment without permission,” Adrian said.

“I didn’t take it,” Malik replied. His face had gone tight with the effort of keeping his voice steady. “I brought the cones back. They’re all there.”

“Then why were you in the room?”

“Coach asked me to put them away.”

Adrian looked around at the audience. “Convenient story.”

I stopped walking.

Malik’s hands curled at his sides. The boys watching seemed more interested in seeing him lose his temper than in finding out what had happened. I knew that kind of audience. Give them a spectacle and they would forget the truth before dinner.

“Ask Coach,” I said.

Adrian turned. “This doesn’t concern you, Thorne.”

“Then checking the facts shouldn’t be a problem.”

I had almost reached the courtyard when Mr. Hargreaves, the deputy housemaster, called me into his office.

“Why were you involved?”

“Because he was being blamed for something the record could settle.”

“You could have sent for a member of staff.”

“I could have.”

“Instead, you challenged a prefect in a crowded corridor.”

“He was wrong.”

“That does not automatically make your approach wise.”

I stood quietly while he considered me. Mr. Hargreaves had the patient, tired look of someone who had dealt with too many clever boys who believed being right excused everything else.

“You have a reputation for making situations bigger,” he said. “Sometimes you do it because you dislike being told what to do. Sometimes you do it because you dislike watching someone else being cornered. The difficulty is that people cannot always tell which version of you they are getting.”

I had no answer ready for that.

He gave me a formal warning for interfering in a prefect’s disciplinary matter and told me that any further incident before the final assessment would be taken into account. It was not unfair. That made it harder to dismiss.

I knew Adrian would remember being challenged more clearly than he remembered the sheet. He had authority, and I had made him look careless in front of students. I had a talent for making an enemy of the person holding the clipboard that afternoon.

By evening, the story had changed three times. In one version, I had threatened Adrian. In another, I had embarrassed him on purpose. Someone claimed I had done it because Malik was on the football team. I let the rumours travel without correcting them.

Rafe found me outside the common room after prep.

“You know you could have called a teacher,” he said.

“I know.”

“You also know Hargreaves will remember this when they assess you.”

“I know that too.”

He leaned against the wall beside me. “Then why do it?”

I watched students cross the courtyard beneath the lamps. “Because everyone was waiting for Malik to make one mistake so they could say he deserved it.”

Rafe was quiet. He understood that I wasn’t asking for approval.

“You can’t fix every unfair thing you see,” he said eventually.

“No. But I can decide what I’m willing to walk past.”

He looked at me, then nodded once. That was enough.

Later, alone in my room, I took the competition schedule from my desk. The final assessment was close enough now that every careless choice could follow me into the room. I had spent years acting as if consequences were things other people worried about. It was a useful trick until they arrived with my name on them.

I thought of Isaure and the way she treated every mistake I made as proof of what she already believed. I could not blame her for remembering the fountain. I had never given her a reason not to.

That did not mean she understood everything about me.

It also did not mean I had to prove her wrong by winning.

I folded the schedule and put it away. For once, I wanted to enter the final assessment knowing exactly what my choices had cost, and why I had made them.

Veyrenholt could keep its version of Caspian Thorne. I was beginning to understand that the harder task was deciding which parts of that version I intended to keep.