The dormitory was so new, it still smelled like the linseed oil that coated our windowsills.


    Rust-red wood trimmed every facet of Queen’s University, bright against the dark gray stone; windowsills, door lintels, the molding beneath the flashing. It kept the fungi of the woods from rotting the infrastructure. On warm days, after a rain, you could see the clouds of spores rising from the sea of green below, gray or gold or midnight purple. Several students unenrolled in the first week, eyes red and streaming, kerchiefs held over their mouths or tied over their faces as they fled the campus in their family’s carriages. There was an enrollment grace period for just this purpose.


    Other than a few sneezes on the thickest of spore-days, I was unaffected. My constitution had been dealing with airborne mining grit since birth.


    Still, it meant we kept the windows closed a lot. The purple spores stained.


    There were four of us in the suite, all of us Lords. Bartolomeo and Ottorino were brothers; not technically twins, but born so close in age to each other as to not make much of a practical difference. Otto was ostensibly studying law, but seemed in practice to be majoring in alehouse architecture, with a minor in female anatomy. Barti, by contrast, was very seriously devoted to the biological sciences. He kept spreading breadcrumbs on his windowsill and noting what birds came to eat them in a little leatherbound book, then drew sketches of what fungi grew in the scars gouged through the linseed oil coating by their beaks and claws. I liked him immensely.


    The fourth suitemate was a fellow who went by the appellation “Paffuto,” for reasons unknown. Paffuto was lean, and loud, and, as a fellow biology student, in every single one of Barti’s first-year classes. Barti tolerated him better than most. I was able to avoid him by virtue of sharing only one class with him—Classics—and by living a heavily nocturnal lifestyle, the better to study the night skies. I overlapped more frequently with Otto as he stumbled back from one or the other of his two principal areas of study in the small hours of the night, exchanging little more than a slurred word and affable nod.


    On this particular Solday, it was raining so hard, few had ventured outside. Even Otto was in his room, looking a bit the worse for wear after whatever he had gotten up to the previous night, occasionally rousing himself from his lethargy to scratch out another sentence on some essay he was supposed to have been working on for the past three weeks. Barti was curled up in our common-room armchair, reading. And I was sitting at the window, staring out, thinking of very little at all. I had cracked it open just the faintest bit. A damp breeze ruffled my hair.


    Paffuto burst into the common room, dripping water and already yelling.


    “This is it, lads!” He pulled a newspaper from his overcoat and flung it to the floor, where it quickly generated a puddle. When nobody responded, he waved the newspaper and yelled again. “This is it!”


    “What’s it?” Barti asked absently.


    “Our triumph!”


    Barti turned a page. “Whose triumph?”


    “Our alma mater’s, of course!”


    “I don’t think you can call a school that while you’re still attending it.”


    Paffuto ignored the correction. “Standards are being upheld,” he said proudly, and threw the newspaper over Barti’s book. Barti blinked irritably and refocused on the headline. “‘Board Votes No’? No on what?”


    “My God, Barti, what do you do with your time?”


    “Study,” Barti replied equably.


    “Well, maybe you ought to devote some of that brain of yours to current affairs,” Paffuto said, snatching the newspaper back.


    “I hardly think school gossip constitutes current affairs.”


    “The Queensman’s not a gossip rag,” Paffuto gasped, scandalized. “And admissions policies that affect our education is not gossip. It is news.”


    Barti refocused on his book. “If you say so.”


    “Well?”


    “Well what?”


    “Don’t you want to know?”Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    “Know what?”


    “The policy!” Paffuto was practically screaming.


    “I’m sure you’ll tell me regardless.”


    I hid a smile.


    “The policy,” Paffuto said, enunciating clearly, “of not admitting lowbreeds.”


    My smile instantly fled. It was replaced by icewater in my stomach.


    Barti turned a page. “So no change, then.”


    “That’s right!” Paffuto saluted what I surmised was an imaginary board member, or else the concept of blood purity in the abstract.


    “Queen’s University doesn’t admit lowbreeds?”


    Both Paffuto and Barti looked over at me in surprise. Honestly, I was as surprised as they. I hadn’t meant to speak aloud. The word tasted rancid in my mouth. Lowbreed.


    “Never have,” Paffuto said firmly, “and, God willing, never will. Are you surprised?”


    Yes. “It’s just… how would they be able to tell?”


    Paffuto stared at me like I was stupid. “By looking.”


    “You’re thinking of halfbreeds, or quarter-breeds,” Barti said calmly to Paffuto. He closed his book; we were talking biology now. He was interested. “Leo’s right—you can’t necessarily tell at an eighth or less.”


    Paffuto made a derisive noise and waved his hand. The newspaper fluttered. “I mean, maybe in a few cases. And God knows half the commoners here probably have a bit of the strange in their veins, from back before civilization. But blood will out. Honestly, it would be unfair to them to admit them. Take their money, only to have them constantly fail against their betters?” He shook his head in affected melancholy. “Not sporting. Not at all.”


    Barti was regarding me impassively. I turned back to the window and tried to breathe normally.


    Paffuto wasn’t done yet. He never was. “I had a lowbreed girl once.”


    Barti sighed quietly and turned back to his book.


    “Part Satyr,” Paffuto went on, undeterred. “Her however-many-greats grandmother got the business in the woods bodrering their vineyard. Despite being warned of it countless times, apparently. Must’ve wanted it. She sure did.” He made an obscene gesture and laughed. “Must run in the family.”


    “Didn’t realize you liked them that hairy, Paffuto,” Barti said, eyes never leaving his book.


    “She wasn’t hairy,” Paffuto objected, then stopped and considered. “Well, maybe a little. But she was from Grecia, so could’ve just been that.”


    “So you couldn’t tell,” I said flatly.


    Paffuto gave a patronizing chuckle. “Oh, I could. She was nasty. Not properly human. Bit dim, too. But a great lay. I keep those memories close to my heart. Close to some organ, anyway.” Another gesture, another laugh. “Highly recommend it if you ever get the chance, gentlemen.” And then he ambled into his room, leaving his coat in its puddle on the floor.


    “Ass,” mumbled Barti, under his breath.


    I couldn’t speak to agree. My throat was too tight. It took me several swallows before I managed to grind out, “How would the school know?”


    “Genealogical record, probably.”


    “I don’t remember that from the application.”


    Barti shrugged. “Me neither. I guess they don’t bother to check unless there’s a problem.”


    “A problem?”


    Barti shrugged again. “Poor marks, bad behavior. Somebody upset that his roommate has gill-sign or leaves fur in the bath.”


    I paled. Our suite’s bathroom was private, but had no lock. And Paffuto had a habit of barging in wherever he went without knocking. I vowed to not bathe again until I had installed one.


    “She robbed him.”


    I was knocked from my reverie. “What?”


    “Paffuto’s supposed Satyr-girl; she robbed him,” Barti repeated calmly. He turned a page. “He’s told that story three times now. The first time he told it to me, he admitted that she robbed him blind. He agreed, while stone-cold sober, to follow her down a dark alley in Nepoli. Lost four hundred lira.”


    “Sounds like he was the one who was a bit dim, in that case.”


    “Yes, I told him as much.” Barti smiled grimly. “He doesn’t tell that part of the story anymore.”


    Paffuto went out again later that night, despite the weather, to celebrate the board’s decision. He wanted us to come too.


    “Come on, lads,” he urged, pulling on a new coat. The other one still lay on the floor where he had thrown it. None of us were going to pick it up for him. “It’ll be fun! We’re just going down to Il Cigno Bianco for a few rounds. Nothing too heavy; class tomorrow.”


    Nobody replied. I stifled a yawn.


    “Otto?” Paffuto called hopefully.


    “Homework,” Otto called back.


    “Bunch of sticks in the mud,” Paffuto muttered. He shrugged his coat into place. “All right, then, I will be the emissary of our suite to the right-thinking world. You’re welcome.” He slammed the door when he left.


    “Thank God,” Barti muttered, closing his book. “I thought he’d never leave.” He went into his room and emerged again with a bottleand two glasses. “Wine?”


    “What are we drinking to?” I asked quietly.


    “A peaceful evening,” Barti replied. He poured a glass and handed it to me. “Nothing more.”


    I took the glass and joined him by the fire.