The Prince

“No problem,” Nora said, heading toward her car. “I mean, really … not even I could cause any trouble in a week, right?”

NORTH

The Past

For two weeks, Kingsley did nothing but watch Stearns. He went to class, he ate his meals, he pretended to befriend the other boys … but everything he did was a mere ruse, a mask, misdirection. To make up for his behavior on his first day at Saint Ignatius, Kingsley played the saint of the school in the eyes of everyone around him. But he existed solely for Stearns, solely for sin.

But Stearns wasn’t playing along.

“Aristotle,” Father Robert intoned as his broken piece of chalk squeaked on the blackboard, “had a rather unusual idea about the mind, about consciousness. He thought that the seat of consciousness was the heart. The brain was a mere cooling factory—ventilation. Interestingly, the ancient Egyptians also thought the brain was a pointless organ while the heart itself was the seat of soul and thought. Modern science tells us this is wrong. But what does Jesus have to say?”

In the back of his mind, Kingsley knew the answer to this question. He’d never gone to church consistently as a child. But sometimes his mother would take him. A nearby Catholic church had one service in English for all the American expats like her. She’d go not to worship God so much as to bask in her first language for an hour. Kingsley enjoyed those times alone with his mother. His sister, Marie-Laure, never could get out of bed before noon on the weekend. His father, a proud Huguenot, refused to step foot in a Catholic church. So Kingsley had her all to himself. Nothing made him happier even as a small child than having a woman’s complete attention. Although sometimes he had paid attention to the priest and the readings. And something in one of those readings had stuck with him even so many years later. Something about the mind …

The classroom remained silent. Kingsley picked up his Bible and started to flip through it. Maybe if God was on his side, he’d find the page, the verse. Stearns was also in this theology class, sitting off to the side by the window—the coldest seat in the class. He’d been the first to arrive. He could have sat by the fireplace, but he never did.

“No one?” Father Robert turned around and faced the classroom. “Anyone?”

Kingsley saw Father Robert glance at Stearns, who appeared to suppress a sigh.

“Matthew twenty-two, verses twenty-seven through twenty-eight,” Stearns said, when it became clear no one else would speak.

“Very good, Mr. Stearns. Can you recite those verses for us?”

Recite? Kingsley stared at Stearns, who seemed the very picture of scholarly perfection. His school uniform was spotless and not a single hair on his blond head was out of place. No matter how hard Kingsley tried, he couldn’t help but appear tousled and rumpled. Father Henry teased him about always looking as if he had just crawled out of bed—if only.

Without opening his Bible, Stearns opened his mouth.

“Jesus said to him, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and the first commandment.”

“Very good, Mr. Stearns. And what does this verse have to do with our discussion of the mind and the heart?”

“Jesus makes a distinction between the mind and the heart and the soul. They are separate entities.”

Separate entities? Kingsley’s eyes widened at Stearns’s words. Who was teaching the class?

“Is this proof that the mind and heart and soul are completely separate and have nothing to do with each other?” Father Robert continued. He waved his hand at the ten students in the class, as if trying sweep answers out of their mouths. None were forthcoming.

“Mr. Stearns?”

Stearns sat up an inch straighter. “Not necessarily. The baptismal formula that decrees to baptize ‘in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’ was used as proof by the First Council of Constantinople that while the Trinity contained three distinct persons, they were one as well as three. When Jesus tells us to love God with our heart, soul and mind, He is telling us that they are three and one, just as the Godhead.”

“Very good, Mr. Stearns. Now, if you’ll turn in your catechisms …”

As the class opened their books, Kingsley could only continue to stare at Stearns. The clouds outside the window parted a moment and a ray of sunshine—not seen for days—filled the classroom with white light. Kingsley could count every single eyelash that rimmed Stearns’s eyes. And until the sun hid itself behind a cloud again, Kingsley ceased to breathe.

The sun disappeared. He exhaled. Stearns turned his head and met Kingsley’s unapologetic stare.

Kingsley knew he should look away. Politeness demanded it of him. Discretion demanded it of him. If he didn’t stop staring, he had a feeling Father Robert and Stearns himself would demand it of him.

But he couldn’t look away, any more than he could have looked away had he come face-to-face with God Himself.

As Peter read from the catechism, Stearns stood up and, without asking permission, left the classroom. Father Robert didn’t say a word to stop him, merely continued the conversation with the other students. Kingsley’s heart pounded, his hands clenched. Had he been sitting in a Judas chair he couldn’t have been any more uncomfortable.

After ten seconds of trying to hold still, he got up and followed Stearns.

Once in the hall, Kingsley looked around wildly. No Stearns to be seen. Which way had he gone? Out the front? The back? Upstairs?

Kingsley had no idea why he’d been seized with this mania, this absolute need to follow Stearns. But he’d done it now, left class without permission. No going back.

He heard the ringing of footsteps on the tile floor echoing off the concrete walls. Racing toward the sound, Kingsley found Stearns pacing the foyer between the third and fourth stories, a small Bible in his hand.

Stearns stopped in his pacing and faced Kingsley. He didn’t speak. Kingsley opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

“You left,” he finally said, reverting to French. Vous avez quitté.

Vous? They were the same, students in the same school. Why did Kingsley automatically use vous instead of the more familiar tu?

“Tu as quitté aussi.” You also left.

Tu. Not vous.

“I followed you.” Kingsley felt beyond foolish, stating the obvious. But he had no other words, no other reason. What could he explain? He was here because he was here. “Why did you leave?”

Stearns glared at him before turning back to his pacing.

“I’m allowed to leave.”

“I know that. You’re allowed to do anything you want. But that doesn’t answer the question.” Kingsley stared at him, dropped the English and asked again in French. “Pourquoi?”

“You were staring at me.”

Once, Kingsley had heard some phrase about discretion and valor, something his mother had said in English. He had forgotten how it went, however. Didn’t matter. He was beyond discretion now and couldn’t care less about valor.

“Oui. I was.”

“Why do you stare at me all the time?”

“Why do you care?”

Stearns didn’t answer for a moment. Finally, he met Kingsley’s eyes. “I don’t know. But I do.”

Had he been offered a million dollars at that moment in exchange for un-hearing those words, Kingsley would have said “Keep the money.”

“You should go back to class,” Stearns said, turning his attention back to his Bible.

Kingsley rolled his eyes. “Does it bother you that Father Robert treats you like that?” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall.

Stearns turned around again.