Chapter Four: The Back of the Room
The school building was colder than Simon expected.
It was stone, just like the rest of the Blood Moon territory—tall and quiet, with narrow windows and long corridors that swallowed sound. The other children talked as they walked, laughing or whispering in small clusters. Simon walked behind them, just like his mother told him. Eyes down. Mouth closed. Hands at his sides.
He didn't mind being quiet. He was used to it.
When they entered the classroom, the servant children were directed to the back rows, where older wooden desks stood in uneven lines. At the end of the row, a small table held a box marked "STANDARD MATERIALS – SERVANT ALLOTMENT." Inside were soft-cover notebooks, a few dull pencils, erasers worn thin at the corners, and some bent rulers. Everything was used but serviceable—just enough to learn, never enough to feel like you belonged.
Simon stepped forward, selected a pencil with a sharp enough tip and a fresh notebook with only a faint crease down the spine. He took the seat in the farthest corner, where the sunlight didn't quite reach and no one else bothered to sit.
He looked once at the chalkboard, once at the shelves of leather-bound books near the teacher's desk—locked behind a glass case with a heavy key.
The front rows gleamed with newer desks, polished wood and straight legs, each one set with clean stationery wrapped in twine. Those desks were left empty for now, waiting for the noble-born pups who arrived separately, always just a little later.
Two classrooms in one space. One acknowledged. One tolerated.
Simon folded his hands over his blank notebook. He could hear the other group approaching before he saw them.
The noble children entered casually, without ceremony, but their very presence seemed to change the air. Their uniforms were pressed, their shoes shined, their school bags stitched with family crests. One of the girls—tall for her age, with thick dark curls tied with a red ribbon—walked ahead of two boys and barely glanced at the back rows.
They didn't need to. They knew who mattered here.
Simon didn't expect them to speak to him. He wasn't hurt. But he did watch.
When the teacher arrived—a tall woman with silver hair pulled tight in a braid—she gave the room a long, quiet glance. Her eyes passed over the front row first, then swept briefly across the servant-born students in the back. They paused for the briefest moment on Simon before moving on.
"Today," she said, "we begin with language structure."
The lesson began.
Simon opened his notebook and carefully wrote the date in the top corner. His letters were neat—taught by his mother at night with broken pencils and torn scraps of old paper—and his mind was sharp. He took notes quickly but without flair, pausing only to listen, memorize, and understand.
He didn't fidget. Didn't whisper. Just watched—the board, the teacher's face, the way noble children answered questions without really thinking.
When the teacher posed a question and no one raised their hand, Simon already knew the answer. But he stayed quiet, just as his mother had taught him.
Still, the teacher's gaze returned to him. Maybe she noticed he was the only one still paying attention.
"You, boy," she said. "In the corner. Do you know it?"
Simon stood slowly, notebook still open on his desk. "Yes, ma'am. The verb in the second sentence is reflexive. It changes the subject from active to passive."
A pause.
Some of the noble children turned to look at him—curious, mildly surprised.
The teacher gave a short nod. "Correct."
He sat down again, quietly. His cheeks flushed, but he didn't look away. He was here to learn. His mother had made sure of that.
From then on, he felt it—a pair of eyes on him. Not the teacher's.
The girl with the red ribbon.
She didn't whisper or mock him like he expected. She just… watched. Thoughtful. Silent.
When the lesson ended and the bell rang, the noble children rose first and filed out. Simon waited, like always. When the room had mostly emptied, he tucked his notebook under his arm and stepped into the corridor.
No one spoke to him.
But he knew, even without words—someone had seen him.
The day had crawled.
Though the kitchen bustled and burned, though her hands worked from dawn to dusk—kneading dough, stirring soup, scrubbing stone—the hours had never felt longer. Her body moved through tasks like a shadow, but her mind had stayed with Simon. With every crash of a dropped pan or slam of a door, she flinched, heart leaping to places far beyond the stone walls of the servant's wing.
Was he hungry?Did he remember to be careful?Would they treat him like furniture, or worse—like a mistake?
By the time the sun dipped behind the treetops and the kitchens began to cool, she could hardly keep the tremble from her fingers. She left her apron folded over the hook by the fire, slipped down the servant hall, and returned to the small, hidden room that had become their home.
She lit the oil lamp just as dusk bled into night.
And then—footsteps.
She didn't need to look to know it was him. She would always know his footsteps. They were soft, measured—quiet the way children shouldn't have to be.
The door creaked open, and there he was.
Dust clung to the cuffs of his pants. His little shoes were scuffed and dull. His notebook—tightly clutched to his chest—had a crease along the cover. But his eyes…
His eyes were wide and tired, the kind of tired that comes not from running, but from paying attention. From holding your breath all day long.
She rose from the edge of the bed and stepped toward him. He stepped forward just enough to let her crouch down and check his face, his arms, his hands—an old habit. A need. She didn't speak right away. Neither did he.
Instead, she reached up, tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear, and held his cheek in her palm.
"Was it..." Her voice faltered. "Did it go as we hoped?"
Simon gave a small nod, then held out the notebook.
She took it gently. The pages were filled—tidy, precise writing, as neat as he could manage. She ran her hand over the paper like it was something holy.
"I had four classes today," he said, voice soft and a little scratchy. "Language first, then history, numbers, and something about territories and laws. The older ones talked a lot in that one."
She blinked, absorbing his words. "Did they make you speak?"
"In language, yes. The teacher asked a question. No one answered, so she picked me. I told her about the reflexive verb."
She paused. "Did they say anything? The others?"
He hesitated. "Some looked. No one laughed. But I felt it."
Her jaw tightened slightly. "And the noble children?"
"There was a girl. With a red ribbon. She saw me."
He didn't say it with fear. Just certainty.
She nodded once and smoothed the fabric of his shirt. "Good. You spoke well. Just… remember what I told you."
"I know, Mama." He leaned into her touch without needing to be told.
Dinner that night was simple—a shallow bowl of thick root stew, a scrap of bread saved from the morning's baking. They sat cross-legged on the floor, facing each other, their legs brushing lightly. She had spooned the larger portion into his bowl without a word, pretending not to notice when he offered to trade.
As they ate, he told her more. How the history instructor asked the noble-borns to recite ancestral lines, how one of the boys had sneered when Simon silently mouthed the answers to himself. How the numbers class moved slowly, too slowly for how fast he wanted to understand. But he hadn't spoken again. Not after the first answer.
"Tomorrow," he said between quiet bites, "I won't raise my hand. Even if I know."
She looked up at him. "You don't have to disappear, Simon. You just have to survive."
He nodded, though his eyes clouded slightly. "Surviving feels like being invisible."
She didn't argue. Instead, she reached out, wiped his mouth gently with the corner of her sleeve, and tucked the bowls away beneath the cot. Then he curled up in bed beside her and fell asleep with his head on her arm.
She didn't cry.
She'd promised herself long ago that Simon would never have to see her break.
But when his breathing slowed and the room went still, she stayed awake in the dark.
Listening.
Thinking.
Praying that the walls between their world and the one above them would hold just a little longer.