“Exactly!” Cee said. “It can mean only one thing: He’s plotting something.”

Audrey’s answer to this obvious statement was silence.

She countered Cecilia’s move by advancing a stone from her first circle to the second, blocking Cee’s clumsy advance.

“We should tell the children,” Cecilia said. “Tell them everything.” She poured Audrey and herself cups of tea. Steam curled around the old woman like living tendrils. “We should prepare them for the coming violence.”

“No.”

“But this is not like the last time, when their ignorance protected them.”

“Their ignorance serves a purpose still,” Audrey told her. “They have lessons to learn. The entire truth would only distract them.”

“But they are so smart.” Cecilia moved another piece along her opposite border, poised to attack.

Audrey moved another cube onto her second tier, stacking it with the first to make a low Tower.

Cecilia frowned at this, realizing her error. She moved one of her own cubes to the second tier. Too late, however, to be an effective counter.

“ ‘Smart’ will help them only so much,” Audrey said. “Better they learn how to be ruthless. They must be pushed to the brink, broken, and then remolded. It is the only way they have a chance of surviving.”

“And the place for this is Paxington? That so-called Headmistress, Miss Westin. We will be lucky if she does not kill them first.”

“Westin is not the threat she once was to children,” Audrey told her. She toppled her fledgling Tower, casting its pieces into Cecilia’s territory, capturing two of her cubes. “Besides, I have spoken with her. All is arranged.”

“Oh, I see,” Cecilia said, now ignoring the game. “Miss Westin and Paxington are vastly reformed since the old days, eh? Did you know that seventeen children were so severely injured last year that they could not continue? That there were five fatalities?”