Excerpt from Smoke by Dan Vyleta, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Making sure everyone knows.

Keeping pace with Julius, trapped behind that slow, slouching, nohaste-no-worry-in-the-world walk: it's enough to make Thomas's blood boil. He can taste Smoke on his breath and wonders if he's showing. A dark gown covers his shirt but he will soon be asked to remove it, no doubt, and expose his linens. He attempts to calm himself, picks Soot out of his teeth with the tip of his tongue. Its bitterness makes him gag.

Julius slows down even further as they approach Dr. Renfrew's door. The Master of Smoke and Ethics. It's a new post, that, no older than a year. It used to be the Master of Religion was in charge of all the moral education, or so Charlie's told him. When they arrive at the door, Julius pauses, smirks, and shakes his head. Then he walks on, faster now, gesturing for Thomas to keep pace.

It takes Thomas a minute to understand what's just happened. He is not going to see Dr. Renfrew. There will be no dentist's chair for him. It's worse than that. They are heading to the headmaster's quarters.

There's to be a tribunal.

The word alone makes him feel sick.

Julius does not knock when they reach the headmaster's door. This confuses Thomas, until they've stepped through. It leads not to a room but to a sort of antechamber, like a waiting room at the doctor's, two long benches on each side, and an icy draft from the row of windows on the right. They are high up here, in one of the school's towers. Beneath them, the fields of Oxfordshire: a silver sea of frozen moonlight. Down by the brook, a tree rises from the snow-choked grounds, stripped of its leaves by winter. A willow, its drooping branches dipped into the river, their tips trapped in ice. Thomas turns away, shivering, and notices that the door back to the hallway is padded from the inside, to proof it against sound. To protect the headmaster from the school's noise, no doubt. And so nobody can hear you scream.

Julius stands at the other door, knocks on it gently, with his head boy's confidence and tact. It opens after only a moment: Renfrew's face, framed by blond hair and beard.

"You are here, Argyle. Good. Sit."

Then adds, as Julius turns to leave: "You too." Renfrew closes the door before Julius can ask why.

They sit on opposite sides, Thomas with his back to the windows, Julius facing them, and the moon. It affords Thomas the opportunity to study him. Something has gone out of the lad, at this "You too." Some of the swagger, the I-own-the-world certainty. He is chewing his cheek, it appears. A good-looking boy, Thomas is forced to admit, fair-skinned and darkhaired, his long thin whiskers more down than beard. Thomas waits until Julius's eyes fall on him, then leans forward.

"Does it hurt? The tooth, I mean."

Julius does not react at once, hides his emotions as he does so well. "You are in trouble," he says at last. "I am here only as a witness."

Which is true in all likelihood, but nonetheless he looks a tad ruffled, Julius does, and Thomas cannot help gloating a little over his victory. They looked for the tooth late last night when Charlie and he were trying to clean his shirt, but it was gone. Julius must have picked it up himself. It would have made a nice souvenir. But that was then and now he is here, his hands all sweaty, casting around for bravado. Waiting. How much easier it would be to fight, even to lose: a fist in your face, a nosebleed, an ice bag on your aches. Thomas leans back, tries to unknot his shoulders. The moon is their only light source. When a cloud travels across it, the little waiting room is thrown into darkness. All he can see of Julius now is a shadow, black as Soot.

It must be a quarter of an hour before Renfrew calls them in. Rich, golden gaslight welcomes them; thick carpets that suck all sound from their steps. They are all there, all the masters. There are seven of them— Renfrew-Foybles-Harmon-Swinburne-Barlow-Winslow-Trout—but only three that count. Renfrew is tall and well-built, and still rather young. He wears his hair short, as well as his beard, and favours a dark, belted suit that seems to encase him from neck to ankle. A white silken scarf, worn tight at the throat, vouches for his virtue.

Excerpted from Smoke by Dan Vyleta. Copyright © 2016 by Dan Vyleta. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.