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

Renfrew interrupts himself, his calm self-possession momentarily strained by excitement. He resumes at a different point and in a different voice, gentler, more intimate, drawing a step closer to the boys and speaking as though only to them.

"I say I spent the morning analysing these two shirts and I found something unusual. Something disconcerting. A type of Soot I have seen only once before. In a prison."

He draws closer yet, wets his lips. His voice is not without compassion. "There is a cancer growing in one of you. A moral cancer. Sin"—a flicker of a glance here, over to Swinburne, hostile and ironic—"as black as Adam's. It requires drastic measures. If it takes hold—if it takes over the organism down to the last cell . . . well, there will be nothing anybody can do." He pauses, fixes both boys in his sight. "You will be lost."

For a minute and more after this announcement, Thomas goes deaf. It's a funny sort of deaf: his ears work just fine but the words he hears do not reach his brain, not in the normal manner where they are sifted for significance and given a place in the hierarchy of meaning. Now they just accumulate.

It's Julius who is speaking. His tone is measured, if injured.

"Won't you even ask what happened, Master Renfrew?" he asks. "I thought I had earned some measure of trust at this school, but I see now that I was mistaken. Argyle attacked me. Like a rabid dog. I had no choice but to restrain him. He rubbed his filth into me. The Soot is his. I never smoke."

Renfrew lets him finish, watches not Julius but the other teachers, some of whom are muttering in support. Thomas, uncomprehending, follows his gaze and finds an accusation written in the masters' faces. He, Thomas, has done this to one of theirs, they seem to be saying. Has covered him in dirt. Their golden boy. Thomas would like to refute the accusation, but his thoughts just won't latch on. All he can think is: what does it mean to be "lost"?

"I have had occasion," Renfrew replies at last, "to collect three separate statements concerning the incident you are referring to, Mr. Spencer. I believe I have a very accurate impression of how events unfolded. The facts of the matter are these. Both shirts are soiled—from the inside and out. The Soot is of variable quality. But I took samples of this"—he picks from his pocket a glass slide at the centre of which a few grains of Soot hang suspended in a drop of reddish liquid—"from both shirts. I could not determine the origin.

"Both shirts," he continues, now turning to the teachers, "also bear marks of being tampered with: one very crudely"—a nod to Thomas— "the other rather more sophisticatedly. Almost inexplicably, Mr. Spencer."

Julius swallows, jerks his head. A crack of panic now mars his voice.

"I wholly reject . . . You will have to answer to my family! It was this boy, this beast . . ."

He trails off, his voice raw with anger. Swinburne rescues him: rushes up, with a rustle of his dark gown, taps Julius on the shoulder, ordering him to shut up. Up close Swinburne smells unaired and musty, like a cellar. The smell helps Thomas recover his wits. It is the most real thing in the entire room. That and a knocking, like a hard fist on wood. Nobody reacts to it. It must be his heart.

"Mr. Spencer is innocent." Swinburne's voice brooks no dissent. He speaks as though delivering a verdict. "I too made inquiries about the incident last night. The situation is quite clear. It's that boy's fault. His Smoke is potent. It infected Spencer."

"Infected?" Renfrew smiles while the knocking grows louder. "A medical term, Master Swinburne. So unlike you. But you are quite right. Smoke infects. A point only imperfectly understood, I fear. Which is why I insist that both these boys join the Trip tomorrow."

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.