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Claudio had woken far too late. He imagined all of his classmates standing outside before Daemon with practice foils in hand. No, he would not do that scarred youth the privilege to call him by his last name. Such a respect he showed only to his father albeit rarely. His father was an investor, and a poor one at that. If not for the proverbial gold he had struck on the Globe Theater, Claudio quite acutely imagined the debtors' prison cell he would have occupied. His father had spent a large portion of money on the controversial attraction. He had ignored the advice of their priest and family, but if he had listened to them, Claudio would have been left to sleep in a pig's sty rather than on a soft mattress.

"Bollux on father and bollux on Daemon," Claudio mumbled with as much disdain as he could muster from beneath his bed linens and the night gown that threaten to tie a knot around his legs. He had insisted the servants pick up a more fitting night gown at the market last week. No matter; Claudio got his revenge on a daily basis.This day, Claudio mused as he stood, would be an especially vengeful day. Before he changed clothes, before he ate, and before he washed, Claudio lethargically moved to his dresser and the plain oak cupboards that he had hung above it. He began to open shelves, rifle through drawers, and burrow his way through clutter and catastrophic chaos to find his daily essentials: a dead spider tied at the end of an especially long string, a trip-line made from slender (yet surprisingly sturdy) silver cord, and, at the end of a long rope, a noose just big enough for a person's foot to slip and be caught up into. Every morning since Claudio first arrived at Verum Domus months ago, he pondered the many ways he could use rope to make everyone else's lives a living hell.

He had been at the school long enough to know by now where everyone was this time of the day. Such knowledge is especially useful for one with malicious intent. And, as fate would have it, malicious intent clouded heavily in Claudio's mind as he bathed carefully in rose water sent to him by his mother. The scent of them was his only memory of her, but it mattered little. She enjoyed herself as she traipsed from colony to colony on his father's coin, so why should he not enjoy himself in school? And he certainly wouldn't enjoy himself much in a stuffy old classroom. Washed and changed into an uncomfortably stiff starched shirt and black trousers of his finest leather, Claudio moved silently out of his room and out of the dormitories entirely. A satchel sown haphazardly was slung over his shoulder, the contents of which consisting mostly of rope along with the occasional dead spider or three.

He was to late to find Kizzy at the kitchens, Claudio assumed with careful thought, but he could catch that singing choirboy, if the stars chose to align as such. Claudio barely concealed a boisterous laugh at the image of the dark-haired servant tripping over his slender silver cord or slipping as Claudio closed a noose around his ankle(s). As Claudio approached the kitchens as silently a his bare feet would allow, he heard not singing, but the crackling and simmering of lard being poured into a cast iron pan and flames crackling beneath that. She's late. Cain will have a fit like no other if he doesn't have a full belly by his second class. Claudio stifled an infantile giggle as he imagined her standing like a babe against Cain's wrath.

Without any further delay, Claudio slithered as a snake preparing to snare a mouse onto the kitchen floors. He was barely in range to let his plans unfold. The fire roared just loud enough to hide the whisper of his footsteps. He pulled from his satchel his weapon of chose, and, in a moment, a dead spider sat on a cast iron skillet with a string around its waist like a puppet waiting for his master to make him dance. At first, Kizzy didn't notice it, so focused as she was to prepare her food. But dance the puppet did, and the spider danced all along the melting lard and frying eggs and bacon. It really was a testament to Claudio's skill that he could control a dead spider with just a string and his hands. An even greater testament to Kizzy's lung capacity was the scream that erupted from somewhere within her once she and the spider caught each other's eyes.