Sebastian Nicolas was born with a silver spoon so heavy, it nearly weighed down his soul.

As the only heir to the esteemed Nicolas family—a lineage whispered about in drawing rooms and printed in the society columns of London and abroad—Sebastian never knew a moment of wanting. He was raised within the ivy-covered walls of an ancestral estate tucked deep into the English countryside, a grand manor with turrets, servants’ wings, and sprawling rose gardens that could swallow a child whole.

His days were filled with Latin tutors, horseback riding, and chamber music. His nights were candlelit feasts served on china imported from the East. His nursery was lined with handcrafted wooden toys from Germany, silk-draped canopies from France, and books he never read. If something displeased him, it was promptly replaced. If he shouted, grown men flinched.

And yet—for all his silks, sweets, and splendor—Sebastian had no companions.

He told himself it was fine. He was better off alone. The other children were loud, uncouth, common. He had no need for their games or laughter. He wore waistcoats, not mud. He memorized poetry, not playground rhymes. But over time, pride soured into pettiness, and loneliness twisted into cruelty.

By his tenth birthday, Sebastian had grown into a tyrant in short trousers—demanding, sharp-tongued, utterly insufferable. He looked down his nose at everyone, from the scullery maid to his own tutors, and never thanked a soul for anything.

His parents—Lord and Lady Nicolas, once so proud—could bear it no longer.

One overcast morning, under the pretense of a carriage ride, they brought him to the iron gates of Phillips Academy, a stern, stone-clad institution tucked in the New England colonies—an ocean away from everything familiar. Known for its strict moral code, classical education, and icy discipline, the school was the antithesis of Sebastian’s pampered world.

There was no parting embrace. No comforting words. Only a curt nod from his father, a gloved hand on his shoulder from his mother, and then the carriage wheels crunching down the gravel path without him.

Sebastian stood motionless in his woolen coat, a single leather trunk beside him. No valet to carry it. No footman to tip his cap. Just the raw wind, the solemn toll of the Academy’s bell, and a creeping fear he dared not name.