We created gods, and in our blinding, reckless vanity, never asked the question: What happens if these gods come to despise us? —DOMINIC CRUPP, AN ORANGE
CHAPTER 15
My hands slam against metal as I crawl through the ventilation shaft. Left.
Right. Another left. The shaft twists and branches, stretching endlessly through the Speakeasy’s hidden anatomy. Sweat drips down my face, leaving itchy trails. My knuckles are scraped raw, glistening with blood and plasma, and every movement of my blistered feet sends a fresh twinge of pain up my legs. The ache in my body begs me to stop and rest, but I can’t.
Almost there.
I take a sharp left, then glance down between the iron slats of a grate.
Below, the smoky glow of the Cigar Den stirs with hushed voices and clinking glasses. I crawl forward, my rustling movements echoing in the confined space. Ahead, music filters through the ducts, growing louder as I reach the Lindy Hop Ballroom. The wild, familiar rhythm matches the pounding of my hands on the metal.
The Lucky Dice Loft is here, sandwiched between the Ballroom and the Den, a long, narrow corridor of private gambling rooms and high-stakes bets.
And Edmund, if he’s still inside.
I ignore the tired burn in my shoulders as I push onward. The grates above the rooms are now closer together, one for each private gambling space.
Through the slats, I glimpse flashes of silk, smoke, and blue. High-citizens lounge in deep, overstuffed chairs, drunk and careless, diamonds spilling from their hands like teeth from a broken jaw. Laughter fills the air, rising like champagne bubbles, too loud and too carefree.
I frown, wondering why the hell they’re laughing, until I notice the thick, vault-like walls that seal in the luxury. They’re likely soundproof. Most of
the high-citizens look too drunk to read a text. They probably know nothing about the murdered students or President Reeve’s assassination.
I crawl forward, my breath coming in ragged bursts. Every grate seems to blur together until I suddenly hear a loud, wild laugh that sounds like Edmund’s, but it’s too pleasant to fit the feral animal I met on the Regal
Express.
He’s in the seventh room.
I creep toward it and peer through the grate. The dim light casts long shadows across a low, smoky room, wide enough for a felt poker table and a polished cherrywood bar. Edmund sits at the center, flanked by two other high-citizens, their bespoke shoes planted on the intricate rug beneath them.
On the table, gemstones glitter in loose piles—emeralds, rubies, sapphires— scattered like dice across the felt.
Nearby, a Pinkie monitors the game. Its mechanical voice drones over the quiet chatter, announcing scores and confirming bets.
Edmund fans his cards in one hand, his shoulders loose and his smile wide, utterly at odds with the coiled fury I saw on the Regal Express. His burgundy tie hangs slack at his collar, and his navy-and-gold waistcoat is dusted with cigar ash. The sleeves of his crisp ivory shirt are rolled to his elbows, revealing a faint scar from the scorpion sting. Two crushed cigar stubs and three empty brandy and beer glasses sit on a nearby sideboard, as if he’s been here for hours. His pile of gemstones is pitiful compared with the gleaming towers stacked before his two opponents, yet he doesn’t seem to notice or care that he’s losing.
“Were you really stung by a deathstalker, Mr. Prew?” one of the Blues asks, a beautiful woman wearing a headdress of cascading pearls. She slips a cigarette into a diamond-studded holder. “Is it as painful as they say?”
Edmund stands, pulls a lighter from his pocket, and leans in to light the cigarette for her. “Not enough to cancel a party.”
Her eyebrows lift. “You were stung at a party, then?”
Edmund settles back into his chair with a laugh. “Not the kind I usually host.”
The other Blue at the table, a dark-skinned man with a pencil mustache, waves his beer glass at Edmund. “Speaking of parties, I hear on good authority that yours are rather… dare I say, infamous?”
A shadow crosses Edmund’s face, almost too quick to catch, before the smoke from his cigar masks it. “I learned from the best.”
I edge closer until my face nearly touches the grate. From this angle, I see Edmund has been injured by more than the scorpion. There’s a fresh cut along the side of his neck, too deep to be an accident. It looks like it was made by a fingernail. And Edmund must’ve allowed it. No one touches a Blue without permission. If he’s cheating on Irene, he must’ve been with one of the women today.
It occurs to me, then, that maybe Edmund isn’t being careless about his affairs. What if he’s deliberately revealing the scratches as an open taunt to Irene? Since he’s not hiding them, it seems likely he wants her to see the evidence and know he’s been with other women.
I lean back, wondering how to get his attention. Below, the game continues as the Pinkie flips a single card face-up in the center of the table.
The mustached Blue slides a diamond across the felt. “I raise.”
The Pinkie examines the diamond through a lens. “Flawless clarity,” it announces. “Excellent cut. 5.4 carats. Value: three million.”
The bet moves to Edmund. He absently rubs his eyebrow as he looks over his cards, as if seeing them for the first time. With the community cards, he has four of a kind, a hand strong enough to beat the mustached Blue’s full house. He calls the bet.
The Pinkie steps in, its mechanical limbs clacking as it sorts through Edmund’s meager stash. “Ruby,” the robot declares, setting a stone aside.
“Vivid red. High clarity. Value: eight hundred thousand.” Next comes an emerald. “Vivid green. Excellent clarity. Value: seven hundred thousand.”
Then a sapphire worth five hundred thousand and a pink spinel worth three hundred and fifty thousand.
But the stones are still not worth enough to match the diamond’s value. As the Pinkie continues sorting, Edmund reaches for a beer bottle and tops off the mustached Blue’s glass. He lifts his own glass and holds it out.
The mustached Blue studies Edmund, then swirls his beer dismissively. “I don’t toast an opponent, Mr. Prew. Not until the game is finished.”
Edmund inclines his head, but doesn’t withdraw his glass. “That is exactly when a toast matters most.”
The mustached Blue arches an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“You clink so the beer spills into each other’s glasses—just enough to prove neither of us poisoned the other.”
The mustached Blue glances down at his glass, considering for a moment.
Then he laughs, sharp and delighted. “Well then. As long as we’re enemies.”
The mustached Blue raises his glass and taps it against the side of Edmund’s, firm enough that a few dark drops leap the rims and mingle.
The Blue woman exhales a ribbon of smoke, her smile turning curious.
“How intriguing, Mr. Prew. If a toast is meant for enemies, what’s the equivalent for friends?”
Edmund takes a sip of his beer, then turns to her, his expression polite yet direct. “Friends drink from the same glass.”
He holds his beer out toward her.
She hesitates only a moment before taking the glass. As she drinks, her throat bobs slightly, and a flush creeps up her neck.
I’m feeling flustered myself, but not because of Edmund. I don’t have time to wait for this game to drag on. For all I know, they could play all night. I reach for Dad’s daffodil brooch, pinned to my gown. After I used its camera footage to force Edmund to uphold our agreement, I know he’ll remember it. Carefully, I loosen the pin and hold the brooch out for a moment, its hard edges biting into my fingertips. Then I drop it through the grate, where it lands on the table with a soft thud, its brilliance swallowed by the piles of gemstones.
A moment of stunned silence passes before the mustached Blue jerks his head up. “Who’s there?”
The Blue woman springs to her feet so forcefully that her chair topples sideways onto the rug. In one swift motion, she draws a pistol from a garter on her thigh and points it at the grate. “Identify yourself. Now.”
Edmund, meanwhile, stares curiously at the brooch. He picks it up slowly, turns it over in his fingers, and sets it back on the felt.
He remembers.
“Mr. Blakely. Miss Seymour.” Edmund’s voice cuts through the charged air. “I am afraid I must bid you good evening. Please accept my apologies— and an invitation to my party tomorrow night.”
The two Blues exchange a glance that shifts from surprise to disbelief.
“And the gemstones?” Miss Seymour asks.
Edmund pushes the remaining pile toward them. “A gift.”
The Pinkie hands each Blue a velvet satchel. They begin scooping the gemstones into their satchels with brisk, practiced efficiency, but when Miss Seymour reaches for the daffodil brooch, Edmund’s hand flashes out and gently catches her wrist.
“You have an excellent eye, Miss Seymour,” he says. “Excellent enough
to observe that this brooch is not a gemstone.”
Her hand stills in his grasp. She looks up and meets his gaze, his smile still perfectly polite. After a brief pause, she lets out a soft, forced laugh and flicks her fingers, letting the brooch fall back onto the felt.
The Blues finish gathering the gemstones in silence. Mr. Blakely tucks his cigar into the corner of his mouth and turns to leave, while Miss Seymour straightens her headdress, her gaze never quite leaving Edmund. At the door, they both tilt their heads back, casting curious glances toward the ceiling vent. The Pinkie opens the door for them, and they step out with reluctant grace.
Edmund picks up the brooch again and leans back in his chair, the wood groaning under his weight. “Miss Waldsten…” His gaze settles on the grate.
“You may now crawl out of the ceiling.”
I tug at the grate, but the screws won’t budge. My hands are swelling, each throbbing cut a vivid reminder of how much it cost me to rip off the last one. “A gentleman opens the door,” I say.
Edmund rolls the brooch between his palms, amused. “Ah, so you
consider me a gentleman now?”
“That remains to be seen.”
He considers for a moment, then exhales sharply, like a beast settling its hackles. The room seems to shrink around him as he stands. He steps onto the table, planting his shoe squarely on his cards, and crouches beneath the metal grate. In one brutal motion, he tears it free and drops it to the floor. Then he straightens, his head level with the vent opening, and looks at me.
“A lady offers her gratitude,” he says.
I edge toward him, forcing a sweet smile. “Thank you.”
He lets out a dry laugh, then steps down and sinks back into his chair.
My body screams in pain as I follow. At the edge of the vent opening, I lower myself from the ceiling and drop onto the table. My legs buckle on impact, and I crumple before Edmund, a shivering, blood-streaked mess.
“You look as if you have reached the seventh level,” he says, sliding me the daffodil brooch. “And yet here we are on the third. Why have you come, Miss Waldsten?”
The truth about President Reeve’s assassination rises in my throat, but I hold it back. Telling Edmund now could be a mistake. If he learns Reeve is dead, he’ll realize that being near anyone tied to the Bliss Prohibition Act is a liability and might decide that bringing me into his entourage is too risky.
With the Blues still out there hunting the children of the representatives who voted to ban Bliss, I can’t leave the Speakeasy alone. The only way to guarantee my survival is to walk out with Edmund as part of his entourage.
So I say nothing about the coup.
I grab the brooch and drag myself forward, smearing blood across the felt as I fold into the chair beside him. Pain throbs through every inch of me, but I manage to say, “To join your entourage.”
Edmund huffs a laugh, as if I just challenged him to an arm-wrestling match. But as I hold his stare, the doubt begins to fade, sharpening into a flat,
pointed smile. “No.”
“Why not?”
“It is a very long line.”
“Perhaps. But given that I still have a request, I am cutting to the front.”
Edmund picks up his cigar from the ashtray, and his smile bleeds away.
Smoke wafts around his face, tracing its angled lines until his eyes suddenly flare wide. “Fuck.”
I lean forward in my chair, a smirk on my face. Our bargain. He knows it’s incomplete. I asked him to save Jane, but Jane is dead.
“Is that a yes?” I ask.
“I did not say that.”
“So, it’s a no?”
“I did not say that either.”
With an irritated grunt, Edmund sets his elbows on the table and scans me as if taking inventory: my bloodied knuckles, my blistered feet, and the anxiety evident in every twitch of my body. “Tell me who injured you, Miss Waldsten. And do not lie.”
Formal speech feels too clean for a moment like this, but I still manage to string the words together, explaining that Blues murdered two students in the Gin Gallery in retaliation for their representative parents voting to ban Bliss.
A pulse flickers in his neck as I talk, faint yet fast, as if his blood is burning beneath his skin. But when I reach the part about Irene’s attack, something changes. A light touches his eyes, a sudden, hungry spark, like a
match struck in a dark room.
I don’t understand it.
If Edmund brings me into his entourage, won’t that drive an even wider wedge between him and Irene? The only explanation is that he dislikes her enough not to care. It makes me wonder whether, like most high-citizen
marriages, theirs was arranged. Still, Edmund doesn’t strike me as the type to give in to force, which means the payout must’ve been too big to pass up.
Treading carefully, I skip Irene’s offer to turn me into a spy and jump ahead to Sergeant Croft’s intervention and our escape. Edmund listens in silence, but halfway through, he lifts his cigar.
I go quiet.
Smoke rises between us in a twisting column, clouding his eyes as they drift toward the empty shaft where I was hiding. He blinks through the haze, absently brushing the scratch on the side of his neck.
The silence stretches long enough that I’m sure he’s calculating the consequences. How much risk will my membership in his entourage bring?
How will the other high-citizens react? They won’t care that he’s honoring a bargain; they’ll care about public appearances.
And yet I can see by the ease of his posture and the slow pull on his cigar that he’s made up his mind.
“In my entourage,” Edmund says at last, tossing the cigar back into the ashtray, “there are rules, Miss Waldsten.”
I nod, bracing myself. I haven’t forgotten Harrison’s warning about the cost of protection from a Blue. “Are you referring to service work, Mr.
Prew?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “My entourage is not a cleanup crew, Miss Waldsten.
No services will be required. You will not touch me.”
The bite in his tone makes me wonder if he’s one of those Blues who think low-citizens are like echoes, heard only after their voice has finished speaking. But Edmund can’t possibly see Jack and Dickie that way. If he did, he wouldn’t have given them the blue bands on their Blood Rings, which grant them special privileges. I still don’t know exactly what the blue bands do or how they work. In the chaos of the last week, I forgot to ask Dad.
“Because I am low?” I say.
“Because I am engaged. And you are a woman.”
Who does he think he’s fooling? Irene has already caught on to his affairs, and so have I. Why pretend he’s the home-and-hearth type?
“Are women temptations to you, Mr. Prew?” I ask as he reaches for his brandy.
Edmund stops mid-sip and smiles to himself. “If you are referring to yourself, Miss Waldsten, then no. You are a loud-mouthed distraction.”
“If you do not care for loud people, you must care little for yourself.”
He sets down his brandy with a self-deprecating laugh. “Yes, I care little.
But only on Saturdays.”
That’s a strange thing to say. “Why on Saturdays?”
“It is time to move on, Miss Waldsten.”
I lean back in my chair, wincing as my raw knuckles brush my gown.
“Your rules. What will you expect from me?”
“Loyalty,” Edmund says without hesitation. “My trust is one chance deep.
Betray it—dishonor me or my name—and there will be no forgiveness.
Should such a breach occur, our agreement will be void, and I will have no further obligation to you. If, however, you maintain your trustworthiness, your position in my entourage will remain secure for one year. At the conclusion of that year, our formal arrangement shall be considered fulfilled and formally dissolved.”
One year. That’s too long to stomach and too short to matter. I’ll need at least two years before I can lift my weapons restriction and stop relying on others for protection. But with President Reeve dead and hundreds of Blue students targeting me and the other low-citizen students whose parents voted to ban Bliss, I realize I’m not in a position to negotiate.
“Your offer, Mr. Prew… I accept.”
“Then we have an agreement.”
Edmund responds before the echo of my words fades. I find it strange that he mentions no additional rules or terms, and even stranger that he reaches for me so quickly, as if he wants this bargain as much as I do.
I can’t imagine why.
His Blood Ring, a thick blue meteorite band engraved with gold motifs, eclipses mine. He leans in for the scan, the official gesture that secures my place in his entourage. But just before our hands meet, an alarm above the door erupts with bright, strobing lights.
“Emergency alert. Evacuate immediately,” an automated voice announces.
Edmund pulls away and looks coolly at the blaring alarm. He stands, smooths his hair, rolls down his sleeves, and shrugs into his velvet double- breasted suit jacket. He jerks on a pair of white dress gloves as he strides toward the door, then stops short, tilting his head to pin me in his sights. “Can you walk?”
Barely. But I’m not about to ask him to carry me. I force myself to stand and hobble after him, each step a struggle to keep up with his long strides.
The chandelier-lit corridor stretches before us, as empty as the ventilation
shaft.
At the end, we take the elevator to the Oval. Even with Dickie’s earlier call, I’m unprepared for the chaos when we reach the first floor.
Coppers fill the rooms, their badges glinting like rifle scopes, their glossy helmets reflecting the chaos. The music has stopped, the gambling tables have been cleared, and the bars are shuttered. The atmosphere chokes, suffocated by the absence of the party, as wailing alarms push the evacuation forward. Students skip the coat check, leaving their belongings behind. Some stumble, wide-eyed, while others stand frozen, watching the Coppers seal rooms with magnetic barriers.
Edmund cuts through the crowd as if madness were meant to clear a path for him. And it does. Students, even the Coppers, step aside. Their eyes dart toward me as I hobble behind him, curious about what I’m doing with Edmund Prew.
We exit the Speakeasy through the exclusive portico reserved for Blues. A Pinkie rushes off to retrieve Edmund’s hovercar while he breaks away to speak with a Copper. I move close enough to overhear the Copper brief him on the events at the Bridge Banquet.
Edmund sets his teeth as he listens, his fist tightening in his pocket. The concern on his face catches me off guard, and I wonder whether he’s one of the few Blues left who still supports Reeve.
“Is the president alive?” Edmund asks the Copper.
“Yes, Mr. Prew. He has been admitted to Pembroke Hospital, but his
condition remains uncertain.”
Alive.
The word is so overwhelming that I bury my face in my hands.
Hoverships are already evacuating students, ferrying them back to the beach. Directly in my line of sight, a Medevac helicopter idles as the bodies of three students are loaded inside. Coppers move across the area like a living, breathing net closing around the Speakeasy. I spot Sergeant Arthur Croft among them, uninjured and alert. He strides with purpose, helping a dozen Coppers escort four Blues through the gardens toward the open doors of an armored transport.
Students stop to gape as the Blues pass, and so do I. The Blues are cuffed, not with the slim restraints high-citizens usually get, but with heavy-duty shackles I know all too well. They’re programmable, designed to shock anyone who resists.
It can only mean one thing.
The coup failed.
If it had succeeded, there’d be no law and order, and certainly no high- citizen arrests. For a moment, I forget the horror of the night and believe there’s hope.
Then the image of the shackled Blues drags me back.
Irene isn’t among them.
She stands beneath a cypress tree, her friends clustered behind her like shadows. The women watch in stunned silence, their faces deathly pale as the arrested Blues are forced into the armored transport. An unlit cigar hangs from Irene’s mouth, and when she notices the shackles, she bites down hard, as if jolted by shock. Yet beneath it, I see the tremor of fear, the slow, dawning realization that she could be next. The transport doors slam shut with an echoing thud, and Irene’s gaze sweeps the garden until her eyes lock onto me. Her body stiffens, bristling with such rage that I’m sure she’ll lunge
at me.
Then Sergeant Croft steps forward.
“Miss Hussey,” he calls, striding toward her with a squad of Coppers at his back. “You are hereby under arrest for attempted murder. Your privileges are suspended. You will comply, or you will be restrained.”
Irene’s hand twitches toward the saber at her hip. Her teeth clamp down harder on the cigar as her fingers grip the hilt, white-knuckled and trembling.
She shifts into en garde, her legs planted and her body poised to strike. Her eyes rake wildly over the crowd, frantic and searching, until they settle on Edmund.
And just like that, a glimmer of hope lights her face, as if she believes he’ll draw. As if she thinks her fiancé will come charging in, saber raised, ready to fight for her.
Edmund meets Irene’s stare through the wall of Coppers. His back is planted to me, his face hidden, but I notice him pull something from his pocket as he starts toward her. Sergeant Croft warns him to stop, his voice commanding, until he sees what Edmund is holding. Then he signals for the Coppers to let him through.
The hope in Irene’s eyes burns brighter. She speaks to Edmund as he stops beside her, but instead of responding, he raises the platinum lighter in his hand. With a flick of the flint wheel, he lights the cigar in her mouth. Irene’s eyes widen in stunned disbelief as Edmund slips the lighter back into his
pocket, turns away, and walks toward me through the crowd. Under the glare of the Copper transport lights, I see Irene spit the cigar from her mouth and scrub both hands desperately down her face.
When Edmund reaches me, he strips off his glove and scans his Blood Ring against mine. The sharp beep that follows cracks like a gunshot.
Moments later, the smoke clears, and a notification appears on my Bond. My student profile opens, filled with personal details, but it’s the gleaming new badge on my avatar that steals my breath. It’s blue, shaped like the Prew family crest, and stamped with Edmund’s name.
I’m in his entourage.
“Is this badge public, Mr. Prew?” I ask, my voice barely cutting through the roar of his hovercar as it pulls up to the curb.
“Yes,” Edmund says as a Pinkie holds the door open. “You might not like me, Miss Waldsten, but you will love being my friend.”
He slides into the backseat.
I pause beside the open door, bracing against the cold night wind as I glance back at Irene. Her expression has changed, now animated by personal scorn, as if I’ve stolen something from her. Maybe I have. Her blue eyes, patient and certain, hold the promise of death. What I see in her face runs deeper than anger or betrayal. It’s devastation, the kind that eats straight through the meat of the heart.
Irene resists no further. Even as Sergeant Croft confiscates her saber and cuffs her wrists, she stands motionless, watching me, that silent promise filling the space between us.
As I step into the hovercar with her fiancé, her words from the Trophy Club echo back, the cutting lecture on pleasantries and triumphs.
I smile.
And this time, it isn’t forced.
