The irony of high-citizens having freedom is that most of us don’t know
what to do with it. —EDMUND PREW
CHAPTER 19
The next day feels different, or maybe I’m the one who’s changed. It’s not that I woke up wanting to be friends with Edmund Prew, or that I’ve come around to the Blues and their system of rule. But what happened in the Tangerine Tree has changed things.
Now I owe Edmund. And whether I like it or not, I’m grateful he risked his life to protect me. At first, I was sure the wind blew wherever he walked.
I thought all of this was a game to him, a low-stakes show of power in which
he paraded me around.
But I realize I was wrong.
So I bite the bullet and start being nice to him. I show up on time and greet him politely. I follow a step behind without complaining, even if it means breaking the law and losing civil credits. I sit through breakfast as Edmund, Jack, and Dickie fill the air with their rough, boyish laughter, ignoring Charlotte and me as if we’re nothing more than two extra slices in the bread basket.
The little things don’t matter anymore, so I let them slide.
At the same time, whenever I see Edmund’s proud, high-held face, I’m constantly reminded of my parents’ warning about the Prews. I desperately want to ask Dad what he and Mom have against the Prew family, but I know that if I do, I’ll invite questions I can’t afford to answer. Dad doesn’t know I’m part of Edmund’s entourage or that I spend nearly every waking hour by his side. And if I can help it, he never will. I’d rather lie by omission than see him disappointed in me.
I dodge Dad’s calls until the end of the week, placating him with detailed
text messages about how I’m doing, until he starts leaving voice messages tinged with suspicion that I’m avoiding him. I know I shouldn’t wait much longer, especially since I want to ask him about Jack’s and Dickie’s blue bands. So when Dad calls on Saturday night, while I’m taking my daily vitamins in the lavatory of my suite, I finally answer.
He’s home for the weekend. It’s a rare break from the relentless march of politics, a chance to spend time with Mom, Hillaire, and Vivian. He’s in the library, seated on the tufted leather sofa where he usually enjoys a nightcap.
Mom dozes beside him, her head resting on his shoulder. Even in sleep, her face is flawlessly made up. If she woke up now, she could walk straight onto a stage.
Dad sits still with his glass of brandy, careful not to disturb her. His suit is washed to a shine, and his hair is slicked back with pomade, yet none of it hides the weariness in his eyes. The shadows beneath them speak of sleepless nights and the weight of decisions I’ll never fully understand.
“It’s nice to see you, Loredana,” he says. His voice is softer and warmer than usual, but what strikes me most is its calm.
It’s the kind of calm I haven’t heard since I was a child; back when Dad still laughed easily, still hummed under his breath while polishing his saxophone, still stole playful kisses from Mom when he thought my sisters and I weren’t looking; back when the burden of his responsibilities hadn’t dulled the spark in him that now lives only in the old family portraits lining our home’s walls.
Vivian, Hillaire, and I are to blame. As we grew older, edging toward the threshold of becoming Public People, we stole Dad’s calm.
None of us meant to.
“It’s nice to see you, too,” I reply, holding onto the image in front of me like a fragile photograph I don’t want to wrinkle. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, honey, today it is.” Dad flashes a faint smile that speaks for itself.
His intervention at the Bridge Banquet has given him more than a fifteen- minute flirtation with fame. His polling numbers have risen enough to challenge President Reeve’s, and even the media is reporting on him favorably. Some are already hinting he might be suited for something beyond a representative’s role.
“This isn’t just about Bliss anymore.” Dad’s eyes drift to the Blood Ring on his thumb, a small but constant reminder of our place. “We’ve got a real chance now to get justice… and maybe even more than that.”
My heart pounds wildly at the thought. He’s talking about rebalancing the scales, lifting ourselves from the floor to the table, where we’ll finally call our own shots. No more breathing secondhand air. No more eating shit and calling it caviar. True sovereignty.
But neither of us says it aloud. It feels like a delicate spell, one that might break or even curse us if we name it too soon.
“What about you?” Dad asks, taking a sip of his brandy. “Are things getting any better at Grandmaster?”
“With Irene out of the picture, yeah.” I carefully avoid his gaze. Questions about my safety are exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
I text him the photo I snapped of Dickie’s blue band on the Regal Express.
“Do you know what this is?”
Dad frowns at the photo, then sits up quickly, making Mom stir against his shoulder. “Where did you—”
“I saw a student wearing it on the train when I first got here.”
Confusion crosses his face. He rubs his mouth, his eyes still fixed on the photo, and stays quiet so long I almost repeat the question. When he finally speaks, his tone is careful, as if he’s handling something sharp.
“Yeah, I know it. It’s called an Aegis. It started showing up around the time I was a student at Grandmaster. The Blues repurpose them from the Blood Rings of dead family members.”
“So, it’s not a high-citizen Blood Ring?”
“Not quite. It’s more of a low-citizen upgrade. It grants extra privileges and even boosts your civil credits. The Blues are cagey about the specifics, but it puts you above us and below them.”
That lines up with what I’ve seen. Jack and Dickie use their Aegises more often than Charlotte charges Gibson cocktails to my student tab. But the blue bands have their limits. There are still places Jack and Dickie can’t access unless Edmund steps in.
“Have you seen many Aegises in politics?”
Dad pauses. “Two. Maybe three.”
My eyes widen. “Three?”
“Yeah. Even that surprised me. Technically, any Blue with a dead relative can make one, but most don’t. They’d rather destroy the ring.”
I don’t need to ask why.
The call ends shortly after, and as I crawl into bed, my thoughts drift to
Edmund, wondering why he didn’t destroy the rings.
I watch him closely over the next few days. The way he moves with Jack and Dickie is like three parts of the same machine, held together by screws only they seem to feel. Blues are supposed to hate low-citizens, seeing them as trash clogging the gutters, yet here Edmund is, breaking ranks for two of them. It’s like trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.
And then there’s Dad, knee-deep in the same contradictions. He despises the Blues and makes no secret of his mistrust, yet he’s friends with President Reeve, one of their own.
Is that what love does? Does it blur the lines of your ideals and soften the edges of your principles, until even the most steadfast people become hypocrites?
I don’t know, but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. And it makes me afraid of who I’ll fall for. Afraid of who I’ll love.
By Monday, nearly every student on campus has seen the video of Edmund’s death duel in the Tangerine Tree. Everywhere I look, the footage is playing on bar and club screens, mirrored across Bond feeds, and whispered about in the first-year Lecture Hall corners. The image of Edmund, blade pointed at the crowd of Blues, spreads like wildfire. His mother, the Headmistress of Grandmaster, tries to contain it. She bans the video from university networks, threatens consequences for anyone caught with a copy, and even enlists the campus Coppers to monitor for public discussion.
Headmistress Prew claims the ban is to protect the victims’ dignity, but I know the real reason. Blues aren’t supposed to kill other Blues. Dickie said Edmund paid a heap of money to both victims’ families as restitution. Even so, the victims’ parents must be tearing Headmistress Prew limb from limb, demanding to know how the hell this happened under her watch. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re trying to have her removed as Headmistress. That’s why she’s doing everything she can to hide the color of the blood her son
spilled.
But it’s too late.
Everywhere we go, the campus reacts like cattle sensing an earthquake.
Low-citizen students scatter, shrinking back against walls and doorframes,
rerouting to avoid us. Conversations halt mid-sentence, and voices drop to whispers whenever we get too close. Even the Blues, who once stared Edmund down at eye level, now glance a little lower.
With each passing day, I breathe easier. I think less about my stolen energy shield and the looming threat of my vulnerability. I stop obsessively refreshing the Copper directory online, searching for Sergeant Croft, and I stop walking past the campus Copper Headquarters, trying new strategies to get the information the officer at the front desk has repeatedly denied me.
“Privacy and security,” he always says. I don’t even bother anymore.
My mistrust of Coppers runs deeper now, but I don’t feel in danger.
For the first time since I arrived at Grandmaster University, I feel safe. It makes me realize something I thought I already knew but never truly understood. I never knew what freedom was until I joined Edmund’s entourage. His shadow stretches over all of us, yet in that shadow, I’m
untouchable.
For now.
Slowly and cautiously, I edge past him. I use my free time to experience the university not as a battleground of threats and surveillance but as a place to enjoy as a normal student. Together, Charlotte and I find rhythm in the campus’s routine and secrets in its corners, exploring every hotspot like we’re on a scavenger hunt. We dance through underground clubs, speed along the coast in rented boats under violet skies, and sift through antique boutiques for treasures I usually end up mailing home to Mom and Vivian.
One afternoon, I snap a photo of the Genetic Engineering Facility—a massive brick-and-glass building glowing like a ship about to launch—and send it to Hillaire. She prints the photo and frames it on her bedroom wall, as if it were art. As the weather turns colder and the sidewalks pile with leaves, I send her virtual tours of campus, my voice floating over the crunch of my boots.
I try to keep up with Vivian, too. When I call, she mostly wants to talk about Harrison, so it’s easy to keep the spotlight off the information I want to hide. Yes, Vivian knows about Irene’s attack. With all the media coverage of the Blue arrests, everyone in the Civilized World does. But she doesn’t know a Copper tried to kill me or that another stole my energy shield. And she definitely doesn’t know I made a deal with Edmund and joined his entourage.
Maybe Vivian wouldn’t judge me. Maybe she’d even understand. But I can’t tell her or Hillaire. If I do, I’ll have to admit that, yet again, I couldn’t
make it on my own.
Most days, I’m either training, in class, or studying. I enjoy some of my classes, especially Political Theory & Governance, but there’s one I can’t stand: Cloning Theory.
Three days a week, I slog through stuffy, sluggish lectures that drone on like static. Most of it is speculative nonsense delivered in a nasal monotone by Professor Hollings. I’m not the only one who thinks the class is a joke.
Hollings knows exactly which students hate it, and he makes us sit in the front row so he can deduct civil credits at the slightest whiff of ridicule.
The only time my eyes stop drifting shut is when Hollings’s Pinkie assistants wheel out the containment crates filled with clone samples. They’re technically human, but they don’t speak or blink or even know they exist.
The clones simply lie there, warm and twitching, like meat waiting to expire.
None of them survives longer than a week.
Even Dickie agrees it’s quack science.
Cloning the body is possible. That much is clear. But the mind?
Consciousness? Personality? Every attempt has failed.
Still, I don’t drop the course. If I do, I’ll be reassigned to the one class I hate even more: Introduction to Genetic Engineering.
It’s a course that explains, down to the molecule, how we’re built in labs from conception onward; how nothing is left to chance, from eye color to bone density to memory retention. It turns my DNA into a scoreboard, reminding me that some of us were sculpted for greatness, while the rest weren’t.
I won’t sit through a class like that. I won’t be in a room where a professor points to a gene sequence and says, “That’s why Edmund Prew can recite the law code from memory, and you have to study three weeks just to pass your Digital Rights & Cyber Law quiz.”
So I stay in Cloning Theory. I dig in and watch sacks of failed humanity twitch beneath bio-light panels, their organs shutting down one by one.
It’s still better than the alternative.
When Cloning Theory ends—always the last class of the day—I slip out fast, forgetting Professor Hollings’ nasal drone as I clock out of Edmund’s entourage and cruise across campus with Charlotte. Lately, we’ve spent every evening together, filling the long twilight hours with conversations that carefully steer clear of our secrets, like landmines. She doesn’t ask about the Blue I killed, and I don’t ask about her fallout with Edmund and Jack. It’s a
silent agreement, and for now, it works.
“Things have been pretty quiet,” I say one night as we cross a parking lot toward my hovercar. We’ve just finished a climbing lesson at a popular campus gym and have already showered and dressed for a night out. The evening wind cuts through my damp hair as I slide into the driver’s seat.
“Thought Rosamund would’ve paid us a visit by now.”
“No. She’ll wait till the Tangerine Tree shitstorm dies down first.”
Charlotte pulls off her cloche hat and runs a hand over her head. With the regrowth cream, her hair is already thickening, faint sprouts pushing through her scalp like new grass. “Right now, while everything’s fresh, Rosamund won’t touch us. It was the same when I dated Jack. She waited till I’d settled in with Jack, Edmund, and Dickie enough to let my guard down. Then she went straight for my throat.”
I power on the hovercar and lift out of the parking lot, thinking that adds up. Edmund has been on high alert since the death duel, watching me like I’m prey limping through a herd, sometimes even texting to check in. He killed two of his own in a viral video, so everyone’s scared of him right now, but I doubt that includes Rosamund. Once things settle and Edmund decides I’m safe, he’ll stop watching.
And maybe that’s what she’s waiting for.
Charlotte tugs her cloche hat back into place with a sigh. “Enough about the spider, Lore. If you want my advice, enjoy the time you’ve got without her. Once she shows up, you’re never getting this kind of peace back.”
There’s a shadow of sadness in Charlotte’s eyes as she speaks, as if she’s mourning something stolen from her. I know it wasn’t only Jack. It was a part of her youth, taken and twisted, filled with the kind of pain that seems to have aged her soul more than her body.
“All right,” I say softly. “Do you want to go tap dancing?”
Charlotte brightens. “Sure. A girl I met on the tram yesterday mentioned a good spot.”
The tap dance club is called Jolt & Jive, a low-citizen joint near the Moonshine Mile. When we step inside, we’re swallowed by a kinetic fever dream of spirited jazz and sweating bodies, with students packed wall-to-wall on the floor. Tap heels click in staccato bursts, sparking like fire with every beat.
Within moments, three men have already offered to buy Charlotte a drink.
But she dances with me instead. I’m sore from weeks of relentless training,
but as soon as my body warms up, I slide back into my old rhythm. When our feet blister inside our shoes, Charlotte and I rip them off and keep going barefoot. We sip cheap wine from sticky glasses, spinning into a haze of dizzy laughter. The lights blur. The hours vanish. And for the first time in years, it feels like the old days: Charlotte and me together again, a little older
and a little more bruised, but happy.
At least, we pretend to be.
Two weeks later, on a chilly Sunday morning, a package arrives at my suite.
I’m stretched out on a window seat in my salon, watching the news on my Bond, when my Pinkie enters and sets the box on the cushion beside me.
“Miss Waldsten, you have a delivery.”
“Please leave it here,” I murmur, still focused on my Bond, where the first high-citizen trial is streaming live.
The screen is split. On one side, it shows courtroom footage of the two Blues charged with capital treason for attempting to assassinate President Reeve. On the other side, Benjamin Bogart’s hands dance gracefully as he reports the latest updates from the steps of the Hourglass Courthouse in Charleston City.
There’s a noticeable dip in his energy today. The usual sparkle in his handsome violet eyes is dulled, and his posture droops, as if he spent the whole night knocking back whiskey. It makes me wonder whether the tabloid rumors that Scarlet Du Pont dumped him are true.
Still, Bogart maintains his composure as he explains that the trial is in the evidentiary phase. He focuses primarily on the defense, describing in painstaking detail how they’re countering the prosecution’s case with “utmost tact and class.”
“The surveillance footage places two assailants at the scene,” Bogart says.
“However, only one assailant is clearly identifiable. Without a definitive identification of the second suspect, the evidence falls short of the burden of proof for a conclusive ruling. For now, the court considers it circumstantial.”
I grumble and press a pillow from the window seat behind my head. I thought this case would be cut-and-dry, but over the past few days it’s been deflating like a balloon left in the sun. A key witness, initially confident in
her testimony, has now changed her story, probably because a Blue cornered her in a dark alley, shoved a gun to her head, and handed her a new script.
There are also allegations that the video has been tampered with. “Deepfake manipulation,” the defense is calling it. They’re also claiming the charges are political, accusing Reeve of targeting high-citizens who’ve criticized his administration. If the two accused Blues were picked as scapegoats, this would be the clearest example yet of the law being twisted for political gain.
“Under the law,” Bogart continues, “no capital sentence may proceed without incontrovertible evidence. And we must not forget… this is not a trial of Heretics or low-citizens. Both of the accused are high, and that distinction carries immense weight.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I mutter, swiping out of the livestream.
Heat rushes to my face as I sit up on the window seat. There’s an anxious knot in my stomach that’s tightened with each day spent waiting for the verdict. But as strung out as I am, I know it’s worse for Dad. For low-citizen politicians like him, this trial is a reckoning. A test to see whether justice truly means what it’s supposed to or whether it bows to blue blood.
If the prosecution prevails, the victory will signal a real change. But if the defense prevails and these two Blues walk free because of a legal loophole, it’ll confirm what we already know.
The law serves the lawmakers. Everyone else just survives it.
As I stand from the window seat, my eyes fall on the package still lying on the cushions. Why is it unmarked? I pick it up, amused by the old- fashioned clasp, which looks like it was made to outlast fire. Carefully, I unlatch the clasp, and something metallic glimmers beneath the wrapping.
My shield.
I tear through the rest of the padding, fingers flying until they brush the edge of a note. It’s from Sergeant Croft, and his handwriting is stiff and angular, as if he wrestled each word onto the page.
Miss Waldsten,
Apologies for holding onto your shield so long. I’ll admit I thought about keeping it—even selling it once or twice—but in the end, that old Copper oath to serve and protect won out.
If you ever need help, I’ve included my Bond number. It’s my personal line, so if I don’t answer right away, I’m likely on duty or chasing someone who should know better. Thank you
again for what you did in the Speakeasy. Lucky you’re so strong. And lucky I’ve been hitting the gym.
Stay virtuous, Sgt. A. Croft
I place the note back in the box, warmth rising beneath my shock. I hadn’t expected this. Then again, I hadn’t expected Sergeant Croft to keep the shield for so long. I used to think I was good at reading people, but I’m starting to realize how flawed my first impressions can be. With Croft, I’m glad I got it wrong.
“Miss Waldsten,” my Pinkie calls from the doorway of my salon. “Mr.
Prew has arrived to collect you.”
I turn to the window and glance out. On the street below, Edmund leans against his parked hovercar, one wingtip shoe planted on the curb. Dickie and Jack flank him, their shoulders angled inward, the three of them huddled in conversation. Two low-citizens spot the boys from half a block away and veer sharply, cutting across traffic, as if proximity to Edmund alone could tank their civil credits. From the opposite direction, a group of high-citizens rounds the corner mid-laugh, then falls silent when they see Edmund. They exchange uncertain glances until Edmund catches sight of them, lifts a hand in greeting, and waves the high-citizens over. The hesitation dissolves as Edmund smiles, shakes their hands, and folds them into the conversation.
My fingers linger on the energy shield for a moment. Then I put it back in the box, close the lid, and walk out without it.
