Gaze too long at the street and you’ll forget you live in the gutter. —DICKIE LANGLEY
CHAPTER 31
My days now begin with sunlight instead of blood.
No more standing on the edge of my balcony, stiff with dread, watching students herded to the guillotine through curtains of dirty snow. No more bile creeping up my throat as I await the blade’s fall. No more feeling seconds stretched thin between life and death.
Now I wake serenely, almost as I used to back home. Some mornings break silver and damp, while others blaze gold with a low winter sun that slants through the windows, softening everything it touches. Time moves faster now, no longer measured by executions but by training sessions and assignment deadlines.
Without death, even my balcony feels different. It used to loom outside my suite like a dark, conjoined twin of the locked room in Waldsten Mansion back home. I avoided looking at the balcony, let alone stepping out. Now, Charlotte and I sit there in the evenings, wrapped in fur coats, our Bonds linked, coursework pulled up on our feeds. Sometimes my Pinkie quizzes us on definitions or flags a mistyped formula; other times, the robot hovers by the railing, buzzing faintly, as if watching over us.
I take breaks now and then, telling myself it’s to rest my brain and stretch my legs, but each time my eyes drift past the Guillotine Yard to the Blue Dormitory. His suite is on the fourth floor, seventh balcony to the right.
The windows blaze with light tonight. Edmund was supposed to host a party in the Speakeasy, but he moved it to his suite after he, Jack, and Dickie were banned for the rest of the year—a decision handed down after the boys tore through the Oval on hoverbikes fitted with firework cannons and nearly set the place on fire. Tattletale ran a full spread.
Laughter spills over the balconies in wild, unruly bursts. Music thumps through the stone, loud enough to rattle the windows. I watch two high- citizens wrestle a flaming sofa toward the railing and heave it over the edge, where it tumbles end over end into the dark below, shedding sparks like a dying comet.
I wonder what Edmund is doing inside, whether he’s laughing like that, head tipped back, eyes bright. I wonder if he knows which balcony is mine and whether he ever looks across at my suite the way I look at his.
Charlotte, curled in the chair opposite me, her hair half-contained by a knotted headband, follows my line of sight. “Dickie said Rosamund’s at the party,” she murmurs. “So really, the only thing we’re missing is torture.”
I chew the inside of my lip, embarrassed that she caught me staring, even though there’s no point pretending with her. “Glad to be missing out on that,” is all I manage.
Charlotte tilts her head. “You and Edmund are getting pretty close now, huh?”
“I guess so.” I rub the back of my neck. “Is that okay with you? I mean, because of what—”
“Of course it is.” Charlotte waves a hand, then kicks off her slipper and props her foot on the railing. “I’m glad things are working out. I like seeing you happy. It’s just…” She exhales slowly, her gaze drifting to the dark stretch of campus, dotted with streetlamps. “Well, this isn’t gonna last
forever, you know. Not like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our entourage membership ends in September. And after that—” She sighs and then lights a cigarette. “I’m not trying to be a downer, Lore. Really.
It’s just that we don’t know how Irene’s trial is gonna turn out. There’s a chance she walks. And if that happens…” Charlotte shrugs and takes a frustrated drag of her cigarette. “Irene and Edmund will get married. That’s already a done deal. Irene’s not going to want Edmund anywhere near us after that. She’ll pick his new entourage. And it won’t include you and me.”
The sudden prick of pain beneath my breastbone surprises me. I already knew this. I’d run through every possibility before, but I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it in a while. Now that I am, the feeling cuts both ways.
Because I don’t want to leave. If I have to say goodbye, I’ll miss Edmund more than I’d ever admit out loud.
Charlotte and I return to studying after that, trading notes and running
through assignments. The sun lingers later in the sky now, though the days feel shorter. Snow melts into slush, slush turns into puddles, and the breeze begins to lose its bite. Spring is on its way. I feel it in the wind on my skin as I walk to class, and I see it, too.
Fur gives way to lightweight jackets, pastel suits, airy linens, and silk scarves loosely tied at the neck. Seersucker makes its return. Tea dresses and cruise dresses once again flare above shiny shoes, and stylish oval sunglasses glisten beneath angled boater hats. Parasols turn inside out in the wind, drawing laughter from those holding them. Everywhere I look, the harshness of winter is softening.
I still dread the drummed-up quack science of Cloning Theory, but most days I don’t mind my lectures. Some I even look forward to, especially Political Theory & Governance.
At first, I thought I liked the class because it made me feel close to Dad, but now there’s more to it. When I listen to the lectures, I find myself wanting more context about the hidden gears of our world. I imagine the negotiations and the impossible choices politicians like Dad often face. For the first time, I see past the abstract and picture him in motion: stepping off roaring jets, shaking hands with shot-callers whose names I’ll never know, calming an entire system with words and wit. Unlike the high-citizens, Dad doesn’t hold the world together with violence and fear; he does it through structure and diplomacy, with sheer will. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I start to wonder what that life might be like, even if the thought remains casual. I play with it like a marble I keep in my pocket, rolling it between my fingers when no one’s looking.
The idea lingers through afternoons spent studying under budding trees, through practice sessions with my fencing stick in my room, and through mornings when the wind carries the scent of wet stone and new grass rather than blood. The campus begins to breathe again. With it, couples dally longer in doorways, shoulders flushed pink as they steal kisses like secrets. Music drifts from open dormitory windows, and laughter spills down stairwells, mingling with the drone of security drones streaking overhead.
My life right now is an illusion. I know that. I haven’t forgotten what our world truly is. But illusions like this one don’t demand belief; they only ask permission, slipping over your shoulders like a borrowed coat that fits perfectly to the stitch. So I wear the coat. I allow myself to pretend, if only to take advantage of the temporary peace. Irene is still under house arrest,
waiting for her trial, and Rosamund hasn’t shown her face in weeks.
Charlotte says Rosamund is taking a break from torturing us to lick her wounds because Edmund tore into her for stealing their grandfather’s Vanguard badge and trying to pass it off as her own.
So I make the most of the time I have without them. Because at the moment, life feels close to perfect with Charlotte, Jack, and Dickie.
And with Edmund, it’s better still.
There’s no edge to the way he looks at me now, especially when it’s the five of us, tucked into the corners of velvet-rope clubs or exploring off-the- record arcades hidden from weekend crowds. In those low-lit spaces, where the hours feel borrowed and the lines between us blur, he’s not the same Blue I met on the Regal Express. This Blue—real or not—watches me with a gentle openness, like a hand offered palm-up.
One Sunday afternoon, Edmund, Dickie, and I take one of the outlier routes up the ridgeline near the northwest side of campus, a steep ascent toward one of the smaller peaks. Edmund climbs beside me, pushing through the thick undergrowth until his sports jacket is covered in leaves and dirt. I try to keep my breathing steady, not letting myself get distracted by how easily he locks into a foothold or by how his shoulders flex each time he pulls off a crimp or edges up the rock face.
A bead of sweat slides past the rim of his mountaineering sunglasses, tracing a bright line down his temple and onto his throat. The sight hits me deep in my chest. As I reach for a higher handhold, Edmund leans down toward me, his voice rising above the wind.
“You’ve been feeling generous lately.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, shifting my weight to a steadier foothold.
“Giving away civil credits.”
I squint into the sunlight reflecting off his sunglasses, doing my best to hide my surprise. Civil credit transfers are public, sure, but I never thought Edmund would track mine closely enough to notice. Yesterday’s transfer was small—a Purple from my Cloning Theory class needed the civil credits more than I did—but a part of me knew Edmund would see it. And another part knew he wouldn’t like it, because the civil credits come from him. Still, once he sends them to me, they’re mine to use as I choose.
“It was only twenty,” I say. “And I was going to lose the civil credits anyway. I break the law with you three or four times a week. I figured losing them this way might matter more than the usual method.”
Edmund hooks two fingers into a tiny divot in the rock, barely a crimp, and commits his weight to it with ridiculous confidence. “If you got arrested tomorrow,” he says, “none of your classmates would glance twice at your empty locker. And that guy you helped yesterday? He’d watch the Coppers zip you up, then go grab lunch.”
I follow Edmund higher, trying to mimic the same move, my fingers searching for the small, precarious hold his hand just left warm. “I didn’t give those civil credits away because I thought anyone would return the favor. But if none of us ever help anyone—if we all stand by and watch each other get marched off to the guillotine—then what are we? I want to treat people the way I hope they’ll treat me, even if they won’t.”
Farther up the route, Dickie has abandoned the rock face entirely and is sitting on a boulder, hunched over and panting as he orders his Pinkie to bring him his canteen.
“Need a ride on my back?” Edmund calls to him.
“The devil I do.” Dickie takes a long drink and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re the one slow-rolling it. If you had any more of my dust on you, you’d be part of the mountain.”
Edmund lets out a loud laugh as he pulls himself higher, then glances back at me. “The system doesn’t reward people who do what you’re doing. Keep giving away civil credits like that, and you’re not going to get anything out of it, except maybe your name on the expulsion list. Or worse.”
I squint up at him, still half-blinded by the sunlight. He’s crouched on a narrow ledge above me, one hand palming the wall for balance, the other ready to catch me if I slip. I choose not to rely on the tiny pocket he trusted with his weight. Instead, I reach sideways for a sloping jug that seems safer yet feels less stable under my fingers.
“Do you think your grandfather would agree with you?” I ask.
Edmund’s expression hardens, and a small frown forms behind his sunglasses. There’s a flash of hurt, quick and unguarded, then something darker settles over him, like a shadow passing through sunlight, vanishing as fast as it came.
“Watch that pocket, Miss Waldsten,” he says as my knuckles scrape the gritty inside of the hold. “There’s nothing to bite on.”
Then he pulls off his sunglasses and slides them over my stinging eyes, his fingers brushing my cheek, and continues upward. Regret floods in as I watch him through the dark lenses. Why the hell did I have to open my
mouth so wide?
Edmund doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the climb. Instead, he banters with Dickie as he moves, always a little ahead of me, always within reach if I fall. For the rest of the route, I’m convinced he’s angry. But the next day, he shows up to drive me to the first-year Lecture Hall and opens the hovercar door for me with a smile, as if the conversation on the slope never happened.
That night, shortly past midnight, Edmund invites Charlotte and me to join him, Jack, and Dickie for surfing. It’s outside our scheduled time, but Charlotte agrees because the Jolt & Jive is overbooked. I say yes, too, even though my surfing skills aren’t anything to brag about. Mostly, I’m relieved that Edmund isn’t angry and that I get to spend time with him outside of class.
The moon hangs like a silver blade over the beach, its light smudged by wind-driven clouds. The tide looks deceptively calm as we arrive, but Edmund says the break will get heavier by one.
Jack heads straight into the water while Edmund grabs a wetsuit from his hovercar and pulls it over his swim trunks. As he turns, I catch a glimpse of his bare back. From his shoulder blades to his ribs, his skin is scored with jagged blue scratches, as if torn by fingernails.
The sight affects me differently than before. Edmund spends nearly every waking hour with Jack and Dickie, leaving so little time for any mistresses that the only way meetups would be possible is if he treated the women like a drive-through. So, who’s leaving those marks? I can’t imagine the answer; I only know the injuries disturb me in a way they never did before.
Edmund, meanwhile, seems to have forgotten the scratches are there. He grabs two surfboards from the sand and presses one into my arms, his eyes already lit as if he’s somewhere beyond the breakers.
“It’s cold,” he says, “but it still cuts less than the Luminescent Lake.”
I tuck the board under my arm, surprised. “How do you know I go there?”
“I saw you once.”
“Saw me? From where?”
Edmund glances up at the sky and grins. “My jet.”
Then he turns and heads into the water, leaving me to wonder what long- range tech could enable him to see my face from that height.
The night is so dark that the beach seems to bleed into the ocean, erasing the boundary between sand and surf. I activate the night-vision app on my Bond before paddling after Edmund. The app is designed to process thermal
data and overlay it as a live visual feed, but the processor lags, and the algorithm struggles to separate moving heat sources from static ones. Near the shore, the thermal glare washes out the waves, and farther out, the images are darker than if I had no night-vision at all. I keep misjudging the distance between my board and the break, toppling headfirst into cold, salty water that leaves me shivering inside my wetsuit.
Jack is faring better, laughing wildly as he and Edmund shoot each other off their surfboards with stun guns.
“Last shot wins,” Edmund shouts, hauling himself back onto his board after Jack knocks him into the water. “And that doesn’t include whiskey.”
“I’m not drinking tonight,” Jack yells back.
“Really? You’re sober?”
“Sober enough to keep lighting you up.”
Jack fires. The stun beam crackles past Edmund as he kicks out of the wave and pops back onto the shoulder. They’re still laughing when Jack catches the next set, builds speed along the face, and raises his gun again, only to clip a submerged rock lurking beneath the break. The impact jars the board to the side, shearing the center fin clean off before Jack spills headlong into the whitewater.
He resurfaces with a curse, drags the crippled board to shore, plants it upright in the sand, then hunkers down beside Charlotte and Dickie at the fire pit.
Now, it’s just Edmund and me. I lie belly-down on my board, watching in bewilderment as he drops into the pocket of a wave and carves up the face with seamless rail-to-rail transitions, as if he’s surfing in broad daylight.
When the wave closes out, I paddle up beside him. “How are you surfing so well?”
Edmund laughs and sits upright on his board, water sliding off his shoulders. “You want to see?”
I nod before I understand what I’m agreeing to. He sends a Bond link request, and when I accept, my vision changes. The ocean around me floods with light, as if a hidden sun burns beneath the waves, casting the water in a soft, ethereal blue. Shapes I couldn’t see before now shine in flawless detail, from the ridges of coral beyond the reef to the flick of a fish’s tail as it breaks the surface.
I blink, dazed. “What kind of app is this?”
“You’re not seeing through my Bond, Miss Waldsten,” Edmund says, and
for the first time since I met him, he sounds a little shy. “You’re seeing through my eyes.”
I go quiet, trying to take in the sight without slipping off my board. I didn’t realize Blues could see in the dark like this. I know they have more genetic enhancements than we do, but it’s easy to forget how far they’re engineered to surpass us. Now it makes sense why Jack always has to nudge Edmund to turn on his headlights when he drives, and why he walks through the shadows as if they’re familiar hallways.
Minutes pass, but Edmund keeps the connection open, letting me borrow his sight and see the night as he does, for as long as I want. When I dip my head below the surface, I’m stunned to find I can see all the way to the ocean floor, where hundreds of seashells are scattered like gemstones across the sand. I lean off my board, arm extended toward a pretty pink one, but it lies too far beyond my reach.
When I finally lift my head out of the water, I disconnect from the Bond link. My vision shrinks back to its limits, and everything dulls in the pale wash of moonlight… except Edmund.
But he’s the only thing I want to look at anyway. Every part of his face is familiar by now, from the proud set of his brow to the slow blink of his wet lashes to the way his finger absently grazes his eyebrow. And yet the longer I stare at him, the harder it is to look away. Even in silence, even at rest, there’s something inside him that’s always moving, as if he swallowed fire once and it never went out, just settled deep in his chest and burns there, constantly.
I don’t realize how long I’ve been staring until Edmund looks up and catches me. Our eyes meet for a moment before I turn away, too obvious and too fast. My board jerks sideways with the movement, and Edmund reaches out to steady it. I grab the rails, working to regain my balance as the nose dips and rocks beneath me. All the while, I try to ignore the wild pulse in my gut.
“Miss Waldsten, you all right?” he asks.
“Yes, I—” I scrub at the gooseflesh on my arms, furious at it, at myself.
This has never happened before, and it shouldn’t be happening now. “I’m just cold. There was a seashell down there that was pretty.”
Edmund nods, as if he only heard the first part, the part he can fix. “If you’re cold, we can head back.”
“It’s fine,” I say, still rubbing at the gooseflesh. “I’d rather be cold than stuck studying for Cloning Theory. I’ve got a quiz tomorrow.”
“You don’t like it?”
I let out a dry laugh, only half-joking when I say the course should be defunded and scrapped. Edmund wouldn’t know how absurd the lectures are.
He chose Intro to Genetic Engineering instead.
He rolls his shoulders as he listens, as if even when focused, his muscles can’t quite stay still. The current builds around us, and the rough, choppy waves keep driving our boards apart. Edmund places a hand on the edge of mine, anchoring it beside his to keep us close enough to talk.
“So which class do you actually like?” he asks.
“Political Theory and Governance.”
His smile fades, his gaze drifting past me.
“You don’t like politics?” I press.
“I wouldn’t say that. My father was a politician, and so is my brother. I respect it and see its value. I just don’t think I’d be any good at it.”
The rhythm of his tone is so rehearsed that, for the first time, I sense he’s lying to me. Politics is one of the few arenas where you can’t straddle the line. The laws you support or oppose clearly reveal your beliefs. If Edmund ever became a Blue Representative, he’d be forced to choose between high and low. Either he’s not ready to make that decision, or he wants to avoid it
altogether.
“What do you want to do, then?”
Edmund angles his board into a rising swell, and I follow, gliding over the crest behind him. “Not sure yet, but I hope I’ll be useful. That’s why I haven’t picked a major. I want to get it right.”
The response reminds me of Dad. He says he entered politics because it was a useful career. Yet when Edmund says the same words, I think he shouldn’t have to make that kind of sacrifice. He’s already making one by agreeing to an arranged marriage, a lifetime bound to a woman he doesn’t love. So I hope he gets the rest, at least a small piece of the life he wants.
“Are you going to major in politics?” he asks.
“No. I mean… I’m actually not sure yet.”
He smiles. “I hope you do. You’d be good at it.”
His certainty catches me off guard. “Why?”
“Because, at least in general, I think you like people. And if you’re going to care about their futures, you’ve got to care about them first.”
That’s not what I expected. But what comes next surprises me even more.
“And because you don’t confuse diplomacy with compromise. Even if
you light a few fires, even if you lose your way for a while, I don’t think you’ll ever betray yourself.”
Edmund glances at me sidelong through his dripping hair, still smiling, still holding my board close.
For a single, unbearable second, I hate him.
His voice. His face. His smile.
Whether I want it or not, he’s slipping under my skin so deeply that I don’t know if I can dig him out. The only thing I know is that I need to get away from him. Now. Before he notices my restlessness and figures out what I’m desperately trying not to feel.
If he ever realizes how I feel about him, he’ll be wrong about me.
I’ll have already betrayed myself.
“Thank you, Edmund,” I say, tugging at my earring. “I’m getting too cold.
I’m gonna head back.”
I turn, ready to paddle away, when I realize how far we’ve drifted. The bonfire on the beach flickers like a tiny flag of light in the distance. We’ve already passed the reef where I saw the seashells and the swim-zone buoy, which means we’re only half a mile from the rim of the energy shield.
“Shit,” Edmund says, his voice already distant across the water. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we’d gone past the buoy. Can I help?”
I strain to see him through the dull bars of moonlight. “Help how?”
There’s a rush of water as he paddles closer, and then his hand appears,
held out toward me.
Oh.
I know I shouldn’t take it, especially when I can swim back on my own.
Even if the night-vision overlay on my Bond is almost useless, the waves aren’t strong enough to drag me under. But if I refuse, I’ll lose the chance to touch him. And as much as I want to fight my feelings, I’m aching to know
what it’s like… just once.
“All right,” I say.
Edmund leans off his board, slips an arm around my waist, and lifts me onto the tail behind him. I hesitate, my hands hovering uncertainly above his back, before finally resting them against the slick fabric of his wetsuit.
“Shyness like that will land you in the water,” he says, a laugh in his
voice.
“I wasn’t sure if—”
“You’re allowed. Both hands.”
I try around his waist first, but it’s too broad for a firm hold, so I reach higher, wrapping both arms around his neck. My pulse surges at the feeling of him, from the warm ridges of his throat to the prickle of his wet hair brushing my wrists.
Edmund leans forward and begins to paddle, cutting cleanly through the water with long, rapid strokes. I match his rhythm, my body swaying with his as he guides us through the swell. His head stays turned, scanning the horizon, his eyes tracking something I can’t see until a larger set begins to rise behind us.
I feel it in his body first, a moment of stillness as he reads the waves. He lets the first one roll beneath us, then pivots and angles the board, lining us up with the second.
His arms dig in harder now, propelling the board forward until the wave lifts beneath us. The rise is sudden, almost like a push-up. He plants his back foot near the tail and springs upright, pulling me with him. My feet flail in the rush of wind until I manage to clamp my knees around the sides of his waist.
He stiffens at the contact but stays steady, riding the wave.
“Have you ever done this before?” I ask, my words nearly lost in the surf.
“No,” he says. “But I’ve got a good reason not to fall.”
The wave steepens, rising beneath us as it begins to curl. Edmund drops into a sharp bottom turn, knees bent as he carves along the face with fluid, rocking motions that keep the board locked in the pocket.
“Your turn,” he shouts.
Before I can ask what he means, he reaches back, peels my arms from his neck, and pulls me around his body to the front of the board. I stumble as I land, feet slipping on the wet surface, but I drop into a crouch and grip the rails to steady myself.
Then I feel his hands at my waist, guiding our balance as the board cuts down the line, the nose perfectly angled to hold us in the belly of the wave. I feel his breath against my neck, and somewhere near my ear, wild laughter grows louder as a spray of saltwater hits our faces.
I don’t want the wave to end. If I could stop time—freeze a single moment, steal it, live inside it forever—it would be this one. This wave, with this man.
Edmund’s heartbeat pounds against my back as we glide through the barrel, driven by adrenaline. Mine pounds too, but not for the same reason.
My heart pounds because of him.
We ride the wave past the break, the board hurtling forward until the swell collapses beneath us in a rush of whitewater. By the time we reach the shore, both of us are laughing, the foam swirling around our legs as the board drifts to a stop in the shallows.
The moment our feet touch the sand, Edmund lets me go and swings off the board. The cut is too abrupt, like the moment I wanted to hold onto has been torn away. My smile falters, though his doesn’t. He wipes saltwater from his face and crouches in the sand, grinning like we’ve won something.
“Well?” he asks.
“I’d trust you to rescue me if I were drowning,” I say.
He laughs. “Here, sure. If you keep hoverboarding on the Luminescent Lake and fall in, I might not be fast enough.”
“Yeah, you would.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, you lose at things… poker, shot duels. But not where it counts.”
Edmund’s brow furrows in surprise, as if I just handed him a flower— beautiful, but too rarely given for him to know how to hold. He clears his throat, gestures to the board, and says, “You want to go again?”
Yes. If I could, I’d surf with him all night. But I remind myself that no matter how I feel about him, no matter how easy it is to lose myself in moments like this, no version of us gets to stay on the board when the wave ends.
“If I stay out there any longer, the ocean’s gonna have a new iceberg,” I say, sliding off. “But thank you for the ride.”
I wade to shore and head for the bonfire, forcing myself not to run.
Edmund calls out behind me, something about a seashell, but I don’t turn back. A strand of seaweed coils around my ankle, and I kick it off, then kick myself, too.
By the time I reach the fire, Jack is already stamping it out. Charlotte and Dickie are huddled in the hovercar, pressed against the heater vents, while she scolds him for programming his Pinkie to smoke cigarettes. “You’ll regret not treating that humanoid better when the machines eventually turn on us.”
Dickie smirks. “Maybe I’ll be the one who makes them smart enough to turn.”
I grab a towel and dry off with quick, mechanical strokes, wishing I could scrub away what I’m feeling just as easily.
The only comfort is that we’re leaving. At least for tonight, I’ve worn out my ability to keep lying.
I don’t speak much over the next few days. I drift through the world half- absent, sinking so deep into my thoughts that I even zone out during my Political Theory & Governance lecture. How did I let this happen? My heart used to be a familiar place, where I knew exactly who and what I loved. Now parts of it feel like a stranger I shouldn’t be speaking to, but one I can’t stop listening to all the same. Where I thought I could only ever love fencing, I find myself drawn to politics. And where I thought I could only hate Blues, I find myself falling for one.
The fact that Edmund is engaged is the least of my worries. His arrangement is loveless, stitched together for the benefit of their families.
What troubles me more is knowing that a path like this always leads to the same wall, with a single word scrawled across it: Vulgar. That’s what they call it when the lines blur in the wrong way, when two people from different Bloods convince themselves that love excuses biology. Our differences run far deeper than color. We aren’t allowed to marry, and we definitely aren’t allowed to have children. We were genetically engineered to be so different that any child from a mixed-Blood union would rarely survive past infancy.
People still try, of course. Some go to the black market because they want a child so badly they’re willing to risk everything. But most are too afraid of what happens if they get caught. Being a Vulgar is punishable by execution.
Even if you’re a Blue.
There’s no happy ending for how I feel. My only choice is to cut it off before the roots spread too deep and it grows into something I can’t resist.
The small comfort is that, for all Edmund’s reckless fire, I don’t think he’d ever let his feelings spread where they shouldn’t. There’s no way he wants me, too.
On Friday night, Charlotte and I are caught off guard when Jack and Dickie show up at Jolt & Jive. Seeing them without Edmund is like watching a horse trot past without its head.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Charlotte calls over the music, shielding her Gibson from a tap dancer spinning by. “Does Edmund have a
meeting with Irene?”
“If only.” Dickie snatches a slice of chocolate cake from a tray that a Pinkie is carrying to another table. “He’s been ditching us the last few nights.”
I perk up from my glass of red wine, curious. “Where’s Edmund been going?”
“Don’t know.” Dickie takes a large bite of cake. “He’s being stingy with the details. But he always comes back wet enough to make a goldfish nervous.”
Charlotte pops her hip, intrigued. “Well, I suppose you two can join us if you buy us a round.”
“Not drinking tonight, darling.” Jack lifts his water bottle with a faint smile. “But you’ll get your round.”
Charlotte’s eyes widen, and she sets her cocktail down quickly. “N-no. If you’re not drinking, let’s go someplace else.”
Her expression is a mix of shock and joy, as if she’s been standing on a mountain’s peak for years, watching Jack from below, and now he’s finally starting to climb up. The spark in him remains the same—still thrill-seeking enough to ride his hoverbike off a cliff—but sober, it feels like he might stick the landing. I’m sure Jack is cutting down on drinking because of the fencing duel with William and how well he fought with a clear head.
“We could go rollerblading,” I suggest.
Charlotte, Jack, and Dickie trade glances, weighing whether we’re still
young enough to justify it.
Jack shrugs. “What the hell… sure.”
My idea turns out better than I expected. The skatepark features gravity regulators that let us launch into slow-motion jumps and spins that complete a full 360 before our wheels touch back down. Charlotte picks it up faster than the rest of us. She soars through the half-pipe with surprising ease, landing spins that make a couple of skater boys whistle and clap from the sidelines. She tosses her curls, drinking in the attention as if it’s a stand-in for the Gibson cocktails she missed out on.
When I break away to order a sparkling water, a gorgeous third-year Purple called Miss Ellsworth glides up beside me, wearing a sports dress with a shawl collar lined in lavender silk. I recognize her vaguely from campus events.
“Miss Waldsten.” She dips into a shy curtsy. “Might I request a moment
of your time?”
“You may.”
“Is it possible for you to share Mr. Prew’s Bond number? I wish to thank him, yet I have been unable to reach him.”
“I am afraid I cannot give out Mr. Prew’s Bond number without his permission,” I say. “However, if you write him a note, I will make certain he receives it.”
Miss Ellsworth smiles softly and pulls a pen and a small notecard from her handbag. I try to avoid staring as she writes Edmund’s name in an elegant, careful script. I know I shouldn’t pry, but the question pushes its way out
anyway.
“May I ask what Mr. Prew did for you?”
She pauses mid-stroke and looks up, her eyes bright with gratitude. “A civil credit transfer, Miss Waldsten. It enabled me to assist my brother as well. We were both below three hundred.”
Heat burns under my skin. For a second, I’m convinced I misheard. Only a few days ago, Edmund was lecturing me about giving strangers civil credits.
“Mr. Prew gave you civil credits?” I repeat, trying to hide my shock beneath a tone of curiosity.
Miss Ellsworth nods. “He found us through the Credit-Lift hashtag on Quill. We all make use of it whenever we are in need of civil credits.”
I know the hashtag. I’ve scrolled through it myself, my conscience burning as I read the desperate pleas for help from students near the arrest threshold. At first, I wondered why they didn’t boost their scores by getting married, which would grant each of them three thousand civil credits. But that thought lasted only until Vivian told me how thoroughly her relationship with Harrison had been investigated for fraud before the state finally granted them a marriage license.
Miss Ellsworth finishes the note, her hand trembling slightly as she signs her name. She passes it to me gently, as if handing over a newborn.
“Thank you, Miss Waldsten.”
As she skates away, Charlotte glides in behind her and plucks a water
glass from the bar.
“What was that about?” she texts.
“Nothing,” I reply. “She just wanted to thank Edmund for something.”
But it isn’t nothing.
For the rest of the night, I can’t stop picturing him searching that hashtag and sending civil credits to low-citizens he’s never spoken to. The more hours pass, the deeper the feeling digs, like water seeping into a crack in stone and freezing there until the whole thing threatens to split apart. I feel too much at once: relief that Edmund isn’t angry at me, shock that he’s helping low-citizens outside his entourage, and a rising fear of what it means that his change of heart only makes me want him more.
Dickie disappears for most of the night. I only spot him when we’re about to leave, leaning against a wall and chatting with a freckled Orange girl who’s at least a head taller than him. Prying him away isn’t easy. His eyes are glazed with infatuation, and his grin is wide against the red flush in his cheeks as we catch a cab back to our dormitories.
Over the next few days, the Orange girl is all Dickie talks about—her laugh, her honey-gold hair, her freckles that match his—so much that by Sunday, when we’re all sitting around a poker table in Edmund’s private bar, he’s still rambling on about her.
“As a wise man, I know broads like her don’t come around too often,”
Dickie declares, waving for a Pinkie to refill his chocolate milk. “I’m gonna ask her out.”
Charlotte pops the cap off a non-alcoholic beer with her teeth and snorts.
“Ask her out how? You’re not legal yet.” She tips the beer into Jack’s near- empty glass and gives him an encouraging nod.
Jack smiles in thanks, though his hands fidget on the table, almost trembling. His eyes keep drifting toward the liquor shelves behind the bar.
Staying away from the hard stuff hasn’t been easy for him—he’s slipped a few times already—but we’re all trying to help. Tonight, none of us is drinking.
“I didn’t say I was gonna kiss her now, did I?” Dickie shoots back, planting his hands on his hips. “All of that’ll come when I’m eighteen.”
“Three years is a long time to wait,” I say, deliberately keeping my eyes off Edmund, even as my thoughts keep circling back to him and to the steady stream of students who’ve approached me over the past few days, hoping to pass along their thanks. At this point, I’ve slipped at least a dozen notes to his Pinkies, each filled with gratitude for the civil credits Edmund sent them.
I haven’t told him I know. I don’t know how. The rush of emotion is too overwhelming as I think of him quietly putting distance between low-citizens and the guillotine. It makes me happy in a way I can’t hide from myself, even
if I can hide it from him.
Edmund hasn’t spoken much tonight either. He sits across from me, his hands hidden beneath the table, glancing at me now and then with the same discretion I’ve been using to watch him. I’ve stayed past our scheduled time on purpose, waiting to see if he breaks off, as Jack and Dickie say he has over the past few days. So far, there’s no sign of it.
Dickie swivels toward me and scowls. “Real love exists outside of time.
Not that you’d understand. You don’t even have a guy.”
The judgment in his tone rattles me more than I expect. “Maybe not now.
But that doesn’t mean I haven’t.”
“Hold on. You dated someone?” Charlotte flicks a non-alcoholic beer cap at me playfully. “When? You only turned eighteen in Augu—”
She cuts herself off when I shoot her a look, but it’s too late. Dickie’s smirk is already spreading, and the whole table has realized that, when it comes to relationships, I’m still pedaling with training wheels.
But it couldn’t have been any different. Dating is illegal until you turn eighteen, which gave me one legal month before I came to Grandmaster. And here, I haven’t had time to notice men smiling at me. I’ve been too busy watching for knives behind their backs.
Still, when Edmund looks at me from across the table in surprise, a blush rushes up my neck, hot enough to make me want to cut and run. I glance between the plates, cups, and cards on the table, searching for my hair ribbon as if it could somehow dull my humiliation. “It was my choice,” I say. “Not because there wasn’t any interest.”
Dickie shakes his head with a loud chortle. “Maybe I’d believe you if you hadn’t tried to lie about it. But there’s no need to be embarrassed, broad. Not all of us can be charmers.”
I scoff and keep scanning the table for my ribbon. It’s not under the plates or cups, so maybe a Pinkie cleared it away. I push out my chair, ready to ask, when I catch sight of the dark green fabric in Edmund’s hand beneath the table. He’s holding my ribbon by the end, running it gently through his fingers as he talks to Jack about an injection for the alcohol withdrawal.
My whole body slows with surprise. Does Edmund know it’s mine? Or did he pick it up at random to fidget with?
“Has anyone seen my hair ribbon?” I ask.
Charlotte and Jack shake their heads.
“Ha,” Dickie chides. “Trying to change the subject, I see.”
“No,” Edmund replies. And beneath the table, I watch—stunned—as he closes his fist around the ribbon, hiding it from view.
His expression remains calm, with no trace of a bluff, but that’s what undoes me.
The most convincing lie I’ve ever seen him tell is the one that just gave him away.
That night, I can’t sleep.
I spend hours in my salon, practicing with my fencing stick, sweat slicking my palms until the grip nearly slips. My arm trembles as I redirect an imaginary blade, answering each phantom attack with a riposte that lands nowhere. The burn crawls from my wrist to my elbow, then up into my shoulder, a deep, grinding ache that is a welcome distraction. I tell myself to focus on form and control, but my thoughts refuse to obey.
Edmund cares for me as a friend. He probably picked up the ribbon without realizing it was mine, and when I asked about it, he thought it would be awkward to hand it back. I’m just building illusions I want to be true, and the danger is as clear as a shouted warning. Vivian says a lot of people do the same when they’ve got a hole in their hearts they’re desperate to fill. She did it herself before Harrison finally asked her out.
So I force thoughts of Edmund aside.
I advance again, harder this time, driving forward on the ball of my foot, the stick snapping out in a reckless beat attack that would earn me a reprimand from my old fencing instructor. I disengage, circle my wrist, and cut back into line, sweat flinging from my hair as I pivot across the room.
I fence as if fighting a part of myself—the part that wants to risk it all, rush to the Blue Dormitory, and tell Edmund how I feel, consequences be damned. I lunge too deep, overextend, and recover sloppily, my arm shaking so badly I can barely hold my guard. By the time I finally stop, my muscles are screaming, my clothes are soaked through, and my pulse is pounding like the final ticks of a timer before an explosion.
I stumble into my bedroom and collapse onto the bed, limbs buzzing with
spent adrenaline.
Sleep still doesn’t come.
Hours pass as my mind races in tight, merciless circles, replaying how Edmund’s fingers slid carefully across my ribbon and how I want his hands to touch me like that, too. By three in the morning, I’m still wide awake, so I swallow a sleeping pill to make the thoughts stop. The darkness takes me quickly, dragging me into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
But when morning comes, and I step back into my salon with bleary eyes and sore limbs, it all comes rushing back.
Seashells are everywhere. Baskets of them line the windowsills, scatter across the floor, and pile on the cushions of my sofa. A few are chipped, but most are flawless. Some are pale as bone, while others shimmer with coral pinks and dusky violets, still glazed with salt.
I edge forward, my heart hammering so hard I feel it in the soles of my feet. Then I see Edmund’s note, tucked into the largest basket: Because you saw a pretty seashell and left before I knew which one.
