Sometimes, I forget I’m Blue. But never on Saturdays. —EDMUND PREW
CHAPTER 33
I step onto the balcony to take Hillaire’s call, and the clash of Edmund’s and Jack’s sabers inside fades into a distant echo. Out here, the wind is cold enough to sting, but there’s no time to grab a coat.
Before answering, I press my back to the icy stone wall, angling my body to hide the fencing piste behind me. Hillaire is as perceptive as a journalist.
One quick look at the high-relief double-headed eagles carved along the balcony doors, and she’ll know I’m not at the Green Dormitory.
When I answer, her jutting-boned face comes into view, followed by her platinum-blonde bob, slicked with enough hairspray to stop a bullet. She’s dressed in her ribbed training nanosuit, with a rifle strapped to her back, walking stiff-legged down the gravel path toward the compound Dad built to prepare us for public life. The screen jostles with her movement, revealing glimpses of Waldsten Mansion, which slips farther into the distance with each step.
My throat tightens at the sight of its red-brick facade, weathered but proud, bathed in the last warmth of the sun. Tall sash windows, twelve panes over twelve, are perfectly aligned across all four stories, with green shutters creaking in the breeze. Ivy trails up one corner, darker than I remember. The white cornice trims the roof like a lace collar, and above it is the balustrade where Vivian and I used to sit with non-alcoholic champagne, dreaming up names for the men we’d marry, laughing until our sides hurt.
The front portico sits beneath a fan-paned arch, supported by four soaring white columns. I remember running between them barefoot as a child, smelling the roses from the gardens out front, and hearing the long, fraying rope swing creak in the wind—until Hillaire cut it down after I fell and
sprained my wrist.
And the porch… Dad’s porch. During the blue hour of evening, he’d sit there with his sleeves rolled up, playing his saxophone for us. I’d sit on the steps with my chin resting on my knees, listening to the soft, golden notes as the world slowed down.
Gradually, the mansion fades into the distance, shrinking behind Hillaire’s rigid frame and reminding me I’m standing on Edmund’s balcony, far from home, trying to breathe through the bitter ache of homesickness. I miss it so much I could cry.
“How are you doing, Hilly?” I ask, my voice breaking a little.
“Badly,” she replies, stopping beside an old, gnarled oak. She pulls her gold coin from her pocket and rolls it between the fingers of her robotic hand, so lifelike it nearly fools people. It’s the hand she always extends to others, probably to avoid offering a part of herself that’s real.
“Why? What happened?” I ask.
“Father’s trying to be heroic again,” Hillaire says. “He’s planning to run for Governor of the Rainbow District. And I want you to convince him to change his mind.”
The words pull me back to the day I met Edmund’s mother, when she mentioned Dad’s plans as if they were common cocktail gossip.
“Are you sure?”
“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be calling.” Hillaire’s nostrils flare. “He told me himself. And Vivian.”
Hillaire pinches the coin between her fingers, and two slender blades emerge from its sides before vanishing again as she loosens her grip. The blades are sharp but only for show, the same kind of coin used for the toss before competitive fencing duels, like the Mensur.
Hillaire is clearly angry, but beneath it, I detect a faint note of dread. And I don’t understand why. This is what she’s always wanted: to enter public life early, like Dickie did, and to live in the Rainbow District, surrounded by fellow high climbers as she works to earn a spot at Grandmaster. It’s all she ever talks about.
“Dad can’t do that,” I say. “What about home? Our life in the Green District?”
“There won’t be a life here. Or there. Not if he runs,” Hillaire says flatly.
“They’ll kill him before he gets near the governor’s seat.”
A shiver runs through me, more from fear than the cold. “What the hell
are you talking about?”
She turns her head with eerie calm, her beady eyes cutting straight through me. “You think this is over, Loredana? You really think that just because Father saved President Reeve, he’s safe? That we’re safe?”
“No, I just—”
“The Blues haven’t forgotten what he did.” Hillaire shoves the coin back into her pocket. “They still want blood for the Bliss ban, for saving Reeve, for daring to stand in their way. The only reason they haven’t killed Father already is that Reeve won’t let them. But he will. Sooner or later, he will.
And do you know why?” Her lip curls. “Because Blues always choose their own in the end. That’s why they never lose.”
The certainty in her voice, the bleak conviction that nothing we do will ever be enough, hits me like a punch to the ribs. Part of me wonders if she’s right. Reeve is protecting Dad today, but what about tomorrow? What about when he’s up for re-election and needs every ounce of goodwill from his peers? Will their friendship survive then?
I don’t know. And it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
“When Dad calls to tell me himself,” I say, “I’ll talk to him.”
“Talk to him like his life depends on it,” Hillaire urges. “Because it does.”
I nod, though my focus is already splitting, caught in a rush of movement below. Down the street, Jack and Dickie stroll past the Guillotine Yard toward the low-citizen clubs. Dickie’s Pinkie chaperone trails behind with short, mechanical steps. And further back, Charlotte follows in a daze, still rubbing sleep from her face.
Why didn’t they tell me they were leaving? And where’s Edmund?
I turn only an inch before remembering that Hillaire and I are still on video.
“Hold on,” she snaps, her eyes locking onto something over my shoulder.
“Those carvings aren’t low-relief. Where are you?”
I don’t answer.
Through the balcony window, I see Edmund still inside the fencing room, and he’s not alone. His mother has entered, flanked by her two Doberman Pinschers, their muscles rippling as they break away from her to sniff
Edmund’s boots.
I hang up on Hillaire.
I hurl myself away from the window, collapsing hard against the balcony’s frozen stone floor, where the ice bites into the skin of my elbows. I feel a sting and the wet warmth of blood, but the pain barely registers.
Stay down. Stay quiet.
Shit.
I crouch low, tuck my knees, and press my back flat against the wall.
Images of Edmund’s fury flash through my mind, of how violated he looked the last time I walked in on him and his mother. He won’t let it go if I’m
caught again.
But I have nowhere to run.
The campus hoverboards don’t fly this high, and there’s no access stairwell or emergency chute. The balcony hangs here, four stories up, sealed in by a railing too short to hide behind. My only choice is to call the Coppers
for extraction and give myself away.
My Bond pings.
“We’re hitting up Jolt & Jive,” Charlotte writes. “Where are you?”
“Stuck,” I reply. “Go without me. I’ll explain later.”
I set my Bond to silent mode and huddle closer to the wall, my teeth chattering even as I try to clench them. Edmund’s and Phillipa’s voices drift through the windowpanes, muffled yet clear enough. If I angle my head just right, I can see past the curtains. Edmund is still winded and sweat-slicked from the duel. He towels himself off, smooths his hair, and draws his heels together before bowing to his mother.
Phillipa stands motionless in the doorway, looking nothing like I remember. The last time I saw her, she lit everything she touched. Now that light is gone, and what’s left is dim, almost desperate. Her coat hangs too heavily on her frame, and her hair is pulled back too tightly, accentuating the skin stretched over her bones. She looks thin and frail, as if whatever made her glow has been pulled out through her eyes. And those eyes, still blue, still clear, aren’t simply looking at Edmund; they’re holding him, clutching him like a wound.
Behind Phillipa, the Dobermans prowl the edges of the room, ears pricked as their heads turn toward the glass.
I go still. One wrong move, and they’ll see me. One sound, and it’s over.
Phillipa’s boot heels barely make a sound as she crosses the room toward Edmund. She reaches out with a trembling hand and catches his fingers, gripping as if she might fall without him. “Tell me it isn’t true, Edmund,” she says. “Tell me you didn’t withdraw from yesterday’s meeting with Irene.”
“It is true,” he says, staring past her. “I withdrew. And you know why.”
Phillipa’s lips part in a plea, and her fingers squeeze tighter. “You don’t need to love Irene to marry her.”
Edmund grunts. “Do I not? You are well acquainted with the terms, Mother. Once we are married, I am to be faithful to Miss Hussey in all things.
If I am to be bound to her in such exclusivity, then affection is rather significant, I think… unless, of course, you would prefer I live as you have lived.”
Phillipa winces. Her eyes flick to the pearl bracelet on her wrist, then lift again, wet and frantic, as though she’s been exposed.
I suddenly realize that her marriage, like Edmund’s looming one, was arranged. Loveless. And now she’s trying to force the same fate on her son.
“Power,” Phillipa says, her throat working around a swallow, “isn’t freedom. It’s responsibility.”
“I do not disagree,” Edmund replies. “However, marrying Miss Hussey was never meant to be my responsibility. And it would not be, if—”
“The prior engagement is void,” Phillipa interrupts. “Irene’s fiancé is gone. The duty is now yours.”
My ears burn at the word. Fiancé? Irene was engaged to another Blue before Edmund? Who? And where is he now?
“You accepted this match,” Phillipa says. “You signed the agreement in exchange for the flight jacket. If you’ve decided now that it isn’t worth—”
“It is worth it,” Edmund says, but his tone is flat. Empty.
“Good.”
Phillipa releases his hand, and her expression brightens to something faintly satisfied. Straightening up, she wipes away her tears with the pad of her thumb, first one cheek, then the other, as if she no longer has use for them.
“The ceremony will take place next autumn as planned,” she adds.
“Directly afterward, you’ll declare a major.”
Edmund’s shoulders stiffen. “Why so soon? That decision is not required until my third year.”
Phillipa lowers her hand onto the head of one of the Dobermans and
strokes it absentmindedly. The other trots over to Edmund, tail swaying gently, nose nudging for attention. He pulls his hand away, eyes fixed on the animal’s tongue with disgust, as though he knows exactly where it’s been.
The whole exchange is starting to feel like a routine rather than a conversation, a performance both Edmund and Phillipa have grown accustomed to.
“I know you admire your grandfather’s achievements,” Phillipa says, though there’s no pride in her voice, only pressure. “But his sacrifices belong to another era. The only path to glory now is through politics. Like your father. Like your brother.”
“Glory?” Edmund’s tone bristles. His expression, already drawn, ices over with contempt. “We once fought to protect our world, Mother. Our people.
Now we fight to protect our power. Tell me—where is the glory in that?”
Phillipa’s hand clenches the Doberman’s fur so tightly that it whines.
“Our people?”
“The low-citizens are not like us,” he replies. “But they were once, before we divided ourselves. I will not forget that.”
Her lips curl in revulsion. She shoves the dog aside, and as it scurries to the corner, she raises a finger toward Edmund, her eyes flashing.
“There’s a line, Edmund—one you’re dangerously close to crossing. For years, I’ve tolerated your inappropriate proximity to your low-citizen companions. But once you marry Irene, that ends. Neither she nor I will—”
“Miss Hussey has no say in the matter,” Edmund cuts in. “The terms were clear. If she harms Mr. Carroway or Mr. Langley or attempts to threaten them in any way, the contract is void.” He pauses, a hint of a smile in his eyes.
“But it will be void either way.”
Phillipa’s brow creases. “How so?”
“Miss Hussey is imprisoned, awaiting trial for a crime she will soon be convicted of.”
Phillipa scoffs and flicks a hand in dismissal. “She will not be convicted.
We already have—”
“Whatever plan you have in motion, I will not support it.” Edmund steps closer, his movements growing restless, like that horse again, circling its pen, pacing toward a break. “I will protect the key witness with my life until the trial concludes. And after.”
Phillipa goes still, her hands hovering mid-air. “Bruce Waldsten’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Because she’s in your entourage?”
“Because she is my friend.”
Phillipa’s mouth pinches at the corners. Her fingers drift to the pearl on her bracelet, scratching the dull nacre as if consulting it for advice. Then, with a slow, shuddering breath, she blinks until her eyes well up again.
“Edmund,” she says quietly, “I’ve done my best not to interfere in your low-citizen relationships, but this time it’s different. You know what your father thought of Miss Waldsten’s parents. You know what I think. That family has earned our hatred more than any other, and if you continue prioritizing Miss Waldsten over your fiancée—over me—I’ll consider it a betrayal.”
Edmund watches, unmoved, as a single tear spills down her cheek. “I am not an empty vessel into which you may pour your grudges, Mother. Your enemies are not my own.”
I ease forward from my crouch, trying to get a better angle on him through the curtains. The tension between them feels like an old, hardened blister, pressurized and ready to split. While it’s far worse than any argument I’ve had with Dad, the words themselves are familiar. I’ve lost count of how many times my parents warned me about the Prews, saying that if I ever had a reason to fear a Blue family, it would be them. But now I see it goes both ways.
Whatever lies at the center of this feud, it’s not new. It’s older than both Edmund and me, buried deep between our families like roots beneath floorboards, silent until the day they grow strong enough to break through.
“And what about Irene?” Phillipa demands. “Does it not concern you that her family and the Waldstens are also at odds? That you are allowing a personal entanglement to cloud your obligation?”
“No. It does not.”
“So, it is betrayal, then.” Phillipa’s mouth twists into a snarl. “You are choosing a low-citizen over your oath.”
Edmund’s hand curls into a fist so tight it looks bloodless. “Do not speak to me of honor, Mother. I was prepared to uphold my oath to Miss Hussey. I had already resigned myself to the marriage, even to the prospect of children.
But by breaking the law, she forfeited the protection that oath once offered.
And I will not shield her from the consequences.”
“It’s more than a consequence, Edmund—it’s execution. Death. You truly
won’t help her? Not even on my behalf?”
He pauses, his eyes smiling again.
“Yes, Mother. Once Miss Hussey is convicted, I shall personally help her into the back of the Copper transport.”
More tears stream from Phillipa’s eyes, but there’s no grief left, only anger. Her hand trembles as she scrubs them away with a vicious swipe, then turns on her heel and rushes toward the half-open door.
The Dobermans remain behind and begin circling Edmund. He angles away with a curse, his chest rising once, then stilling as he closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, his face is bone-white. He exhales a ragged breath and folds his hands behind his back, fingers locking at the base of his spine.
Everything in me stops: the breath, the shivering, even the chatter of my teeth. I don’t know what I’m watching, only that Phillipa never meant to leave the room.
She closes the door, her hand lingering on the latch after she locks it, and for a moment, even the pearl on her bracelet hangs still. Then, slowly, her shoulders start to quiver, a ripple that spreads up her spine, out through her arms and neck, until her whole body is shaking.
When Phillipa turns, I recoil so hard my shoes skid on the ice.
Her face is warped with rage, every muscle straining beneath the skin. Her nostrils flare over peeled-back lips, showing teeth bared to bite. One of the Dobermans bolts, its claws skittering across the floor. The other dog hesitates a beat too long, and she kicks it aside before throwing herself at Edmund, her nails raking down his cheek until they catch at the corner of his mouth. He grunts, trying to break away, but she snatches the front of his training vest and rips it open, tearing at the bare skin beneath.
I jerk back, my pulse ricocheting through my chest. Blood sprays in thin arcs, trails running down Edmund’s throat and soaking into his collar. His hair clings to his forehead, slick with it, and still, he doesn’t resist.
His hands stay locked behind him, shaking violently now. The muscles in his arms twist and turn, tendons pulling so tightly his fingers start to separate under the strain.
Phillipa’s palm slams into Edmund’s throat, and he chokes, his legs buckling as he fights to stay upright. Her nails fly in a savage blur, scratching deeper and deeper, as if she’s trying to split him open and crush the defiance inside.
I clamp my hand over my mouth to smother a scream. I can’t watch it, the horrible silence as he bleeds. I don’t understand. I don’t understand how she can— “You will fall in line!” Phillipa screams, her voice cracking under the weight. “You will be like Richard. Like Rosamund. You will be a beast.”
She tears away, gasping for air, her hands shuddering and streaked with blue. Edmund’s blood is on her fingers, under her nails, splashed across the fine velvet of her blouse.
The Dobermans pad to her side. They rise on their haunches and begin to lick her hands, their tongues dragging over her knuckles and slipping between her fingers, lapping at the streaks of blood. She holds her hands out and watches the dogs, calm now, as if this is how she always washes.
Edmund is barely standing. His face is raw, his left eyebrow split clean through, blood running in jagged lines down his cheek. He lifts his chin, and the blood slips into his eyes.
“Careful what you wish for, Mother,” he says, his voice hoarse. “A beast would strike you back.”
Phillipa exhales a scoff. At the same time, her gaze flicks to Edmund’s hands, checking whether they’re still locked together.
They are.
“Change is coming, Edmund,” she warns. “The kind where there’s only our side and theirs. You will choose Blue, or you will lose.”
She breaks away from the Doberman Pinschers, her hands now clean and glistening. She walks up to Edmund and wipes the dogs’ saliva on his trousers, one slow drag at a time. Then she rises onto her toes and kisses the single bloodless spot on his cheek, leaving a smudge of lipstick.
“You were once my greatest pride, Edmund, second only to Richard.
Now, you are my greatest shame. At the very least, do not sit and stare at your wounds as long as your father did.”
Edmund flinches, not away from her but inward. His head turns slowly, his eyes meeting hers, and the look in them is clouded, like a lens that’s drifted out of focus.
“You are my mother,” he says. “It should not be difficult to love you.”
Phillipa grumbles softly. Then she reaches up and brushes a strand of bloody hair from his face. “I don’t need to be loved anymore. Just obeyed.”
She turns, crosses the room, and walks out the door. The Dobermans follow at her heels, tails wagging.
Edmund waits until the door closes before he moves. It’s a slow turn, as if every joint hurts, and the motion tears him further open. He walks to the edge of the fencing room, to the tall mirror mounted on the wall, and stops before
it.
The reflection is a ruin.
His face is already swelling. Left brow split to the bone. Lip torn. Neck, chest, and arms scored with scratches, some shallow, some deep, all sputtering and blue. His training vest sticks to him where the blood has soaked through. He blinks at his reflection, slow and dazed, as if he’s not sure who he’s looking at.
Then he notices the wetness in his eyes, the glassy tear welling at the edge of the left one. He squints, his throat twitching as he tries to hold it back. The tear falls anyway, cutting a line through the blood on his cheek. His jaw clenches, and he wipes it away with his fist, cursing under his breath.
He turns from the mirror, grabs a tube of rejuvenation cream from the gear cabinet, and staggers out of the fencing room.
I stop feeling the cramp in my calves and the icy wind stabbing across my face. All sensation in my body narrows to a single point in my chest, a pain so intense it feels like my ribs are collapsing inward to crush my heart.
Still, my heart thunders wildly. With every beat, it begs me to run after Edmund, to help him, or at the very least, to clean up the blood. Trails of it still glisten along the fencing room floor, scattered in blue flecks and stamped
into the shape of his shoes.
But my head won’t let me move.
I know there’s no helping Edmund, no holding him. Not even when he’s hurt.
I understand now why he never wanted me to meet Phillipa and why he was so angry the day I walked in on them. I didn’t realize what I was seeing at the time, but I do now.
And I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d burst through the door and said something before they ever spoke. Because what I witnessed wasn’t meant for me. It wasn’t meant for anyone.
All that power. All that pride. And still, he’s the one who’s cursed.
Moving away from the window, I press myself into the darkest, iciest corner of the balcony and pull my knees to my chest. The cold out here has claws. It cuts at my skin, slips beneath my clothes, and wedges itself between every breath. My fingers have gone stiff, and I can’t feel my toes, but I don’t dare move.
I lose track of the minutes, then the hours. My jaw clenches so tightly my molars ache. Tears freeze halfway down my cheeks, and still, I don’t risk going inside. All the while, my shock and horror harden, intensifying into fury, as if each cut on Edmund’s body were a cut into me, too. Phillipa’s face hovers in my mind, her warm, beaming smile from the day I was introduced to her. But I see now how sharp the teeth behind it are. And I hate her. I hate that she could touch her son in any way that wasn’t gentle. For a moment, I wish he were the beast she wanted him to be and that he’d struck her back.
By the time I finally move, my limbs feel foreign. I rise in slow, wooden jerks, as if my bones have frozen straight through. My knees buckle once on the way inside, where the fencing room is dark and silent. The hallway outside is empty, as are all the rooms leading to the foyer.
No one sees me leave.
