There can be love without happiness,
but never happiness without love. —HENRY, A PINKIE
CHAPTER 35
I’ve only lied to Charlotte a few times. Once, I accidentally broke one of her porcelain jazz-dancer figurines and blamed it on her dad’s cat. Another time, I told her I couldn’t go tap dancing because Mom said no, but really I was curled up in bed, surrounded by snacks, binge-watching a tragic romance series on my Bond, with tears and chocolate smudges all over.
Now I’m about to lie again.
It’s late afternoon, and the campus is bathed in cool spring light that makes the clouds look painted onto the sky. I meet Charlotte on a dirt trail near the beach, one of dozens that wind through the forested edge of campus.
She’s just placed third in a competitive distance run, and her eyes are alight, like they always are when she bursts across the finish line, chest heaving and body glistening with sweat.
I think it’d be just as difficult for her to stop running as it was for me to stop fencing. When she’s lost in the rhythm of her footsteps pounding the ground, she isn’t angry about Rosamund, sad about the breakup with Jack, or bitter about her fallout with her dad. Out here, I know she finds purpose in pushing her body to the limit. And whether she wins or not, it’s where she finds peace.
With the competition over, most of the paths are empty now, except for a few students hiking toward the observation decks. But even one pair of ears nearby means we have to keep our language formal. So Charlotte shoots me a text instead: “Where were you when Jack, Dickie, and I went to Jolt & Jive? You said you were stuck, but you never explained.”
I tug on my earring, avoiding her gaze as I text back. “I meant I got held up, not literally stuck. I got some bad news. My dad’s running for governor of the Rainbow District.”
Charlotte lowers her water bottle with a gasp. “Oh shit. Seriously?”
I shrug like it doesn’t matter, like I’m not still buckling under the weight of the news. “Wasn’t really in the mood for a club after that. I went back to my suite for the rest of the night.”
She stashes her water bottle in her backpack, wipes the sweat from her hands, and threads her fingers through mine. “Lore, you should’ve said something. I would’ve ditched Jolt & Jive and brought over something stiff.
We could’ve talked about it.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Just needed some time alone.”
I tug harder on my earring, and with every second that passes, I hate the
lie a little more.
Because I wasn’t in my suite.
I was crouched, half-frozen, on Edmund’s balcony, biting my fist to keep from screaming as I watched his mother tear into him so violently that strips of skin hung from his face and chest. But unlike with the figurine or tap dancing, I don’t feel guilty about lying to Charlotte because this secret isn’t mine. It’s Edmund’s. And I was never meant to witness it at all.
Still, I think I’m only one of many people carrying the secret. Jack and Dickie likely know, too. The way they covered for Edmund during the week he disappeared—with straight-faced lies that melted into sweet-talk whenever Charlotte asked the wrong question—was too casual to be anything but routine.
What unsettles me most is that the boys don’t seem bothered by it. When they tear through the corridors of the first-year Lecture Hall on hoverboards or flick coins into each other’s knuckles in the dining hall, the mood is boisterous and carefree. Even Edmund, who has every right to blow us off and retreat into himself, laughs like he’s flooring a stolen car down an open road.
It makes me wonder whether Edmund is accustomed to the violence, whether what I witnessed wasn’t a rare outburst by his mother but a glimpse into the dark, doorless room he and Rosamund have lived in for years.
When I look at him now, seeing how hard he works to craft an illusion of ease, I can’t help but feel I’ve stolen from him. Even if I didn’t mean to, even if there was no way off the balcony, I’m still a thief carrying a piece of him in
my pocket that he never willingly offered.
The wave of guilt that follows is overwhelming enough to make me start avoiding Edmund. Whenever the five of us are together in his suite, I find ways to slip out of sight, boxing in the training room, texting my sisters on the balcony, or disappearing into the furthest corner of the library with a book I somehow manage to read without retaining a single word. It works for a few days until Edmund starts seeking me out. Once, on a rainy Sunday, he follows me into the bar after an hour-long lunch, during which the only thing I say to him is—Can you please pass the pepper?—but I slip out before he has the chance to speak. Another time, he appears in the library after his daily fencing practice with Jack and leans against the window seat where I’m perched, close enough to cast a shadow over the page of my book.
For a while, Edmund waits patiently for me to look up. When I don’t, he shifts restlessly until I catch the sharp line of his face in my periphery. I fight the thought of what it would feel like to touch it.
Finally, after a few minutes, he says, “Need a new book?”
“No,” I reply. “Why?”
“That one looks like it’s stressing you out.”
I glance up, and the sight of him drags me back to the moment on the balcony outside his suite. I was sure that after his mother said she hated my family and warned him that staying near me would be a betrayal, he’d pull away. But he looks like that horse again, and it’s no longer nosing the pen for weak spots. It’s ramming the boards head-on, with splinters flying.
“It’s not the book,” I say.
I close the book and set it on the window seat. Edmund clocks the title, sees it’s about fencing, and then nods. “So, it’s me then?”
Yes, of course it’s him.
“No. It’s not you either.”
Edmund steps closer, and I see him fidgeting with his Altimor pocket watch in his left hand. He flips the watch open, fumbles it as though his palm is sweaty, then tucks it backward into his waistcoat without seeming to
notice.
“You’re sure about that?” he asks.
I dodge the question with a smile. “If you really want to know, I’m stressed about finals. I still have a lot of studying to do. Actually, I need to head back now to finish a paper for Civilized World History.”
I grab my T-strap heels from the window seat and fumble with the
buckles. Now, when I’m counting more than ever on the stillness of my heart, it betrays me. It hammers so hard my hands shake, and I can’t fasten the second strap. I lower my leg, ready to leave it undone, when Edmund crouches in front of me and takes my foot into his hands. His fingers brush carefully over my ankle, fastening the T-strap buckle like he’s handling something small that just hatched.
“This thing fights back,” he murmurs as he threads the strap through. “I could pick a lock easier.”
I stare down at him, caught in a dizzying heat, wishing the shoe had ten buckles instead of one. “If you think that’s hard, try walking in them.”
He laughs and looks up at me, his hands still holding my foot even though the strap is already fastened. It’s hardest to be near him when he looks at me like this: gentle yet scraping through me like sandpaper all the same.
“Edmund.”
The sound of his name makes him straighten, the way you do when someone calls you out of a crowd. His grip tightens on my foot, his thumb pressing into my ankle as if in answer. He keeps looking at me, and from the way he leans in, I know he wants to speak. I lean closer too, pulled in like a flower turning toward the sunlight. I could touch him. I know exactly where my fingers would land—his hair, his jaw, his mouth—the familiar features I’ve traced a thousand times in my head. The thought makes my vision swim.
Kiss me.
The moment the thought forms, I understand with startling clarity how weak my self-control really is. If Edmund did kiss me, I wouldn’t be able to resist.
I clench my fists, nails biting into my palms, trying to feel anything except how much I want him. The pressure keeps building until my skin breaks. I feel the sting, then the warmth of blood sliding down my wrist.
I look at it.
And in that single drop of green, the pain in my hand is replaced by a far more painful reminder of where a road like this one ends: a rabid crowd closing in, the word Vulgar hurled like a stone, the brutal hands of Coppers locking around my wrists, and the executioner’s smile flashing before the guillotine blade drops.
Fear crashes through me, and I yank my foot from Edmund’s grasp.
“T-thank you,” I say.
Edmund calls something after me as I leave, but I don’t hear what. I’m too
consumed by fear, too devastated by the fact that I’m walking away from the man I want more than anyone I’ve ever wanted.
Back in my suite, I grab my fencing stick for a quick practice, but I feel too sick to swing it. There’s a knot lodged deep in my stomach, vicious and fluttering, like wings beating against a glass jar. I press my fist into the knot and bite back a sound because it hurts. It’s not the soft, dreamy ache Vivian always described, or the dizzy butterflies she swore I’d feel someday. This is wild, violent, and relentless, like being struck again and again from the inside.
I can’t go on like this. I can see exactly where it will end, with me doing something reckless, like taking a Bliss pill to feel anything other than this slow, grinding torture.
Edmund and I can never be together. A relationship with him, one where we could share a real future, is illegal. I not only have to accept this, but also act on it. That means opening myself up to the possibility of meeting someone else.
The next time Charlotte and I go to Jolt & Jive, I put on something fun and flirty. There are plenty of other Greens in the club. Most are talking to other women, but one watches me from the bar, a man from my Cloning Theory class named Andrés. These days, I have only one type, and that type is Edmund, but a year ago, I might’ve gone on a date with Andrés. He has strong features, a broad build, and blond hair slicked neatly back with pomade. I take my glass of wine from our table and head to the bar.
Andrés straightens when I reach him, surprised yet pleased. “Miss Waldsten,” he says. “I must admit, I took you for the sort of woman who waits to be approached.”
“Does it bother you that I’m not?” I ask. Then I use a trick Vivian swears by, the triangle gaze. I lean against the bar and meet Andrés’s stare slowly: one eye, then the other, then his mouth, before lifting my eyes back to his.
“Nothing about you bothers me, Miss Waldsten,” he says. His smile is crooked, taut with excitement and nerves. When he offers to buy me a drink, I say yes. I slide onto the stool beside him, already aware of how Edmund would have pulled it out for me without being asked.
I talk with Andrés late into the night. He’s thoughtful and articulate, striking a careful balance between talking about himself and asking me questions. Sometimes I give him my full attention, pushing Edmund firmly out of my mind, but other times, thoughts of Edmund force their way in. I
notice that Andrés answers questions quickly, without hesitation, while Edmund tends to pause, rubbing his eyebrow as he thinks. Andrés’s gaze often drifts as he speaks; Edmund always meets mine directly, as if he’s afraid of missing something.
Each time I catch myself making these comparisons, I realize with growing certainty that this plan is having the opposite effect of what I intended.
Across the room, Charlotte catches my eye and gives me an exaggerated wink, teasing but plainly relieved that I’m finally stepping outside Edmund’s
entourage.
I wish it were that simple.
I decide I won’t lead Andrés on. At the next break in our conversation, I thank him for the drink and tell him I need to leave. When he asks for my Bond number, I refuse as gently as I can. Then I leave Jolt & Jive and head back to my suite, guilty for hurting Andrés’s feelings and feeling more hopeless than ever.
I’m tired, lightheaded from wine on an empty stomach, but I still rifle through my vanity until I find the Florence Engine. When the orb blinks to life in my hands, it feels like a last chance, a final lifeline within reach. I press it to my chest and begin training, telling myself that if I can master this, maybe I can master my feelings for Edmund, too.
Day after day, I wrestle with the images projected like a parallel world in my bedroom until I gain enough control to reshape them. One night, after hours of trying to modify a bed of dewy, half-bloomed flowers, my efforts finally pay off: I turn the flowers into a patch of withered, tangled weeds.
And yet, as I sit amid the decay, staring at the brittle stems curling around my feet like shattered trophies, I don’t feel victorious. Not when winning means losing him.
Avoiding Edmund, I soon realize, is a half-assed, coward’s solution to a problem I’ll have to face eventually. We still have two full months until summer break, much too long for me to keep hiding behind a sudden, voracious obsession with reading that only flares up when he tries to talk to me.
So I ease back in, replanting myself in his entourage as if I’ve been swaying here all along, breezy and unbothered. After weeks of training with the Florence Engine, it’s easier now to hide the worst of it.
For a while, I’m sure I’m getting away clean. It’s not until a windy Friday morning, when I arrive early for our Political Theory & Governance lecture and find Edmund already there, that I realize something is off.
He rarely shows up early, but he knows I always do.
For once, he’s sitting completely still, and that in itself is a strange sight.
The ceiling lamp above his desk hangs lower than the others, silhouetting him almost too brightly to look at against the dark wood of the balcony behind him.
When he sees me, he rises halfway from his seat, and his shadow stretches long across the floor, swallowing my feet.
“Miss Waldsten, may we talk?”
“Of course, Mr. Prew.”
I weave through the rows of the Blue level, slowly filling with chattering students, and take the seat beside him. We’re shoulder to shoulder, close enough that I notice the faint shadows beneath his eyes, as if he hasn’t been sleeping well. His Altimor pocket watch rests on the desk between us, its bezel dulled where his thumb has worn it. He picks it up, fumbles with the chain, clips it to his waistcoat, then rubs a hand over his mouth and sighs.
“I can’t read your mind,” he says at last. “You’re going to have to tell me what I did wrong.”
“You did nothing wrong,” I assure him. “Why would you think you did?”
“Because, unless I accidentally insulted a dead relative, the way you’ve been acting these last few weeks doesn’t add up. Was it the seashells? If I crossed a line—”
“No, Edmu—” I stop myself. “No, Mr. Prew. Truly, that is not the case. I love the seashells and the Florence Engine, too. As I said before, it has been very stressful preparing for finals.”
He nods, but for the first time, I can tell he doesn’t believe me. “I think it’d be a good idea to change our schedule. At least until summer break.”
“What kind of change?”
Even in profile, I catch the worry on his face, dulling his features like a visor. “The deal was for protection, but you’re always off on your own. It’s a big campus. If something happened, I might not get to you fast enough. I think you should start joining me at night, too.”
Every ounce of my reason knows this is the last thing I should do. “Is there a specific threat that concerns you?” I ask.
“There is. Miss Hussey’s trial is about to start.”
Given that I’m the key witness, Edmund is right that Irene is a threat, but he’s wrong that this is a good idea. Still, this conversation confirms what his mother said: there’s a plan to keep Irene from being convicted. Maybe Edmund knows more than he’s letting on. And maybe this is his way of shielding me from it.
I don’t answer right away, even though I’ve already made up my mind.
When I look up at him, I catch his gaze fixed on my mouth, and I’m pulled back to one of our first meetings, to the moment he asked whether my mouth was even capable of saying yes. Now, more than ever, he looks like he wants it to.
“Very well, Mr. Prew,” I say softly. “I shall join you in the evenings as well.”
His brow furrows in surprise, yet I can’t mistake the relief in his voice.
“You will?”
“Yes.”
Edmund remains frozen for a moment, as if caught in the word, before his expression softens into a smile. He loosens his tie, and with each tug of his thumb against the fabric, the rest of him loosens too, as if his strange, unnatural stillness had only been tension.
“I don’t want you to feel like I’m twisting your arm,” he says. “I’d like it if you were… well, happy.”
I am. Being near him makes me happy. But wanting him and not being able to have him has taught me how much happiness can hurt.
“I’ll be happy as long as our evenings still leave time for the Jolt & Jive,”
I say.
He laughs. “You really like tap, huh?”
“I love it—and waltzing. Do you dance?”
“Tap, sure. Waltz, no.”
“You never learned, or you never cared for it?”
“Oh, I learned. My grandmother taught me when I was seven. I just don’t
do it.”
“Now you’re making me curious.”
“Let’s just say I’m saving it,” he explains.
“What for?”
Edmund pauses, thinking for a moment, then grins and gives his head a slight shake. “No. I don’t think I’m gonna tell you that.”
I lean in, grinning back as I prepare to press him, when I spot Jack striding toward our table, looking incomplete without Dickie at his side. Dickie and Charlotte aren’t in this class; they’re both off in Artificial Intelligence & Civil Order, probably drafting contingency plans for what to do if the AI decides it no longer wants to shine our shoes.
“Thought I was late,” Jack murmurs, dropping into the seat beside me.
“Pity.”
“You are,” Edmund says. “But Fleming always shows up late on the days he plans to surprise us with a quiz.”
I never noticed this pattern. “You sound confident,” I tell Edmund.
“I am.”
“Confident enough to bet on it?”
He smiles, as if recalling the first time we made a bet and how it led us here. “Depends on the stakes.”
“If there is no quiz, you have to take Miss Deering and me to the Lotus Lounge tonight.”
“No chance, darling,” Jack cuts in. “They’re still sore at us.”
“More than sore,” Edmund says. “We’re banned for the rest of the year.”
I’m hardly surprised. They’re already banned from the Speakeasy and, according to Dickie, half the clubs on the Moonshine Mile. “How did that happen?”
Jack and Edmund trade a glance, half sheepish, half on the edge of laughter.
“Wouldn’t be gentlemanly to tell you that,” Edmund says. “You’ll have to pick someplace else.”
“All right, then. Let’s do something outside instead. Horse-riding.”
I suggest it mainly because it reminds me of home, of days spent riding with Mom and Vivian.
“Deal,” Edmund says. “But if there’s a quiz, you’re agreeing to a fencing spar with me.”
The enthusiasm in his expression crushes mine entirely. I want to say yes.
More than anything, I wish I could lose myself in the rhythm of a fast, pulse- pounding duel with him.
“Perhaps in a few weeks,” I say, keeping my tone neutral.
Edmund nods—a slow, measured dip of his chin—and for a moment, I
wonder if he can see how much it hurts me to refuse.
“I can be patient when I have to,” he says.
The lecture room dims as Professor Fleming sweeps in, shedding his coat as if it offends him and tossing it to a waiting Pinkie. He’s a broad, gritty Green with steely eyes that look like they’ve seen the inside of someone else and didn’t flinch. His suits are always pressed to a blade’s edge, and he shaves so closely it’s a miracle he still has skin on his chin.
Fleming steps onto his floating lecture platform and guides it to the center of the room, towering over us with his arms crossed. He waits until the students fall silent before hurling the words pop quiz at us like a live grenade.
Edmund’s mouth curves into a self-satisfied smile.
“You win, then,” I murmur. “What do you want?”
His eyes drift to my mouth again, but this time it’s clear he’s not thinking about what he wants it to say. “I’ll tell you soon enough.”
I draw in a breath and turn to the quiz, my hand seizing up as I reach for the stylus. When my fingers finally close around it, I force myself into the questions, working fast to steady the wild beat in my chest. As I write, I can almost feel Dad beside me, like he used to be on those late nights at home, curled up with me on the couch, talking politics as if I were old enough to understand the complexities of our world, while the news droned quietly in the background.
When I finish, I realize I’m one of the first. Jack, sitting to my left, chuckles to himself as he types. On my right, Edmund’s brow is furrowed, his fingers tapping the keypad of his tablet in sharp, clipped bursts, as if he’s racing a clock he resents.
It strikes me how differently the same quiz affects us. For me, it’s a doorway that keeps widening, each answer revealing more of the path ahead, and I want to follow it. For Edmund, it’s another wall closing in, another corner he’s being forced into.
The quiz eats up the entire period. When the bell rings and students begin shuffling toward the exit doors, Professor Fleming waves me over.
“Miss Waldsten,” he says, offering a cheery smile he reserves strictly for students who score well. “I wish to inform you that you are currently ranked
third among the Greens in my class.”
“Truly, Professor?”
“Yes. You are not far behind the top two. Should you perform well on the final exam, you will be within reach of the academic award.”
I don’t know what to say. I knew I liked this class and that I was doing well, but not this well.
“I suppose it is to be expected, given who your father is.” Fleming rubs his jutting chin. “Have you considered a major in political theory?”
“Honestly, I have not decided on a major yet.”
He nods, as if he understands. “Between you and me, it is a decision worth taking one’s time to make.”
I smile, murmur my thanks, and excuse myself. I leave in a daze, my bag dangling loosely from my wrist as I walk outside the lecture room and down the corridor, buzzing with students heading to their next classes. I can’t stop wondering whether I’m doing this well because I want Dad to be proud, or because fencing is gone and I need something to fill the void. Or is it more
than that?
Maybe I like it. Maybe I’m good at it.
I never gave myself the space to find out before. Fencing always came first.
The problem is, I’m not sure I have the instinct for leadership that Dad does. I don’t walk into a room and command it with a glance or the tone of my voice. I don’t have the stomach to smile through difficult decisions, and sometimes I wonder if I’m brave enough to stand in front of a thousand shouting people, all expressing their opinions, some even making threats, and
still hold my ground.
The truth is… I don’t know.
On the way to my next class, my Bond buzzes with a message from Edmund. I stop outside the lecture room to read it, and when I see the link to the dress code for the stables on the Moonshine Mile, a smile breaks across my face.
“If I can’t get a spar, I’ll settle for a race. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
