The difference between comedy and tragedy is perspective.
—PROFESSOR JEROME, GRANDMASTER UNIVERSITY FACULTY
CHAPTER 40
I once overheard Mom tell Dad that some people are born on the wrong side of fate. There’s no particular reason why it happens. These people don’t necessarily deserve the hand they’re dealt. Fate simply chooses them, like a lottery, except the prize isn’t money. It’s a curse.
And I think I won.
The curse is more than bad luck. It’s personal, as if fate picked me out of
the crowd, held my gaze, and said:
You.
Yes, you.
Fuck you.
The elevator rattles beneath my feet as it climbs to Edmund’s suite on the fourth floor. Brassy jazz crackles from the overhead speakers, too full of swing for the devastation in my heart. Every note feels like mockery, and maybe it is.
I’m late again, for the third time this week. Our group study for finals started nearly an hour ago, and I should be thinking about civic statutes, neural consent protocols, or gene splitting. Instead, I’m staring at my Bond screen, at the image of Edmund and Charles that I’ve wished a thousand times I could change.
The photo is the only one I found of them together after days of searching
through fencing archives and forums. It’s four years old, taken when Edmund was eighteen, and Charles was fourteen, yet the clarity is cruel enough to make the moment feel still alive. The two boys stand in fencing uniforms among seven other students, their eyes glinting with a cold, flat focus, like a warning line drawn between their fear and obedience.
At the center is their instructor, Julian Lake. Having built his reputation on fighting death duels, Julian is a legend in fencing circles. Some say he has over seventy victories; others insist the number is much higher. I’ve seen enough footage of Julian slicing through opponents to know the stories are true, but even if I hadn’t, I’d still believe them because he’s old. And you learn to fear the old man in a profession where most men die young.
On the fourth floor, I step off the elevator and walk slowly toward Edmund’s suite. I knew the similarities between Edmund and Charles weren’t just in my head. The way they fenced was too similar. I should’ve realized the truth sooner, but maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe it was easier to hold on to the version of life where I was happy.
I glance at the photo again and see only Charles. He looks small and youthful, nothing like the boy who charged me in the locker room and tried to crush my throat with his bare hands. His skin is pale beneath the harsh light, and his brown hair sticks damply to his forehead. That night, his eyes burned with a dark, vicious blue, but here they’re wide and raw, painfully childlike.
Beside him, Edmund stands taller, broader, and more grounded. There’s something protective in the way he holds himself, as if he’s already used to stepping in front of others, whether he realizes it or not.
Edmund and Charles share the same blood, the same instructor, and the same war behind their eyes. But they’re not the same, even if Edmund’s mother wants him to be.
When I reach Edmund’s suite, a Pinkie takes my things in the foyer.
“Good day, Miss Waldsten. The others have come out of the sauna. If you will follow me.”
I trail behind the robot, hardly noticing my surroundings until we reach the bar, where everyone is freshly showered after the sauna. Charlotte and Jack sit side by side at the poker table, their ankles crossed at the same angle.
Jack reaches for the coffee pitcher, but when he sees Charlotte reaching for it too, he slides it toward her with a crooked smile. She pours a cup and passes it back to him, smiling in return.
Dickie is sprawled across the sofa, buried in a nest of decorative pillows
as he works. Edmund, hunched over a table in the corner, is the only one who looks up when I enter. The blue glow of his Bond dims as his eyes meet mine, but it doesn’t feel like he’s seeing me. It feels like he’s looking through me, at someone else entirely, someone he’s only mistaken for me. And whoever she is, I can tell from the way he smiles that, to him, she’s beautiful.
“Is everything okay?” he asks.
The words stick behind the lump in my throat, and I have to force them out. “Yes, Edmund. I’m sorry for being late again.”
I move behind the bar and pour myself some water, trying to soothe the dryness in my throat. Edmund stands and follows. He uncaps a bottle of brandy but, instead of pouring, lets the cap fall to the floor. When he crouches to retrieve it, his hand brushes my ankle. My breath shudders as his fingers glide higher, lifting the hem of my dress enough for his lips to reach my calf. He leaves a trail of soft kisses along it, then looks up at me, smiling.
It’s the smile that used to comfort me, the one that eased every worry and fear. But the pain inside me now can’t be eased. It sits in my chest with a dull, drowsy ache, only to wake with an agonizing throb every time Edmund touches me, because I know the truth. I know who he’d see if he knew it, too, and she wouldn’t be beautiful.
Charlotte warned me once, on Edmund’s birthday, that he doesn’t know how to forgive. She said that when you hurt him, that’s it… he shuts down and walks away. I believed her then, but not with the urgency I do now. What I took from him was more than a mistake or a misunderstanding. It was family. And if someone had taken Vivian or Hillaire from me, I know I’d never forgive them either.
I reach out and let my hand trail along Edmund’s cheek to keep him from suspecting anything is wrong. He catches my fingers and kisses them before I slip away. Then he retrieves the brandy cap and rises from behind the bar, looking renewed, as if he’d thrown back a shot while crouched on the floor.
I join the study group, with the four of them focused while I only pretend.
My Bond remains active, even though all I’m staring at is an empty web search screen. My body sweats as if it’s confessing something. The only reason I haven’t completely unraveled is the Florence Engine. I use the device constantly now. Every waking moment I’m alone, I sit with the interface open, shaping the jagged landscape of my emotions until I can feel something other than despair. Even if I’m not laughing, at least I’m no longer crying.
Thirty minutes later, Edmund and Jack break away to the fencing room to practice for the Mensur. The bar goes quiet, save for the faint hum of Charlotte’s and Dickie’s Bond projections as they keep studying.
Eventually, Charlotte starts fidgeting in her chair, growing increasingly irritated. With a loud sigh, she deactivates her Bond and narrows her eyes at Dickie, who’s constructed a throne out of every pillow in the bar.
Charlotte stands and reaches for one, but he swats her hand away.
“Just give me one.”
“Why should I?” Dickie extends a hand, snaps his fingers, and a Pinkie places a chocolate cupcake neatly in his palm.
“Because if you don’t,” she says sweetly, “your bony ass is going to need one permanently.”
Dickie freezes, cupcake halfway to his mouth, then mutters and hands her a pillow.
Charlotte returns to her seat, shoves the pillow behind her back, and swivels toward me with a smile. “You’re joining us tonight, right?”
“For what?”
Charlotte and Dickie exchange a look of disbelief.
“Um, hello?” Dickie says through a mouthful of cupcake. “Reeve’s coming, remember?”
No. It completely slipped my mind that the president is flying in tonight to meet with the Professors. He’s already building buzz for his re-election campaign next year, and he knows a photo op with some of the most renowned minds in the Civilized World—many of whom taught him when he was a student at Grandmaster—will make for excellent coverage.
But that’s not why Dickie wants me there. He’s been a fanboy of Reeve’s for years, desperate for a picture, and he knows I’ve got an inside line
because Dad saved his life.
“I’d rather stay in tonight,” I say.
Dickie grumbles. “Fine friend you’re turning out to be.”
Charlotte glances at me, concern softening the lines beneath her eyes, as if she knows something’s wrong. But she doesn’t ask in front of Dickie.
“What about Edmund’s party next week?” she says, her voice gentle but still hopeful. “You’re coming to that, right?”
“I’m not sure yet. It’s so close to exams, and—”
“And?” Dickie’s disappointment flares as he snatches another cupcake.
“Since when do you say no to a night out?”
I lift my chin, trying not to crack under his stare, but I can feel my excuses fraying into threads. For a while, blaming my anxiety on my civil credits being tied to William Lee was enough. Dickie even stopped pushing me to play Highball with him. But now, with Edmund topping off my account every few days, that excuse carries no weight. They know it. I know it. And I can’t lean on it anymore.
But I have one last card in my deck—if I can play it convincingly.
“Because I’m distracted, and to be honest, I’m scared.” I raise my voice just enough to carry emotion. “The trial case is about to go to the jury. We’re days away from watching the Blues who tried to kill Reeve either walk free or, for the first time, be executed in front of the entire Civilized World. I’m sorry, but right now I can’t think about going out.”
Dickie and Charlotte fidget in their seats, sheepishly avoiding my gaze at first. But the moment sours fast.
“Fine friend you’re turning out to—” Dickie stops and scowls, realizing he’s already used the line.
Charlotte keeps her tone light, but I can tell my words set off an alarm in her head. “I understand it’s a hard time for you, Lore, and I don’t blame you for feeling this way. But you and I both know this isn’t just some party.”
I lower my eyes, saying nothing because she’s right. Now I’m out of excuses. Verdict or no verdict, the entire campus will celebrate the founding anniversary of the Civilized World next week.
“I don’t blame you for feeling antsy, broad. Anyone would be climbing the furniture by now. But if you’d rather spend your night watching Bogart narrate the jury’s micro-expressions for the millionth time, go ahead,” Dickie mutters, flopping the cupcake in his palm. “But believe me, if you skip out,
you’re gonna regret it.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why?”
“’Cause Ed’s got something he wants to ask you.”
For a moment, my mind leaps to the worst. Edmund knows about Charles.
Somehow, he knows. But if the file had been accessed, Dad would’ve warned me. And Edmund wouldn’t wait to confront me, much less kiss me the way
he did at the bar.
“What does Edmund want to ask me?”
Dickie tosses his cupcake in the air and catches it. Then again. Up and down, up and down, like he’s weighing the secret itself.
“Can’t say what it is. And I can’t say why either.”
My heart jolts, thudding against my chest as if it’s trying to squeeze through my ribs. Across from me, Charlotte taps her sharp, manicured nails on the poker table, curious. But neither of us presses him. We know how Dickie works. He can guard his own secrets, but not someone else’s.
All we have to do is wait.
Dickie shifts on the couch, still lazily flipping the cupcake in his hand. His chest swells, ballooning as if he’s trying to contain something too big to hold.
His throat bobs once, then again.
“Ed’s, uh… he’s…” Dickie pauses, then blurts it out in one breath. “He’s
gonna ask you to stay.”
I freeze.
“Not just for the year,” Dickie adds quickly. “As long as you want.
Forever, even.”
I stop trying to calm my heart. It stops on its own, crushed beneath the sudden, slamming weight of the words.
All at once, I wish Dickie had said Edmund already knew, that the worst had hit, and that I was standing in the wreckage. Because this… this is worse.
Now I’m trapped.
I can’t stay with Edmund while I’m hiding the truth about his cousin’s death, while I’m touching him with hands stained with Charles’s blood. But if I leave without a reason, Edmund will dig until he finds the truth himself.
He’ll dig, and dig, until he eventually unearths the bones.
Which means I have to tell him, with my own mouth and my own words, even if his eyes turn cold. Even if the light they hold for me goes out forever.
By 6:00 p.m., the campus is unrecognizable.
The streets teem with nearly thirty thousand students, shoulder to shoulder beneath the streetlights, their faces glowing with anticipation in the warm spring air. Every balcony is crowded, and every rooftop is filled. Even the upper stone ledges of the Lecture Halls are sprinkled with silhouettes, students perched like gargoyles, eager for a glimpse of President Reeve.
Voices echo in all directions, with some students performing two-finger salutes while others wave double-headed eagle flags over the Copper squads marching below. Crowd-control drones hover over the masses, issuing
instructions to stay behind the barricades that shape the streets into narrow, orderly lanes. Additional barriers line the designated route from the landing strip to the Genetic Engineering Facility, where President Reeve is scheduled to meet with the Professors. The route blazes with spotlights, brightening the rooftops where snipers in matte black gear stand motionless, their scopes trained on the crowd with unnerving stillness.
Benjamin Bogart, narrating from his studio in Charleston City, describes the visit to Grandmaster as “unprecedented access” and “an unusual display of affection” from a sitting president. Most of Reeve’s predecessors never set foot on campus during their terms, but he visits at least once a year, almost eagerly, as if he’s looking for a reason to come.
Bogart finds it odd. I don’t.
Reeve studied and lived here. For six long years, Grandmaster was his home, and unlike most of us, he managed to leave with his sanity intact. Of course, he’d come back. Maybe for nostalgia, peace, or to remember who he was before the world crowned him king.
In the end, I asked Dad to arrange a private moment with Reeve for Dickie; nothing extravagant, just long enough for a handshake and a photo.
Dad agreed. By tomorrow, Dickie will be the envy of the campus, and everyone will wonder why I, the daughter of the man who saved President Reeve’s life, turned down the chance to meet him.
But I don’t care. I can’t take any more eyes on me tonight. I walk into the lavatory of my suite and climb onto the sink, resting my head against the mirror. The Florence Engine buzzes nearby, casting a dull, brackish light across the walls. It projects a swamp of dark water, tangled trees, and mist that moves in time with my slow, sluggish heartbeat. I stare at the rippling images, barely seeing them, because my mind is elsewhere.
Before tonight, I never regretted killing Charles. I regretted the circumstances and the price I paid, but never the act itself.
The moment I killed him presses at the edge of my mind, forcing its way into the space I’ve worked so hard to block off. The memory flashes back in fragments, from the speed of my saber to the force of the swing to the sheer, unbridled brutality of the blow. I watch those four horrible minutes play out behind my eyes, the way others watch nightmares, and I recoil, sickened not only by what I see but also by the fear that someone else might see it, too.
Especially Edmund.
It’s one thing for Edmund to know I killed his cousin. It’s something else
entirely for him to know how. That’s what haunts me now, what makes me want to crawl into a hole in the earth and never come out.
The way I killed Charles is part of why Judge Bradford came down on me so hard. Even though I acted in self-defense, the fatal blow looked like rage.
Vengeance. Judge Bradford told me I didn’t have to be so brutal, and the Blackwells’ lawyer agreed. A man I had every reason to ignore made a point I still can’t shake: I could’ve stopped Charles without killing him. I could’ve forced him back, holding him off until the Coppers came, but I didn’t.
And the worst part is, the Blackwell’s lawyer was right.
I didn’t plan to kill Charles. I didn’t draw my saber wanting blood. But once the fight began, it moved too fast, and I lost control. I’d trained for combat, from sparring matches to fencing tournaments, but those fights had rules and referees in striped jackets who blew their whistles before the violence went too far.
What I learned the night I killed Charles is that nothing prepares you for a real fight. You can master every move in the safety of a training room, but when it’s life or death, all that knowledge falls away. The world narrows to fight or die, kill or be killed. In that moment, you’re not a logical person making choices. You’re pure instinct and adrenaline, screaming at you to
survive.
And I did. I survived.
But what came out of me to make survival possible was ugly, so horrifying that it made Mom gasp and Dad go pale when they first saw the courtroom footage.
That, I think, is partly why Charles’s parents agreed to bury the truth.
First, because Charles never officially challenged me, and his ambush outside a sanctioned death duel would’ve tarnished the Blackwell name. But more importantly, because of what the footage revealed: a Blue killed by a Green.
And killed in that way. The Blackwells didn’t want the world to see the mess their son’s body left behind. So they covered it up with a lie and declared Charles’s death a Bliss overdose. And I walked free.
Until now.
Because now I have to face Edmund. And there’s no court ruling, sealed report, or scripted excuse that can shield me from what he’ll see when he learns the truth; when he understands what I did, and worse, what I became while doing it.
I drop my head into my hands and press my fingers against my temples,
drawing a deep, ragged breath. I know I have to tell Edmund. I know it can’t be avoided. But before I do, I need my sisters, now more than ever. I’ll tell them everything, if only to hear their voices.
The problem is that neither Vivian nor Hillaire will talk to me. They stopped taking my calls the moment they learned I’d told Dad I’d support his decision to run for Governor of the Rainbow District. I activate my Bond and stare at the last message Vivian sent me two days ago: “Stop calling, Lore. Please. I need some time.”
I exit the text, my shoulders shaking beneath the weight of Charles’s ghost, and open Hillaire’s messages. The screen is empty except for seven calls Hillaire ignored, seven attempts I’ve made to reach her in the past week.
I stare at the screen for a moment before dialing her number. One ring. No answer, so I call again. Then again. A fourth time. A fifth. I tell myself I’ll keep calling until she picks up. I don’t care how long it takes. I need to hear her voice, any sign that she’s still my sister.
Finally, on the seventh call, a notification blinks at the top of the screen: “You’re the only one who could’ve talked Father out of it, Loredana,”
Hillaire texts. “When the Blues kill him—and they WILL kill him—I’ll blame
you.”
Then she blocks my number.
