The only man I regret killing is the one who smiled, for he had the
dignity to laugh at his own misfortune.
JULIAN LAKE, MASTER OF ARMS
CHAPTER 43
Terror slams through me as every eye on the deck of the yacht turns toward me. For a moment, Irene stares, her body unnaturally still, as if her mind is frozen on the words. Rosamund, meanwhile, transforms the instant her accusation leaves her mouth. Her lips peel back over her teeth, and her gaze rakes over me with slow, crawling revulsion. I know she’s picturing Edmund and me together, and the thought makes her sick.
But it’s the Coppers who unnerve me most, all Greens, all glaring. The sergeant, the one with the honor scar who only suspected this morning, looks at me now as if certain of my betrayal. My disgrace. His eyes cut through me, as if demanding to know why. What pushed me over the edge? Did I crawl into a Blue’s bed for protection? For civil credits? Or was it all for nothing?
Did I do it because I was stupid enough to believe Edmund loves me?
I don’t understand.
I don’t know what Rosamund saw to make her accuse me, but it doesn’t matter. Everyone believes her. I can see the truth sinking in like a drop of poison spreading through the bloodstream.
I stumble back a step, then another, my hands groping blindly at my face, my hair, searching for the thing that gave me away… and then I feel my earring.
The diamond teardrop I lost in Edmund’s room, the one Irene found. Of course, she photographed the earring and sent a copy to Rosamund. Unable to track me down herself while under house arrest, Irene sent her bloodhounds after me. Now one of them has caught me.
I want to scream. I want to rip off the earrings and hurl them into the lake.
I shouldn’t have worn them in the first place, but then again, Irene and Rosamund weren’t supposed to be here.
Irene steps toward me, and I straighten even as my lungs constrict with sudden, blinding panic. The Coppers close ranks behind her, hands moving toward their weapons as a silent warning to Irene not to overstep. But she’s still too close. I can smell the bitter tang of her isolation, the long, suffocating months she’s spent locked away. Her eyes fall to the teardrop earring, and the muscles in her face begin to quiver. Her expression turns brittle at the edges, so fragile I can almost hear it crack.
“So that’s why you refused my offer,” Irene says. “Why you wouldn’t help me find the woman my fiancé was betraying me with. Because it was you all along.”
I try to back away, but my foot hits the railing.
“She gave him Ernest’s Vanguard badge,” Rosamund cuts in. “That’s how deep it goes. I always wondered why she handed it over. I thought it was a bribe at first. But now it all fits.”
I grip the railing, realizing there’s no way out. Neither of their accusations is true, but at this point, they might as well be, because they’re right. I’ve become the very woman Irene wanted me to hunt.
“It wasn’t true then,” I say, holding my voice steady. “But it is now.”
The words leave my mouth like an obscenity, and for a moment, every face around me goes slack. Then the Coppers pivot sharply, hands twitching toward their weapons as if fighting the urge to draw on me. Rosamund shudders with a fury so dark I can see her regretting that she didn’t kill me herself. Beside her, Irene’s mouth flattens into a thin, bloodless line. To her, I’m more than a traitor; I’m a humiliation. I’m a low-citizen thief who seduced her fiancé, stealing her honor with him. And now she has to reclaim it.
Irene lowers her head, shoulders rolling forward, and goes still in that
dreadful, final way.
That’s when I know.
She’s going to kill me.
The Coppers leap into motion as Irene’s hand flies to the saber at her hip.
Their boots pound the deck, and their arms shoot out, seizing her before she can draw. The sergeant orders her to stand down, but she resists, thrashing in their grip, lunging against them, muscles straining until the veins in her neck swell.
Her voice breaks through the commotion, righteous and certain: “By the rights afforded me under the Civilized Constitution, I name you, Loredana Waldsten, as challenger. I invoke the rite of final contest to settle this matter by blood. Choose your witness. Choose your weapon. I have named the hour—and the hour is now.”
Irene thrusts her Blood Ring toward mine.
The scan completes before I can pull away, and my Bond flashes with a duel request.
Accept or decline: countdown, thirty seconds.
Oh, shit.
The Coppers advance, weapons lowered but ready.
“Miss Hussey, this challenge is invalid,” the sergeant growls. “You are barred from initiating a sanctioned duel with a key witness in an active case.
Withdraw immediately.”
Irene spits at his feet. Her chest heaves in jagged bursts, her knuckles trembling with the effort to force her saber free of its scabbard.
My Bond screen glows brighter, urging me to choose an option. If I decline, the shame will follow me forever. It’ll be a permanent black mark on my record, cowardice written into every future that might have been mine.
But the Coppers won’t let a death duel happen under these circumstances. I won’t have to fight. I just have to protect my name.
I accept.
Irene lifts her head as if she smells blood. “So, you accept?”
“Yes.”
“Enough,” the sergeant barks, shoving himself between us. “The duel is unlawful and will not proceed. Miss Waldsten, return below deck. Miss Hussey, you will follow us now or face resistance charges.”
The other Coppers continue to restrain Irene. One Copper’s hand hovers near his pistol, and though he looks prepared to draw, his darting glance reveals doubt about whether he can stop her if she truly breaks.
“This is a matter of honor, sergeant,” Irene declares. “Will you deny me the right to reclaim it?”
“You may submit a challenge if you are exonerated. Not before. The court proceedings must come first.”
Irene bares her teeth in a silent snarl. The heat of her fury seems to warp the air between us. “You accepted the duel challenge, Miss Waldsten. And yet you have no saber?”
“She can use mine,” Rosamund says.
Rosamund draws her saber and tries to press it toward me, but I jerk back as though the graphene itself might burn me. The blade slips from Rosamund’s hand and clatters onto the deck near my foot.
“What’s the matter?” Irene snaps. “Too cowardly to defend your dishonor?”
Rosamund’s gaze sharpens, and the manic gleam in her eyes dims for the first time, as if she sees something Irene doesn’t.
She bends, lifts the saber, and offers it again.
I retreat, too quickly and too desperately. That’s all it takes.
“Why, Miss Waldsten,” Rosamund murmurs, suspicion coiling in her tone, “are you so afraid to touch a weapon?”
My throat locks. “Because the duel is illegal. We are not allowed to fight.”
I swing toward the sergeant, willing him to act.
With a sharp step forward, he seizes Irene by the arm. “Your saber, Miss Hussey, or I’ll take it off you myself.”
Irene’s attention lingers on his hand, already resting on his unsnapped gun holster, and her nostrils flare in frustration. Then, slowly, she unsheathes her saber and hands it over. The sergeant takes the weapon as if it might go off in his hands, then pockets it with a breath that’s half relief, half disbelief.
“You will return to your suite, Miss Hussey. No resistance.”
Irene bites off a curse, her fingers twitching as if reaching for a weapon that’s no longer there. Still, she gives a curt nod. The Coppers close in, forcing her back, their grips loosening as they guide her toward the hoverboats.
“Lore, are you still up here?” Charlotte’s voice rises from below deck, echoing off the wooden planks. She turns the corner with her Bond activated.
When she sees all of us clustered together, her face tightens into a frown.
“What’s going on up here?”
“Nothing to concern yourself with, Miss Deering.” The sergeant pivots toward her. “Please return below deck.”
The moment he turns his back, Irene lunges. She rips free with a violent twist and arcs toward me. In a flash, her fingers clamp around my wrist.
There’s a crack, followed by a hot sting across my skin as the Rippletone that Edmund gave me tears loose. Irene tosses the bracelet onto the deck, where it skitters and rolls to a stop.
I dive for the Rippletone instinctively, just as Irene’s leg sweeps up. I
react a second too late. The kick strikes my ribs with enough force to steal my breath, the pain like something caving in. My body folds, then lifts, and the world flips upside down.
My sandals catch the railing as I tumble over. For a breathless moment, the sky tilts above me, bruised and blinking with early stars. I hear Charlotte scream, Rosamund gasp, the sergeant shout over pounding boots, and Irene
grunt as the Coppers tackle her.
But I’m already falling.
I expect wind. I expect fear. Instead, there’s a metal rod slamming into my shoulder, followed by the give of a body beneath me and a startled, terrified cry. Dickie.
I crash against the gunwale of his hoverboat, which has risen halfway up the port side of the yacht. The craft lurches and flips with a shriek of tearing steel, hurling both of us into the open air. For a split second, I see Dickie falling beside me, arms wheeling, mouth stretched in a scream. The lake surges up fast, glowing blue and roaring with bioluminescent light. My head rings, my pulse races, and my mind narrows to a single, searing thought: Dickie doesn’t know how to swim.
Dickie hits the lake first.
The impact sprays water against the hull of the yacht as I plummet twenty feet through open air. I hit feet first, the collision jolting through me so hard it feels like my legs have been rammed into my stomach. The water is thicker than I expect, warm and slick, engulfing my body like a mouth as I sink. For a moment, I’m suspended, weightless, with no sense of up or down. The surface is nothing but a wavering smear of gold above me.
Then, just as my lungs seize, instinct takes over. I kick upward, break the surface, and drag in a ragged gasp. The water erupts with light around me, spectral ribbons shimmering from the bioluminescent algae drifting below.
“Dickie!” I spin in the water.
He’s nearly ten feet away, thrashing but barely staying afloat. His limbs flail wildly, and his mouth gulps more water than air as his head bobs back and forth. For a brief, terrifying moment, his arms slap at the surface before he seizes up, his body going rigid with panic.
Then he slips under.
I dive and kick hard toward him. The water stings my eyes, the glow around me distorting my vision, but I close the gap between us until my fingers catch his shirt. I fist the fabric tightly and wrench Dickie upward, fighting the heavy drag of his body as I haul us both toward the surface.
We break through in a glittering spray of water. He’s coughing and choking, his hands clawing at me in blind terror.
“Dickie, breathe,” I sputter, struggling to keep us afloat. But he’s past hearing, dragging us both down as he spirals into hysteria.
Shouts resound from above. I twist in the water and spot two Blues—the same ones we pelted with golf balls earlier—on the deck of their yacht, waving and pointing, their faces stretched with alarm.
I curse and scan the lake, seeing nothing at first. Then there’s a tremor, ripples where the water should be still, followed by a bloom of color swirling
beneath the surface.
Piranhas.
My body lurches as if it can already feel their teeth. They’re coming straight for us. I whip my head toward Edmund’s yacht and, there, barely visible through the glow, hang the silver rungs of a ladder.
“Dickie, we have to swim!”
I drag him toward Edmund’s yacht, which is slowly sailing away, my arms burning with each stroke. The water clings, heavy as seaweed, pulling at us as I force us toward the ladder. But when we finally reach it, Dickie goes limp. His head drops against my shoulder, mouth slack, breath gone.
“Dickie?” I shake him. “Dickie!”
A few feet above, the ladder waits like an outstretched hand. I know I could swing high enough to grab it and save myself. But to live, I’ll have to let Dickie go.
The Blues start yelling, drawing my eye back to their yacht. One throws a chair into the lake, while another hurls a table, sudden flashes of noise and movement meant to distract the piranha swarm. But it’s too late.
The water ahead erupts in a violent swell of scales and teeth. There are too many of them, moving too fast, like a tide of sawblades spilling from the glow.
I watch, my heart slamming against my ribs, knowing it’s my last chance to save myself. My head screams at me to climb, to survive, but my arms refuse to loosen. I grip Dickie tighter, as though he’s part of my own body.
I shove away from the hull, my chest heaving as I force air into my lungs.
Then I reach for him. My last hope.
“EDMUUUUUUUND!”
The scream rips out raw and jagged, shredding through my throat, my heart, the night itself. The name echoes over the water, reverberating across the lake so loudly that the two Blues on the neighboring yacht freeze mid-
motion.
Please.
Please let Edmund hear me.
Please let him run.
If he doesn’t, Dickie and I are going to die, right here in each other’s arms.
The piranhas close the gap in a volcanic rush of water. Twenty feet.
Fifteen. I see their red, orb-like eyes and gaping jaws. I curl my body tighter around Dickie, cradling his limp head against my shoulder, trying to shield him as best I can.
I close my fingers around Dad’s daffodil brooch, still pinned to my cover- up. And then, all at once, it hits.
Teeth sink into my leg. I scream as pain detonates through my thigh, white-hot, burning all the way down to the bone. Another bite follows. Then another. My thigh muscles seize around each agonizing bite, constricting protectively. Blood jets into the lake in thick, green clouds, dulling the luster.
My vision narrows, the edges dimming like a faraway light. The pain is blinding, but my mind floats above it, as if the body being torn apart isn’t mine. I can’t tell where I end and the water begins. I go still, unsure if I’m dying, knowing only that everything is stretching and slowing down.
Then shouts echo from above.
I force my head up and open my eyes weakly.
Edmund stands on the upper deck, balanced on the railing, one hand clawing at his hair. He sees Dickie, me, the piranha swarm, and the blood seeping into the water. His eyes lock on mine, and for an instant, the world collapses to that single point of contact: him, me, the weight of that stare.
I cling to it because I know.
He’s coming for us.
Rosamund grabs Edmund’s arm from behind and yells something, the sound muffled by Charlotte’s terrified screams. He wrenches free, swings his legs over the railing, and jumps. The dive slices through the darkness in a
blue streak of motion. His body arcs smoothly, head tucked, arms outstretched, striking with enough force to shatter the surface into a spray of foam.
The piranhas are still devouring my lower half. The pain is everywhere, too much, stabbing through my thighs, knees, and calves. I can’t tell if my legs are still attached, only that they feel too light. The world flickers at the edges until every color bleeds into green.
Then the biting stops.
The piranhas scatter, driven back by the pulse of Edmund’s Rippletone.
They burst outward in unison, an explosion of scales and teeth in every direction.
My blood still clouds the water. The pain still burns through me. I’m seizing so hard my grip slips. I can’t hold Dickie anymore.
I can’t— Then Edmund is there, swimming through the last of the piranhas with furious, desperate strokes. One arm hooks around Dickie’s shoulders, and the other around my waist as I begin to sink. I feel his raw strength, the shuddering force of his body, the brute will of someone ready to die, too.
“Loredana!” Edmund’s voice tears on my name as he pulls me close.
“Loreda—oh, fuck.” His arms lock up, his breath buckling into a hoarse, grating sound as his eyes catch on the bleeding bite marks across my arms.
Above, screaming cuts through my dizziness. Charlotte’s voice, shrill and panicked: “Jack! Now! GO!”
Jack jumps into a hoverboat on the side deck and launches it off the yacht with a screech of hydraulics. The vessel crashes into the water, its nose rising as Jack drives hard and fast, heading straight for us.
Edmund swims forward, kicking with brutal force as he holds Dickie and me to his chest. He’s silent now, white as bone, his heart pounding so hard I think it might crack through his ribs.
When the hoverboat reaches us, Edmund hoists Dickie toward Jack.
“Take him—now!”
Jack catches Dickie’s shoulders and drags him aboard with a panicked curse. Then Edmund slants toward me, one arm hooking beneath my thighs.
He moves like he means to be careful, but the instant he sees my legs, his body goes rigid, as if life is draining from him the same way blood is draining from me. I turn, trying to look, but he blocks me.
“No, Loredana. Fuck. Please—keep your eyes on me.”
Jack shouts over him. “Get her in! Ed, get her in now!”
Edmund shifts his hold to my waist and lifts me toward the hoverboat.
Jack leans out, grabs my arms, and pulls. My body scrapes over the gunwale —splinters, paint, blood—but the pain feels distant, like I’m watching from the yacht’s deck above with the others instead of living it.
Inside the hoverboat, Edmund is no longer there to prevent me from seeing the damage the piranhas caused. My head drops, and when I see what’s left of me, I clamp up, paralyzed. My right leg is flayed open, like a half-peeled fruit. And my left leg… my left is nearly gone. It’s torn to the upper thigh, a tangle of raw muscle, shredded nerves, and green blood jetting in hard, arterial spurts. The white glint of bone shows through pink flesh.
The pain should kill me. Instead, my mouth opens in a scream that never escapes. My body convulses, then curls into shock so deep I can’t move.
“Loredana?” Jack’s voice is thin, terrified. “Loredana—?”
His head snaps toward Dickie, who lies blue-lipped and unbreathing. He drops to his knees and starts chest compressions. Tears blur his eyes as he mutters, “Come on, brother—breathe.”
The hoverboat rocks hard as Edmund vaults inside. Water streams from his clothes as he drops to his knees beside me, panting raggedly. He grabs my cover-up and rips off a strip in a single, savage tear. His hands, white- knuckled and slick with my blood, shake so violently he nearly drops the fabric.
When he wraps the cover-up around my thigh and yanks it tight, a shrill scream finally tears free, ripping out of me like a wound bursting open.
“I’m sorry,” Edmund chokes. “I’m sorry.”
He keeps twisting the knot tighter and higher until the bleeding slows.
Behind him, Jack is still counting, breathless and rasping. “Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Breathe!”
The hoverboat slams onto the side deck of the yacht with a scraping sound of wood. String lights spin above me in a dizzying whirl. Two Pinkies rush forward and seize the vessel, gripping the gunwales to keep it from pitching.
Edmund lays me flat on my back and elevates my legs, holding the incline steady. My blood is everywhere, on his arms, in his hair, across his face.
“Ed—” Jack’s voice breaks. “He’s not—he’s not breathing!”
Edmund whips around. A single look at Dickie’s still body folds his face.
For one terrible second, he doesn’t move.
Then: “Switch!”
Jack scrambles toward me and grabs my legs, holding them elevated.
Edmund drops to Dickie’s side, plants his hands on his chest, locks his elbows, and starts compressions, counting in a low, cracked whisper. “One, two, three…”
He leans in, tilts Dickie’s head back, pinches his nose, and seals his mouth over Dickie’s. One breath, then another.
“Come on, Dickie.” Edmund’s voice grinds out of him desperately.
“Come on.” He pumps again, faster and more frantically.
Around us, the deck crowds with bodies. Charlotte collapses to her knees beside me, sobbing. “I’m so sorry, Lore. I tried to get you with a hoverboat, but Rosamund held me back.”
Irene and Rosamund stand shoulder to shoulder, frozen, their faces bleached with terror. The sergeant barks into his radio for a helicopter while two Pinkies rush in and smear ointment over my wounds, which hiss and bubble on contact. A sterile, cloying smell thickens the air as the bleeding slows. The gashes cinch shut under the clotting agents, and the pain suddenly vanishes, as if cut away.
I glance over at Edmund, who’s still performing chest compressions.
“Dickie.” His hands pump rhythmically against Dickie’s sternum. “Dickie.
Please.”
He seals his mouth over Dickie’s again and breathes deeply. Dickie’s chest rises once, twice, and then… a cough.
Dickie spasms, vomiting lake water in a violent gush. He gasps, and his body convulses against the deck as if fighting to stay tethered to the world.
The first breath he takes is a gulp, dragging in air as if it’s the first time he’s ever tasted it.
The deck goes still. Even Rosamund, who’d begun edging toward the hoverboats, stops in her tracks.
Dickie props himself up on an elbow, still wheezing. He scrubs water and bile from his lips, blinking until his gaze settles on Edmund’s shell-shocked face. Edmund’s sandals leak lakewater, and his shirt is torn and plastered to his skin. His chest heaves, and his eyes, glassy and bloodshot, fix on Dickie in a blank, unseeing stare.
“It’s all right, Ed,” Dickie rasps, reaching to pat his arm.
Edmund flinches at the touch, his jaw tight, as if he’s still underwater, trapped in a different moment when Dickie died.
Dickie waits, then tries again, forcing a crooked grin.
“I’m all right,” he says. “Though I kinda hoped the first time I got puckered up, it’d be by a pretty broad.”
His gaze jumps past Edmund, his eyebrow lifting toward Charlotte.
She lets out a short, breathless laugh that shatters into a sob. Her shoulders fold inward as more tears come.
Edmund shakes himself, snapping out of it slowly, then all at once. He springs forward and pulls Dickie close, his shoulders trembling as his body arcs protectively around him.
Dickie flinches and cries out loud enough to make Edmund twitch back.
Edmund’s eyes drop to Dickie’s shirt, clinging wetly to his ribs and stained with a sickly rust-colored mark. Edmund peels the fabric away and finds a plug of flesh missing, a clean piranha bite gouged from under Dickie’s ribcage.
Dickie groans as if he’s only now aware of the pain. His body slumps back against the deck, his head lolling sideways until he sees me and what remains of my leg.
“Loredana?” His voice, tinged with horror, is barely a whisper.
I don’t know if he remembers what happened or how close we came to being eaten alive.
Beside me, Charlotte’s grip tightens around my hand. Her face is a frantic mess of smeared makeup and tears as she shouts at the sergeant, demanding to know where the helicopter is. She keeps asking if I’m still in pain, but I can’t answer. I can only stare at Edmund, who’s crouched over me, his eyes dead, as if seeing me broken has broken him too.
Jack kneels beside Dickie and smears ointment over the wound to stanch the bleeding. “What happened, Dickie?” he gasps. “How the fuck did you guys fall in?”
Dickie shakes his head, too dazed to answer.
“Miss Hussey initiated an unlawful death duel challenge against Miss Waldsten,” the sergeant cuts in. “I intervened and disarmed her. Miss Hussey was being taken into custody when she broke free, struck Miss Waldsten, and kicked her overboard. Mr. Langley was ascending in a hoverboat at the time.
Miss Waldsten collided with the vessel mid-rise, causing it to capsize, and both parties entered the water.”
Edmund rises slowly as the sergeant speaks, the kind of slow that makes everyone else go still. Irene retreats to the railing, her eyes tracking the way his head tilts down and his shoulders drop as he shifts his weight. With a
frantic curse, she springs at one of the Coppers, yanks the plasma pistol from his holster, and trains it on Edmund.
But he still advances, exploding forward in a feral burst that rattles the deck. Irene tugs back the pistol’s charging handle and locks her arm in preparation to fire. Yet when her finger closes on the trigger, it stiffens as if gone numb.
Edmund is already halfway to her before anyone reacts. Jack clears a hot tub in one leap and slams into him from behind, arms locking around his waist. “Not like this, Ed!” he shouts.
The Coppers move to de-escalate the situation, forming a wall in front of Irene, whose finger is still frozen on the pistol’s trigger. Rosamund sobs and ducks behind the bar, nearly tripping over her screeching monkey.
Edmund keeps pushing forward, dragging Jack along until his sandals slip and squeal on the slick deck. His breath tears ragged from his throat, hands clenched into bloodless fists, eyes locked on his target with fierce, blinding rage. He’s yelling, but he’s not thinking. He’s hunting.
Jack clings tighter, straining with everything he has, but Edmund propels forward until he slams against the wall of Coppers. He shoulders past the sergeant, then arcs up with a savage roar and drives his forehead into the muzzle of Irene’s pistol.
I lurch sideways, so stunned I barely register the roar of the helicopter overhead. Light floods the sky as the helicopter touches down on the yacht’s helipad. The rotor wash lashes the deck, whipping my hair into my eyes and knocking plates off the bar. Then the cabin door bursts open, and four Pinkie medics leap out, boots pounding the planks.
The robots shout orders as they move, one team heading for Dickie and the other for me. In seconds, we’re strapped to gurneys. Robotic fingers check our vitals as IV lines click into place and monitors attach to our chests.
Charlotte and Jack follow as Dickie and I are rushed toward the helicopter.
Edmund stays behind.
He’s still shouting over the Coppers, ramming his forehead into the muzzle of Irene’s plasma pistol again and again, as if daring her to fire. Irene stares, open-mouthed and trembling, until Edmund wrenches the pistol from her grip and hurls it into the lake. Then he turns on her with a final, ferocious shout.
Whatever he says is drowned out by the thunder of rotor blades, but it drains the color from Irene’s face. Her knees buckle, and the sergeant catches
her by the waist. Her body folds as the last of her fire spills out of her like blood.
The Pinkies lift me into the helicopter, and the scene outside fades from view. Inside, everything is a blur of flashing lights, electronic voices, and moving hands. Dickie lies on the gurney next to mine, half-conscious, slurring as he complains about losing his airplane in the lake.
“It’s not just a toy, Jack,” he cries, tears streaking his freckled cheeks.
“It’s my life. You’ve gotta get it back.”
Jack squeezes Dickie’s shoulder, and as he murmurs reassurances, my hands dart to my swimsuit cover-up. I fumble under the strap, down my side,
across every fold of tattered fabric.
It’s gone.
“The brooch,” I choke. “Char—the daffodil. It’s gone.”
Charlotte leans over me, eyes wide. “Shit. The one your dad gave you?”
I nod, a new pain forming deep in my chest. “I lost it. In the water—” My hands claw at my cover-up again, uselessly, as if I can make the brooch reappear by sheer desperation. “It’s gone.”
“We’ll find it, Lore.” She strokes my hair, her voice too calm to be real. “I promise. We’ll figure it out. We’ll get it back.”
The helicopter engine roars louder, and pressure builds in the cabin as the door begins to slide shut. A shout cuts through the air before Edmund hurls himself through the narrowing gap. A bloody bruise swells on his forehead where he rammed into the barrel of Irene’s pistol, blood dripping into his eyes as they dart around the cabin until they find me.
I try to sit up and reach for him when I feel the twinge of a needle in my arm. Warmth spreads fast, flooding my limbs and dragging my eyelids closed.
I blink once, and Edmund appears above me, framed by the window, his face lit in bursts as the first Founders Day fireworks explode across the sky.
They crackle beyond the glass, white-gold against the black. One after another, violent, blinding, and beautiful, like stars torn apart.
“Loredana, I’m—” Edmund drifts closer, his hand shaking as it hovers over my mangled legs. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say weakly, barely able to speak. “You heard me, Edmund.
And you were fast enough, just like I said you’d be.”
The words make him flinch, his throat tightening in his collar. Slowly, he sinks to his knees beside me and encloses my hands in his. “I’ll fix you,” he
says. “I’ll fix all of it.”
My eyes close, and the thoughts in my head darken, but before I go under,
I manage a faint, trembling smile.
Because I believe him.
