I knew I’d found the one, not when I was willing to die for her. But when, for her, I was willing to die to myself. —EDMUND PREW
CHAPTER 49
Whatever shock or anger Edmund might’ve carried these past few days, none of it shows now. The only thing I see in him is sadness, like the shadow cast when a cloud drifts in front of the sun. It doesn’t fit the suit he’s wearing, a bright, eggshell-blue three-piece that makes him look like spring in mourning.
When I reach him at the tram stop, the rain begins. It’s only a few shy drops at first, but the sky above us appears swollen, ready to split wide open.
Edmund remains silent as the tram arrives, though his gaze drifts over my goosebump-pebbled arms, as if noticing I’m cold. He lifts his hand to signal for me to board first.
I glance up at the overhead display, which shows the route to the Moonshine Mile. Of course. It’s Thursday, the day we usually breakfast at the Tangerine Tree. But I won’t see that place today. It’ll all be over long before then, and I’ll step off this tram alone, heading back to the low-citizen
zones where I belong.
I can’t bear it.
As Edmund guides me through the Blue section of the tram, the silence between us feels like it could crush me. My throat works around all the words I want to force out, yet each one feels too little and too late. We pass several booths, private and luxurious, until he chooses an empty one near the end.
We step inside and sit facing each other, our knees nearly touching. As Edmund closes the door, he avoids my gaze as if my face were an open wound he can’t bear to look at. I swallow hard and slip my hand into my pocket, wrapping my fingers around the wire daffodil he gave me, willing it
to steady me. But when he finally looks at me, the sadness in his eyes wilts my hope, and my composure breaks. I don’t have the right words. There aren’t any. All I can do is say the ones that claw their way out first.
“I’m so sorry, Edmund. I didn’t mean to lie. I swear, I never meant to hide what I did. I didn’t know Charles was your cousin until a few weeks ago. My dad told me. And by then… by then I was already—We were already—” The words break apart on a gasp.
“We already cared about each other too much. And at that point, I didn’t know how to put it in your hands and hope you wouldn’t hate me. I tried—on the yacht, before Irene came. And after that, when you asked me to go flying with you. I was going to tell you then, I promise. I never wanted it to come out like this. Not in that room. Not in front of everyone.”
I pause and draw in a ragged breath that scrapes my throat raw. My hands shake so violently that I clamp them between my knees, trying to still them.
“And I know it cost you everything. All those Blues telling you to get rid of
me—”
“Yes,” Edmund says softly.
The word silences me.
“Yes,” he repeats. “But the cost never mattered to me. Like you said, we care about each other. And that’s what people who care about each other do.”
I frown, unsettled by how calm his tone is. It doesn’t match the tension in his body or the unsteady look in his eyes, quiet yet desperate, like a man slowly bleeding out. I lean forward and reach for him instinctively, but just before my hand touches his, he pulls away.
“Given the nature of our… situation,” he says, loosening his tie, “I’ll give you a choice. I won’t cut you out of my entourage. I won’t hold it against you. I’ll even forgive you—if you prove yourself the way I proved myself to you, by paying a cost. For me.”
I nod before I can stop myself, even though every ounce of my survival instinct screams at me to run. Something about this is wrong. It feels like he’s moving pieces on a board I can’t see or touch, yet they’ll decide my future all
the same.
“Prove it how?”
Edmund’s throat tightens, and he drags his hand across his mouth as if to hide it. Then he reaches into his suit jacket pocket, pulls something free, and presses it into my palm.
I look down and see a small glass vial holding a single black pill.
Bliss.
As I stare at the pill, black as a dead star in the vial, the deal that Edmund is lying at my feet dawns on me in brutal flashes, like a shockwave of glass shattering behind my eyes. I see it all: take Bliss, one tiny pill. It’ll cost me a hundred civil credits, pennies he’d probably slip back into my account himself. But the real price isn’t in the civil credits. It’s in the destruction that would follow.
My tongue grows heavy as I realize why Edmund wanted to meet in public. Here, under the eyes of students, Coppers, and surveillance cameras, there’s no way to hide the drug’s effects. People would see. They’d whisper.
They’d take pictures and run to sell them. The story would spread like oil on water until even Benjamin Bogart is laughing it up live on air: Bruce Waldsten’s daughter, high on the very drug her father banned.
Worse, the story would break just as Dad is about to announce his run for Governor of the Rainbow District.
Edmund understands this. He knows exactly what a scandal like this would do to me, to Dad, to our family. I see it in how he watches me now, as if he’s handling something fragile, fully aware he’s about to drop it.
But why? Why?
I shove the vial back into his hand, trembling so hard I can barely choke out the words. “No, Edmund. Don’t ask me to do this. Please.”
“I won’t force you to take it, Loredana. As I said, it’s your choice.”
“It’s not a choice. And you know it’s not.” My voice echoes in the hollow cabin, humiliated and helpless. “I’m sorry, Edmund. I’m so sorry for what I did. I’d do anything to take it back. I know you loved Charles—”
“Loved him?” The sadness in Edmund’s eyes clouds with a sharp, poisonous disdain. “No, Loredana. I didn’t love Charles. I hated him, even more than Miss Hussey did.”
Irene? What? My mind staggers, struggling to make sense of the connection, until I remember that Irene had another fiancé before Edmund. A
fiancé who died.
“Was… Charles engaged to Irene?”
Edmund doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to. I see it in the rapid rise
and fall of his chest, as if his heart is beating itself bloody against his ribs. It wasn’t fate that tied Edmund to Irene. It wasn’t an accident. It was me.
The truth rips through me, and I slump back into the seat, curling in on myself like paper burning too fast to save. I reach for words, but there are none for this, no apology big enough to cover it. I understand now that Edmund’s misery is mine to own. When I killed Charles, I killed him, too.
“Edmund—”
The word falters, breaking off as dizziness engulfs me. My injured leg buckles beneath me as I lurch forward, nearly sliding off the seat, until Edmund stands and catches me. He steadies me against the armrest, then starts to let go, but I clutch his suit jacket with trembling fists.
“I didn’t know,” I rasp, the tears scalding my eyes. “Edmund, I didn’t know.”
I rise beside him, clinging tighter, and bury my face in his chest with a desperation that burns through every shred of my pride. My sobs come out harsher, rougher, shaking against him. Edmund’s body stays rigid, refusing me, until I tilt my face up and meet his eyes through the blur of tears. His jaw constricts as he watches them spill down my cheeks, his expression fractured by the same devastation I saw in the elevator when he told me he loved me and I refused to say the same. His hands hang frozen at his sides, though his fingers tremble, as if he’s trapped between pulling me closer and tearing himself away.
“Edmund.” My hand hovers before I finally brush it along his cheekbone.
He leans into my palm instinctively, then pulls away. “Please,” I whisper, softer now. My fingers drift to his mouth, and he stiffens, his breath catching low. I can feel his pulse pounding in his chest, his skin growing hotter, and the tremor in his arms, as if every part of him is straining at the brink of surrender.
“Please, Edmund,” I breathe, clutching his lapels as hope sparks inside me. “Forgive me, and I’ll never hurt you again.”
His head dips a fraction, his mouth so close that the heat of it grazes my skin. I rise onto my toes, reaching for him as my hope grows stronger. And then, just before our lips touch, he pushes something into my hand.
I stumble back, stunned as I recognize the object’s shape. My eyes drop to my hand, where the vial of Bliss gleams like a loaded gun, and my chest caves. He’s really still doing this? After telling me he loves me, after everything we’ve been through, this is what he chooses? This is his
forgiveness?
No. Something’s wrong. This isn’t the Edmund I know.
I reach blindly for the seat, ready to collapse, when the tram jerks to a sudden stop. I stumble back and collide with the cushions, bracing myself on the armrest as the conductor’s voice crackles overhead.
“Attention, passengers. Due to a technical fault, this line will terminate at the next stop. Please disembark and wait for the next available tram. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your cooperation. May you always be virtuous.”
I don’t look at Edmund again. When the tram rocks into the station, I hurry outside and step straight into a mud puddle that drenches my shoes.
The drizzle has thickened to a heavy downpour, soaking me within seconds.
The rain is so fierce and side-slashing I can barely see a few feet ahead, as if the sky itself is tearing open for me.
The Genetic Engineering Facility looms ahead, its iron gates dark through the sheets of rain. Beyond them, the neon signs of the Moonshine Mile flicker down the street.
I mean to wait for another tram, but I can’t think straight enough to read the departure board. My feet carry me forward until my fingers brush the
cold, wet iron of the facility gates.
Behind me, I hear Edmund follow.
“Loredana.” His voice slips in like a blade between my ribs. “Will you do what I did? Prove yourself?”
I turn on him, barely able to contain my shock. It only deepens when I see his face, still carved with a sadness that seems to rot through the middle of him. Why? I could forgive bitterness. I could even forgive rage. But this sadness… this I can’t forgive.
Again, the sense that I’m only seeing half the picture emerges.
“This isn’t you, Edmund,” I shout, hardly recognizing the face I’ve kissed so many times.
Is someone forcing him to do this? I don’t know. The only thing I can say for sure is that whoever this man is, he’s not the one I fell in love with, as if I watered a tree only to find it’s grown into a gallows.
“It wasn’t me then,” Edmund says quietly, “but it is me now.” He nods toward the vial of Bliss in my hand. “Will you take it?”
“No!” My voice rips out, ragged. I throw the Bliss vial to the ground and crush it under the heel of my shoe. “I won’t. Don’t pretend this is a choice.
You know exactly what you’re doing. You know that once you force this, there’s no going back. We can’t be together. We can’t even be friends.
Because I’ll hate you, Edmund. I’ll hate you until I die. You can break me— you already have—but you’ll never touch my dad.”
Edmund takes it without flinching, rain streaming down his face, his hair plastered to his forehead. I know he sees how desperate I am, how wrecked, and still he stands there, driving the knife deeper.
“How will you protect your father?” he asks quietly. “Without a saber?”
My throat knots as I realize he knows about my weapons restriction. He must’ve spent the last few days digging up every secret I tried to hide. “What do you mean? Is that a threat?”
“Not from me. From my kind. Your father is brave, yes, but a man who walks alone will always lose.”
“He’s not alone,” I fire back, the words tearing from my heart. “I’m with him.”
“Yes.” Edmund’s mouth tightens. “And you’re just as helpless.”
That does it. That’s the final, fatal cut.
I draw myself up, my chest heaving so hard my vision blurs. My hand dives into my pocket, fingers curling around the wire daffodil until it bites into my palm. I rip the flower out and throw it at him.
“I was wrong about you, Edmund! About everything. You’re a Blue. You do strike back, and you always will. You really are a beast.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, before I remember whose nightmare I’ve spoken aloud. Edmund recoils visibly, as if I tore open the scars with my bare teeth.
For a moment, he stands there, rain dripping from his suit, the sadness inside him growing deathly still. Then, slowly, I see him remember the fencing room, his mother’s nails tearing his skin, the moment she told him he needed to become a beast. And now he knows I saw it all.
Edmund’s eyes turn dark, like a void, sealing shut right in front of me.
“Excuse me, miss.” His voice drifts, as if his mind is already somewhere else. “I’m late for my train.”
He turns and walks away, vanishing into the rain, so heavy now that I can’t see our colors anymore. But I know exactly what they are. He’s Blue.
I’m Green. And I’ll never forget it again.
I stay rooted where Edmund left me, my teeth clacking like rocks in a jar as I struggle to grasp the finality of what’s happened: how cleanly he carved himself out of my life and left me here, gutted yet too stunned to cry. The heartbreak, confusion, and regret swirl into muddy puddles at my feet. But cutting through it all, raw and relentless, is something fiercer.
Rage.
When I lift my eyes, I see the root of Dad’s war, my ruin, and Edmund’s cage, this whole rotten lie we live inside: the Genetic Engineering Facility.
I crouch before I know I’ve decided. My wet hand closes around a stone by the sidewalk. I stagger back, plant my feet, and hurl it at the metal gates.
Then I scream, my voice splitting open under the storm. “Fuck you!”
A sharp grunt cuts through the rain, followed by a very human curse,
echoing back like my own.
Oh no.
I lurch forward, splashing through puddles until I spot a man slouched on a bench inside the gate. His suit is a burst of orange against the gray downpour, unbuttoned at the collar, the fabric plastered to his broad frame.
He’s older than most students—a sixth-year, maybe. His hair is slicked flat to his forehead, and a gaping cut blooms above one brow, bright orange blood mixing with the rain as it runs down his jawline.
I shoulder through the gate and skid to a stop a few feet in front of him,
heart hammering.
“Sir, I apologize. I did not—”
I freeze as I remember the formal introduction law.
The man squints at me through the rain, glances at the departing tram, then fixes his gaze on me.
“All right,” he says at last. “I forgive you. But only because your Blue probably won’t.”
I stiffen as confusion cuts through my anger. Why is he talking to me?
Doesn’t he care about the law? My eyes drop to his Blood Ring, where I catch the shimmer of a blue band circling his thumb. An Aegis.
The man leans back on the bench, studying me like I’m a rumor he’s finally bothered to verify… and found disappointing.
“You look like you’ve got something on your mind,” he says.
My mouth opens, but the words get stuck behind my teeth. He watches me for a moment, one blood-soaked eyebrow raised, then crooks a finger.
“Come on. You’re allowed to say it, sweetheart. But no flower fuckery.
Talk like you think.”
The jab burns off what little patience I have left. Still, the rules keep my mouth shut.
“Talk,” he says, sharper now. “Or I’ll report you for assault. You broke my very delicate face.”
I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood. It’s either lose a few civil credits for breaking the behavior law or lose a hundred for assault. My rage decides for me.
“Fine.” I spit the word like another stone. “How long have you been sitting there?”
The man’s grin cracks wider, bright and bloody. “Long enough to pick sides. I was rooting for you. At first.”
“You liar. You were spying.” The hypocrisy of my own accusation tastes bitter, but I don’t care. My anger has to land somewhere. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He shrugs and wipes a smear of orange blood from his temple. “Wanted to see how it ended. Thought for sure you’d knock him flat if you breathed just a little harder.”
Rain sluices off his hair as he leans forward, revealing more of himself: brown, wavy hair curling around his temples, amber eyes half-lidded with amusement, a mouth too handsome for the trouble it’s probably caused. He has more going for him than the average Orange, but I’d die before I tell him that.
“You’re awfully confident for such an ugly man.”
He barks a laugh, as if he’s heard the opposite enough times to be immune. “You, too—for such a stupid woman.”
“My scores say differently.”
“Scores?” He laughs harder, his head tipping back into the rain. “You got tossed out of your Cloning Theory exam.”
“Yeah, well, not because I’m stup—” I stop. “Wait. How do you know about that?”
“Waldsten, right?” The man jerks his thumb at the facility entrance.
“Someone posted a bulletin in the lobby. Says you’re a nuisance. Difficult.
Uncivilized. Really charming stuff.”
I go still as the pieces click into place. No wonder every professor’s class was magically too full to accept me. I turn back to him, forcing the words
through gritted teeth.
“Can you please take it down?”
Rain spills from his mouth as he scoffs. “Why the hell would I?”
“Because… you’re rooting for me.”
“That was before the rock.”
Behind us, the next tram glides up to the platform. When the man stands to approach it, shaking rainwater from his sleeves, I step back, startled. He’s taller than I expected, broad through the shoulders, solid enough to block a doorway. He fishes an energy drink from his pocket, pops the tab, and drains half of it.
“Look—I’m sorry, all right?” I snap. “I wasn’t aiming for you. I was aiming at the building.”
He pauses, the can halfway to his mouth. “You got something against genetic engineering?”
I glare past him at the facility, every muscle in my neck wired tight.
“Yes.”
His mouth quirks, almost in pity. “Why? You in love with that Blue back there?”
I scoff. He has no idea my hatred for this place runs older and deeper than Edmund. “No. But so what if I was? You don’t get to judge me. Who even are you?”
The man’s grin flashes, wide and shameless, as he flicks open his suit jacket to reveal the Grandmaster University badge glinting beneath.
“Jerome, sweetheart. Your brand-spanking-new genetic engineering professor.”
