CHAPTER 8
Formal agreements are unbreakable once sealed with a Blood Ring scan and an embrace. Ambiguous results may be contested in court; however, once a verdict is delivered, the losing party is bound by its terms. Should honor fail to move their hearts, the guillotine shall remove their heads.
Even amid the echoing shrieks from the salons around us, I’m sure we’re not under attack. If we were, the Border Watch would’ve dispatched more than a single patrol squadron. But if it wasn’t an attack, what hit the shield?
I grab the window ledge and pull myself up. My breath comes in short gasps as I stagger toward the table, where Charlotte slumps in a chair. Jack leans over her arm, checking for a sting.
“You hurt?” he asks.
“No.” She yanks her arm back.
Jack’s sigh of relief only seems to anger her more. Charlotte brushes past him and stomps to the other end of the table, just as Dickie, still trembling, knocks over the vase of hydrangeas.
A gruff voice from the overhead speakers breaks the silence.
“Attention all passengers. This is Lieutenant James Percy. The Border Watch confirms the shield was struck by lightning due to a malfunction in the rod arrays.”
Charlotte and I exchange a look of relief.
“In the event of further strikes, we are advised to maintain speed. Until we reach Grandmaster University, all uninjured passengers must remain seated. Should you require medical attention, dial 43-711, and a paramedic will be dispatched to your carriage. I thank you in advance for your civilized cooperation. May you always be virtuous.”
The Copper switches to the Big Band Beats radio station. Smooth jazz flows through the room, contrasting with the chaos in the lavatory, where Edmund is bent over the sink, water blasting out, veins bulging, teeth chattering, his fists slamming water into his face.
Dickie offers a towel. Jack grabs a champagne chiller from the table and brings it over.
Edmund seizes the bottle, pours the champagne into his mouth, then dumps the ice bucket over his head.
Water drips down his trousers, splashing around his boots.
He grips the sink’s edges, knuckles white, straining so hard the fixture groans as if it’s about to break free from the wall.
“You doing all right, Ed?” Jack asks.
Edmund blows out a spray of water through clenched teeth.
“Hm… looks bad, I’d say.” Dickie leans in, squinting at the angry red deathstalker sting on Edmund’s forearm. “Can’t be worse than when I shot you with that taser, though.”
“At least then I was drunk,” Edmund says, pushing off the sink. Water zigzags across the carpet from his soaked clothes and dripping hair. He scrubs the towel over his head and stalks out of the lavatory, collapsing into a chair with his legs splayed wide.
I edge closer, staring in disbelief. “You were stung.”
Edmund’s fingers tighten around the towel. “And?”
“And that means we won.”
He yanks the towel off his head so fast it cracks the air like a whip. Jack lets out a dry laugh. Dickie throws up his hands.
“Um, hello?” Dickie says. “Did you forget the part where the train almost got knocked out of the sky?”
“The lightning strike counts as interference, darling,” Jack says. “Which means no deal.”
Edmund’s chair screeches as he stands. He towers over me like a rearing stallion, eyes bright, jaw tense. “Do you intend to win through dishonorable means, Miss Waldsten?”
“Drop it, Lore,” Charlotte says, her voice prickling with warning.
She grabs my waist from behind, but I break free. Interference or not, I’m not surrendering this win, especially when it’s my only shot at saving Jane.
“It was not Miss Deering and me who suggested the challenge during a storm,” I tell Edmund. “You did. That means you accepted the risk of sudden, loud noises that might provoke a sting.”
Edmund lifts his chin as if recalling the moment. The muscles in his face bunch up, pulling at the cut above his eyebrow.
“There was a storm,” he says slowly. “But no lightning or thunder. Not until now.”
Liar. I remember it clearly—the flash, the boom—right as Jack poured the shots.
“If you refuse to honor your end of the bargain, Mr. Prew, I shall take it to—”
“To the courts?” Edmund tosses the towel onto the table. “By all means, Miss Waldsten. Report me. But in a case where it is your word against mine, who do you think the courts will believe?”
“They will believe the evidence.”
He shows his teeth. “What kind of evidence could you possibly have that outweighs the word of a Blue?”
“Video.”
Edmund’s eyes narrow on Jack and Dickie.
“She’s bluffing,” Jack says.
“Definitely,” Dickie agrees. “I was watching her the whole time—no blue in her eye.”
“I never said I used my Bond,” I reply.
Edmund dials in. His gaze tracks my arms, sides, and hips until it settles on the daffodil brooch pinned above my chest. Then his foot shifts, suddenly and fiercely, as if he’s about to lunge, rip off the brooch, and crush it in front of me.
But I know he won’t. Even for a Blue, breaking a formal agreement is a capital crime, the kind they still use the guillotine for.
Edmund drags his foot back, slower this time, as if trying to stall. But there are no loopholes in formal agreements, at least that I’m aware of. Which means it must be a blow to his pride to bow to a Green, just as it’s a blow to mine to bow to a Blue.
He looks me over again, this time more closely, as if seeing me for the first time. I hold his gaze, even though his eyes are intimidating, burning like a high-beam glare. I trusted my parents’ warnings about the Prews, but now I finally understand what they meant.
The muscles in Edmund’s neck tighten as he bows stiffly. “Make your request.”
Charlotte exhales sharply, and her shoulders lift in relief. I feel it, too, like the weight I’ve been carrying all day is finally easing.
“Miss Bradford,” I say. “I want you to save her life.”
Edmund’s eyebrows rise. “You are certain?”
I clutch the corners of my soiled dress, hesitating.
Suddenly, I’m not sure.
What if helping Jane is a waste, like being given a diamond and then flushing it down the toilet? What if she doesn’t thank me or even care that I helped her? What if her father never hears a word about this, and I’m left with nothing to show for it but a favor I’ll never get back?
The smarter choice would be to ask Edmund for something cruel and punishing he can’t wriggle out of, something that will humiliate him the way he humiliated Charlotte.
But then I see Jane again, staring back at me from the eighth row of the green first-year carriage, her eyes wide with the same blinding terror I’ve been feeling all day.
I try to push the image away. Dad says we shouldn’t stick our necks out for other low-citizens unless we’re willing to lose them.
I know he’s right, but at the same time, it occurs to me that he doesn’t follow his own advice.
Dad doesn’t skulk around with his eyes lowered and his mouth shut.
His entire life is a risk. And maybe that’s why he’s one of the few low-citizens changing things.
I glance at Edmund, still watching me, still waiting.
“Yes,” I say. “I am sure. Whether you save Miss Bradford by inviting her to your salon or by entering the green first-year carriage to protect her yourself, the choice is yours.”
He steps closer, and for a moment I feel as if he sees through me, as if there’s a crack in my skull and he’s staring straight through it.
Still, he nods in acceptance.
“And you?” Edmund says, barely turning his head toward Charlotte.
She points at Jack. “His Blood Ring. Whatever allows him to break the behavior laws—I want one, too.”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because ownership of the object cannot be forcibly transferred,” Edmund says. “Doing so would require me to violate a formal agreement between Mr. Carroway and me.”
Charlotte snorts. “I didn’t ask you to take it from him. I said I want my own.”
“Tough luck, Deering,” Dickie pipes up from the table. “The gift bag’s empty. Ed only had two. Gave one to me and one to Jack. So, sniff around someplace else.”
“I don’t want anything else.”
I glance between Jack’s and Dickie’s hands, both still gloved, and my curiosity grows. Whatever gift Edmund has given them is exceptionally valuable, and that’s the strange part. Blues don’t hand us anything unless there’s a string attached or a spotlight waiting.
Edmund rolls his sleeve down over the sting, watching Charlotte coolly. “Perhaps you should take some time to consider your request, Miss Deering. As a gentleman, I shall even offer you a piece of advice.”
Charlotte lifts her chin. “Go on.”
“Do not get your arm cut off by trying to reach too high.”
Her jaw hardens, but her cheeks are flushed now, two flags of rage.
Edmund smooths his hair with a quick swipe of his fingers, then reaches for his greatcoat. He shrugs into it and adjusts each cuff before fastening the gold buttons to cover the wreckage of his shirt, still damp and streaked with blood.
“Do you intend to retrieve Miss Bradford now?” I ask him.
“No. The legal maximum capacity of my salon is five. Therefore, to accommodate Miss Bradford, I am taking my leave.”
“Then who shall retrieve her?”
“The Pinkie.” Edmund gives me a tight, close-lipped smile. “I extended Miss Bradford an invitation nearly twenty minutes ago.”
I remember. Edmund sent a Pinkie somewhere before the shot duel began. But that doesn’t make sense. Why would he offer help to a low-citizen girl being hunted? Most Blues wouldn’t hesitate to pick the daisies from our graves. If he’s breaking ranks, he’s risking something.
“If that is true,” I say, “and you invited her before I made the request, then I am owed another.”
Edmund laughs dryly. “You are owed nothing. The timing is irrelevant. What matters is that your request has been fulfilled.”
“Why did you fulfill it? What do you get out of helping Miss Bradford?”
“I get what I always want,” he says, fastening the last button on his coat. “Another friend.”