CHAPTER 15 #2
Edmund picks up the brooch again and leans back in his chair, the wood groaning under his weight. “Miss Waldsten…” His gaze settles on the grate. “You may now crawl out of the ceiling.”
I tug at the grate, but the screws won’t budge. My hands are swelling, each throbbing cut a vivid reminder of how much it cost me to rip off the last one. “A gentleman opens the door,” I say.
Edmund rolls the brooch between his palms, amused. “Ah, so you consider me a gentleman now?”
“That remains to be seen.”
He considers for a moment, then exhales sharply, like a beast settling its hackles.
The room seems to shrink around him as he stands.
He steps onto the table, planting his shoe squarely on his cards, and crouches beneath the metal grate.
In one brutal motion, he tears it free and drops it to the floor.
Then he straightens, his head level with the vent opening, and looks at me.
“A lady offers her gratitude,” he says.
I edge toward him, forcing a sweet smile. “Thank you.”
He lets out a dry laugh, then steps down and sinks back into his chair.
My body screams in pain as I follow. At the edge of the vent opening, I lower myself from the ceiling and drop onto the table. My legs buckle on impact, and I crumple before Edmund, a shivering, blood-streaked mess.
“You look as if you have reached the seventh level,” he says, sliding me the daffodil brooch. “And yet here we are on the third. Why have you come, Miss Waldsten?”
The truth about President Reeve’s assassination rises in my throat, but I hold it back.
Telling Edmund now could be a mistake. If he learns Reeve is dead, he’ll realize that being near anyone tied to the Bliss Prohibition Act is a liability and might decide that bringing me into his entourage is too risky.
With the Blues still out there hunting the children of the representatives who voted to ban Bliss, I can’t leave the Speakeasy alone. The only way to guarantee my survival is to walk out with Edmund as part of his entourage.
So I say nothing about the coup.
I grab the brooch and drag myself forward, smearing blood across the felt as I fold into the chair beside him. Pain throbs through every inch of me, but I manage to say, “To join your entourage.”
Edmund huffs a laugh, as if I just challenged him to an arm-wrestling match. But as I hold his stare, the doubt begins to fade, sharpening into a flat, pointed smile. “No.”
“Why not?”
“It is a very long line.”
“Perhaps. But given that I still have a request, I am cutting to the front.”
Edmund picks up his cigar from the ashtray, and his smile bleeds away. Smoke wafts around his face, tracing its angled lines until his eyes suddenly flare wide. “Fuck.”
I lean forward in my chair, a smirk on my face. Our bargain. He knows it’s incomplete. I asked him to save Jane, but Jane is dead.
“Is that a yes?” I ask.
“I did not say that.”
“So, it’s a no?”
“I did not say that either.”
With an irritated grunt, Edmund sets his elbows on the table and scans me as if taking inventory: my bloodied knuckles, my blistered feet, and the anxiety evident in every twitch of my body. “Tell me who injured you, Miss Waldsten. And do not lie.”
Formal speech feels too clean for a moment like this, but I still manage to string the words together, explaining that Blues murdered two students in the Gin Gallery in retaliation for their representative parents voting to ban Bliss.
A pulse flickers in his neck as I talk, faint yet fast, as if his blood is burning beneath his skin. But when I reach the part about Irene’s attack, something changes. A light touches his eyes, a sudden, hungry spark, like a match struck in a dark room.
I don’t understand it.
If Edmund brings me into his entourage, won’t that drive an even wider wedge between him and Irene?
The only explanation is that he dislikes her enough not to care.
It makes me wonder whether, like most high-citizen marriages, theirs was arranged.
Still, Edmund doesn’t strike me as the type to give in to force, which means the payout must’ve been too big to pass up.
Treading carefully, I skip Irene’s offer to turn me into a spy and jump ahead to Sergeant Croft’s intervention and our escape. Edmund listens in silence, but halfway through, he lifts his cigar.
I go quiet.
Smoke rises between us in a twisting column, clouding his eyes as they drift toward the empty shaft where I was hiding. He blinks through the haze, absently brushing the scratch on the side of his neck.
The silence stretches long enough that I’m sure he’s calculating the consequences. How much risk will my membership in his entourage bring? How will the other high-citizens react? They won’t care that he’s honoring a bargain; they’ll care about public appearances.
And yet I can see by the ease of his posture and the slow pull on his cigar that he’s made up his mind.
“In my entourage,” Edmund says at last, tossing the cigar back into the ashtray, “there are rules, Miss Waldsten.”
I nod, bracing myself. I haven’t forgotten Harrison’s warning about the cost of protection from a Blue. “Are you referring to service work, Mr. Prew?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “My entourage is not a cleanup crew, Miss Waldsten. No services will be required. You will not touch me.”
The bite in his tone makes me wonder if he’s one of those Blues who think low-citizens are like echoes, heard only after their voice has finished speaking.
But Edmund can’t possibly see Jack and Dickie that way.
If he did, he wouldn’t have given them the blue bands on their Blood Rings, which grant them special privileges.
I still don’t know exactly what the blue bands do or how they work.
In the chaos of the last week, I forgot to ask Dad.
“Because I am low?” I say.
“Because I am engaged. And you are a woman.”
Who does he think he’s fooling? Irene has already caught on to his affairs, and so have I. Why pretend he’s the home-and-hearth type?
“Are women temptations to you, Mr. Prew?” I ask as he reaches for his brandy.
Edmund stops mid-sip and smiles to himself. “If you are referring to yourself, Miss Waldsten, then no. You are a loud-mouthed distraction.”
“If you do not care for loud people, you must care little for yourself.”
He sets down his brandy with a self-deprecating laugh. “Yes, I care little. But only on Saturdays.”
That’s a strange thing to say. “Why on Saturdays?”
“It is time to move on, Miss Waldsten.”
I lean back in my chair, wincing as my raw knuckles brush my gown. “Your rules. What will you expect from me?”
“Loyalty,” Edmund says without hesitation.
“My trust is one chance deep. Betray it—dishonor me or my name—and there will be no forgiveness. Should such a breach occur, our agreement will be void, and I will have no further obligation to you. If, however, you maintain your trustworthiness, your position in my entourage will remain secure for one year. At the conclusion of that year, our formal arrangement shall be considered fulfilled and formally dissolved.”
One year. That’s too long to stomach and too short to matter.
I’ll need at least two years before I can lift my weapons restriction and stop relying on others for protection.
But with President Reeve dead and hundreds of Blue students targeting me and the other low-citizen students whose parents voted to ban Bliss, I realize I’m not in a position to negotiate.
“Your offer, Mr. Prew… I accept.”
“Then we have an agreement.”
Edmund responds before the echo of my words fades. I find it strange that he mentions no additional rules or terms, and even stranger that he reaches for me so quickly, as if he wants this bargain as much as I do.
I can’t imagine why.
His Blood Ring, a thick blue meteorite band engraved with gold motifs, eclipses mine. He leans in for the scan, the official gesture that secures my place in his entourage. But just before our hands meet, an alarm above the door erupts with bright, strobing lights.
“Emergency alert. Evacuate immediately,” an automated voice announces.
Edmund pulls away and looks coolly at the blaring alarm.
He stands, smooths his hair, rolls down his sleeves, and shrugs into his velvet double-breasted suit jacket.
He jerks on a pair of white dress gloves as he strides toward the door, then stops short, tilting his head to pin me in his sights. “Can you walk?”
Barely. But I’m not about to ask him to carry me. I force myself to stand and hobble after him, each step a struggle to keep up with his long strides. The chandelier-lit corridor stretches before us, as empty as the ventilation shaft.
At the end, we take the elevator to the Oval. Even with Dickie’s earlier call, I’m unprepared for the chaos when we reach the first floor.
Coppers fill the rooms, their badges glinting like rifle scopes, their glossy helmets reflecting the chaos.
The music has stopped, the gambling tables have been cleared, and the bars are shuttered.
The atmosphere chokes, suffocated by the absence of the party, as wailing alarms push the evacuation forward.
Students skip the coat check, leaving their belongings behind.
Some stumble, wide-eyed, while others stand frozen, watching the Coppers seal rooms with magnetic barriers.
Edmund cuts through the crowd as if madness were meant to clear a path for him. And it does. Students, even the Coppers, step aside. Their eyes dart toward me as I hobble behind him, curious about what I’m doing with Edmund Prew.
We exit the Speakeasy through the exclusive portico reserved for Blues. A Pinkie rushes off to retrieve Edmund’s hovercar while he breaks away to speak with a Copper. I move close enough to overhear the Copper brief him on the events at the Bridge Banquet.