CHAPTER 18
I have no wife, sons, or daughters. But in my fencing students, I have fathered children of death.
—JULIAN LAKE, MASTER OF ARMS
I realize where Edmund is taking us long before we arrive. The route, a straight shot northeast, leads to a place where all the high-citizens flock like roaches to a drop of sugar: The Moonshine Mile.
I’ve never been near it. All I know is what I read in Harrison’s tip list, which says this glittering street belongs solely to the Blues.
It’s a private playground along the right shoulder of the campus, lined with bars, restaurants, boutique showrooms, and exclusive clubs.
Low-citizens aren’t allowed past the gates without an entourage badge.
At the edge of the Mile, a massive wrought-iron gate stands, crowned with holographic torches that blaze like twin suns.
Coppers in tactical armor patrol each side, while above, drones circle in silent arcs, their lenses scanning with red pinprick eyes.
The security is so intense that it feels like we’ve drunk-crashed onto the front lawn of the Golden Gate Manor.
Once we’re cleared, the gate yawns open, but we don’t go far. I sigh in disappointment when I realize there won’t be a cruise down the shining strip, past the cocktail lounges with chrome chandeliers and the dress-code-only clubs spilling champagne into the gutters.
Instead, Edmund stops at the valet booth of the first building on the Mile, a jewel box of blue, pink, and gold.
Ivy clings thinly to the filigreed stonework, like a scanty, indecent gown.
Tangerine trees, integrated into the architecture itself, climb the sides, their glossy fruits shining like coins.
Above the wide entrance, a sign hangs from the sprawling glass window, tinted a dusky blue: The Tangerine Tree.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“A place anyone who’s anyone knows,” Dickie jabs.
“Breakfast, darling,” Jack says. “We eat here every Thursday.”
“Breakfast?”
Jack shrugs. “Yeah.”
I turn on Edmund, furious to see him grinning. “I broke the law for scrambled eggs?”
“And an introduction.” Edmund pulls an eyedropper from his pocket, uncaps it, and tilts his head back, squeezing a drop of clear liquid into each eye. “All my friends wanna know if you’re really mine, Miss Waldsten. Today, we’ll make it official.”
He smooths his hair, then pockets the eyedropper and steps out of the hovercar with the others. Jack is already swigging from a flask, Dickie is clutching his newly repaired airplane, and Charlotte is still stewing over her lost civil credits.
“Don’t worry, Lady Charlotte,” Dickie elbows her. “The food here’ll blow the hair clean off your—” His eyes bug out as they dart across her head. “I mean, the food’s a real touch of terrific.”
Charlotte yanks her scarf lower, mutters something I can’t catch, and brushes past Dickie without a glance.
I follow behind, fuming even hotter. An introduction?
Why? I’ve already been part of Edmund’s entourage for four days.
Everyone, including the students and professors, acts as if they know.
Word spread faster than a leaked sex tape.
The truth is, my membership cost Edmund nothing.
He snaps his fingers, and people fall over themselves to obey.
None of this is difficult for him. The deal I thought would give me protection has turned into him parading me around like a trophy.
At the door, a Pinkie checks our badges, and we file into a cafe bathed in electric blue.
I catch only a glimpse of the tables inside before I hear cutlery clinking onto plates and chairs scraping as people turn.
A hush ripples outward from the center of the cafe, stopping the holographic jazz band in the corner mid-note.
I drift sideways and see Edmund locked in a stare-down with the room.
There are too many high-citizens to count.
The tide of blue blurs at the edges: men in shawl-collared jackets and high-waisted trousers, their large hands heavy with rings and their hair so fine you could count the threads; women with lips like open flower petals, their headdresses sagging under the weight of jewels, and cigarettes burning between their fingers in slender holders.
Their eyes—blue, icy, and slit-thin—dart between Edmund and me, as if his bringing me here were a personal affront. The tension stretches until the whole room seems poised to tear in half if anyone so much as coughs.
Edmund’s hand twitches toward his scabbard, then stops, hovering over his saber hilt. “Jack,” he says.
Jack moves, calm but quick, as if he knows the grenade’s already been thrown and the only thing left is to hit the ground before it blows. He hooks his arms through Charlotte’s and mine, pulling us close. Dickie trails behind us, eyes darting as if he’s counting exits.
We walk.
Past the tables where crystal glasses sweat under gloved hands. Past the slow tap of polished shoes. Past the steely glances that tick like cocking guns.
It’s the longest walk of my life.
At the back of the cafe, a stained-glass door glows with swirling tangerine branches. Jack shoulders the door open, shoves us through into a private breakfast room, and yanks it shut behind us.
Locking Edmund out there alone.
Charlotte, Jack, Dickie, and I sit in silence as two Pinkies deliver breakfast we didn’t order.
The robots slip through a hidden waiter’s door, balancing tray after tray of flaky butter croissants, eggs with yolks that beg to spill, skewers of plump fruit, and truffle-infused potatoes so fresh I almost expect to find garden dirt still clinging to their skins. But none of us touches a thing.
Dickie hangs off his seat, his gaze glued to the wall clock.
His freckles stand out against skin that’s turned gray, and his eyes glaze over with each tick.
Beside him, Jack shifts with drunk-fueled, jerky movements.
His leg jitters beneath him, rattling the table, as if at any second he might launch through the door and drag Edmund back himself.
If Edmund needed help, we wouldn’t know.
The door is soundproof, so we can’t hear a thing.
The minutes stretch and swell until the silence feels alive, feeding on Jack and Dickie. The way they strain and struggle, buckling under its weight, doesn’t lie. This isn’t about their entourage membership or even their blue bands. It’s Edmund they’re breaking for.
Jack’s hands clamp so tightly around the table’s edge that the tendons stand out like bones. The wood groans, then splinters with a loud crack under his grip. He lurches upright, slamming his hand on his saber hilt, ready to bolt, when the door bursts open.
Jack pitches forward, off balance, until Edmund’s hand snaps out and catches him by the front of his shirt.
Jack curses under his breath as he grounds himself.
We all stare at Edmund.
His face is flushed, glistening with two long streaks of blue blood, fierce in the chandelier light slanting across it.
A welt swells high on his cheekbone, as if he took a pommel strike to the face.
His hair tumbles wildly across his forehead.
His suit jacket is missing, and his white dress shirt hangs half-untucked.
His saber, still faintly sparking with heat, hangs crookedly in its scabbard.
For a heartbeat, no one moves.
Then Jack steps forward and rests his hand on Edmund’s arm. “Ed.”
It’s more than his name. It’s a question.
What happened?
Edmund heels the door shut. A vein pulses in his neck as he drags both hands through his hair, wrestling the strands back into place.
His saber clinks against his leg, shifting with each movement.
He adjusts it carefully, the way you might cradle a broken rib, then exhales a long, steadying breath.
He sits at the table, smooths a napkin over his lap with shaking hands, and says, “I’m not hungry anymore. ”
Jack stands there blinking, as if his body hasn’t caught up to his mind. Then he drops back onto his seat with a kind of reluctant, shaky relief. Beside him, Dickie fumbles for his napkin, his head turned away. In the wall mirror’s reflection, I catch him swiping the napkin roughly across his eyes.
I glance at Charlotte.
She’s crouched low like a shadow in the corner, fixated on Edmund’s missing jacket, the crooked saber, and the blood and bruises he wears like a second suit.
She doesn’t ask what happened.
Neither do I.
I hunch over, overwhelmed by a rush of guilt so intense I feel like I might vomit. I understand what Edmund meant by introducing me now. It was a challenge, a gauntlet thrown at the feet of every Blue in the room, daring them to try to take me from him.
And one of them did.
For the first time since Irene’s attack, I head straight to my suite after class, though not because I want to.
I don’t think I make any decisions at all.
My body takes me there on its own, legs moving and eyes fixed ahead.
An urgent curiosity stirs inside me, pushing me forward and making me activate my Bond the second I step into my salon.
I pull up Tattletale. The site lags, briefly buckling under user traffic. When the homepage finally loads, the top article is about Edmund, featuring a patchwork of surveillance stills and a headline in all caps: BLOODY TANGERINES.
The article reads as if the Tattler were at the cafe in person, perched on the edge of a marble tabletop, jotting down every detail in ink made of gossip. There’s also a video, but it’s scrubbed of sound, probably to protect the source.
I hit play.
The footage begins as Jack grabs Charlotte and me by the arms. We vanish offscreen.
The Blues rise in our place, sudden as a gust that snuffs a flame.
They spread out like they’re merging with the decor, silk jackets brushing against carved wood, faces bleached by the ceiling light, their mouths parted enough to show teeth.
Edmund stands alone at the center of the cafe.