CHAPTER 26 #4
A dozen answers fight their way up, from balancing the scales to finally owing him nothing. I could say all of it. I could even ask for more. But I don’t. While I tell myself it’s because I’m tired of bargains and debts, the truth is, what I want between us is peace.
“Because I thought you’d like it,” I say.
Edmund’s brow lifts, stunned, as if my words are more of a contradiction than an explanation.
Still, he doesn’t push back. For once, it’s as if he notices the cliff’s edge beneath my heels, the steep fall I’m risking by being in the entourage of a Blue.
And this time, he doesn’t shove me closer to it.
He nods, almost to himself, then falls quiet. Only the Bond’s warning ticks on, the loss of civil credits a steady drip in my ear.
“I know you’ve been looking for the Hellion,” I say. “How’d it get lost?”
“It was never lost.”
“Then what happened?”
A shadow crosses Edmund’s face, as though the memory is a wound still raw enough to feel fresh. He leans back against the hovercar, unmoving as the snow clings to the dark wool of his sleeves, melting into small, sullen stains.
“My father sold it,” he says at last. “Auctioned off my grandfather’s Vanguard uniform as a publicity stunt for his campaign.”
I remember that campaign.
I was young, still small enough that a Pinkie had to cut my meat, when Edmund’s father, Lionel Prew, ran for a Blue Representative seat.
I recall the dining room lamps gleaming off the silverware, the smell of fresh bread on the table, when the news broke across every channel: sirens shrieking, smoke curling blackly into the sky, a blur of frantic reporters shouting over one another.
The words “Heretic attack” flashed across the screen, and then the camera steadied long enough to reveal the twisted wreckage of a hovercar.
I can still see the blown-out doors and the crumpled metal, with the Prew crest’s color scorched into a dark streak.
Lionel Prew had been inside when the bomb went off, assassinated on election day.
“Have you gotten the whole uniform back?” I ask.
“Not much of the uniform my grandfather died in survived. Just the badge, boots, and flight jacket.” Edmund laughs without humor. “The jacket’s the only piece I don’t have yet, and that one… well, it’s only changing hands as a wedding gift.”
I swallow hard, trying to quiet the collapse inside me.
Irene.
She owns the flight jacket. That’s why Edmund agreed to the marriage and keeps pushing through despite the endless clashes and slow erosion. In a twisted way that I can almost understand, he’s doing it for love, for his family’s honor.
“You want the flight jacket examined for evidence,” I guess.
Edmund lifts his face toward the snowy sky, as if he can see the ghost of his grandfather’s jet carving a path through the clouds. “I want to prove what I know so everyone else knows it, too. My grandfather didn’t abandon his men. He stayed on the battlefield. He died honorably.”
A dull, familiar pain floods my chest. I know how Edmund feels.
I know what it’s like to carry someone’s honor alone while the world insists on a different story.
The lies the media has written about Dad come rushing back, entire narratives built to fuel party gossip rather than the truth.
There’s very little I wouldn’t give to expose those lies publicly and force the Civilized World to see Dad for who he really is.
“But the trial,” I say. “If Irene’s convicted and the engagement’s called off, won’t the flight jacket—”
“If she’s convicted, the flight jacket goes back to what it was before the Husseys realized they could use it as leverage.”
I nod, understanding now. The flight jacket would still be valuable, but not to the Hussey family.
It would revert to being a keepsake that Edmund could quietly buy back through the proper channels for the right price.
I wonder if Irene has already had the flight jacket analyzed and whether she knows the truth.
She’d never tell Edmund, not when it’s the only bargaining chip she has left.
Edmund draws the badge from his waistcoat pocket and holds it in his palm, looking at it with the hope of someone who’s spotted the glow of the finish line on the horizon.
The badge’s glinting, sharp-edged wings catch the snowflakes between us, and for a brief, startling moment, I don’t see Edmund at all.
I see me.
I see the way my fingers curled around Dad’s daffodil brooch, handcrafted from his Grandmaster graduation medal, and feel how my heart ached when he pinned it to my dress.
Edmund tucks the badge carefully away, then turns to face me. When he speaks, his voice is gentle yet cautious, as if each word costs him something.
“I’ve been trying to piece my grandfather’s uniform back together for a long time, Miss Waldsten. What you did for me today… I won’t forget it.”
The tension in my body eases as he talks, slowly and reluctantly, like an old knot loosening inside me, tied the day we met.
The cautious, guarded edge I always walk with him dulls a little, and for the first time, I realize what’s missing between us: the condescension, the knives of pride, the little cuts he so often delivers.
Now, it’s just a conversation. Maybe the first real one we’ve ever had.
And I don’t want to waste it.
I hold out my hand to catch the falling snow and say, “Don’t forget you owe me a drink, too.”
Edmund laughs and glances at the icy drifts. “You were right about more than the snow.”
I smile, knowing he means the luck.
“Red Imperial, right?” he asks.
“Yes. And I expect a full bottle.”
“Maybe you’ll get two.”
Edmund’s eyes linger, his smile still in place, though he doesn’t add another word. Neither do I. Instead, I let the silence stretch, enjoying the moment for what it is and for what we are, past the Blue and the Green, past the high and the low.
Just a boy and a girl, standing in an empty parking lot, our colors hidden by the snow.