CHAPTER 31
Gaze too long at the street and you’ll forget you live in the gutter.
—DICKIE LANGLEY
My days now begin with sunlight instead of blood.
No more standing on the edge of my balcony, stiff with dread, watching students herded to the guillotine through curtains of dirty snow. No more bile creeping up my throat as I await the blade’s fall. No more feeling seconds stretched thin between life and death.
Now I wake serenely, almost as I used to back home.
Some mornings break silver and damp, while others blaze gold with a low winter sun that slants through the windows, softening everything it touches.
Time moves faster now, no longer measured by executions but by training sessions and assignment deadlines.
Without death, even my balcony feels different.
It used to loom outside my suite like a dark, conjoined twin of the locked room in Waldsten Mansion back home.
I avoided looking at the balcony, let alone stepping out.
Now, Charlotte and I sit there in the evenings, wrapped in fur coats, our Bonds linked, coursework pulled up on our feeds.
Sometimes my Pinkie quizzes us on definitions or flags a mistyped formula; other times, the robot hovers by the railing, buzzing faintly, as if watching over us.
I take breaks now and then, telling myself it’s to rest my brain and stretch my legs, but each time my eyes drift past the Guillotine Yard to the Blue Dormitory. His suite is on the fourth floor, seventh balcony to the right.
The windows blaze with light tonight. Edmund was supposed to host a party in the Speakeasy, but he moved it to his suite after he, Jack, and Dickie were banned for the rest of the year—a decision handed down after the boys tore through the Oval on hoverbikes fitted with firework cannons and nearly set the place on fire. Tattletale ran a full spread.
Laughter spills over the balconies in wild, unruly bursts.
Music thumps through the stone, loud enough to rattle the windows.
I watch two high-citizens wrestle a flaming sofa toward the railing and heave it over the edge, where it tumbles end over end into the dark below, shedding sparks like a dying comet.
I wonder what Edmund is doing inside, whether he’s laughing like that, head tipped back, eyes bright. I wonder if he knows which balcony is mine and whether he ever looks across at my suite the way I look at his.
Charlotte, curled in the chair opposite me, her hair half-contained by a knotted headband, follows my line of sight. “Dickie said Rosamund’s at the party,” she murmurs. “So really, the only thing we’re missing is torture.”
I chew the inside of my lip, embarrassed that she caught me staring, even though there’s no point pretending with her. “Glad to be missing out on that,” is all I manage.
Charlotte tilts her head. “You and Edmund are getting pretty close now, huh?”
“I guess so.” I rub the back of my neck. “Is that okay with you? I mean, because of what—”
“Of course it is.” Charlotte waves a hand, then kicks off her slipper and props her foot on the railing.
“I’m glad things are working out. I like seeing you happy.
It’s just…” She exhales slowly, her gaze drifting to the dark stretch of campus, dotted with streetlamps.
“Well, this isn’t gonna last forever, you know. Not like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our entourage membership ends in September. And after that—” She sighs and then lights a cigarette.
“I’m not trying to be a downer, Lore. Really.
It’s just that we don’t know how Irene’s trial is gonna turn out.
There’s a chance she walks. And if that happens…
” Charlotte shrugs and takes a frustrated drag of her cigarette.
“Irene and Edmund will get married. That’s already a done deal.
Irene’s not going to want Edmund anywhere near us after that.
She’ll pick his new entourage. And it won’t include you and me. ”
The sudden prick of pain beneath my breastbone surprises me. I already knew this. I’d run through every possibility before, but I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it in a while. Now that I am, the feeling cuts both ways.
Because I don’t want to leave. If I have to say goodbye, I’ll miss Edmund more than I’d ever admit out loud.
Charlotte and I return to studying after that, trading notes and running through assignments.
The sun lingers later in the sky now, though the days feel shorter.
Snow melts into slush, slush turns into puddles, and the breeze begins to lose its bite.
Spring is on its way. I feel it in the wind on my skin as I walk to class, and I see it, too.
Fur gives way to lightweight jackets, pastel suits, airy linens, and silk scarves loosely tied at the neck.
Seersucker makes its return. Tea dresses and cruise dresses once again flare above shiny shoes, and stylish oval sunglasses glisten beneath angled boater hats.
Parasols turn inside out in the wind, drawing laughter from those holding them.
Everywhere I look, the harshness of winter is softening.
I still dread the drummed-up quack science of Cloning Theory, but most days I don’t mind my lectures. Some I even look forward to, especially Political Theory he does it through structure and diplomacy, with sheer will.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, I start to wonder what that life might be like, even if the thought remains casual.
I play with it like a marble I keep in my pocket, rolling it between my fingers when no one’s looking.
The idea lingers through afternoons spent studying under budding trees, through practice sessions with my fencing stick in my room, and through mornings when the wind carries the scent of wet stone and new grass rather than blood.
The campus begins to breathe again. With it, couples dally longer in doorways, shoulders flushed pink as they steal kisses like secrets.
Music drifts from open dormitory windows, and laughter spills down stairwells, mingling with the drone of security drones streaking overhead.
My life right now is an illusion. I know that.
I haven’t forgotten what our world truly is.
But illusions like this one don’t demand belief; they only ask permission, slipping over your shoulders like a borrowed coat that fits perfectly to the stitch.
So I wear the coat. I allow myself to pretend, if only to take advantage of the temporary peace.
Irene is still under house arrest, waiting for her trial, and Rosamund hasn’t shown her face in weeks.
Charlotte says Rosamund is taking a break from torturing us to lick her wounds because Edmund tore into her for stealing their grandfather’s Vanguard badge and trying to pass it off as her own.
So I make the most of the time I have without them. Because at the moment, life feels close to perfect with Charlotte, Jack, and Dickie.
And with Edmund, it’s better still.
There’s no edge to the way he looks at me now, especially when it’s the five of us, tucked into the corners of velvet-rope clubs or exploring off-the-record arcades hidden from weekend crowds.
In those low-lit spaces, where the hours feel borrowed and the lines between us blur, he’s not the same Blue I met on the Regal Express.
This Blue—real or not—watches me with a gentle openness, like a hand offered palm-up.
One Sunday afternoon, Edmund, Dickie, and I take one of the outlier routes up the ridgeline near the northwest side of campus, a steep ascent toward one of the smaller peaks.
Edmund climbs beside me, pushing through the thick undergrowth until his sports jacket is covered in leaves and dirt.
I try to keep my breathing steady, not letting myself get distracted by how easily he locks into a foothold or by how his shoulders flex each time he pulls off a crimp or edges up the rock face.
A bead of sweat slides past the rim of his mountaineering sunglasses, tracing a bright line down his temple and onto his throat. The sight hits me deep in my chest. As I reach for a higher handhold, Edmund leans down toward me, his voice rising above the wind.
“You’ve been feeling generous lately.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, shifting my weight to a steadier foothold.
“Giving away civil credits.”
I squint into the sunlight reflecting off his sunglasses, doing my best to hide my surprise.
Civil credit transfers are public, sure, but I never thought Edmund would track mine closely enough to notice.
Yesterday’s transfer was small—a Purple from my Cloning Theory class needed the civil credits more than I did—but a part of me knew Edmund would see it.
And another part knew he wouldn’t like it, because the civil credits come from him.
Still, once he sends them to me, they’re mine to use as I choose.
“It was only twenty,” I say. “And I was going to lose the civil credits anyway. I break the law with you three or four times a week. I figured losing them this way might matter more than the usual method.”