CHAPTER 31 #4
The fact that Edmund is engaged is the least of my worries.
His arrangement is loveless, stitched together for the benefit of their families.
What troubles me more is knowing that a path like this always leads to the same wall, with a single word scrawled across it: Vulgar.
That’s what they call it when the lines blur in the wrong way, when two people from different Bloods convince themselves that love excuses biology.
Our differences run far deeper than color.
We aren’t allowed to marry, and we definitely aren’t allowed to have children.
We were genetically engineered to be so different that any child from a mixed-Blood union would rarely survive past infancy.
People still try, of course. Some go to the black market because they want a child so badly they’re willing to risk everything. But most are too afraid of what happens if they get caught. Being a Vulgar is punishable by execution.
Even if you’re a Blue.
There’s no happy ending for how I feel. My only choice is to cut it off before the roots spread too deep and it grows into something I can’t resist. The small comfort is that, for all Edmund’s reckless fire, I don’t think he’d ever let his feelings spread where they shouldn’t. There’s no way he wants me, too.
On Friday night, Charlotte and I are caught off guard when Jack and Dickie show up at Jolt & Jive. Seeing them without Edmund is like watching a horse trot past without its head.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Charlotte calls over the music, shielding her Gibson from a tap dancer spinning by. “Does Edmund have a meeting with Irene?”
“If only.” Dickie snatches a slice of chocolate cake from a tray that a Pinkie is carrying to another table. “He’s been ditching us the last few nights.”
I perk up from my glass of red wine, curious. “Where’s Edmund been going?”
“Don’t know.” Dickie takes a large bite of cake. “He’s being stingy with the details. But he always comes back wet enough to make a goldfish nervous.”
Charlotte pops her hip, intrigued. “Well, I suppose you two can join us if you buy us a round.”
“Not drinking tonight, darling.” Jack lifts his water bottle with a faint smile. “But you’ll get your round.”
Charlotte’s eyes widen, and she sets her cocktail down quickly. “N-no. If you’re not drinking, let’s go someplace else.”
Her expression is a mix of shock and joy, as if she’s been standing on a mountain’s peak for years, watching Jack from below, and now he’s finally starting to climb up.
The spark in him remains the same—still thrill-seeking enough to ride his hoverbike off a cliff—but sober, it feels like he might stick the landing.
I’m sure Jack is cutting down on drinking because of the fencing duel with William and how well he fought with a clear head.
“We could go rollerblading,” I suggest.
Charlotte, Jack, and Dickie trade glances, weighing whether we’re still young enough to justify it.
Jack shrugs. “What the hell… sure.”
My idea turns out better than I expected.
The skatepark features gravity regulators that let us launch into slow-motion jumps and spins that complete a full 360 before our wheels touch back down.
Charlotte picks it up faster than the rest of us.
She soars through the half-pipe with surprising ease, landing spins that make a couple of skater boys whistle and clap from the sidelines.
She tosses her curls, drinking in the attention as if it’s a stand-in for the Gibson cocktails she missed out on.
When I break away to order a sparkling water, a gorgeous third-year Purple called Miss Ellsworth glides up beside me, wearing a sports dress with a shawl collar lined in lavender silk. I recognize her vaguely from campus events.
“Miss Waldsten.” She dips into a shy curtsy. “Might I request a moment of your time?”
“You may.”
“Is it possible for you to share Mr. Prew’s Bond number? I wish to thank him, yet I have been unable to reach him.”
“I am afraid I cannot give out Mr. Prew’s Bond number without his permission,” I say. “However, if you write him a note, I will make certain he receives it.”
Miss Ellsworth smiles softly and pulls a pen and a small notecard from her handbag. I try to avoid staring as she writes Edmund’s name in an elegant, careful script. I know I shouldn’t pry, but the question pushes its way out anyway.
“May I ask what Mr. Prew did for you?”
She pauses mid-stroke and looks up, her eyes bright with gratitude. “A civil credit transfer, Miss Waldsten. It enabled me to assist my brother as well. We were both below three hundred.”
Heat burns under my skin. For a second, I’m convinced I misheard. Only a few days ago, Edmund was lecturing me about giving strangers civil credits.
“Mr. Prew gave you civil credits?” I repeat, trying to hide my shock beneath a tone of curiosity.
Miss Ellsworth nods. “He found us through the Credit-Lift hashtag on Quill. We all make use of it whenever we are in need of civil credits.”
I know the hashtag. I’ve scrolled through it myself, my conscience burning as I read the desperate pleas for help from students near the arrest threshold.
At first, I wondered why they didn’t boost their scores by getting married, which would grant each of them three thousand civil credits.
But that thought lasted only until Vivian told me how thoroughly her relationship with Harrison had been investigated for fraud before the state finally granted them a marriage license.
Miss Ellsworth finishes the note, her hand trembling slightly as she signs her name. She passes it to me gently, as if handing over a newborn.
“Thank you, Miss Waldsten.”
As she skates away, Charlotte glides in behind her and plucks a water glass from the bar.
“What was that about?” she texts.
“Nothing,” I reply. “She just wanted to thank Edmund for something.”
But it isn’t nothing.
For the rest of the night, I can’t stop picturing him searching that hashtag and sending civil credits to low-citizens he’s never spoken to.
The more hours pass, the deeper the feeling digs, like water seeping into a crack in stone and freezing there until the whole thing threatens to split apart.
I feel too much at once: relief that Edmund isn’t angry at me, shock that he’s helping low-citizens outside his entourage, and a rising fear of what it means that his change of heart only makes me want him more.
Dickie disappears for most of the night.
I only spot him when we’re about to leave, leaning against a wall and chatting with a freckled Orange girl who’s at least a head taller than him.
Prying him away isn’t easy. His eyes are glazed with infatuation, and his grin is wide against the red flush in his cheeks as we catch a cab back to our dormitories.
Over the next few days, the Orange girl is all Dickie talks about—her laugh, her honey-gold hair, her freckles that match his—so much that by Sunday, when we’re all sitting around a poker table in Edmund’s private bar, he’s still rambling on about her.
“As a wise man, I know broads like her don’t come around too often,” Dickie declares, waving for a Pinkie to refill his chocolate milk. “I’m gonna ask her out.”
Charlotte pops the cap off a non-alcoholic beer with her teeth and snorts. “Ask her out how? You’re not legal yet.” She tips the beer into Jack’s near-empty glass and gives him an encouraging nod.
Jack smiles in thanks, though his hands fidget on the table, almost trembling. His eyes keep drifting toward the liquor shelves behind the bar. Staying away from the hard stuff hasn’t been easy for him—he’s slipped a few times already—but we’re all trying to help. Tonight, none of us is drinking.
“I didn’t say I was gonna kiss her now, did I?” Dickie shoots back, planting his hands on his hips. “All of that’ll come when I’m eighteen.”
“Three years is a long time to wait,” I say, deliberately keeping my eyes off Edmund, even as my thoughts keep circling back to him and to the steady stream of students who’ve approached me over the past few days, hoping to pass along their thanks.
At this point, I’ve slipped at least a dozen notes to his Pinkies, each filled with gratitude for the civil credits Edmund sent them.
I haven’t told him I know. I don’t know how. The rush of emotion is too overwhelming as I think of him quietly putting distance between low-citizens and the guillotine. It makes me happy in a way I can’t hide from myself, even if I can hide it from him.
Edmund hasn’t spoken much tonight either.
He sits across from me, his hands hidden beneath the table, glancing at me now and then with the same discretion I’ve been using to watch him.
I’ve stayed past our scheduled time on purpose, waiting to see if he breaks off, as Jack and Dickie say he has over the past few days. So far, there’s no sign of it.
Dickie swivels toward me and scowls. “Real love exists outside of time. Not that you’d understand. You don’t even have a guy.”
The judgment in his tone rattles me more than I expect. “Maybe not now. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t.”
“Hold on. You dated someone?” Charlotte flicks a non-alcoholic beer cap at me playfully. “When? You only turned eighteen in Augu—”
She cuts herself off when I shoot her a look, but it’s too late. Dickie’s smirk is already spreading, and the whole table has realized that, when it comes to relationships, I’m still pedaling with training wheels.
But it couldn’t have been any different. Dating is illegal until you turn eighteen, which gave me one legal month before I came to Grandmaster. And here, I haven’t had time to notice men smiling at me. I’ve been too busy watching for knives behind their backs.
Still, when Edmund looks at me from across the table in surprise, a blush rushes up my neck, hot enough to make me want to cut and run.
I glance between the plates, cups, and cards on the table, searching for my hair ribbon as if it could somehow dull my humiliation.
“It was my choice,” I say. “Not because there wasn’t any interest.”
Dickie shakes his head with a loud chortle. “Maybe I’d believe you if you hadn’t tried to lie about it. But there’s no need to be embarrassed, broad. Not all of us can be charmers.”
I scoff and keep scanning the table for my ribbon.
It’s not under the plates or cups, so maybe a Pinkie cleared it away.
I push out my chair, ready to ask, when I catch sight of the dark green fabric in Edmund’s hand beneath the table.
He’s holding my ribbon by the end, running it gently through his fingers as he talks to Jack about an injection for the alcohol withdrawal.
My whole body slows with surprise. Does Edmund know it’s mine? Or did he pick it up at random to fidget with?
“Has anyone seen my hair ribbon?” I ask.
Charlotte and Jack shake their heads.
“Ha,” Dickie chides. “Trying to change the subject, I see.”
“No,” Edmund replies. And beneath the table, I watch—stunned—as he closes his fist around the ribbon, hiding it from view.
His expression remains calm, with no trace of a bluff, but that’s what undoes me.
The most convincing lie I’ve ever seen him tell is the one that just gave him away.
That night, I can’t sleep.
I spend hours in my salon, practicing with my fencing stick, sweat slicking my palms until the grip nearly slips.
My arm trembles as I redirect an imaginary blade, answering each phantom attack with a riposte that lands nowhere.
The burn crawls from my wrist to my elbow, then up into my shoulder, a deep, grinding ache that is a welcome distraction.
I tell myself to focus on form and control, but my thoughts refuse to obey.
Edmund cares for me as a friend. He probably picked up the ribbon without realizing it was mine, and when I asked about it, he thought it would be awkward to hand it back.
I’m just building illusions I want to be true, and the danger is as clear as a shouted warning.
Vivian says a lot of people do the same when they’ve got a hole in their hearts they’re desperate to fill.
She did it herself before Harrison finally asked her out.
So I force thoughts of Edmund aside.
I advance again, harder this time, driving forward on the ball of my foot, the stick snapping out in a reckless beat attack that would earn me a reprimand from my old fencing instructor. I disengage, circle my wrist, and cut back into line, sweat flinging from my hair as I pivot across the room.
I fence as if fighting a part of myself—the part that wants to risk it all, rush to the Blue Dormitory, and tell Edmund how I feel, consequences be damned.
I lunge too deep, overextend, and recover sloppily, my arm shaking so badly I can barely hold my guard.
By the time I finally stop, my muscles are screaming, my clothes are soaked through, and my pulse is pounding like the final ticks of a timer before an explosion.
I stumble into my bedroom and collapse onto the bed, limbs buzzing with spent adrenaline.
Sleep still doesn’t come.
Hours pass as my mind races in tight, merciless circles, replaying how Edmund’s fingers slid carefully across my ribbon and how I want his hands to touch me like that, too.
By three in the morning, I’m still wide awake, so I swallow a sleeping pill to make the thoughts stop.
The darkness takes me quickly, dragging me into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
But when morning comes, and I step back into my salon with bleary eyes and sore limbs, it all comes rushing back.
Seashells are everywhere. Baskets of them line the windowsills, scatter across the floor, and pile on the cushions of my sofa. A few are chipped, but most are flawless. Some are pale as bone, while others shimmer with coral pinks and dusky violets, still glazed with salt.
I edge forward, my heart hammering so hard I feel it in the soles of my feet. Then I see Edmund’s note, tucked into the largest basket:
Because you saw a pretty seashell and left before I knew which one.