CHAPTER 33
Sometimes, I forget I’m Blue. But never on Saturdays.
—EDMUND PREW
I step onto the balcony to take Hillaire’s call, and the clash of Edmund’s and Jack’s sabers inside fades into a distant echo. Out here, the wind is cold enough to sting, but there’s no time to grab a coat.
Before answering, I press my back to the icy stone wall, angling my body to hide the fencing piste behind me. Hillaire is as perceptive as a journalist. One quick look at the high-relief double-headed eagles carved along the balcony doors, and she’ll know I’m not at the Green Dormitory.
When I answer, her jutting-boned face comes into view, followed by her platinum-blonde bob, slicked with enough hairspray to stop a bullet.
She’s dressed in her ribbed training nanosuit, with a rifle strapped to her back, walking stiff-legged down the gravel path toward the compound Dad built to prepare us for public life.
The screen jostles with her movement, revealing glimpses of Waldsten Mansion, which slips farther into the distance with each step.
My throat tightens at the sight of its red-brick facade, weathered but proud, bathed in the last warmth of the sun.
Tall sash windows, twelve panes over twelve, are perfectly aligned across all four stories, with green shutters creaking in the breeze.
Ivy trails up one corner, darker than I remember.
The white cornice trims the roof like a lace collar, and above it is the balustrade where Vivian and I used to sit with non-alcoholic champagne, dreaming up names for the men we’d marry, laughing until our sides hurt.
The front portico sits beneath a fan-paned arch, supported by four soaring white columns.
I remember running between them barefoot as a child, smelling the roses from the gardens out front, and hearing the long, fraying rope swing creak in the wind—until Hillaire cut it down after I fell and sprained my wrist.
And the porch… Dad’s porch. During the blue hour of evening, he’d sit there with his sleeves rolled up, playing his saxophone for us. I’d sit on the steps with my chin resting on my knees, listening to the soft, golden notes as the world slowed down.
Gradually, the mansion fades into the distance, shrinking behind Hillaire’s rigid frame and reminding me I’m standing on Edmund’s balcony, far from home, trying to breathe through the bitter ache of homesickness. I miss it so much I could cry.
“How are you doing, Hilly?” I ask, my voice breaking a little.
“Badly,” she replies, stopping beside an old, gnarled oak. She pulls her gold coin from her pocket and rolls it between the fingers of her robotic hand, so lifelike it nearly fools people. It’s the hand she always extends to others, probably to avoid offering a part of herself that’s real.
“Why? What happened?” I ask.
“Father’s trying to be heroic again,” Hillaire says. “He’s planning to run for Governor of the Rainbow District. And I want you to convince him to change his mind.”
The words pull me back to the day I met Edmund’s mother, when she mentioned Dad’s plans as if they were common cocktail gossip.
“Are you sure?”
“If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be calling.” Hillaire’s nostrils flare. “He told me himself. And Vivian.”
Hillaire pinches the coin between her fingers, and two slender blades emerge from its sides before vanishing again as she loosens her grip. The blades are sharp but only for show, the same kind of coin used for the toss before competitive fencing duels, like the Mensur.
Hillaire is clearly angry, but beneath it, I detect a faint note of dread.
And I don’t understand why. This is what she’s always wanted: to enter public life early, like Dickie did, and to live in the Rainbow District, surrounded by fellow high climbers as she works to earn a spot at Grandmaster. It’s all she ever talks about.
“Dad can’t do that,” I say. “What about home? Our life in the Green District?”
“There won’t be a life here. Or there. Not if he runs,” Hillaire says flatly. “They’ll kill him before he gets near the governor’s seat.”
A shiver runs through me, more from fear than the cold. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She turns her head with eerie calm, her beady eyes cutting straight through me. “You think this is over, Loredana? You really think that just because Father saved President Reeve, he’s safe? That we’re safe?”
“No, I just—”
“The Blues haven’t forgotten what he did.
” Hillaire shoves the coin back into her pocket.
“They still want blood for the Bliss ban, for saving Reeve, for daring to stand in their way. The only reason they haven’t killed Father already is that Reeve won’t let them.
But he will. Sooner or later, he will. And do you know why?
” Her lip curls. “Because Blues always choose their own in the end. That’s why they never lose. ”
The certainty in her voice, the bleak conviction that nothing we do will ever be enough, hits me like a punch to the ribs.
Part of me wonders if she’s right. Reeve is protecting Dad today, but what about tomorrow?
What about when he’s up for re-election and needs every ounce of goodwill from his peers? Will their friendship survive then?
I don’t know. And it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
“When Dad calls to tell me himself,” I say, “I’ll talk to him.”
“Talk to him like his life depends on it,” Hillaire urges. “Because it does.”
I nod, though my focus is already splitting, caught in a rush of movement below.
Down the street, Jack and Dickie stroll past the Guillotine Yard toward the low-citizen clubs.
Dickie’s Pinkie chaperone trails behind with short, mechanical steps.
And further back, Charlotte follows in a daze, still rubbing sleep from her face.
Why didn’t they tell me they were leaving? And where’s Edmund?
I turn only an inch before remembering that Hillaire and I are still on video.
“Hold on,” she snaps, her eyes locking onto something over my shoulder. “Those carvings aren’t low-relief. Where are you?”
I don’t answer.
Through the balcony window, I see Edmund still inside the fencing room, and he’s not alone. His mother has entered, flanked by her two Doberman Pinschers, their muscles rippling as they break away from her to sniff Edmund’s boots.
I hang up on Hillaire.
I hurl myself away from the window, collapsing hard against the balcony’s frozen stone floor, where the ice bites into the skin of my elbows. I feel a sting and the wet warmth of blood, but the pain barely registers.
Stay down. Stay quiet.
Shit.
I crouch low, tuck my knees, and press my back flat against the wall. Images of Edmund’s fury flash through my mind, of how violated he looked the last time I walked in on him and his mother. He won’t let it go if I’m caught again.
But I have nowhere to run.
The campus hoverboards don’t fly this high, and there’s no access stairwell or emergency chute. The balcony hangs here, four stories up, sealed in by a railing too short to hide behind. My only choice is to call the Coppers for extraction and give myself away.
My Bond pings.
“We’re hitting up Jolt they’re holding him, clutching him like a wound.
Behind Phillipa, the Dobermans prowl the edges of the room, ears pricked as their heads turn toward the glass.
I go still. One wrong move, and they’ll see me. One sound, and it’s over.
Phillipa’s boot heels barely make a sound as she crosses the room toward Edmund. She reaches out with a trembling hand and catches his fingers, gripping as if she might fall without him. “Tell me it isn’t true, Edmund,” she says. “Tell me you didn’t withdraw from yesterday’s meeting with Irene.”
“It is true,” he says, staring past her. “I withdrew. And you know why.”
Phillipa’s lips part in a plea, and her fingers squeeze tighter. “You don’t need to love Irene to marry her.”
Edmund grunts. “Do I not? You are well acquainted with the terms, Mother. Once we are married, I am to be faithful to Miss Hussey in all things. If I am to be bound to her in such exclusivity, then affection is rather significant, I think… unless, of course, you would prefer I live as you have lived.”
Phillipa winces. Her eyes flick to the pearl bracelet on her wrist, then lift again, wet and frantic, as though she’s been exposed.
I suddenly realize that her marriage, like Edmund’s looming one, was arranged. Loveless. And now she’s trying to force the same fate on her son.
“Power,” Phillipa says, her throat working around a swallow, “isn’t freedom. It’s responsibility.”
“I do not disagree,” Edmund replies. “However, marrying Miss Hussey was never meant to be my responsibility. And it would not be, if—”
“The prior engagement is void,” Phillipa interrupts. “Irene’s fiancé is gone. The duty is now yours.”
My ears burn at the word. Fiancé? Irene was engaged to another Blue before Edmund? Who? And where is he now?