CHAPTER 40 #2
Charlotte keeps her tone light, but I can tell my words set off an alarm in her head. “I understand it’s a hard time for you, Lore, and I don’t blame you for feeling this way. But you and I both know this isn’t just some party.”
I lower my eyes, saying nothing because she’s right. Now I’m out of excuses. Verdict or no verdict, the entire campus will celebrate the founding anniversary of the Civilized World next week.
“I don’t blame you for feeling antsy, broad.
Anyone would be climbing the furniture by now.
But if you’d rather spend your night watching Bogart narrate the jury’s micro-expressions for the millionth time, go ahead,” Dickie mutters, flopping the cupcake in his palm.
“But believe me, if you skip out, you’re gonna regret it. ”
I narrow my eyes. “Why?”
“’Cause Ed’s got something he wants to ask you.”
For a moment, my mind leaps to the worst. Edmund knows about Charles. Somehow, he knows. But if the file had been accessed, Dad would’ve warned me. And Edmund wouldn’t wait to confront me, much less kiss me the way he did at the bar.
“What does Edmund want to ask me?”
Dickie tosses his cupcake in the air and catches it. Then again. Up and down, up and down, like he’s weighing the secret itself.
“Can’t say what it is. And I can’t say why either.”
My heart jolts, thudding against my chest as if it’s trying to squeeze through my ribs. Across from me, Charlotte taps her sharp, manicured nails on the poker table, curious. But neither of us presses him. We know how Dickie works. He can guard his own secrets, but not someone else’s.
All we have to do is wait.
Dickie shifts on the couch, still lazily flipping the cupcake in his hand. His chest swells, ballooning as if he’s trying to contain something too big to hold. His throat bobs once, then again.
“Ed’s, uh… he’s…” Dickie pauses, then blurts it out in one breath. “He’s gonna ask you to stay.”
I freeze.
“Not just for the year,” Dickie adds quickly. “As long as you want. Forever, even.”
I stop trying to calm my heart. It stops on its own, crushed beneath the sudden, slamming weight of the words.
All at once, I wish Dickie had said Edmund already knew, that the worst had hit, and that I was standing in the wreckage. Because this… this is worse.
Now I’m trapped.
I can’t stay with Edmund while I’m hiding the truth about his cousin’s death, while I’m touching him with hands stained with Charles’s blood. But if I leave without a reason, Edmund will dig until he finds the truth himself. He’ll dig, and dig, until he eventually unearths the bones.
Which means I have to tell him, with my own mouth and my own words, even if his eyes turn cold. Even if the light they hold for me goes out forever.
By 6:00 p.m., the campus is unrecognizable.
The streets teem with nearly thirty thousand students, shoulder to shoulder beneath the streetlights, their faces glowing with anticipation in the warm spring air.
Every balcony is crowded, and every rooftop is filled.
Even the upper stone ledges of the Lecture Halls are sprinkled with silhouettes, students perched like gargoyles, eager for a glimpse of President Reeve.
Voices echo in all directions, with some students performing two-finger salutes while others wave double-headed eagle flags over the Copper squads marching below.
Crowd-control drones hover over the masses, issuing instructions to stay behind the barricades that shape the streets into narrow, orderly lanes.
Additional barriers line the designated route from the landing strip to the Genetic Engineering Facility, where President Reeve is scheduled to meet with the Professors.
The route blazes with spotlights, brightening the rooftops where snipers in matte black gear stand motionless, their scopes trained on the crowd with unnerving stillness.
Benjamin Bogart, narrating from his studio in Charleston City, describes the visit to Grandmaster as “unprecedented access” and “an unusual display of affection” from a sitting president.
Most of Reeve’s predecessors never set foot on campus during their terms, but he visits at least once a year, almost eagerly, as if he’s looking for a reason to come.
Bogart finds it odd. I don’t.
Reeve studied and lived here. For six long years, Grandmaster was his home, and unlike most of us, he managed to leave with his sanity intact. Of course, he’d come back. Maybe for nostalgia, peace, or to remember who he was before the world crowned him king.
In the end, I asked Dad to arrange a private moment with Reeve for Dickie; nothing extravagant, just long enough for a handshake and a photo.
Dad agreed. By tomorrow, Dickie will be the envy of the campus, and everyone will wonder why I, the daughter of the man who saved President Reeve’s life, turned down the chance to meet him.
But I don’t care. I can’t take any more eyes on me tonight.
I walk into the lavatory of my suite and climb onto the sink, resting my head against the mirror.
The Florence Engine buzzes nearby, casting a dull, brackish light across the walls.
It projects a swamp of dark water, tangled trees, and mist that moves in time with my slow, sluggish heartbeat.
I stare at the rippling images, barely seeing them, because my mind is elsewhere.
Before tonight, I never regretted killing Charles. I regretted the circumstances and the price I paid, but never the act itself.
The moment I killed him presses at the edge of my mind, forcing its way into the space I’ve worked so hard to block off.
The memory flashes back in fragments, from the speed of my saber to the force of the swing to the sheer, unbridled brutality of the blow.
I watch those four horrible minutes play out behind my eyes, the way others watch nightmares, and I recoil, sickened not only by what I see but also by the fear that someone else might see it, too. Especially Edmund.
It’s one thing for Edmund to know I killed his cousin. It’s something else entirely for him to know how. That’s what haunts me now, what makes me want to crawl into a hole in the earth and never come out.
The way I killed Charles is part of why Judge Bradford came down on me so hard.
Even though I acted in self-defense, the fatal blow looked like rage.
Vengeance. Judge Bradford told me I didn’t have to be so brutal, and the Blackwells’ lawyer agreed.
A man I had every reason to ignore made a point I still can’t shake: I could’ve stopped Charles without killing him.
I could’ve forced him back, holding him off until the Coppers came, but I didn’t.
And the worst part is, the Blackwell’s lawyer was right.
I didn’t plan to kill Charles. I didn’t draw my saber wanting blood.
But once the fight began, it moved too fast, and I lost control.
I’d trained for combat, from sparring matches to fencing tournaments, but those fights had rules and referees in striped jackets who blew their whistles before the violence went too far.
What I learned the night I killed Charles is that nothing prepares you for a real fight.
You can master every move in the safety of a training room, but when it’s life or death, all that knowledge falls away.
The world narrows to fight or die, kill or be killed.
In that moment, you’re not a logical person making choices.
You’re pure instinct and adrenaline, screaming at you to survive.
And I did. I survived.
But what came out of me to make survival possible was ugly, so horrifying that it made Mom gasp and Dad go pale when they first saw the courtroom footage.
That, I think, is partly why Charles’s parents agreed to bury the truth.
First, because Charles never officially challenged me, and his ambush outside a sanctioned death duel would’ve tarnished the Blackwell name.
But more importantly, because of what the footage revealed: a Blue killed by a Green.
And killed in that way. The Blackwells didn’t want the world to see the mess their son’s body left behind.
So they covered it up with a lie and declared Charles’s death a Bliss overdose. And I walked free.
Until now.
Because now I have to face Edmund. And there’s no court ruling, sealed report, or scripted excuse that can shield me from what he’ll see when he learns the truth; when he understands what I did, and worse, what I became while doing it.
I drop my head into my hands and press my fingers against my temples, drawing a deep, ragged breath. I know I have to tell Edmund. I know it can’t be avoided. But before I do, I need my sisters, now more than ever. I’ll tell them everything, if only to hear their voices.
The problem is that neither Vivian nor Hillaire will talk to me. They stopped taking my calls the moment they learned I’d told Dad I’d support his decision to run for Governor of the Rainbow District. I activate my Bond and stare at the last message Vivian sent me two days ago:
“Stop calling, Lore. Please. I need some time.”
I exit the text, my shoulders shaking beneath the weight of Charles’s ghost, and open Hillaire’s messages.
The screen is empty except for seven calls Hillaire ignored, seven attempts I’ve made to reach her in the past week.
I stare at the screen for a moment before dialing her number.
One ring. No answer, so I call again. Then again.
A fourth time. A fifth. I tell myself I’ll keep calling until she picks up.
I don’t care how long it takes. I need to hear her voice, any sign that she’s still my sister.
Finally, on the seventh call, a notification blinks at the top of the screen:
“You’re the only one who could’ve talked Father out of it, Loredana,” Hillaire texts. “When the Blues kill him—and they WILL kill him—I’ll blame you.”
Then she blocks my number.