Page 138 of Because I Killed Him
“If I don’t, it’s gonna cost you.Big.”
“Seriously, Dickie?” I drop my hand. “You can’t keep one tiny secret?”
“Sure, I could. But as a wise man, I don’t waste my aces.” He leans in, his flame-orange hair flashing in the light. “Highball… you’re gonna play it with me. Twice a week. Until the end of the year.”
The tension slides off me like a wet towel. “That’s all?”
“Let’s see if you’re still saying that after you’ve played, broad.” Dickie jerks his thumb toward the hall. I grab my canteen from the dresser and follow him out.
“This room isn’t for snooping,” he mutters.
“I know.” Mom’s warning about prying is already ringing in my ears. “Do you think Edmund will notice?”
“Doubt it. But his broad will.” Dickie puffs out his chest as we walk, trying to match my height. “Every time she swings by, she combs through this place like a Copper at a crime scene. If there’s even a whisper of perfume in the air, she’ll catch it—and then she’ll beat Ed with it.”
I picture Irene overturning drawers and stripping the bedsheets, tearing the room apart in search of another woman’s scent. The image fits. She offered to spare my life on the off chance I might stumble onto whoever Edmund is cheating on her with. If he really has mistresses, I doubt he ever lets them near his bedroom.
Dickie veers left toward the fencing room, where the clang of graphene still echoes down the hall. Edmund and Jack have been training like war dogs for weeks. Come May, they’ll face off in the Mensur above the Luminescent Lake, with the entire first-year Blue and Green Fraternities watching.
Dickie walks through the door, but I don’t follow. I stay in the corridor and clutch my canteen to my chest, my heart kicking every time the blades ring out. Watching Jack fight is easy. Watching Edmund isn’t.
I missed it the first time, in the video of the duel in the Tangerine Tree. But now that I’ve seen Edmund fence in person, up close, there’s no denying how familiar his style is.
His advances roll cleanly off the ball of his foot, while his retreats are timed with a deceptive delay to draw out a premature attack. His blade work is pure distance and control, beating in four to bait, then slipping thedisengage into octave to land the touch. Rather than brute-forcing his way in, he builds the attack from a shift in tempo, lunging the instant his opponent’s weight settles on the heel.
I’ve fenced this style before.
Charles Blackwell fought like that.
In the semifinal at the Junior Fencing World Championship, Charles cornered me again and again, cutting the piste in half as if it belonged to him. He forced rushed parries from me, took the blade before I could even establish the line. I had to claw for every point, breaking rhythm and leaving openings I’d never normally risk. He nearly beat me.
Edmund is quicker and more reactive, with a much longer reach, but the resemblance is still there in the gliding footwork and ruthless efficiency. It almost makes me wonder if they were trained by the same hand.
So I wait. Eyes closed, hands clamped over my ears, breath held through every strike behind the door.
Because if I watch, I won’t just see Edmund.
I’ll see the Blue who ruined everything.
I wait until the hiss of graphene sliding into scabbards fades before I enter the fencing room. The air is thick with sweat, and so warm that the ice melts from the windows into slushy streaks. Jack is draped over the sofa’s armrest like a used towel, chugging from a half-empty pitcher. Water spills down his chin, darkening the front of his training vest.
“I’m starting to figure out your inside line, Ed,” he says. “Always flirting with six, then cheating on her with octave.”
Edmund gives a short laugh. “Guess I’ll have to find a new girl, then. Julian always said predictability will get you killed.”
Edmund grabs a towel and wipes sweat from his body. It streams down his face and shoulders, running in rivulets along his collarbones before soaking into his long-sleeved, padded training suit. His chest rises and falls with heaving breaths, slower than Jack’s but deeper.
The sight of him, slick and panting, makes me wish the room were cooler. But I’m soon distracted by the fact that his skin is unmarked. There isn’t asingle scar. Most fencers, especially those with his level of experience, keep an honor scar to commemorate the duel they consider most worthy.
Jack notices me and tips his head back with a wink, his lip split and bleeding where Edmund’s blade must’ve nicked him. Edmund notices me a moment later as he tosses the towel onto the sofa. He straightens quickly, and a bright smile breaks through the sweat, as if he’s been waiting for me all morning.
I return the smile, meaning only to keep it polite. But I’m too happy to see him, and my smile stretches until it betrays more than I intend.
Jack offers the pitcher of water to Edmund, but Edmund steps closer to me instead and nods at the canteen in my hand.
“You mind?”
“Sure.” I pass the canteen over.
