Page 88 of Because I Killed Him
None of us meant to.
“It’s nice to see you, too,” I reply, holding onto the image in front of me like a fragile photograph I don’t want to wrinkle. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, honey, today it is.” Dad flashes a faint smile that speaks for itself.
His intervention at the Bridge Banquet has given him more than a fifteen-minute flirtation with fame. His polling numbers have risen enough to challenge President Reeve’s, and even the media is reporting on him favorably. Some are already hinting he might be suited for something beyond a representative’s role.
“This isn’t just about Bliss anymore.” Dad’s eyes drift to the Blood Ring on his thumb, a small but constant reminder of our place. “We’ve got a real chance now to get justice… and maybe even more than that.”
My heart pounds wildly at the thought. He’s talking about rebalancing the scales, lifting ourselves from the floor to the table, where we’ll finally call our own shots. No more breathing secondhand air. No more eating shit and calling it caviar. True sovereignty.
But neither of us says it aloud. It feels like a delicate spell, one that might break or even curse us if we name it too soon.
“What about you?” Dad asks, taking a sip of his brandy. “Are things getting any better at Grandmaster?”
“With Irene out of the picture, yeah.” I carefully avoid his gaze. Questions about my safety are exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
I text him the photo I snapped of Dickie’s blue band on the Regal Express. “Do you know what this is?”
Dad frowns at the photo, then sits up quickly, making Mom stir against his shoulder. “Where did you—”
“I saw a student wearing it on the train when I first got here.”
Confusion crosses his face. He rubs his mouth, his eyes still fixed on the photo, and stays quiet so long I almost repeat the question. When he finally speaks, his tone is careful, as if he’s handling something sharp.
“Yeah, I know it. It’s called an Aegis. It started showing up around the time I was a student at Grandmaster. The Blues repurpose them from the Blood Rings of dead family members.”
“So, it’s not a high-citizen Blood Ring?”
“Not quite. It’s more of a low-citizen upgrade. It grants extra privileges and even boosts your civil credits. The Blues are cagey about the specifics, but it puts you above us and below them.”
That lines up with what I’ve seen. Jack and Dickie use their Aegises more often than Charlotte charges Gibson cocktails to my student tab. But the blue bands have their limits. There are still places Jack and Dickie can’t access unless Edmund steps in.
“Have you seen many Aegises in politics?”
Dad pauses. “Two. Maybe three.”
My eyes widen. “Three?”
“Yeah. Even that surprised me. Technically, any Blue with a dead relative can make one, but most don’t. They’d rather destroy the ring.”
I don’t need to ask why.
The call ends shortly after, and as I crawl into bed, my thoughts drift to Edmund, wondering why he didn’t destroy the rings.
I watch him closely over the next few days. The way he moves with Jack and Dickie is like three parts of the same machine, held together by screws only they seem to feel. Blues are supposed to hate low-citizens, seeing them as trash clogging the gutters, yet here Edmund is, breaking ranks for two of them. It’s like trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.
And then there’s Dad, knee-deep in the same contradictions. He despises the Blues and makes no secret of his mistrust, yet he’s friends with President Reeve, one of their own.
Is that what love does? Does it blur the lines of your ideals and soften the edges of your principles, until even the most steadfast people become hypocrites?
I don’t know, but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. And it makes me afraid of who I’ll fall for. Afraid of who I’ll love.
By Monday, nearly every student on campus has seen the video of Edmund’s death duel in the Tangerine Tree. Everywhere I look, the footage is playing on bar and club screens, mirrored across Bond feeds, and whispered about in the first-year Lecture Hall corners. The image of Edmund, blade pointed at the crowd of Blues, spreads like wildfire. His mother, the Headmistress of Grandmaster, tries to contain it. She bans the video from university networks, threatens consequences for anyone caught with a copy, and even enlists the campus Coppers to monitor for public discussion.
Headmistress Prew claims the ban is to protect the victims’ dignity, but I know the real reason.Blues aren’t supposed to kill other Blues.Dickie said Edmund paid a heap of money to both victims’ families as restitution. Even so, the victims’ parents must be tearing Headmistress Prew limb from limb,demanding to know how the hell this happened under her watch. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re trying to have her removed as Headmistress. That’s why she’s doing everything she can to hide the color of the blood her son spilled.
But it’s too late.
