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1.
I know the 12% Yellow is a lie, but I wonder if the 14% Blue might be for real. Don't you dare get the wrong idea, it's not like I want to be a Chromatic. Perish the fucking thought. But when I look up at the night sky, I wonder if I can see the barest hints of navy among the vast expanse of black. And then I wonder if I'm just going completely mad, and then I truly hate that Colourman. Somehow it just wasn't enough that he and deMauve had to take Eddie from me. They also had to go and rob me of the chance to know who I am.
Of course, I know that's ridiculous. I hate myself a little just for thinking about it that way. Of course I know who I am. Sally Gamboge is wrong about almost everything, but she's right when she says I'll always be Grey. I'll be Jane Brunswick on paper, but in my heart I know I'm Jane Grey, and fucking proud of it. Even an honest Ishihara is just a tool of the Collective to keep us trapped in a prison without walls, and I won't be told who I am, not by them or anyone else.
Still, it would have been nice to know my real score. And it's not like I was surprised the Colourman is a liar; I knew that from the moment he got into town. But I guess I was surprised that he wasn't just a monster, but an incredibly petty one. I knew from the start that he was after me, and that he may have even been the one who ordered Robin's death. That kind of monster I could handle. I'm used to the murderers who populate Head Office, the ones who routinely send people to High Saffron to die in the cruelest way just for daring to show even the barest hint of individuality.
But this monster was the kind of person who could do all of that and also ruin people's happiness just because. A few hundred merits and he thought nothing of separating Eddie and me forever. Or maybe he was just particularly browned off at Eddie for not turning me in, and being just transparent enough for him to suspect he wasn't as ignorant as he appeared. And then he'd gone and sent Dorian and Imogen off to High Saffron, just because. Killing two people just to rub Eddie's nose in it.
Eddie remembers what I said. Innocents will die, and die at our hands, but there's a difference between knowing it and knowing it. He's trying to put on a brave face as I introduce him to my Grey friends, but I know he's thinking of them.
Having Eddie set to infiltrate National Colour is a coup beyond our wildest dreams. My friends are thrilled, and just yesterday Eddie would have been too. Now, all I see in his eyes—are they blue?—is the heroic resolve of a person who truly has nothing left to lose, and I can't stand it.
I once told Eddie that I despised all Chromatics equally. Now I see that I was wrong. Now I know that I never truly hated anyone before, not even Violet.
I should be as thrilled as the others, but instead I'm just scared. So, so scared for Eddie.
I hate being in love.
2.
The second time I nearly lose my mind over Eddie is just days after the first. Somehow having known his marriage to Violet was coming doesn't make it any easier to stomach it actually happening. I'm mildly comforted by the fact that he looks at least as nauseated as I feel, but no matter how much Clifton insists that nobody could possibly enjoy youknow with Violet, I still can't be entirely at ease with the fact that their first time obviously went well enough to achieve its intended purpose. Later Eddie claimed he'd been thinking of me. I don't know if that makes it better or worse. I really don't want to care about this, but apparently turning into a fucking idiot is part of how this whole being in love thing works.
Have I mentioned that I really, really hate it?
Well, I do. Because the week Eddie is obliged to spend with Violet at the Green Dragon is the longest week of my fucking life.
I just can't stand the idea that he might actually fall in love with her.
3.
From the day I chose to save him on, I've always known that at some point I would have to teach Eddie to see at night. And I've been dreading it, because I remember well the look on his face when I showed him how I did it. It was the one and only time he ever looked at me without the remotest admiration. Eddie, the self-proclaimed idiot who fancies me, genuinely thought I looked grotesque in that moment. That doesn't exactly bode well.
It's not that I don't think he can do it. I know that everyone can do it, but only if they successfully fight off the instinct to panic. The fear of night may be baseless, but for those conditioned to believe the lies of the Collective, it's still very real.
The last thing I need is Eddie losing his senses to a so-called night terror. I won't be able to risk carrying him back, because then they'll know about me, and everything will be over. Like Eddie said about Dorian and Imogen, we'll be finished before we even get started. So either I'll have to abandon him, breaking my own heart in the process, or I'll have to stay with him and try to find somewhere to hide. And nowhere can possibly be well-hidden enough. We'll be exposed, easy prey for the Nightseers. Especially if I can't get Eddie to stop screaming. And even if I can, the effort it will take will cost me my ability to be completely on my guard. Any way I look at it, failure means certain death.
But he has to learn. If he can master it, so many new avenues will be open to us. We'll be able to meet freely, right under the prefects' unenlightened noses. Movement and communication will be so much easier. And Eddie insists that he wants to learn, even if he can't quite hide his instinctive disgust when I demonstrate. He reminds me that he went after Travis Canary and successfully kept himself from succumbing to a night terror, even though at the time he didn't know that the darkness was not, in itself, dangerous.
So, terrified though I am, I agree to teach him. And to my great relief, Eddie doesn't make a sound. He keeps his eyes open and holds my hand. His body shakes, but he stubbornly ignores his instinctive panic.
It takes us several attempts, and each one is as nerve-wracking as the last. The first night we just stand together on the deMauves' front lawn; the second night Eddie blindly follows me in a circuit around their house. His eyes learn to adjust just enough to perceive the barest hints of stars. On the third night we try a walk to the village square, and then again on the fourth night, until I realise that instead of just following me by sound and touch, Eddie is trying to lead.
I let him clumsily navigate us towards a patch of moonlight. Then his hands are on my face, as if to confirm that it is where he thinks it is. 'You were right,' he whispers. 'The night sky is beautiful. Not as beautiful as you are, though.'
It's such a stupid line and it makes me wince. But then he kisses me, for the first time since High Saffron. And that's even stupider, because we cannot afford to become distracted, and kissing Eddie is the most incredible distraction I've ever experienced. Before I can even upbraid him for it, I hear the faintest rustling in the trees. I seize his hand and start to run, and he gets the message and follows me.
It might have been an animal. It probably was. But if it wasn't, then we missed death by an inch. Not even an inch. Try a millimeter. I shout as loud as I dare, because I can't risk waking Violet. After a while, Eddie seems to finally understand how monumentally stupid kissing me was, and he apologises, or tries to apologise. He understands why he should regret it, but he doesn't.
And truthfully, neither do I. I cannot possibly tell you how much I really, really hate being in love. It's going to get us both killed.
4.
The next time I end up in a panic over Eddie, it's because of a stupid, everyday accident, but one that could ruin everything, both for the Plan and for him personally. We've successfully procured more paint for the mural and we're getting closer, I can feel it. We've seen more Heralds, though they still can't speak. We're on the cusp of a real breakthrough, and then Eddie screams in pain.
Several drops of paint have fallen into his eyes.
Horrified, I rush him to the basin, and fortunately it still works. Eddie rinses his eyes for what is probably only a few minutes but feels like hours.
Eddie can't be blind. He just can't. I'm saying that, and I know better than most that blindness is not to be feared. I know he won't succumb to Mildew. But I also know the pride Eddie takes in his genuinely remarkable Redception. So much of his identity is caught up in being a Red, and to have that snatched away from him would...I don't even want to think about it. Quite apart from the fact that we'd have to fake his death somehow and then hide him with supernumeraries, and the inconvenient fact that without his Redness we'll have an even harder time completing the mural...I know Eddie better than anyone, and even I have no idea what he would be if he couldn't see red.
He wouldn't be Mildewed, not if I could help it...but he might wish he had been. That thought truly terrifies me.
Finally he looks up from the basin. 'It's OK,' he says. 'I'm all right, I can see.'
And I, just like any other idiot in love, launch myself at him in relief. No more painting gets done that day, and as Eddie holds me close, kissing every part of my face he can reach, I wish I could feel sorrier about that.
5.
It's not long before Eddie's son is born. Violet proudly presents baby William Russett deMauve to the whole of East Carmine, taking extra care to rub my nose in it as she does so, but I scarcely care about her insults. I'm watching Eddie, because I need to know what he makes of fatherhood he never chose.
I'm also watching Matthew Gloss, who has come to congratulate his cousin Eddie. He's as terrifying as ever, his apparent well wishes filled to bursting with poisonous insinuations. I can see right through him, and I know that Eddie can too, as he responds with calculated politeness befitting his position as Red prefect. But I'm worried because the Colourman knows what I know: Eddie may be utterly unbothered by the idea of his wife's being suddenly, tragically eaten by yateveo, but his son is another matter.
Eddie may not have chosen to have a son, but now that he does, he'll protect him. He'll love the son he never wanted, because he's just too good of a man not to. Baby William is an even bigger liability than our love.
Which means that if one day it's the Plan or the baby, that will have to be my call. If need be, I will have to be the one to sentence Eddie's son to death, and in so doing, not only will I lose Eddie's love—because how could he possibly still love me, even understanding that I had no choice—I'll also lose the ability to trust him completely. He'll always know I was responsible for his son's death, and then it could be a question of when, not if, he is in turn responsible for mine.
The Colourman knows all of this, and I can already feel him planning it. And now I cannot believe I'm saying this, but protecting Violet deMauve's offspring has become my topmost priority.
I hate everything.