Over a dozen lifeless faces peered at her as she stepped inside, but her gaze immediately fell on Levi. All the color drained from his face as he met her eyes. He was hunched in his chair as if it hurt him to straighten up, and an ugly red mark glared at the side of his neck. Enne’s heart skipped in alarm—he’d been hurt again.
Enne closed the door behind her, and the music from downstairs disappeared, as if nothing existed outside this room. The ticking, too, was gone—maybe she hadn’t really heard it at all.
“The other player, at last,” one man said. Enne recognized him immediately: Chancellor Malcolm Semper, the Father of the Revolution—and her mother’s killer. Her heart clenched, all the anger and grief and adrenaline seizing her at once. “Please take a seat, my dear.”
She tried to reach for the revolver. This was it—she’d made it to the Game in time to stop it. But her hand was frozen at her side—not from the omerta, but some other power in the room. The same sinister force that had led her upstairs. She swallowed down a scream of panic.
“I believe you have Mr. Torren’s letter, don’t you?” Semper asked.
Enne froze. She didn’t have any choices left. She was weaponless, powerless, and she had walked directly into their hands. She’d made a fatal error for the second time that night, and now it was too late.
After a few moments of horror, she regained her composure enough to hand him Sedric’s envelope. Semper tore it open and scanned the contents, then cleared his throat. “It seems... What is your name?”
“Séance,” she said, the name Lola had given her. The name her mother had once used, long ago.
Semper blinked, as if startled for a moment. Maybe he, too, glimpsed the ghost of Lourdes at the edges of his vision.
He returned to Sedric’s letter. “Mr. Torren has recommended that Séance be the one to play.”
“What?”Levi hissed. Enne froze. What did that mean? Weren’t they both supposed to play?
“Well, with your background in cards, Mr. Glaisyer, you don’t need to prove your prowess. Perhaps this newcomer should be given a chance to impress.”
Levi shook his head. He looked utterly defeated.
“Take a seat,” Semper urged her, and Enne carefully claimed the only empty one at table. Every few moments, she tried again to reach into her pocket for the revolver, but to no avail. If she ran—if shecouldrun—that would mean leaving Levi here, and she’d already come this far. No matter how panicked she felt, she couldn’t abandon him in his final moments. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself afterward.
“Don’t bother eyeing the door, dear,” Semper said. Every monster in this city always found a pet name for her. “The Game began the moment you stepped into the House. The rules are binding. There is no escaping. No cheating.”
That explained why Enne couldn’t reach for her gun. There was a magic to the Game, like there was in oaths. A magic she couldn’t explain.
“During the Game, the player typically bets their own life,” Semper explained, “but since there aretwoguests, it will be Mr. Glaisyer’s life on the line, and Séance the player.”
Enne’s heart sank. It should’ve been the other way around. She didn’t know anything about cards.
“Last time we did this—” a younger woman started.
“That was a mistake,” Semper snapped. “Besides, these two don’t even know each other. Isn’t that right?”
They were referencing the Game of Gabrielle Dondelair, when it had been Enne’s life on the line. They had no idea that same child sat in front of them now, prepared to play the Game a second time.
“I’ve never heard of him,” she answered. Levi shot her an annoyed look, as if he could honestly be worrying about his ego at a time like this.
“Players don’t just walk through our door,” the woman from earlier snapped. “If you don’t know him, then why are you here?”
The words came easily. “To win,” Séance answered.
Semper smiled. “People do not play this Game to win, my dear. They play this game not to lose.”
DAY TEN
“Some say the City of Sin is a game, so before you arrive—ask yourself, dear reader, how much are you prepared to lose?”
—The City of Sin, a Guidebook: Where To Go and Where Not To
ENNE
“The rules are not that complicated,” Semper started. The room was so dark that he was merely a shadow across the table. “Eleven players and twenty-two kinds of Shadow Cards. In the beginning, every player will start off with two.” He dealt out the silver cards and slid them to the players at the table. “Best not to look until you understand the rules,” he said, just as Enne was reaching for hers. She drew her hand back, heart pounding. The nine other players stared at her with such detachment that she wondered if they were sleeping with their eyes open. If they were even interested in this Game, where Levi’s life was the prize.
