“Maybe you can win Lola over with your charm,” Levi said.
Enne very much doubted that. Lola was as easily charmed as barbed wire.
“Don’t let her see your fear,” Jac reminded her, apparently eavesdropping. “That’s the first rule.”
It was surreal to hear Lourdes’s rules from someone else’s mouth. Earlier, Jac had listed all ten of them, in the exact order Enne so often repeated to herself. It was perhaps the most unexpected and unnerving of Lourdes’s betrayals, and exactly the sort of thing Enne wished she could ask her mother about, if she was here. Why share these rules with Enne? Why teach her they were something else?
She sighed. It was during moments like these, of anger or sadness or hopelessness, that she missed Lourdes the most. She needed her mother to sort out her confusion, to take her hand and remind her of who she was and what was important.
“Where did the rules even come from?” Enne asked.
“From the Great Street War,” Levi answered. “Veil probably wrote them.”
“I heard it was Havoc,” Jac said. “They were opposing street lords, Veil and Havoc. It’s been eighteen years and peoplestilltake sides.”
“It was definitely Veil,” Levi repeated.
“You just say that because you worship Veil.”
He stiffened. “That’s not true.”
“When I first met you, you were dressed like him. In costume. You thought you were pretty neat.”
Levi kicked Jac in the shin, but Jac kept grinning. Enne relaxed a little at Jac’s dimples. Maybe shewasimagining the tension.
The train car stopped, and they got off. It was early evening, the height of rush hour, yet the Deadman District was mostly quiet. The rain over the past few days had ushered a cool front over the city, and Enne shivered under her jacket. She kept both hands in her pockets. Her right finger traced along the barrel of Levi’s gun.
They found their way back to Lola’s cellar office and knocked on the door.
Lola’s green eyes appeared through the two bullet holes.
Swallowing the guilt and nervousness in her chest, Enne said, “’Lo.”
Lola cursed and opened the door. Her white hair was tied into a high bun at the top of her head. “I didn’t expect to see you again,” she said flatly, tucking her hands into her trousers. She glanced at Levi and Jac. “And you’ve brought the Iron boys back. What exactly is this?”
Enne met Levi’s eyes hesitantly, and he nodded, urging her to speak. It didn’t matter what Enne came up with—her self-preservation was entirely transparent.
“I came to New Reynes to find someone,” she started. “And after what you told me the other night...we think you might be able to help us.”
“I’m no private eye.”
“The names you gave me—they’re our only leads. If we could find more information about my families, maybe even guess who my birth parents are, it would give us a clue.”
“Who are you looking for?” Lola asked.
“My adopted mother.”
Lola stared at her disinterestedly.
“Please,” Enne added.
Lola made a face like she had a bad taste in her mouth. “Fine. Let me get my knives.” She turned and grabbed a belt off her desk; it was covered—every inch of it—in blades. As the group returned to the Mole stop, Lola removed several knives and hid them in strategic places around her body. In her left boot. Secured in a holster on her right thigh. Several up her sleeves. Three around her waist. One she even slid into a pocket in her top hat, which she wore to cover her white hair.
“Where are we going?” Levi asked uneasily.
“The South Side,” Lola replied. “The National Library. It doesn’t close until eight o’clock. They have all the census records there.”
“And will we need so many knives?” Jac asked, poking at her belt. “I’m not much of a reader, so maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think the books will attack us.”
