“Well then.” She grabbed the empty seat beside Jac, putting several feet of distance between her and the source of her distraction. Levi didn’t bother to follow. As the train car passed the next several stops and other passengers boarded, Enne did her best to keep her gaze out the window. Even so, she could still feel the heat of Levi’s stare.
Lola was the first to move when they reached their stop: Revolution Bridge. It was a major station, busy with people changing lines, full of kiosks selling newspapers and food. Enne’s stomach groaned as they passed a doughnut stand.
They climbed several flights of stairs before reaching the street. The change in scenery between this and the North Side was astounding. Here, the white stone buildings were actually still white, many with huge columns and gilded domes. Motorcars honked at jaywalkers sprinting across traffic circles. The men wore checkered suits, their patent leather boots clicking as they walked. Women shuffled by daintily in their hobble skirts, too fitted for them to take long strides.
“It’s beautiful,” Enne said.
“It’s a bit glitzy,” Levi answered flatly. Something had clearly soured his mood. “Not really my taste.”
“And what is your taste? Cheap cabarets and malt liquor?”
“At least it’s honest.”
“Says the con man.”
“Says the street lord,” he countered. “At least I know what I want.”
She bristled and took a step closer. “And I don’t?” Who cared if she thought the South Side was beautiful? She couldn’t even make simple conversation without it becoming a statement on her character.
“No,” he dared. “I don’t think you do.”
Lola cleared her throat, her expression disgusted. “We don’t have long before the library closes.”
Enne nodded, then rolled her shoulders to try to release her tension. Now she was in a sour mood, too. Distraction, indeed. She didn’t even know what they’d been arguing about. They needed to focus on what they’d come here to do.
The library was grand, both on the outside and within. The sunset shining through the stained glass windows cast the bookshelves in a sacred sort of glow. Students crowded each of the tables, pouring over textbooks and old manuscripts. The air smelled of burning candles and the dust of old books. The quiet reverence here didn’t seem like it should exist in New Reynes.
“We’ll start in the family records,” Lola said. She led them to the third floor, to hallways of displeasing metal shelves lined with black, leather-bound books.
“It’s all so...sterile,” Enne said.
“The Mizers certainly treated family matters as such,” Lola said. “For them, talents were commodities. Things to be bred.” The accusation in her voice was clear, as though Enne was just as guilty as her ancestors, despite not knowing her family history until two days ago. She opposed their tyrannical reigns as much as Lola did. “When’s your birthday?”
“February 2. Year 9.” The wigheads had reset the calendar after the Revolution, as it had previously referenced the old Faith.
“Can you find her records from just her birthday?” Jac asked dubiously.
“Of course. This is what I do.” Lola followed the shelves down to the ones labeled with the correct year. She grabbed several books and handed one to each of them. “These are all February. They should be in alphabetical order by blood name.”
After several moments of riffling through the pages, none of them found a mention of Enne. She wasn’t listed under Salta, nor even Scordata, Dondelair or Alfero. They checked every day for the entire year, but there was no evidence of her birth to be found.
“I was expecting that,” Lola said nonchalantly, as if it were obvious. Maybe it was—of course Enne didn’t have a birth record, being what she was. But this was only another reminder that everything she’d once known about herself was a lie. She was so accustomed to being ordinary and ignored, yet now, even with her notorious heritage revealed, she felt twice as invisible. “We’ll try the family trees next.” Although Lola’s tone wasn’t exactly enthused, it was still somewhat optimistic, and Enne clung to the hope that there would be something for them to find. Something to lead them back to Lourdes.
The family lineages were in a hallway much like the previous one. All crates and metal and fluorescent lighting. They sat on the cold white-tiled floor as Lola plucked out a laminated file labeled “Dondelair.” She handed it to Enne.
“We won’t find any Scordata records here—those have all been destroyed. We’re lucky the Dondelairs’ haven’t been, too,” Lola said. “What was your adopted mother’s full name?”
Enne took the Dondelair file with unease. It felt criminal even to read it. “Oh, um, Lourdes Reids Alfero.”
While Lola hunted for Lourdes’s family tree, Enne, Levi and Jac flipped through the Dondelair file. Levi sat beside her, their shoulders almost touching, so he could examine the documents with her. Enne tried to ignore his nearness and focus.
The trees included the names of each family member, their birth dates, their death dates and their causes of death. They looked so clinical, as though they’d been written by coroners rather than historians.
The tree ended abruptly on the last page. “‘Claude Dondelair,’” she read, mainly for Jac’s benefit. “‘Born July 10, 1884 of the old calendar. Died April 18, Year 9. Gunshot wound.’” And beside him: “‘Gabrielle Dondelair. Born November 24, 1887 of the old calendar. Died February 3, Year 9. Gunshot wound.’”
Enne shivered. She recognized their names from her history classes. Brother and sister. Arsonists. Circus performers. Traitors.
“This is giving me the creeps,” Jac said.
