As if in answer to her own question, her fingertips suddenly tingled with the static of the volts pulsing inside her skin. The Mizer blood talent was to create volts. Now that she’d awakened hers, there was no limit to her potential for wealth. All it would take was an orb-maker, and she happened to know one very well.
She quickly dismissed the thought. If her ancestry was discovered, she would be killed. There was no quicker path to death than using her talent.
Vianca set down her empty teacup. “Miss Salta, this is the City of Sin. Opportunity is only a flip of the card or roll of the dice away. I’m sure even you can think of something. Besides, you can still live here on my generosity, and you’re quite welcome for that.” She tossedThe Crimes & The Timesinto her waste bin. “You’re dismissed.”
Thirty minutes later, the bells above the door chimed as Enne slipped into a Tropps Street clothing boutique. The store’s floral perfume filled the air, and Enne inhaled it deeply, willing it to soothe her the way such comforts once had. The more she reflected on her conversation with Vianca, the more helpless she felt.
The Casino District, ordinarily so crowded with ruckus and filth, was quiet. In the wake of the headlines, the citizens of New Reynes had stayed indoors. The sirens had gradually stopped. The city felt like the hush before a stage curtain lifted, but what the city waited for was war.
Enne fingered the lace details on a dress sleeve. She liked it. She liked the beads embedded in its neckline. She liked the creamy white canvas boots on display in the window.
She liked the feeling of a gun in her hand.
And it was that thought, that last thought, that made her hand falter as she examined the dress. It didn’t feel right that she could like all of these things without contradiction. Somewhere, there was a lie.Shewas a lie. How could she pretend to be her old self after all of the horrible things she had done?
Enne had never been someone to feel apologetic about herself. She hadn’t been sorry that she always trailed behind her classmates—they’d hardly noticed her enough to claim she got in their way. She never apologized to Levi when she demanded courtesy, or cried, or wanted for things she knew meant less than nothing to him. So the weight of this shame that she carried for who she was felt wrong. It felt ugly. And she was apologizing to no one but herself.
She had been a lost, naïve, spoiled girl overwhelmed by the City of Sin. And she wasn’t sorry for that.
Now she was no longer lost, or naïve, or spoiled. She was hardened, and strong, and heartbroken. She had made terrible, difficult choices—includingmurder—but she had survived. She wouldn’t apologize for that.
Vianca would force her to make more terrible, difficult choices, and if Enne ever hesitated to apologize for herself, then she would fail—just like Levi had failed. If someone wanted to call her naïve, then they would. If someone wanted to call her heartless, then they would. It didn’t matter whether she decked herself in knives or pearls. The world would always demand that a girl apologize for herself, but she would apologize for nothing.
And so Enne filled her arms with as many frilled, beaded, silly clothes that she could carry, and she paid with the volts she’d earned through blood.
“You know what would look splendid with this?” the cashier asked her, with the first genuine smile Enne had seen in a while. She reached for the basket behind her and retrieved a pair of white satin gloves. They were delicate, ladylike, and indeed splendid.
Enne pursed her lips, images of the Irons’ signature card tattoos and the Scarhands’ marked palms coming to mind. Vianca had instructed Enne to form a gang, but had “no concern” for how Enne would lead it.
“You’re exactly right,” Enne answered. “But let’s make it two pairs.”
JAC
Last night, Jac Mardlin dreamed of his own death.
It started with a bad decision; he jumped into the driver’s seat of the flashiest motorcar he’d ever seen—white leather seats and a black racing stripe streaking across the hood. He hadn’t intended to steal it; all he wanted was to lean back, close his eyes, and fantasize about owning something so luxurious. But suddenly, the locks on the doors bolted, the keys twisted in the ignition, and the car raced forward at a stomach-lurching speed.
He cursed and fought against the steering wheel. The wind rushed at him so fast his eyes watered, and everything he passed became a blur. Even as he slammed his foot on the brakes and tugged the clutch so hard it snapped, the car still sped on.
Until it drove straight off Revolution Bridge.
Many hours later, in the waking world, Jac eyed his hand of cards and chewed his bottom lip, mentally tallying every foggy detail of the dream. The white from the car’s seat leather made him think he should pick an even-numbered card. But there’d been that black racing stripe, and black always symbolized an odd number, a contrast.
He settled on the four of hearts and threw it down. “Better save your luck, Dove, because—”
Lola let out a wild cackle of victory and snatched a switchblade from the pot of weapons. “You muckhead.” She threw down her own pair of fours on the table.
He scowled. “I don’t like Pilfer. It’s a kids’ game.”
“Then deal a game of Tropps. You don’t have much else to lose.” She shrugged and slipped what had once been his best switchblade into the pocket of her jacket. The nightdress she wore underneath, borrowed from Enne, was clearly several sizes too small and made her look bone-skinny and vaguely feral. Jac had encountered stray cats who looked more charming than Lola did in the morning.
She rested her feet on the table, and he crinkled his nose as he yanked the pile of cards out from under them. “I thought Irons were supposed to be good at these sort of games,” she said.
Strictly speaking, Jac wasn’t half lousy at cards. But the sirens that had blared all through the night in search of his best friend had suddenly gone silent. He twitched his leg restlessly. “I’m gonna open a window.”
“It’s hotter outside,” Lola warned. Both of their foreheads dripped with sweat. It was officially a New Reynes summer.
“I need a smoke.” He stood up and slid the window open. Twelve years he’d lived in New Reynes, and he’d never heard Tropps Street so quiet. Not after One-One-Six, a long dead street lord, shot up every last soul in a private auction house. Not after the casket of Sedric’s father, Garth Torren, had been solemnly paraded outside his casino, as though he’d died some kind of saint.
