Lola eyed her uneasily. “Why do you ask?”
“I just realized how little I know him, is all.”
Lola lowered her voice to a whisper. “The Balfour family doesn’t have a talent.”
Enne frowned. “Is that possible?”
“I don’t think so, but that’s how they’re listed in all the archives.”
“Then he’s clearly hiding something.”
“They’re all hiding something,” Lola muttered as she unlocked her car and they each climbed inside. She turned around to back the motorcar out of the narrow alley, then startled. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” Enne asked, whipping around. She only saw quiet rowhomes with their curtains drawn.
“I thought I spotted something,” Lola murmured, frowning. “Probably nothing.”
Enne shrugged and opened her Sadie Knightley novel. She’d developed a habit of rereading the same books over and over, because she craved the certainty of knowing how the stories ended.
She’d listened to enough of Grace’s lessons to know how legends ended, too.
And so each morning, before Vianca’s direct phone line could ring, before Lola could fill her schedule with appointments, Enne completed a ritual. She pictured the faces of the Phoenix Club, she practiced her shooting, and she told herself the same thing.
Not mine.
* * *
Every day, over six hundred thousand illegal volts flowed through an old finishing school classroom in the Ruins District. It was decorated in pastels, and a gaggle of girls sat on the floor, papers spread around them, pencils tapping against plush fur carpet. They each wore curlers in their hair or green, sludgy masks over their skin. Every now and then, one would shout out a new number and phrase, and several others would adjust the statistics on the chalkboard.
As Enne and Lola entered, Grace jumped to her feet, cucumbers falling off her eyes. Enne wasn’t sure the cucumbers could do her much good if she still wore thick circles of eyeliner beneath them.
Grace shoved Enne a clipboard. “We’re getting calls. Lots of investors backing out.”
“Definelots,” Enne said. She squinted at the numbers on the paper.
“Two hundred thousand volts.”
“What? Who’s pulling out? From where?” Enne scanned the list. It seemed most of the investors were from gambling dens. Was Levi up to something?
“It’s not the Irons,” Grace answered. “They’re all Torren-owned dens, which makes sense. Charles doesn’t trust you. Youdidkill his cousin.”
If too many investors pulled out, the gangs would each lose a fortune. And with tensions rising between the whiteboots in the South Side and the gangs patrolling the North, none of the lords could afford budget cuts right now. Wealth was their most effective weapon.
“If every single Torren den sold out, how much more would we lose?” Enne asked.
“Maybe sixty thousand more volts?” Grace told her. “I have the names of every person who backed out. Give me the word, and I’ll kill them all.”
“Terror,” Enne said drily. “Because that worked out so well for past lords.”
“Suit yourself, but I want you to know—I’m doing math, and I’m very bored.”
“You’re a counter. Isn’t this what you do?”
Grace raised her eyebrows. “When’s the last time you did a cartwheel?” She poked Enne in the side with her pencil. “I could think of other uses for your bendy talent that Poppy’s list of South Side boys might find pretty appealing.” She smiled wickedly.
The girl closest to them rolled her eyes. “You spent all morning telling me how satisfying it was to make the Irons’ statements balance.”
Grace clutched her knife necklace indignantly. “Yeah, well, Pup’s books were a mess, so I fixed them.”
