Enne swallowed down the rest of her words along with a scorching lump of fury. She couldn’t let Grace distract her—she’d lose her chance. But as her finger continued to trace along the edge of the trigger, Levi’s face came, unbidden, to her mind, and Enne’s heart clenched. She thought how defeated he’d sounded when they toured that casino. When he thought of how his power affected the city, he really thought of something better that this.
But those were his dreams, not hers. Enne didn’thavedreams—they were fantasies for the childish or disillusioned, and hers had been stolen away the moment she’d come to New Reynes. She could spend her days in the palace she claimed for herself; she could spend her nights in the arms of a boy she cared about. But it wouldn’t matter, because when she woke up, she would still be afraid.
“I might tell Levi,” Grace said, “if you don’t.”
Enne’s heart clenched. “You wouldn’t.”
“Because he’d hate you?” Grace asked. “Or because you’d hate me?”
Enne hesitated. She didn’t think Grace had been lying when she said that before Enne and Lola, she’d been alone. Enne hadn’t grown up with friends, either. And so she understood the weight of Grace’s threat, that she’d sacrifice friendship if it meant saving her. And wasn’t that what Gracewasdoing? Saving Enne from herself?
If Enne fired, she would kill a man who deserved it. But Levi would hate her for it. Grace and Lola and every person she’d manipulated would see the ugliness and fear inside of her, and they would hate her, too.
And if Enne fired, if she pushed them away, she would hate herself.
As the demands from the crowd grew louder, Worner took the microphone, his face red despite all of Poppy’s powder. “All of your questions can be addressed later during the public forum—”
Grace drummed her fingers on the roof’s ledge. “I don’t get what you’re waiting for—”
Enne cursed and pulled back her rifle. She could kill in self-defense. She could manipulate and lie and steal, but she couldn’t do this.
She stood up, defeated. She turned to Grace and shoved the rifle into her arms, and Grace smiled smugly. “Fine,” Enne seethed. “Take it.Are you happy now—”
Boom!
A gun had fired, but it wasn’t hers.
The crowd erupted into a scream. Whiteboots lunged to surround the candidates and their companions, while other officers immediately made for the crowd, batons raised.
Grace grabbed Enne by the shoulders and hauled her to her feet. “Who was that? What’s happening?”
But Enne was too shocked to speak. She and Levi had planned for commotion, not chaos.
Several more gunshots rang out. The people in the crowd pushed each other in their efforts to flee the park, knocking over chairs and tables. Enne squinted to search the masses for familiar faces—for any of the Spirits or the Irons—but there were too many people, and they moved too fast.
“We need to find the others,” Enne breathed.
The two girls took the inside stairs down. Rioters had thrown a rock through the window of the ground floor cafe, raining shattered glass onto the tables and along the sidewalk.
Enne and Grace threw open the door to the street. Motorcars were halted all around, horns blaring. Several inflamed passersby pounded on their hoods, making the passengers duck and scream. Whiteboot sirens wailed in the distance.
Something shimmered around her, strangely beautiful amid the chaos. It was a string thinner than a piece of hair, pale and iridescent, like those she’d seen during the Shadow Game. She didn’t know what it was, only that it bound the players of the game together, like a spindle spinning a thread, like an instrument playing a song.
Enne reached for it, but her hand only grasped at air. It was a trick of the light.
“Come on!” Grace urged, pulling Enne down the closest alley. “Where are the others? Where was Levi supposed to be?”
“In a motorcar, parked at 84th and Amaranth.” That was on the opposite side of the park from where they stood now. Enne watched, dazed, as a man knocked over a trash can and dropped a lit match on its contents. The sparks crackled and spread to engulf the campaign flyers, and even from a distance, she smelled the smoke. “Did we cause this, Grace?”
“You could have,” Grace grunted. “But you didn’t fire those shots.”
A woman knocked shoulders with them as she carried her crying child out of the crowds. Enne winced. This panic had been her design, but even in the worst of her rage, she hadn’t imagined this.
Now she knew what power felt like.
And she hated it.
She and Grace followed the rush of the crowd along the sidewalk until they reached the rendezvous point.
