“Not lucky enough for you to sprint into gunfire!”
“There are whiteboots coming!” Lola shouted, peeking out through the window. “Nearly thirty of them—probably more.”
They couldn’t stay here. They’d be fish in a barrel.
“Everybody out!” Jac called. He didn’t have Levi’s way with words, but he still had some show in him. “The lights are cut. The others are waiting. And the whiteboots are asking for a fight.” He raised his pistol high enough for the room to see. “When I call it, we charge.” It would mean a battle, but it would also give him an opportunity to get to that door. To change the plan. To shut it down.
He crawled up beside Lola and pressed his back to the wall. Carefully, he peeked out the window as well, to see what she’d seen. His eyes widened at the whiteboots approaching the pub’s front door. They were nearly upon them.
It would be a shame if his legend ended here.
He undid the safety on his gun.
“Three!” he called.
The others hurried and gathered around the stairs, weapons raised.
“Two!”
Sophia blew him a kiss. He liked to think it was for good luck.
“One!”
Q
“Oaths, omertas, Chainers—there’s a reason so many in the North Side favor such weapons. New Reynes killed the queen on the very day she hoped to negotiate peace. The City of Sin was built on duplicity.”
—A legend of the North Side
ENNE
Enne held her breath, waiting for the grip of the omerta. She could feel the ghost of it, as though a caress of Vianca’s jagged fingernail traced from her navel to her throat.
You will break his heart, and then you will die.
“What are you talking about? I’m fine,” Enne told Levi.
“Where have youbeen?” His voice cracked. “You didn’t go home last night. You didn’t call. You—”
“I couldn’t make it home before curfew, so I had to stay here. And Vianca’s kept me here all day, complaining about the party and the polling turnouts and everything. I couldn’t escape.” The omerta drew the lie from her easily, even as the truth ate at her from inside out. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
“Worried me?” He squeezed her shoulders hard enough for her to wince. “We’re infiltrating the largest party of the year, threatening some of the most powerful members of government, and committing treason. But I...”
He swallowed.
But he was preoccupied with his worries over her, Enne realized. Only a day before, the thought would’ve filled her with hope. Now it only burdened her with dread.
Repair whatever you’ve broken, Vianca had commanded her.
Enne tucked the revolver back into her dress, and the apology she’d long practiced was pried from her lips. “I’m sorry,” Enne sputtered. “I’m so, so sorry. I was so focused on fixing myself that I was hurting the people around me. And I—”
Levi’s expression flickered with surprise, as though he’d forgotten he was supposed to be despising her. He shook his head and squeezed Séance’s mask in his fist. “What is this? This wasn’t in the plan.”
Her lips trembled. She didn’t know if she should feel relieved he’d interrupted her apologies or wounded that he hadn’t listened. They were still her words, even if Vianca had turned them into weapons.
The omerta forced Enne to shake her head. She felt like a puppet. She felt sick. “It’s not what you think—”
“I saw Vianca. I know she’s done something to you, and she’s forbidden you from telling me what it is.”
