“To claim no tolerance against the gangs makes the North Side a battleground,” the man continued, “but the North Side is also a home. It’smyhome. And my plans are to see the North Side flourish—not destroyed.”
“Speaking of your background in the North Side, many have expressed concerned about your candidacy with the First Party when your mother, Vianca Augustine—”
“What?”Lola shrieked, loud enough that both Enne and Grace jolted. “Harrison Augustineis running for Senate? Against his mother?”
“Is Vianca running?” Grace asked, eyebrows furrowed.
“She might as well be,” Lola answered. “I’ve heard Worner Prescott is a buffoon.”
Enne switched the radio off. She wondered if, a few miles across the city, Vianca was listening to this same interview. Enne knew so little about the donna’s personal life, but this election meant everything to her, so what would she think about her son running against her party? It would be an ongoing public humiliation, and though Enne hardly had it in her to feel sympathy for Vianca Augustine, shedidfeel anxious. The donna would likely take her displeasure out onher.
“Why do you have that look on your face?” Lola asked her uneasily.
“Because she’s been in such a great mood all day,” Grace said sarcastically. “I’m not sure Pup is worth this.”
“This isnotabout Levi,” Enne snapped. “This is about how two weeks from now, I have to show up at these South Side parties and pretend like I know anything about politics, when I don’t. How we’re down to two meals a day until Levi comes through on his promises, which might never actually happen. How even if hedoes, it just means I’m in another meeting with the other lords, surrounded by people who are better criminals than me, talking a whole other sort of politics and history that I don’t understand. And no matter how everything turns out, I am helpless, and ignorant, and...and...”
“Pathetic,” Grace offered.
Lola shoved her. “Don’t be—”
“Yes,”Enne agreed, nostrils flaring. “Pathetic.” It wounded her pride just to say it, but that only meant it was true. “And I hate feeling this way.”
Enne remembered how it felt to sit beside the other lords and understand only fragments of their conversation. She hadn’t said anything until Levi introduced her, and without having a memorized spiel about Grace’s stock market, she wouldn’t have contributed at all. She might’ve warded off Scavenger—for now—but at some point, if the others didn’t see her as a peer, they would surely see her as prey.
She’d known this wouldn’t be easy—nothing in her life ever had been. But when the day came that she returned to the House of Shadows, when she sat in the place where her mother had died and where she almost had, too, she needed to be ready.
“Well, you don’t know much about New Reynes, butIdo,” Grace told her. “I know all the history, every legend. I can’t fix your prissy accent, but I can make sure that the next time you sit at a table with the other lords, you’ll be able to throw words around like a North Sider.”
“You’d do that?” Enne asked.
“Of course, and in return, you have two weeks to teach me how to blend in atthesesort of tables.” Grace waved the invitations in the air. “Lola, too. She knows all about the politics stuff. I can tell.”
Lola flushed. “I know a little about politics. But I’m not interested in lace and cream puffs.”
“Just be a good sport,” Grace snapped. “We’re in this together.”
We’re in this together, you and I, Levi had said to her once. She shouldn’t have been foolish enough to believe him.
“Fine,” Enne agreed. “I’ll turn both of you into ladies, and in return, the two of you will turn me into a Sinner.”
* * *
Several hours later, the classroom’s blackboard was covered in list after list of details—the names of the most respected artists and musicians of the modern age and the works they’d contributed to society; the most influential politicians in the Senate, which districts each of them represented, and what scandal they were known for; and every major street lord in New Reynes history, along with how and when they’d died.
Grace, it seemed, had an uncanny ability to rattle off facts down to exact dates and quotes. She quickly memorized all the information the others wrote, and then had the gall to act bored afterward. “You need to learn this quicker. With everyone calling this a street war, all anyone will talk about is the last one.”
Enne didn’t enjoy Grace’s teaching methods, which mainly involved insulting her students into submission. “Of the two warring lords, Veil and Havoc, Havoc died second, in December of Year 9,” Enne recited. Grace didn’t call her any names, which Enne took as a sign of approval. “Did her blood really run black?”
Grace shrugged. “I doubt it. But we like our street legends.”
“That’s not the full history, though,” Lola told her. Her lessons always sounded drier than a textbook. “After all the Mizer kingdoms fell and the Revolution ended twenty-five years ago, New Reynes was named the capital of the new Republic. Eventually, times began to improve. The manufactured volts made the economy more stable, and people believed there was a real future in New Reynes. The population swelled with opportunists and the disillusioned, and two street lords rose to power. But they became so powerful that the wigheads had to declare a war and finally execute them. It basically destroyed the North Side.”
“I like my version better,” Grace said. “You literally made blood and guts sound boring.”
“Sorry for caring more about facts than legends,” Lola grumbled.
Grace hopped off the desk and pouted her lips. “I want to learn somethinginteresting. Teach me how to curtsy.”
