Except, as Tock had told him, there was a time limit. After thirty seconds, the line would snap on its own.
“Don’t joke about it,” Levi snapped. “Your safety is what matters most tonight.” He wouldn’t be responsible for another death.
“I don’t need anyone to worry about me.” She said it like she meant it, but Levi couldn’t help but think that everyone needed someone to worry about them once in a while.
Levi rested his hands behind his head and breathed deeply, trying to trust her, trying to relax. “When we met, you told me you don’t get scared. Is that really true?”
“Of course,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Never mind, then,” Levi muttered. He should’ve known better than to seek comfort from Tock. The party tonight had been her idea, to boost morale. Levi had agreed to it, even if he found it distasteful.
Chez tried to kill you, he reminded himself. His third hadn’t been an innocent bystander. This had always been how their story would end: one or the other.
“You care about things too much,” Tock told him. “Youwantthings too much. What happens once you get everything you want, Levi? Will you be happy then?”
Levi winced. He didn’t have an answer to that. Every time he achieved something he’d sought after, he set his sights on something else. He would never get everything he wanted because he would never stop wanting.
“Am I supposed to not care?” he snapped. “Is that your secret?”
“You’re supposed to pull yourself together. There’s no such thing as destiny. Street legends aren’t real. I know you wouldn’t mind dying tragically, so drunk poets could sing songs about you in two-volt cabarets, but I don’t give a muck about your dreams—you’re not allowed to fall apart when thirty kids haveyourtattoos on their arms andyourbounty on their heads. You think the city revolves around you, but this isn’t just your story. It never has been.”
Tock’s words stung, but only because she was right.
Levi lowered his hands and forced his shoulders to relax. “Fine, but I’m still going to worry.”
“That’s what all the hooch is for.” She slapped him on the back, and he groaned. He wasn’t all the way healed yet. “I keep forgetting you’re delicate.”
“Yep,” he choked out.
“Make sure to find yourself a good view. It’s time to tell the whiteboots that the North Side is ours.”
* * *
Several hours later, Levi nursed a Snake Eyes on the top floor of the museum. His drink was supposed to bring luck, and so he planned to drink copiously. They needed good fortune tonight.
Amid the Irons playing cards and eating street cart dinners, Levi heard the door open and the sound of heels clicking on hardwood.
He turned. She always arrived too early.
Enne wore a dark violet dress covered in intricate black beading that shimmered as she walked. Over it, she’d tied a robe made from a fabric so translucent that Levi could still make out the low cut of the back and the shape of her shoulder blades.
Levi supposed the dress was what South Siders might sport to get drunk on champagne and lounge in music parlors. He wouldn’t normally consider it his type, but he had also never seen Enne in it. As he watched her approach, Levi tried to remind himself that he’d also invited Jac and Narinder to the celebration.
After all, tonight was for fulfilling promises—not breaking them.
Enne’s gaze flickered to his, and he swallowed hard. Levi could nearly see the two weeks of distance between them in her eyes, and each day of his absence sliced into him like a cut.
Then she looked away, and Levi promptly downed the rest of his drink.
Tommy appeared beside him with another Snake Eyes, and Levi relaxed, grateful for the company so he wouldn’t stare at Enne from across the room like a fool. “It’s getting late,” Tommy said.
Levi checked his watch. He was right—Tock should’ve finished by now. In the view from the window, Revolution Bridge looked unchanged.
He glanced back at Enne. Lola had joined her now, dressed in the same pin-striped suit she’d worn to the Catacombs. She spun a shiny pair of motorcar keys around her fingers. Grace had taken Levi’s empty seat at the bar and motioned for the other girls to join her.
Levi’s last interaction with them had been far from warm, but even so, he needed something now, from Lola in particular. So he swallowed his nerves and marched toward their group. He laid a friendly hand on Lola’s shoulder, hyperaware of Enne standing beside them, though he didn’t dare look at her.
Lola peeled his hand off her. “Touch me again, and you’ll wind up with a third broken rib.”
