Ace Of Shades. Amanda Foody
was the answer to all of his problems.
He just needed Lourdes to be alive. And he needed Enne to stay.
“What’s wrong?” Reymond smirked, seeing Enne crinkle her nose. “Got a problem with variety shows, doll face?”
Enne shook her head.
“No...” Reymond tilted his head to the side. “That’s not it. It’s that you’re afraid Lourdes is probably dead.” Reymond had many good qualities, but no one would call him considerate. He didn’t hold back any blows. “You know, you still never mentioned how you knew Alfero.” Reymond was already using past tense.
Enne’s face was pale as she rose from her seat in a rush. “Thank you, but I need some air.” She nearly tripped on her dash to the door. Levi stood hurriedly and followed her. He didn’t like Enne much, but even he admitted that Reymond’s words were harsh, considering the morning she’d already had.
Enne pushed through the back room and up the stairwell. By the time they exited the orb shop, tears glinted in her brown eyes.
Outside, the wind had picked up, and the clouds—black from factory smoke and an oncoming storm—cast a shadow over the city. The tents were gone. Carts, gone. Stands, gone. Scrap Market had picked up and left, and Enne and Levi were the only ones standing on the empty street.
“Is she really dead?” Enne asked, her voice high and broken in a way that stirred his own memories.
For a moment, Levi was eleven years old again, kneeling at his mother’s sickbed. He swallowed.
“Don’t,” he warned.
She didn’t listen. She let out a gasp, then a sob.
Levi stepped back from her, unsure what to do or how to comfort. Tears pooled down her cheeks, and she blotted them away with the back of her hand.
“I don’t know if she’s alive,” he said truthfully but gently.
“But I’d feel it. I’d know if she was dead.”
If Jac were here, he would’ve agreed with Enne. Jac was sentimental like that. Levi was usually too cynical to indulge such hopes, but, this one time, he needed to believe. He needed Enne’s reward.
I need her to stay.
But it was also something more than that. He recognized his own ghosts in Enne’s eyes.
He put a hand on Enne’s shoulder and bent down to her level. “Look at me. We can’t talk here, in the middle of the street for the whole world to hear. You know that, and you know why, don’t you?”
Enne nodded, her hand fiddling in her coat pocket. Even with her limited knowledge of New Reynes, she understood why the monarchists were a dangerous subject.
“I have a shift tonight at St. Morse Casino, so I’m going to take you there now.” Levi swallowed hard, hoping he wouldn’t regret his next words. “But I promise, I’ll help you find your mother, no matter what.”
Levi and Enne passed through the revolving doors of St. Morse Casino. Enne had never set foot in a casino before, but she’d glimpsed some of the smaller establishments on Tropps Street, and none of them came close to resembling St. Morse’s old-world glamour. A crystal chandelier stretched across the entire ceiling. Emerald green carpeting trailed up the stairs, matching the velvet curtains draped over the windows and the uniforms of the concierges. Metallic silver archways led into rooms labeled Tropps Room, Theatre and Ballroom with sapphire-blue calligraphy. Everything smelled of fine leather and whiskey, and each patron donned the Republic’s most famous designers: Gershton, Ulani Maxirello, Regallière.
It was, without a doubt, the gaudiest place to ever affront Enne’s senses.
At least fifty guests mingled in the lobby, champagne glasses in hand. They wore elegant tea gowns with pleated skirts, feathered hats and long strands of black pearls. In her tailored suit and scuffed heels, Enne felt exposed in more ways than one.
She’d lied to Levi about the volts.
At first, she hadn’t felt guilty in the least. Levi was a criminal after all. He probably cheated tourists like her every day. But that didn’t make it right. And after what he’d said to her earlier, like he had more at stake in this than his wallet, it didn’t make her feel good, either.
It hadn’t been a total lie. The volts did exist. Last summer, when Enne had sneaked into Lourdes’s private office for the first and only time, she’d seen the bank slips. She and her mother certainly didn’t live like they had millions of volts, but Enne had read the documents herself. It was...wealth beyond imagination. And Lourdes had kept it from her.
So the volts did exist, and paying Levi would hardly put a dent in their fortune. But Enne had no idea where the bank account was. Or where the volts came from.
It didn’t matter. Once she found Lourdes, she’d have her answers. Once she found Lourdes, Levi would have his volts. It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the truth.
She and Levi walked into a hallway lined with portraits of men, women and occasionally whole families, each with blazing purple eyes. Mizers, Enne thought with a chill. She wondered whether or not it was dangerous for the casino to have portraits of the royal families on display, as if they were people to be revered. Most people alive today had witnessed the Revolution, and, however corrupt the Republic might’ve been, it was nothing compared to the tyranny of the Mizers.
The deeper they ventured into St. Morse, the more Enne felt like she was walking into a castle out of a history book. The mahogany woodwork. The blue and green, everywhere. The white stone walls. A hotel casino, Levi had called it. Really, it was more of a fortress. In the nighttime, it might even resemble a mausoleum.
They stopped in front of an elevator, where Levi pulled a lever that illuminated an up arrow above the doors.
“How many volts did you bring?” Levi asked. “Enough to last until you leave?”
“No, not with all of my belongings gone.” A jolt of panic shot through her. She had no clothes. No toiletries. And not enough volts to replace them and still purchase her ticket home, after paying Levi tonight.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. The elevator doors opened, and they stepped onto a shaky metal platform. The black iron gates creaked closed as the operator turned a crank. “How are you with heights? This is the tallest building on the North Side.”
“I’m all right,” she lied. The floor shifted beneath her feet, almost like the deck of the ship she’d traveled on to New Reynes—but then, she hadn’t been terrified of falling to her death. Enne held her breath and squeezed the railing.
Levi watched her with amusement, much as he had all morning. At first, when Levi had tried to steal from her, Enne had considered him a crook. But after they left Scrap Market, there had been an unmistakable sincerity in his voice. It had improved her opinion of him, if only slightly. Still, he was terribly rude. She reminded herself that she needed to tolerate him only until they found her mother.
“Never ridden in an elevator before?” he asked.
“Not one quite so in need of maintenance.”
The operator grunted.
The doors opened to a hallway with emerald wallpaper and silver trim. It looked opulent and grand, but beneath, Enne could see that it was royal only in the cheapest, most obscene manner possible. Every metallic finish was paint; every bit of crystal was actually glass.
“The top floor is only for Vianca Augustine’s favorites,” Levi said, except with more disgust than pride. “This includes the highest-paying guests, close friends of the Augustines, Vianca herself and, of course, me.”
“You mentioned Vianca