Ace of Shades_The Shadow Game Series Page 17

  No one had ever called Enne a natural at anything. Instead of making her proud, the word only left her aching. She felt the pain in the toes she’d broken in ballet. In the memories when Lourdes had scolded her for cartwheels and tumbles. In the times she’d stared at her shoulders wondering if she was too broad, too strong, too undelicate.

  She reached a dead end on the street and peered at the number over the final home.

  “This is it,” she muttered nervously. The shutters tilted off their hinges like hangnails, and the wooden fence was rotted and termite-grazed. The sign out front directed visitors to enter through the cellar. “Charming.”

  Enne opened the wooden doors and crept down a damp stairwell. At the end was another door, this one with two bullet holes above her eye level. Her heart skipped a beat, remembering Levi’s warnings, but it was too late to turn back now.

  With one hand protectively on the gun in her pocket, she knocked.

  A light shone from the bullet holes. “Who is it?” asked a female voice, and Enne relaxed slightly. She hadn’t been expecting a woman.

  “I’m looking for the blood gazer,” Enne said, her voice high and polished, as it reverted to whenever she was nervous. “I have a recommendation from Harvey Gabbiano.”

  The door swung open. The first thing Enne noticed was the girl’s white hair, the indicator that she was a Dove. She wore it bluntly cut near her shoulders, as if done with a razor, with a strip above her right ear shaved to a buzz.

  Her skin was fair and dusted—nearly every inch of it—with freckles. She looked to be around Enne’s age. Though thin, her shoulders were broad, her arms large, all bones and no muscle—as though she were built like a blunt weapon.

  She looked Enne up and down. “How exactly do you know Harvey? Never seen him step foot on the South Side.” Enne furrowed her eyebrows—she was dressed in a plain skirt and blouse that Jac had stolen for her near Tropps Street. “It’s the way you speak, missy,” the girl explained.

  “We met at the Sauterelle. He mentioned you owed him a favor.”

  She scowled and opened the door wider. “Let’s get this over with. I don’t like being in debt to Gabbianos—even good ones.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a silver harmonica, of all things. She lifted it to her lips and played a low note, like a sigh. “My name’s Lola Sanguick. Who are you?”

  “Enne.”

  “Well, Enne—” she held out her hand “—no guns in the office. I’ll keep it in my desk until we’re done with our little chat.”

  Enne grimaced. How did Lola know she was carrying a gun? “I’d rather keep it.”

  “Relax, missy. What’ve you got to be afraid of?” Lola grinned widely. “You can keep your knives. Those I like.”

  Enne sourly handed the pistol to Lola. The worst danger was past, now that she no longer walked the streets, but she still would’ve felt more comfortable with the gun at her side. She’d never used one before, of course, but assumed she could figure it out if she needed to.

  Lola walked away, playing her harmonica, and Enne closed the door behind her. The “office” was really a cellar with a single desk and a wine rack. Lola collapsed into her seat, deposited the gun into a drawer and pulled out a foot-long scalpel.

  The color drained from Enne’s face. “What is that for?”

  “Do you know anything about blood gazers?”

  Don’t let them see your fear.

  Enne could almost hear Lourdes’s voice in her head as she took a step closer to Lola, a girl who looked as if she could chew Enne up and spit her out like a sunflower seed. If Enne was a white picket fence, then this girl was chain links.

  “I’m afraid not,” Enne responded.

  Lola eyed her suspiciously. “Give me your hand.”

  Enne leaned across the table and held it out, trembling.

  “I’m just gonna prick your finger,” Lola said.

  “That’s a big knife just for that.”

  She smiled. “It is, isn’t it?” She dug the tip into Enne’s skin, and a droplet of blood seeped out. Lola squeezed more out of Enne’s finger. The pain was unpleasant, but bearable. It was Lola herself that made Enne nervous. Doves were assassins, so just what else did Lola use that knife for?

  “Almost done,” Lola said gently as she pinched Enne’s skin to coax out more blood. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “Oh, um...I’m visiting New Reynes.”

  She snorted. “What? No blood gazers where you’re from?”

  “Something like that.”

  Then Lola did the unthinkable. She dabbed both her pointer fingers in Enne’s blood and smeared it on her eyes.

  Enne grimaced in disgust. She had no qualms about the sight of blood—it was the look on Lola’s face, not the blood itself, that unnerved her. Lola licked her lips and grinned, as if savoring the feeling on her murky pink eyes.

  “It’s not like I drank it,” the blood gazer joked.

  Enne’s resolve wavered during the several moments of silence that passed. Maybe Levi had been right, and this was a terrible idea. Maybe she wasn’t ready to hear the truth about herself. If she found out Lourdes had been lying, she’d resent her mother. But if she found out there’d been no lie at all, and she’d doubted Lourdes unfairly, she’d resent herself.

  Then Lola startled. Her gaze shot toward Enne, and she wiped the blood out of her eyes and eyelashes, smearing it onto her knuckles.

  “Is this some kind of a joke?” Lola growled. She stood up and walked toward Enne before she could back away. Lola grabbed a fistful of Enne’s blouse.

  “No,” Enne yelped.

  “Then you must be pretty damn thick.”

  Enne’s eyes flickered toward the door. Whatever Lola had seen, she didn’t like it. But Enne couldn’t leave without knowing the truth.

  And she was getting awfully tired of people in this city calling her thick.

  “What do you mean?” Enne asked coolly.

  “You should be dead.” As Lola reached for her knife on the desk, Enne managed to squirm out of her grip. Enne backed several feet away, close to the door. She shakily reached into her pocket for Levi’s gun, then remembered with a surge of dread that Lola had locked it in her desk.

  “Whatever you saw,” Enne said, fighting to keep her voice under control, “there’s nothing I can say until you tell me what it is.”

  Lola lunged so that she blocked Enne’s path to the door. She held the knife out, pointed toward her. “There isn’t anything to say. You’re a Mizer, and it would be better for this whole city if you were dead.”

  Confusion swamped her, followed by panic. The words echoed around the cold cement walls, and Enne shivered down to her bones, trying and failing to make sense of Lola’s words. The Mizers were dead. Obviously, Lola had make a mistake.

  But that didn’t matter. Enne could tell the blood gazer was certain by the way Lola glared at her and locked her jaw. Whether or not Lola told the truth, if she turned Enne into the wigheads, her accusation alone would warrant a death sentence. Enne would watch tomorrow’s sunrise from the gallows.

  Which left Enne with three options.

  She could try to talk Lola down and plead for her life.

  She could escape, but with Lola forever believing this mistake and possibly revealing it to the entire world.

  Or...Enne could kill her.

  The last thought wasn’t a whisper or a shadow. It didn’t lurk. It didn’t send quakes of guilt or uneasiness through Enne’s heart. As her first night in New Reynes had proved, Enne could do what it took to survive. She wouldn’t have lasted this long otherwise.

  Enne backed deeper into the cellar, toward the wine rack. Behind her, her hand found its way onto the neck of a bottle.

  “There must be a mistake,” she said smoothly. “Surely you can hear yourself. How could anyone belie
ve such an outrageous claim?”

  Do I believe her? Enne didn’t have time to figure that out.

  “I don’t make mistakes,” Lola snarled.

  “Everyone makes mistakes.”

  Lola advanced, her knife raised high. “It’s nothing personal, but the person I love lives in this city, and we can’t afford another street war. You’ll be a weapon to whoever owns you.”

  “I’m just a girl,” Enne countered. “And no one owns me.”

  Enne had always been a good liar, but her fear made her voice shake. Her words sounded obviously false, even to herself.

  “It’ll be quick,” Lola assured her. “It’ll barely hurt at all.”

  Don’t reveal your emotions.

  Trust no one.

  Never find yourself lost.

  “I could pay you,” Enne lied.

  “I’m not for sale.”

  “You’re not even making sense. My eyes are brown.”

  Lola smirked and beckoned with her scalpel. “Come closer so I can get a good look at them.” As Lola took another step in her direction, Enne squeezed the bottle’s neck. She was sore from rehearsal, and the blood gazer had almost nine inches on her. Enne’s chances of overpowering her were low. But even if she escaped, then Lola would reveal her secret, true or not. Either option meant death. “Mizer talents don’t work like the rest of them. They need to be triggered. Your eyes aren’t purple yet.”

  “Then what harm could I cause?” Enne’s heart pounded so hard she thought her bones might shatter. There was no negotiating with this girl. This was headed nowhere but violence.

  “As long as you’re alive, you’re a threat.”

  Then Lola lurched forward to strike.

  Enne jumped out of the way and smashed the bottle against the cinder-block wall. It shattered, and the pinot grigio splashed over her skirt and puddled on the floor. The two held their weapons out, as if challenging one another, although it was clear which of them had the upper hand. To Enne’s despair, her bottle had broken at the end of the handle rather than the wide part, yielding a blade no longer than a few inches.

  Enne lunged for the other door, but Lola jumped, aiming for her back. Instead, she cut Enne’s upper arm, slicing through the sleeve of her blouse. Enne screamed and slipped, knocking against the wood of the door with a thud and crumpling to the ground.

  Lola dived for Enne’s leg, but Enne managed to kick her in the chest. Lola sprawled backward, landing hard on her tailbone with a gasp. While the blood gazer collected herself, Enne scrambled to the door and twisted the handle, and she tumbled forward into a stairwell.

  Enne raced up the steps, two at a time, grabbing the railing to launch herself forward.

  Upstairs was wreathed in darkness. She entered a new room and squinted at the only piece of furniture: a grand piano with a sheet draped over it, visible only as a shadow beneath the dim moonlight in the window. She frantically sprinted around, her hands held out in front of her, feeling for the wall or another door.

  Before she could find an exit, Lola stumbled out of the stairwell. In the dark, Enne could hear the blood gazer more than see her as she pounced forward.

  Enne narrowly missed the trail of Lola’s knife. The blood gazer was slower and more uncoordinated than Enne had dared to hope. Even with Lola’s height, Enne was simply more athletic. As Lola stomped and lurched, like a bear swatting at a bird, Enne danced around her and kicked her behind the knees. Lola crumbled, her boot clunking the leg of the piano, sending a cacophony of reverberations through the room.

  Mere moments after Lola hit the floor, startled and knocked out of breath, Enne snatched the knife out of her grip and stepped on Lola’s arm to pin her down.

  “There,” Enne said shrilly. She pointed the knife at Lola, her heartbeat wild, angry scarlet bursting in the corners of her vision. Enne let out a guttural groan of victory from a place inside herself she didn’t recognize.

  Lola stilled. Enne could make out only hints of her expression in the darkness. Defiance. Surprise. Fear. Enne wasn’t used to inspiring such emotions. But she didn’t falter, nor did her hand tremble as she squeezed the knife’s handle. If anything, she felt triumphant. She’d been belittled. She’d been threatened. She’d been assaulted.

  “Remind me what you were planning on doing with me,” Enne said, her voice low, quiet and—even to her own ears—threatening.

  Lola lifted her chin up haughtily. She said nothing.

  Enne was now in the position to make demands, but she had little idea which decision was the wisest. Certainly, it would be safest to kill someone who wanted her dead.

  She pressed the knife against Lola’s throat, and the blood gazer whimpered, all bravado disappearing in a moment.

  It was the whimper—not her own murderous thoughts—that startled Enne. Was she prepared to kill a girl no older than herself? Was she prepared to kill anyone at all?

  Enne had left her world behind to come to New Reynes, and each new day had revealed a new sacrifice. Her freedom. Her innocence. Her identity. The more the city took from her, the more her resolve grew to protect the remnants of her old life she had left. Her hope. Her self. Her survival.

  “I didn’t come to New Reynes for trouble, if that matters to you,” Enne hissed. “There are people I care about in this city, too.”

  Lola’s eyes softened. Barely.

  “Tell me about my talents,” Enne demanded.

  “Your full name is Enne Dondelair Scordata,” Lola whispered, and Enne froze. “Do you see now why I’d call you a threat?”

  Enne barked out a laugh. A Dondelair? Even in Bellamy, they knew of that family. Every word Lola uttered was growing more and more absurd.

  But against all rationale, a part of her wanted to believe it. Despite their infamous treachery, the Dondelairs had once been considered one of the most renowned families of acrobatics, and Enne, who had spent her entire life considered common, hungered to be called exceptional. Just once.

  But Lola was right to call Enne a threat. A Mizer and a Dondelair. Either was worthy of execution. If Lola was to be believed, Enne had been a criminal since the day she was born.

  “Who were the Scordatas?” Enne asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lola answered. “Not one of the royal bloodlines of Reynes. It came from your father’s side.”

  Her father. The father Lourdes had claimed was a dancer, from a common family of one of the most common talents. Enne had always assumed Lourdes hadn’t known her father, and Enne had rarely dwelled on him. She’d liked to imagine that he was alive somewhere, that he’d found a happy ending, even if her mother’s had been tragic.

  But Lola’s claims meant that both of her parents, beyond a reasonable doubt, were dead.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” Enne said. She reached for Lourdes’s rules, for familiar words to recite until she once again felt at ease. But her mouth was dry. Lourdes had lied. Not just about her politics, about her double life, but about Enne’s very identity, and Enne, miles away from her home, a knife clutched in her trembling hand, dried blood crusting her arm, didn’t know how she would ever forgive her. “But I came to New Reynes to save someone, and I’d rather shed tears over her. Not a stranger who wishes me dead.”

  Lola bit her lip and lifted her head higher, away from the knife. “Please don’t,” she whispered.

  Enne’s choices, as it turned out, were one mistake after another. Tracking down Lola was a mistake—now she had secrets she didn’t want and a blood gazer who could only become a liability. Finding Levi was a mistake—he knew no more about Lourdes’s whereabouts than Enne did. Journeying to New Reynes was a mistake—if Lourdes could never be found, then the only other things Enne had left were in Bellamy, at home. But now, thanks to Vianca’s omerta, she couldn’t even go back.

  Not everything she had was in Bellamy, she reminded hersel
f. Lourdes was, hopefully, here. Levi was here. Her answers were here. Her desire to return home was only a desire to forget this place, and Enne was beyond forgetting. She had already passed the point of no return.

  “Then give me a way out,” Enne pleaded.

  “I won’t tell anyone who you are. I promise.”

  “Your promise means nothing. You wanted to kill me just for being who I am.”

  Lola glared at her. “Fine. I’ll swear to you.” She made a crossing motion over her chest, the same as the Irons did for Levi.

  Enne nearly laughed. Swearing was for cheats like Levi and snakes like Reymond. Enne was simply a girl from a finishing school.

  “What good will that do? I’m not a street lord.”

  “There’s power in an oath. I wouldn’t be able to tell someone even if I wanted to.”

  That didn’t make sense: only talents held power. The concepts of magic or anything more than that came from the Faith, from the stories the Mizer kings told to shape themselves into gods. Like Lourdes, Enne was a pragmatist; there had been no fairy tales and ancient lore in their household growing up. What Lola claimed was impossible.

  “That can’t be true,” Enne said.

  “Like your talents can’t be true?” Lola countered.

  Enne clenched her teeth. Even if the oath’s power was real, that made her no better than Vianca. But it was also the only option they both had left.

  “Aren’t you a Dove?” Enne asked.

  Lola laughed bitterly. “No. I don’t wear the white for...” Her mouth snapped shut, and she averted her gaze. “I’m not.”

  Several moments passed in silence because Enne didn’t know what else to say. She lowered the knife away from Lola’s neck. Lola sighed, rubbed her throat where the knife had been, and sat up. She glared at Enne with contempt, and Enne hated seeing it.