Page 11 of Queen of Volts

The nighttime November wind made her shiver, and she wrapped her trench coat tighter around herself and glanced back at the New Reynes skyline glittering several miles behind her like a gaudy faux jewel. This address Harrison Augustine had given her led to the edge of the city limits, somewhere east beyond the Park District of the South Side. The House of Shadows belonged to one of the oldest, most sinister legends of New Reynes, of curses traded like trinkets, of brutal games of life and death. But the cabbie had found the address on a standard map.

Not much of a legend at all.

As the mystique faded, reality settled over her. She was really standing here, in front of the House of Shadows, alone, in the middle of the night, ready to confront the person who had taken so much from her. A person even the City of Sin called “the Devil.”

All it had taken was a terrible bargain and a cab ride.

Sophia cursed herself for her fragile bravado. She cursed the boy she loved for dying and breaking her heart and making it soft and brittle in the first place.

She hoped this was still a bad idea. She’d dressed for one.

Sophia reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of dice, black and heavy—the way fateshouldfeel. She crouched down by the mouth of the driveway, feeling childish and unbalanced in her stiletto heels. She rolled the dice against the pavement.

A five and a one.

Sophia had a tricky blood talent for manipulating her luck. Performing good deeds sowed good fortune, whereas bad deeds reaped disaster. The rules were fickle as far as powers went; she’d be a lot better off if she had a flimsy conscience, so her self-perceived sins counted fewer in number. But that was the tactic her older siblings, Delia and Charles, had chosen, and she would never regret being different from them.

She’d only been using the dice to measure her luck for a few days, but already she’d grown familiar with their nuances, the sort her old coin had lacked. Matching high or low numbers were straightforward—her luck was on the rise, or in decline, respectively. Such a split meant that the night would offer as much success as it would misfortune.

Sophia smiled and popped a piece of Tiggy’s Saltwater Taffy in her mouth. Years ago, a boy had given her a box of the candy as a gift, the first person she’d met in New Reynes when she came back after making the greatest mistake of her life. The mistake that had defined her every action since.

Green like your eyes, he’d told her. She’d always prided herself on her bright green eyes—another characteristic that differentiated her from the rest of her family.

The sentiment of the gift had been sweeter than the flavor, because Tiggy’s were really green like absinthe. But Sophia had been scared and alone and desperately in need of compliments, to please somebody, and so she’d acquired a taste. Now she craved the taffy for its chewiness, the way it stuck to the back of her teeth, the almost glow-in-the-dark stain it left on her fingertips. It was unpalatable but came in pretty packaging, much like she did.

Music whispered through the night as Sophia tread to the door. She’d worn a satin, skin-clinging dress—red, like the signature color of her family’s casino...and the fire of when she’d burned it.

After her partner had decided to get himself murdered a week ago, wearing black might’ve been more appropriate. But red had always meant something to Sophia—identity and purpose. And purpose mattered to her just as much now as ever.

She’d once vowed to destroy her family’s empire, and she’d succeeded, but she’d sacrificed a piece of herself to see it happen.

Now it was finally time to get that piece back.

Sophia took a deep breath and slid her key into the front door of the House of Shadows. To her surprise, the door was already open, and she frowned. She’d sacrificed something for this key, too.

A woman greeted her as she stepped inside. She wore sequined suspenders and sharp brass rings all the way up her knuckles. Judging from her muscular build, Sophia guessed with a pang of grief that she possessed a strength talent, much like Sophia’s old partner.

“Oh, you must be with the other two,” said the bouncer.

Sophia had just stepped foot into a place half the city didn’t believe existed. A place steeped in ghosts and secrets and legends. She’d expected worse than trouble—she’d expected ruin. And she’d even welcomed it.

She hadn’t expected it to be so easy. It felt like a trick.

“E-excuse me?” Sophia stammered.

“They’re in the other room.” The bouncer nodded past an archway, and Sophia, dazed, followed her directions deeper into the house. The dim lights made her stumble as her eyes adjusted, and she was surprised to find it so empty, and—though decorated luxuriously—laid out much like the parlor of a normal home.

Surprise seemed the theme of the night.

She spotted the “two” the woman had mentioned, arguing in the corner beside a grand piano. Several more silhouettes moved in the next room, from which the pair had clearly escaped to speak in private.

“I can’tbelieveyou followed me here,” the first girl snarled. Both girls were fair, blonde, and doe-eyed, but the first one’s skin was smattered with freckles, and she wore her hair up in a high ponytail, so tight it was a wonder she could make any facial expression.

“What was I supposed to do?” The second girl crossed her arms. Herblack dress was high-necked and conservative. It looked appropriate for a wake, though even from a distance Sophia could tell it was designer. “You can’t justsayyou still love me and not expect me to make some grand gesture.”

“You paid a detective to stalk me, Poppy.”

“You were gone.”