Page 12 of Queen of Volts

“It’s been one week.”

“It hasn’t just beenone week, as if it’s been an ordinary one!” Poppy’s voice rose. “My father is dead! My friend is some sort of crime lord! And then you show up and tell me you’re shatz about me and you leave just as fast...”

Poppy’s voice trailed off as she spotted Sophia gaping at them from the corner. Sophia froze. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but she realized she recognized the second girl—Poppy Prescott, the daughter of Worner Prescott, the monarchist candidate who’d lost the senatorial election to Harrison Augustine. And who’d recently been shot in the head.

Sophia had glimpsed Poppy from afar last week, while Jonas had been executed for Prescott’s murder. To the best of her knowledge, Poppy was a ballerina and a socialite—not anyone Sophia had expected to encounter in the House of Shadows.

“Ignore my friend,” the first girl told her through gritted teeth. “She’s gotten herself lost.”

Sophia wondered if she’d gotten herself lost, too. She nervously clutched the dice in her pocket, just to have something to hold.

“It’s fine,” she muttered, stepping behind them through the archway.

She entered a billiards room—large, with a bar on one end and a collection of couches to the side. Several smartly dressed people sat in clusters, whispering at high top tables over cocktails or setting up a cue for pool. It all felt quiet and somber.

Sophia hovered awkwardly. She’d been expecting the rumors she’d heard from her cousin Sedric, about exclusive parties where guests could sample any vice: the touch of an alluring dancer; the taste of liquors and delicacies once reserved only for kings; the thrill of watching the desperate gamble for their lives. Instead she found upholstered furniture and middle-aged businessmen in tweed suits.

What if Harrison Augustine had tricked her? What if this was the wrong place? The thought nearly made her anxious enough to throw up on the floral carpet.

“They’re closed for business tonight,” a woman told Sophia to her left.

Sophia glanced at the bar, where the bartender still served drinks. It didn’t look closed. “Who is ‘they’?”

The woman furrowed her eyebrows. “Don’t you know where you are?”

Before Sophia could answer, before she could flash a tell-me-more, taffy-sweet smile, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jolted and turned to find Poppy behind her.

“We do,” Poppy answered for her, then steered Sophia away. Sophia felt both the woman’s and the other blonde girl’s eyes on them as they sat at the edge of an empty couch.

“It’s some sort of social club, right?” Poppy asked under her breath, peering around the room. “A very boring social club?”

“I don’t really know you...” Sophia said.

“I just want to know what this place is,” said Poppy seriously. “And you’re pretty. I trust pretty people. The others here all look sort of dead, don’t they?”

Now that Poppy mentioned it, Sophia did notice something strange about everyone’s skin—all a little bit gray-toned, no matter their shades. And sort of waxy, like they’d melt beside a candle flame.

Sophia didn’t have time to help a girl who clearly didn’t belong here—not when she’d come for answers. So she gave Poppy a tight-lipped smile and said, “You should really go back to your girlfriend. She’s glaring at you.”

“Delaney isn’t my girlfriend,” Poppy said dismissively, despite the exchange Sophia had overheard barely minutes earlier. “And don’t tell anyone you saw me here with her. As if that’s what I need right now—more paparazzi.”

Sophia only half paid attention, her gaze scanning the room for someone else to speak with. She wasn’t used to having to approach someone—typically, people approachedher. And how was she supposed to go up to someone and ask,Do you know where I can find the Bargainer? I sold a part of myself, and I want to get it back.

Years ago, Sophia had sold her split talent and any memory of it to the Bargainer in exchange for hiding her identity from her family. At the time, it had felt a fair price in order to infiltrate the Torren empire and bring it down.

Since then, she’d always felt broken, like a shard of a person. And now that Jac was gone and her family finished, Sophia had no partner or purpose to ground her. She felt like driftwood washed up on the litter-clogged New Reynes shore.

“I’m sorry,” Sophia murmured. “Excuse me.” She stood and left Poppy pouting and alone on the couch, instead walking toward a group of two men and a woman hunched over today’s copy ofThe Crimes & The Times. Sophia spotted a photograph of Enne on the cover, but it took her several moments to recognize Queen Marcelline in the portrait beside it—she’d never seen the woman depicted with her head.

The group looked up at her, their skin gray and dull in the dim lights. “They’re not open for business,” they told her, repeating the words of the woman from earlier.

“Who is ‘they’?” Sophia asked again.

One of the men furrowed his eyebrows. “Do you have a key to this place?”

“Of course she does,” the woman snapped. “Without a key or an invitation, she couldn’t have walked through the front door.” She narrowed her eyes at Sophia. “Did you steal yours?”

Sophia’s heart pounded. She’d thought it strange that the door to such a place would be unlocked, but clearly it hadn’t been—there was some other power over this place. A curse. A shade.