Page 141 of Queen of Volts

“You heard what Delaney said. Peoplelivehere. You could be about to barge into someone’s sitting room! You can’t...” Then she pulled her gaze away from his, to the ceiling. What had moments ago been water-stained tiles was now lofted vaults, grand, an eerie dreamlike mist clinging to them.

Sophia wrenched her hand away from Levi’s skin. The vision above her returned to normal.

“What is it?” Levi asked.

“I—I saw it, when I touched you,” Sophia said, fully aware thatherwords made her sound shatz.

But Enne didn’t hesitate. She reached forward and squeezed Sophia’s hand a second time.

Levi reached for the knob.

“What are we going to find behind there?” Sophia asked, now more nervous than she’d been before.

“I’m not sure,” he answered. “But this door is one of mine.”

He swung it open, and immediately, Sophia’s heart gave a squeeze so painful, she thought she might pass out. Because it was hard to gaze at him, looking so much like Sophia remembered him, only his hair was blond—his natural color—instead of black. There was a bruise on his left cheek that she guessed had come from fighting, and he had the same emptiness in his eyes as when they’d first met, the gaze of someone adrift. Just like she was.

Levi didn’t react like Sophia did. He’d probably seen Jac since it happened, in a dream like this one. Sophia wished she had. It was far better than finding his hidden cigarettes.

Jac was seated on a torn-up couch, in a building Sophia didn’t recognize. It looked dirty and uninhabited.

“Where is this place?” Sophia asked.

“A house in Olde Town we used to squat at,” Levi said softly.

Sophia knew the stories—Jac had told them to her.

She waited for something to happen. For Levi to enter, or maybe one of the other old Irons—Chez or Tommy or Mansi. But it was just Jac sitting there, drumming his fingers against his knee, waiting for someone who wasn’t coming.

“I thought you said these doors held memories,” Sophia whispered. “Or nightmares?”

“Well, it hurts, doesn’t it?” Levi murmured.

It was agony, to stand here and watch. Because Sophia knew the moment she let go of Enne’s hand, the illusion would disappear.

But truthfully, she didn’t like to look at Jac this way. The way his shoulders slumped inward, as though trying to make his broad frame smaller. He looked skinnier. Greasier, like he wasn’t taking care of himself.

The Jac she remembered was different. Healthier and more assured. She knew that was how he’d prefer she remember him, too.

“Let’s keep looking,” Sophia said quietly. “It’s not this door.”

And, hand in hand, she pulled them away, letting Jac Mardlin disappear like a puff of cigarette smoke.

ENNE

Enne had liked it better when dreams kept to her sleeping hours, and there was something horrifying about walking this hallway that went beyond déjà vu. Here, her fears had substance. For months, Enne’s nightmares had remained confined behind these doors, but standing here, she felt as though, this time, her nightmares might slither out to greet her.

“We need to keep going,” Levi said, his voice tight.

Why?Enne almost asked him. They didn’t know what this shade was, if Bryce had cast it or some other malison. It was a mystery to add to her already existing row of problems. Bryce’s game. A potential execution, even when all of this was over. How many hurdles could they survive before their luck ran out?

She took a deep breath and squeezed Sophia’s and Levi’s hands tighter. “Let’s try a black door.” One of her doors. Fear lodged like a stone in her throat.

They approached the next one, and Enne’s hand shook as she turned the knob. The metal was solid and cold. Real, like her every nightmare was.

She eased it open, the hinges creaking. She recognized the surroundings instantly—it was Lourdes’s office in Bellamy, the room Enne had been forbidden from entering all her childhood. But now the door was left ajar, and Lourdes leaned against her desk as though she’d been expecting her.

Enne’s heart clenched. Was this her curse? To look upon Lourdes the way they had Jac, to feel the weight of all the words unspoken in the space between them? Enne didn’t need a shade to remind her of the broken relationship between her and her mother. Of time and truth she would never get back.