Page 144 of Queen of Volts

Enne couldn’t imagine what it would be like to watch everyone like you fall, but she did know how it felt to be the last of a dying legacy. It reminded her that, as much as she resented Veil for what he’d done, he was gone. Dead. The real enemies lived, and if Enne didn’t stop them, either Bryce or the Bargainer could turn this world inside out.

“I think I can handle it,” Enne told him, though glancing back, she wondered if Levi could, who openly gawked as Veil reached up to unravel the gauze, starting where he’d cinched it beneath his jaw.

Slowly, inch by inch, he unwound himself. He exposed fair skin, a clef jaw, a broad face—much like Enne’s own. His features were angular where hers were softer, like her mother’s, but she’d inherited his hair—dark brown and fine, though his was creased to his forehead, flattened and sweaty from the gauze. Their eyes, of course, matched in shade, though his were sunken and bloodshot from permanently squinting through dark fabric. He looked only a few years older than her, but tired, pale from never seeing sun, lines already etched into his skin from frowning. The sort of face that suited a wanted poster.

Enne was suddenly thankful for the changes Grace and Poppy had given her. She did not want to resemble this man.

He took a deep, gasping breath—it must’ve been hard to breathe through the wrappings. And he pushed his greasy hair out of his face.

“That feels...” His voice was hoarse, and as he leaned his head back, closed his eyes, Enne realized he was feeling the wind. “It feels good.”

There was something tragic, watching him breathe freely on the very place where he died.

He met her eyes. “Satisfied?”

“I...” Enne crossed her arms. “Yes.”

Veil slipped off his leather gloves. “I should hate myself for what I did to Lourdes, too. I owe a lot to her. Had I known about you, maybe I would’ve done things differently. Maybe you wouldn’t have needed her to protect you.” He sighed. “I’d been so focused on saving myself, that by the time I realized what mattered more, it was too late.”

“Itistoo late,” Enne said, trying to keep her voice cold even if she was losing her resolve.

“You judge me harshly for someone who did the same to your friend,” he told her, and Enne stiffened, realizing he meant Lola. “Did you know street oaths are meant to echo Protector talents, even if they’re not as strong? That was the bargain Havoc made. The two of us created everything you know about the North Side.” There was that smugness again.

Then there really was no difference between them. Enne faltered.

“Tell us how to kill the Bargainer,” Levi said, speaking for the first time. “Help us end this.”

“You have the answer with you,” Veil answered. “It’s in your pocket.”

Enne frowned, reaching first for her gun—only to remember she hadn’t brought it.

“Your other pocket,” he told her.

Enne slipped her hand inside and pulled out her two tokens: the queen and the king. She realized immediately he was referring to the latter, the king’s token, the one she’d found in the secret lockplace in Lourdes’s bank account. Even now, the eye of the cameo glowed unnaturally purple, and the metal was warm.

“I tricked the Bargainer,” he explained. “I told her she could take my talent, but instead, I sealed it inside that coin. That’s the reason Lourdes never ran out of volts in that account—she had this.”

“But how will this kill her?” Enne asked, confused.

“It’s what she wants, isn’t it?” Veil said. “Give it to a shade-maker, or an orb-maker. Warp what’s in it to something deadly. Trick her just like I did.”

“There’s no guarantee that will work,” Levi said.

Veil shrugged. “There’s no guarantee anything will work. But this is what I knew. This is what I was supposed to tell you.”

As he spoke, the smog above them began to part, giving way to the piping of the true hallway’s ceiling in the House of Shadows. The gallows behind him dissipated, the stain on New Reynes’s history washing away.

“Iamsorry,” Veil said, before disappearing himself.

The scene vanished, leaving Enne, Levi, and Sophia standing in the hallway, the shade of it gone, but all its nightmares remaining.

XVIII

THE HERMIT

“The line between justice and vengeance is a line of fire.”

Martyr. “One-One-Six Dead.”