Page 155 of Queen of Volts

LEVI

“I—I don’t know if I can do this,” Delaney stammered, hugging her arms to her chest as Levi felt for the light switch. He found it, and the lights in the empty patient room flickered on. “And I left Poppy waiting for a doctor, after she just went through—”

“Poppy is with Tock,” Levi assured her, trying not to feel guilty for dragging Delaney away. But only twenty minutes had passed since Levi, Enne, and Sophia had returned from the House of Shadows, and they couldn’t afford to waste any time. “I don’t think you could’ve left her in more capable hands.”

“And we need your help,” Enne pressed. She fished her king’s token out of her dress pocket and held it up. “Take a look at this. What do you see?”

“A coin,” she said flatly, tucking the fraying strands of her blond ponytail behind her ear. “Look, I’m exhausted. Ishotsomeone today. I just want to make sure my girlfriend is—”

“No. Take it.” Enne impatiently thrust it into her hands. “Now what do you see?”

Delaney furrowed her eyebrows as she examined it. She turned it over a few times, tracing her fingertips over the grooves of the cameo. “It’s warm. There’s a shade in here. It’s...” Her eyes widened, and she threw it back into Enne’s hands. “Where did you get this?”

“It doesn’t matter where she got it,” Levi said, leaning against the patient table and stifling a yawn. It was hard to imagine that this morning he’d been preparing the Irons to open his casino, a casino that was little more than ashes now. “Can we use it?”

“Use it?” Delaney repeated.

“The Bargainer wants the Mizer talent,” Enne said. “And Veil’s talent...my father’s talent is sealed inside this coin.”

Delaney frowned at Enne, as though she hadn’t heard correctly, and Enne flushed. Levi knew Enne hadn’t wanted to tell the others like this, the night it seemed they could all feel the heat of history breathing down their necks. But with the Bargainer still out there, they didn’t have a choice.

Delaney shuddered. “It’s not right, to steal a talent.” Then she drummed her manicured nails against the patient table, considering. “And I don’t understand why you’d want to give the Bargainer what she wants.”

“We don’t. That’s why we had this idea,” Levi said, which was a lie—the idea technically was Veil’s. But whether he’d been terrible or not, Levi trusted the ideas of the City of Sin’s most notorious mastermind. “You’re a split shade-maker. Can’t you alter the shade inside of the coin? Warp it?”

“Can you alter volts once they’re in an orb?” Delaney snapped.

“I’ve never tried,” he admitted. “But—”

“Youhave to try,” Enne finished.

Delaney narrowed her eyes at both of them. She took the coin back. She tapped the metal and slid her fingers over its grooves. Levi’s breath hitched when, to his shock, black coils appeared out of it, like shadows or smoke. They reminded him of volts, only they consumed light rather than emitted it, and they spun and knotted around Delaney’s finger as though a spider’s web.

“That’s what malison energy looks like once it’s a shade,” Delaney said. She tugged her finger, but the coils didn’t break. “Volts are light, like static. But shades are heavy—better to be sealed into metal, like a key, a coin, a timer. But both, of course, can be carried in someone. In their skin.”

“I could carry the shade in my skin,” Enne offered.

“Absolutely not,” Levi countered. “It should be me.”

“I’m already a Mizer,” Enne said. “And I—”

“Shut up. Muck. Both of you,” Delaney growled, which were harsh, ugly words to come out of someone so pretty and put together. She frowned and smoothed back her hair a second time. “I need to think. So you want to meddle with this and give it to the Bargainer, like you’re poisoning it. But once a shade is within the metal, it’s done. Same as volts. A shade-maker can’t manipulate it more than it already—”

Voices—screams—rang out from somewhere on their floor, and Levi’s breath hitched. The color drained out of Delaney’s face, and she chucked the coin back to Levi. “Poppy,” she breathed, and ran out.

Levi, however, didn’t move toward the commotion. His mind frantically mapped out the route to the closest exit.

Run, his father whispered.

No, Tock was out there. So was Harrison, Narinder, and plenty of others he cared about.

Beside him, Enne reached into her pocket and retrieved her knife. She white-knuckled the handle, her hand trembling. And Levi knew she felt as scared as he did. They’d both faced so much danger that part of their minds never truly left it.

“Look at me,” Levi told her. “We don’t die here.”

Enne nodded seriously and breathed, “We won’t.”

She moved first, pushing open the door and racing into the hallway. Levi followed, rounding a corner toward the direction of the noise. He skidded to a stop when he saw Scythe dragging Lola’s brother by his throat into the elevator. The Dove thrashed against him, but in comparison to Scythe, he was scrappy and small. In Scythe’s other hand, he carried a machine gun.