Page 157 of Queen of Volts

“Yeah, I bet you did,” someone growled, appearing out of Harrison’s hospital room. Levi realized with a start it was Sophia. “Did you feel it? Did you feel your omerta snap?”

“An omerta?” Lola repeated, confused. The Bargainer’s face darkened, and Lola’s face went sheet white. “Th-that’s what you meant, when you said you’d made your moves. Scythe is your omerta. You’ve been playing the game for months. You’ve just had Scythe playing it for you.”

Levi’s mind spun trying to fit the pieces together. When did the Bargainer get an Augustine talent?

But he couldn’t get distracted. Because Levi knew this part of the game. It was the final round of Tropps, where every remaining player had the choice to bet one last hand or fold entirely. The Bargainer was here. Another of his friends was dead. It was time for Levi to make a decision, pluck one of his grand ideas out from nothing, emulate the legend he’d spent so many years treating as a hero.

But all he had instead were questions. Most importantly, the ones Delaney had no answer to: Who had created the shade that bound him and Enne? What did it mean?

An idea, he thought desperately.Something. Anything.

When no idea came, Levi finally listened to the only thought that remained. His father’s voice—grave, furious, weary—as he whispered,Run.

Levi linked his arm around Enne’s and pulled her around the corner, past the fallen whiteboots, charging to another elevator, another way out.

Levi slammed the close-doors button repeatedly. “Come on, come on,” he breathed. In his other hand, he fiddled with the token. He could feel the traces of...something in there. The shade, he guessed.

Maybe that was all it took, being able to feel it.

The elevator doors closed, and they descended.

And Levi found his idea.

“We need to figure something out,” Enne said hoarsely. “And fast.”

“I’mtrying,” he answered, biting his lip in concentration. Orb-making required focus. When he and Enne had extracted volts, they’d been alone, in the quiet of the workshop. Where he could clear his mind of outside distractions. He couldn’t focus with his heart pounding hard enough to crack his breastbone, with the Bargainer in the same building, hunting them.

The doors opened, and they sprinted to the exit. It reminded him of when they’d fled the Shadow Game, only this time, there was nowhere safe for them to hide.

“We can’t justleaveeveryone,” Enne huffed.

“She’ll follow,” Levi said.

“But where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

The February wind greeted them fiercely as they stepped outside. The hospital was at the northeastern quarter of the South Side, in the Park District. He turned them right—toward the Brint. There were no busy roads by the river, no pedestrians to endanger. There was only the quiet that he needed.

When they’d raced the two blocks to the riverside, when—at last—there was nowhere else to flee except the water, Levi stopped. He panted and put his hands on his knees. It was hard to catch his breath in this cold, and the city was at its coldest in the dead of night.

“We need to—” Enne started,

“I’m going to try to corrupt it,” Levi told her, handing her his gun. “Just keep watch—”

“But you’re not a shade-maker.” She kept his gun at an arm’s distance from herself.

“Veil usedorb-makerandshade-makerinterchangeably,” he pointed out.

“But they’re not the same thing,” Enne pressed. She reached to snatch the token out of his hands, but he ripped his hand away.

“They’re not, but we don’t have any other options. I have to try.”

He could tell by Enne’s frown that she wanted to argue. Not only could he fail, he could hurt himself. And so Levi turned away from her entirely. He needed quiet. He needed to think.

He rubbed the token, feeling for the energy within. It did remind him of volts, a little bit. Which made sense. It was Veil’s talent trapped inside, and Veil was a Mizer. But the power felt encased in the shade, a sticky, impenetrable sheath. It was going to be hard to work with.

Nevertheless, Levi reached for the volts, the same way he’d extracted volts from Enne. The smoky tendrils Delaney had shown them emerged from the coin—she’d been manipulating the shade, while he was manipulating the volts inside it, he realized. The threads looked waxy, as though coated in tar.