Page 158 of Queen of Volts

Raw volts were limp and malleable—an orb-maker breathed life into them, warped them into static, something bright and alive. But when Levi tried to do that with these volts, they sprung back to the metal of the coin. He gritted his teeth.

Enne placed her hand on his shoulder, and he tried to force himself to relax. Even though it was freezing. Even though the Brint smelled like muck. Even though the Bargainer could appear at any moment and kill them both.

He needed to fight his instincts. He didn’t need to bend these into volts. He didn’t need to remove the shade. He only needed to corrupt the power that was already there.

He snapped his fingers, and the black tendrils snapped, too. White light bled out, like a glowing wire encased in rubber. Shadows seeped from where it had broken and slithered up his fingertips, turning his nails an inky black. He cursed as pain shot across his skin. Burning, he realized. He’d never been burned before.

But he didn’t wrench his hand back. He broke as much of the power as he could. He watched the light fade out, until only the tar-like shade remained. The token looked dipped in smoke.

“Tossing coins into the river?” the Bargainer spoke behind them. “Looking for a wish?”

When Levi whipped around, Enne’s eyes flickered to his first, questioning.Have you finished it?he could see her ask. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he might have.

But his hand still burned. He looked down to find his skin blistered and raw, the nails gone entirely black, as though charred. The pain of it made his eyes water, but he blinked the tears away. He couldn’t alert the Bargainer to what he’d done.

The Bargainer took a long, deep breath. “I’ve waited so long for this,” she said. Which were eerie words to hear from someone who otherwise looked no older than them. She stepped down toward them, to the sidewalk at the water’s edge. “Until the very last Mizer was gone.”

Enne stiffened beside him. She shakily pointed Levi’s gun at the Bargainer. “Careful,” she rasped, her hand trembling. “I don’t miss.”

Levi put his hand on her arm and lowered it. “It won’t work. You know that.”

“Clever, that one,” the Bargainer said.

Levi watched her warily. Lola had called her Arabella, like they’d known each other, like they’d been friends. And Arabella had been furious when they’d taken Lola.

She still looked furious. Her harsh features were twisted, the lights of the Factory District behind them dancing off the frown of her lips, the deep set of her red eyes.

Her next step was fast—a blur, even. One moment, she stood feet in front of them, along the sidewalk. The next, her hand was around Enne’s throat. With the other, she shoved Levi back, so hard the breath was knocked out of him, and he skidded backward on the cobblestones. The token fell out of his hand and clinked to the ground.

“I’m faster than either of you,” Arabella said softly. And she was. Faster than Chez when Levi had fought him. “I’m stronger than you, too.”

Grace and Roy must’ve trained Enne well, because she reacted as though by instinct. She knocked Arabella’s wrist enough to loosen her grip, then kicked her in the stomach. She managed to squirm free, but she stumbled back so far she nearly toppled into the river.

Arabella snorted. “Would you really prefer to fight me?”

Levi scrambled for the fallen token in the dark. “We want to bargain with you!” he said desperately, lifting the coin high enough for the bronze to catch the light. He could feel the power in it, pulsing, knotted, fraying. Smoke seeped from it, betraying what he’d done, but he hoped the nighttime hid it.

“For what?” She smirked. “Will you challenge me to a card game?”

“Would that work?” he joked, trying to keep his voice level even when he was terrified. But fighting wasn’t their best strategy. They were tricking Arabella—and Levi was good at tricking people. He’d built an empire on it. And in his experience, tricking people was done better when he didn’t point a gun to their head.

“I don’t know,” Arabella said, licking her lips. “I’m pretty good at them.”

Below her, Enne backed away, closer to Levi. Following along with him, she rested Levi’s gun on the pavement at her feet.

“We don’t need to fight,” Enne said carefully. “We can just talk—”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Arabella sneered. “But since when has violence not been to your liking? Lola originally tried to convince me I had it wrong. That you were just some unlucky schoolgirl from Bellamy, who got mixed up in things over her head. But I think she was right, in the end. How many people have you killed?”

Enne swallowed. “Fewer than you.”

Levi winced, watching Enne’s gaze flicker back to the gun she’d relinquished. They’d always disagreed about this—to fight or to negotiate—but this was the one moment when they needed to be partners. He hoped Enne could see that as clearly as he could.

“What matters is that we’re willing to trade,” Levi spoke up. “Our lives for a Mizer talent.”

Arabella’s eyes lit up. “Well, maybe youaredifferent from the other Mizers. You’d give up your power?”

“We didn’t ask to be part of this game, same as you,” Levi told her.