Page 17 of Queen of Volts

“Thank you,” he whispered, and Harvey smiled his most charming smile.

III

THE WORLD

“A cause, even one as noble as democracy,

cannot be deemed righteous if sins were committed

to bring it to fruition. Everything has a price,

but you cannot pay for goodness in blood.”

Ventriloquist. “On Princess Honaire.”

Her Forgotten Histories

18 Jul YOR 2

LEVI

Levi’s gaze skimmed over the murky waters of the Brint River as he and Tock crossed a bridge into the South Side. Up close, the white marble of the Senate District actually looked gray, like a stain unable to be scrubbed clean at the bottom of a porcelain ashtray. For the first time in over a week, Levi wasn’t drunk or hungover—but he didn’t feel good.

“Am I making a mistake going to this meeting?” he asked softly, reassuring himself by tracing the outline of his pistol in his jacket pocket.

“You told me you weren’t,” Tock said from the driver’s seat of his white Amberlite. Her voice sounded like a warning, a reminder that the others had put their trust in Levi, even if he didn’t feel he still deserved it.

Levi tried to swallow down the rest of his unease, but it felt lodged in his throat like a wad of paper, the receipt for the incalculable price of his foolhardy dreams.

They pulled up to the Capitol building, and Levi shuddered as he looked up at its cold stone steps, each etched with the names and death dates of revolutionaries. It served as a monument to the fall of the Mizer kings and the end of tyranny. But instead of garnering his respect, Levi was struck with the phantom scent of sea as he opened the car door. Not like the ocean of New Reynes that smelled of grime and port-city smoke—though the body of water was technically one and the same—but the memory of the ocean beside his childhood home. It was a sharper, cleaner smell, and it sliced through him like a blade.

Orb-makers ruled beside the Mizers, and so they died beside the Mizers, Levi’s father had once sneered at him.You are spared only until you remind them who you are.

Jonas might have outed Enne, but he had reminded the world exactly who Levi was, too.

Levi squinted at the ornate gilded laurels on the roof over the portico, as though expecting to see his grandfather’s head, blood-crusted and speared on a pike.

A line of guards watched him as he stepped onto the curb, and for the first time, Levi did not know who he really was, how he should behave. Everything in his life was a performance, but if he had, in fact, come here to die today, then would he die a gangster or a king?

He was starting to regret his and Enne’s decision to heed the letter’s advice and arrive separately. It might’ve been safer, but right now nothing felt safe. And despite everything, he did feel stronger with her at his side.

Beside the guards, Harrison Augustine stood, his brown hair slicked back like in his campaign poster. He wore a navy suit that matched the patch covering his right eye. His other eye was a vibrant green, like his mother’s. And even though Levi did believe Harrison was good in ways Vianca hadn’t been, like her, a cunning brand of coldness hardened all of his expressions.

“I didn’t know if you’d come,” Harrison said, grasping Levi’s hand to shake.

“Was I wrong to trust you?” Levi asked. He peeked over his shoulder—still not spotting either Enne’s or Bryce’s cars. Enne would be here soon, but who was to say Bryce would arrive at all?

“At times like these, you’re wrong to trust anyone,” Harrison told him, his voice sounding deeply tired. “But let’s try to fix these times, why don’t we?”

Harrison walked toward the Capitol’s side door, and Levi turned to Tock one last time.

She must have seen the nervousness on his face because she said, “If you die here, I swear on Vianca Augustine’s grave I’ll tell everyone the truth about you.”

Levi was in too serious of a mood to joke, so he only managed to raise an eyebrow when he responded, “And what is that?”

“That you’re an ugly crier. That you can’t hold your liquor. That you...” Her voice trailed off, like she, too, found her words cheap when these could be the last thing she said to him. “Just don’t die,” she added weakly.

“I never seem to,” he answered. Then he followed Harrison up the steps, hyperaware that the bearer of each name he passed would have preferred him and his family dead.