Page 40 of Queen of Volts

He shook his head. “You betrayed me first when you lied about the meeting.”

Then it made them even, but it didn’t feel resolved. Standing at his side, Enne didn’t know what ached worse—how much she resented him or how much she missed him.

The Scarhands and Spirits around them dispersed, leaving Enne, Levi, and the Dove at the foot of the stairs. The Dove lay on his back, glaring at them like they’d denied him the execution he’d craved.

“She’s not my sister,” the Dove spat at them. “Not anymore.”

“Don’t be a fool—the Doves cast you out to die, not because it’s honorable, but because you weren’t worth keeping,” Levi told him. “So stand up and look grateful. Now we all get to live to play another day.”

VI

THE SUN

“Every person and every place has a worst version

of themselves. That’s what I believe Veil meant when

he asked if a city built on sin is worth saving—he meant

that this is ours.”

Faithless. “Unveiled: The Mystery Remains.”

Her Forgotten Histories

13 Sept YOR 8

LEVI

“Levi?” Harrison Augustine purred into the phone, which made Levi jolt. He sounded remarkably like his mother. “Are you ready to meet?”

“I am,” Levi answered. He hunched at his desk in his bedroom, his chair facing the glare of the morning sun through the window. The oak and sassafras trees that normally blocked his view had shed their foliage, and the art museum—once feeling so secluded from the rest of Olde Town—now felt exposed in the face of winter. Levi didn’t like that, and he stared outside most nights, watching nervously for any whiteboots, unable to sleep since he’d stopped the drinking. “But this time, I’d like to suggest the place to meet.”

He gave Harrison the address.

“Why there?” Harrison asked.

“It’s a property of mine,” Levi told him smoothly.

“You’re eighteen. You don’t own property.” When Levi didn’t respond, Harrison grunted, “I can hear you rolling your eyes.”

“I’m not.” He was. “It’s a recent acquisition.” It wasn’t—but it would be.

“Where did you get the volts?” Harrison asked.

Levi cleared his throat. “See you in an hour—”

“Levi—wait—don’t—”

Levi hung up and cracked his neck, attempting to rank his next thickheaded move on a scale of all the thickheaded moves he’d ever pulled.

There was nowhere in New Reynes he could travel where the ghosts of the Revolution wouldn’t haunt him—not even this museum, once a symbol of culture and now picked apart like a scavenged animal, the Irons left with only the carcass to claim as home.

He knew more about the Revolution in Caroko, of course. He’d read those stories in the lines worried around his parents’ eyes rather than words in a history book. But he still knew the tales of how the streets of the Ruins District had once run red. How every small victory over the course of the bloody uprisings only made the populace hunger for more. How a series of harsh winters had left the city low on firewood, so they could no longer burn the bodies. How they reeked.

It terrified him, the kind of fire he and Enne were playing with.

But keeping their heads down didn’t mean he’d just sit here and wait for himself to burn.