Page 50 of Queen of Volts

Harvey held out his hand. “Give me back my card.”

Bryce’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”

Harvey stalked forward and grabbed a fistful of Bryce’s shirt, lifting him up so he could glare at him eye to eye. “I want it back.”

“I—I can’t,” Bryce stuttered. “Once you surrender your card, it’s irreversible. Your card belongs to me.” Bryce placed his hand on Harvey’s shoulder, and the touch still made Harvey tremble, even after years. He couldn’t tell if Bryce did it out of instinct or if he’d meant it. But then Bryce’s hand slid up his neck and to his cheek, and Harvey didn’t remember the last time someone had been so gentle with him. “I do miss you. But Rebecca...”

With Rebecca, it’d been different. The malison and the shade-maker.Thatwas the sort of fated story Bryce wanted, made all the more romantic now that Bryce got to save her.

When Harvey had made his deal with Harrison, he’d been thinking he was savinghim.

“Don’t,” Harvey said, tearing Bryce’s fingers away from him. Then, feeling even worse than when he’d entered, Harvey stormed out of the prison. Each time he thought his life couldn’t get worse, it did. He felt foolish and asinine for ever hoping for something different. The very idea of improvement seemed insurmountable.

He didn’t know where to go. Enne and Levi wouldn’t trust him—nor should they. Harrison, as twisted as considering it was, might’ve taken him in, but Harvey couldn’t bring himself to ask. He would also never go back to Chain Street.

He could find somewhere dangerous. He could try again. But even giving up took a great deal out of him, and he didn’t have the courage to act so impulsively twice in the same day. Harvey was not that type of person. He considered and imagined and planned. And those things took time.

Which left one person. One person, who was barely more than a stranger.

Thirty minutes later, well past ten o’clock, Harvey knocked on the door to the Catacombs, carrying a bag of necessities he had bought at a convenience store, his curls damp from the falling snow.

The door swung open, revealing the young man who had saved Harvey. He carried a violin bow in one hand and a glass of water cupped beneath his arm.

“It’s you,” Handsome said, his eyes widening. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

Harvey’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but he managed, “I’m not okay, and I was wondering if...if I could stay here.”

Handsome nodded. “Of course, um...”

“Harvey,” he said.

“My name is Narinder.”

Harvey smiled—not one of his Chainer smiles—but a genuine one, of relief and gratitude. Yet even without his talent’s trickery, Narinder smiled back and swung open the door for Harvey to come out of the snow.

VII

TEMPERANCE

“The only winner in history is the one who

gets to tell the story, once the story is finished.”

Séance. “Monarchist Candidates Purged from

Ballots across Republic.”

The Antiquist

11 June YOR 13

LEVI

That night, Levi dreamed of the hallway—same as he had every night for the past several months. He came to on a checkboard-style floor, and he pushed himself to sitting, examining the endless stretch of black and white doors in either direction, the edges of his vision and the details of the ceiling swathed in a blur-like mist. A familiar, inexplicable feeling tugged at his chest, urging him to find a particular door.

Levi climbed to his feet. Though he was well-accustomed to this place, it still unnerved him. This was a dream he couldn’t escape, a dream he and Enne shared. And despite having faced devastating memories or vivid nightmares behind these doors, Levi still felt compelled to search for the one he needed. Although he couldn’t explain how, he knew that was the reason he was here.

He approached a white door.