Page 7 of Queen of Volts

Enne frowned. “I should hope not.”

“Are you a saintly princess? Someone pious who wouldn’tdreamof committing treason?”

“Well,” Enne said, her throat constricting as she thought of how she’d been credited with the previous Chancellor’s assassination, “it’s a little late for that.”

“The city isn’t going to wait for you to decide,” Grace pressed.

Enne closed her eyes. Another image of the party at St. Morse returned to her, of the hundred people Bryce Balfour had murdered in the ballroom. She could still hear the screams. “It’s just...” She shuddered. “It’s only been a week.”

“Every day is another paper,” Grace pointed out.

“For the record,” said Roy, clearing his throat, “I don’t think you’re a tyrant, Enne.”

“Wow, do your heartfelt compliments come with flowers?” Grace snapped.

“Enough.”Lola seethed. She put both her hands on Enne’s shoulders. “Enne, you can go back inside, and you can tell Mansi to leave, regardless of what she really wants. And we can figure out what your talent is going to mean for all of us. There’s too much to figure out, too much we still don’t know. It’s unwise to act just yet.”

Enne nodded, Lola’s words helping to wind her composure back together. She smoothed out the loose hairs from her ballerina’s bun and walked back inside the classroom.

Before she could speak, Mansi cut in. “Whatever you’re gonna say, wait. Ever since the North Side has been on lockdown, the Scarhands have been struggling. There’s nearly two hundred of us, but our lord was executed, and our second died in the battle at St. Morse. We’re broke. Half of us are injured, and...” Mansi swallowed. “When the gangs controlled the North Side, before the lockdown, we were doing well. And with Ivory gone, we think there’s a way to get that back.”

Curious, Enne prodded, “What do you mean?”

“The Doves are without a lord now, too,” Mansi said. “The Scarhands all agreed. We want the North Side united again. And if you take the Doves, it could be united under one lord.”

Enne’s balance veered, and she clutched the back of one of the upholstered armchairs to steady herself. “That’s...quite a proposition.” Behind her, Lola frowned deeply. “What about the Irons?”

“You and Levi work together, don’tcha?” Mansi asked, her brows knitted.

“We do,” Enne said, unsure whether or not that was now a lie. She hoped not. “But you could have approached him.”

“But he’s notyou,” she answered.

Enne had been too preoccupied with worrying that her talent was a threat to consider that it was also an opportunity. It didn’t matter if she only dressed in gowns made of frills and cotton candy; the Mizer talent could offer her power, if she wanted to take it.

Her gaze flickered to her friends, attempting to gauge their reactions. Lola shook her head vigorously, while Grace grinned. Roy had sheepishly stuffed his hands into his pockets.

Enne reached forward and took both of Mansi’s hands. Mansi had long fingers, good for card tricks, with nails bitten raw and brown skin crisscrossed in her gang’s signature scars.

“The Scarhands would all swear to me?” Enne asked her.

“We would,” Mansi responded, her posture perking up. “Gladly.”

Lola let out an exasperated groan. “You can’t—to go from nine of us to—”

“If we unite the North Side, we’ll have leverage. We could negotiate for our pardons. Besides...” Enne gazed out the window, at the sprawling, abandoned grounds of Madame Fausting’s. It looked so desolate in the chilled, dying breaths of autumn, the unkept campus betraying no signs of the girls secretly residing there. “It’s a big school.”

Enne saw the answers clearly now. Even if she could return to the girl she used to be, that girl had also been weak. And facing monsters like Vianca Augustine, Sedric Torren, and Bryce Balfour had taught Enne an invaluable lesson: the City of Sin would always prey on weakness.

She would not, like Lola suggested, diminish herself so that the wigheads would dismiss her. She wouldn’t leave her fate in the hands of those who’d prefer her dead regardless. She’d had so little control of her life until now, and she would not willingly relinquish it again.

“If you surround yourself with more criminals,” Lola warned, “you’ll be playing right into the narrative the Chancellor wants you to. You know that, right?”

Enne knew the risks, but there was no future that didn’t pose its dangers.

“You told me to figure out what my talent means,” Enne said. “I have. We’ll take the Doves. We’ll unite the North Side. We’ll force the Chancellor to negotiate with us, not make our choices for us.”

“That’s my girl,” Grace said, smirking and elbowing Lola in the side. Lola scowled in response.