Page 77 of Queen of Volts

They parked in a garage in the Financial District. The skyscrapers reminded Sophia of dominoes, white stone like every building in the City of Sin, squeezed next to each other as though one tip was all it would take for them to fall.

Inside one such skyscraper, Delaney asked the reception desk for a man named Samuel Travis. The attendant looked the three girls over and furrowed his eyebrows.

“Mr. Travis prefers that you don’t call on him at work,” he told them gruffly, his eyes falling mostly on Sophia’s boots. “His wife—”

Delaney turned pinker than a glass of rosé, and Sophia let out a strangled laugh.

“Tell him Poppy Prescott is here,” Poppy said, flashing the man a polite smile.

His eyes widened. “Oh, my mistake. My apologies, Miss Prescott. I’ll ring him now.” He scampered away so fast he nearly tripped over his own oxfords.

“I can’tbelievehe thought we were call girls,” Delaney grumbled. She tucked a loose strand of hair back into her coifed ponytail.

“I told you that you’d stick out, Sophia,” Poppy said.

“Oh right, let me just pull out the spare white lace outfit I keep in my purse,” Sophia muttered sarcastically, trying not to feel self-conscious. She always fit in on the North Side. But maybe that was because she still dressed like a Torren.

A few minutes later, a man emerged from the elevators, wearing a light gray three-piece suit and berry-colored loafers. He stared at Poppy in confusion.

“Miss Prescott? My deepest condolences. But I’m...surprised to see you here. I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”

“We have some questions for you about the Bargainer,” Poppy told him, sparing him no pleasantries, which Sophia admired her for.

His already pale skin turned alabaster. “I—I don’t know what you’re—”

“Just come with us,” Sophia told him darkly. “It’s just questions.”

It turned out that Sophia’s call girl clothes doubled as a threat, because he took one look at her and nodded stiffly. They relocated to a café, and thanks to Poppy’s ring, he told them everything.

“I was on a business trip,” he explained. “I thought...I thought I was about to be fired. My wife and I weren’t doing well. She would’ve left me. At least, I was sure of it.” He stumbled over his words, his fingers trembling around the steaming cup of coffee in his hands. “I bargained for a promotion. She took my blood talent—I’m a counter.”

“How do you get by at your job without it?” Delaney asked.

“Well, once you get promoted enough, you don’t do the grunt work like you used to. I can still...” He swallowed. “It’s just numbers. It’s just a job. But I used to see the world in numbers. They made sense to me. They grounded me. It’s hard not to look in the mirror and ask myself who I am now. I’m not good at anything. I’m still married, though. I guess that...I guess that counts for something.”

A realization made Sophia’s stomach turn as she looked at him.

He’s not like me, she thought. Sophia had been desperate, sure, but she’d sought to destroy when this man had wanted to heal.

It was the same with the next contact, a fortune-teller who catered to wealthy older women in the Park District. Her daughter had been sick. She’d bargained away a kidney.

Another woman, trying to find an old love she’d lost touch with during the Revolution. She’d given up the memory of her friend to learn that her lover was dead.

There was a pattern to what the Bargainer wanted: talents, memories, and body parts. By the time night had fallen, when Delaney suggested moving on to the North Side, Sophia felt sick. She lay down in the back of the car, breathing deeply and clutching her dice.

“Are you all right?” Poppy asked. “Should we pause for something to eat?”

“Just take me home,” Sophia told them numbly.

The day’s conversations replayed in a reel in her mind. In their own ways, all the contacts had shared the same story: fear. They’d been so terrified of losing something or someone that they’d sacrificed something else.

Sophia was different. Sophia hadwanted.And maybe that meant she didn’t deserve to get her split talent back. Maybe she deserved to be broken.

Unfortunately, the girls didn’t take her home. They took her to a glamorous cocktail lounge in the South Side’s Park District, one supposedly haunted by the gossipy paparazzi fromTheKiss & Tell.

“I want to be seen out and about,” Poppy explained. “I want everyone to think I’m fine.”

“But you’re not fine,” Sophia said matter-of-factly, making Poppy shoot her an annoyed glance. Sophia hadn’t meant to be rude, but the performance of it all seemed a waste to her. And she just wanted to sleep.