Page 98 of Queen of Volts

“I thought I’d made it clear, but you still couldn’t see otherwise. Despite, as you said, knowing me so well.” Levi swallowed and stared at the smoke-tinged skyline.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know.”

Though silence descended for several minutes, Levi’s thoughts were anything but quiet. His confidence from earlier felt muddled. Perhaps he’d made a mistake—a terrible mistake. Though Enne had only been in New Reynes for less than a year, he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

But should he tell her that, he would only label himself as twice as selfish. This bargain had not been for volts or casinos or dreams—it had been for her very survival. He couldn’t jeopardize that, even if they both wanted to.

As the ride neared the end of its circle, Levi knew he couldn’t wait a moment longer. He needed to tell Enne about Veil.

“I love you,” Enne cut in before he could speak, just as their compartment reached a stop. “And I’ll never forgive you.”

Any words he’d planned to say vanished from his mind, and he considered telling her a different sort of truth.Histruth. That he loved her, too.

But instead, he said blandly, “You will.” One day, many months or years from now, Enne would find someone else, a relationship that wasn’t tainted by blood or omertas or betrayal. “But before you go, there’s something I have to—”

But Enne was already storming off of the ride, clearly unwilling to sit beside him a moment longer. As he followed, she whipped toward him, the sea of reporters flooding around them both. Tears that he guessed were very real streamed down her cheeks. “You know, I don’t think the truth changed anything. In fact, I think the truth is worse!” she shouted, several cameras flashing behind her with all the rage of crackling lightning. “You’re still a coward.”

“I’m sorry,” he started, walking closer. But when he reached to grab her hand, he was met with a slap across his cheek. Performance or not, he winced. The cold made it sting.

“Don’t apologize to me, not now,” Enne told him, then she lowered her voice. “Because how could I ever know if you mean it?”

Then she fled, leaving Levi alone amid the hungry greed of these strangers, realizing he hadn’t been able to tell her about her father. He watched her disappear down the pier with his thoughts in a web of knots.

You’re safe now, his father whispered proudly, as though his father had ever praised him.

I made a mistake, whispered something else, muffled by his own fear.

The reporters pressed against him, ignoring all decency of personal space. His throat felt tight.

“Does this mean the end of your and Miss Scordata’s relationship?”

“Which one of you do you feel is the guilty party?”

“Do you have anything to comment?”

Levi churned over his words, knowing he should say something with finality, to cement the display they’d just given. After all of this, now was not the time to hesitate.

A scream tore across the boardwalk, icy as the nautical wind.

Run, his father told him, but Levi ran toward danger, not away from it. The scream had clearly been female.

He shoved past the reporters, past taffy stands and cheap jewelry stores, until he found Enne behind the booth of a caricature artist. It was away from the crowds of boardwalk attendees, and he’d imagined she’d escaped here for a moment of solace.

A body lay at her feet.

At first, Levi didn’t recognize it. He saw only a heavy overcoat draped across a corpse lying in a pool of blood. The fluid dripped in between the cracks of the boardwalk’s wooden beams and left a metallic scent in the air.

The man’s head lay several feet away, face-down. Levi realized, even without turning it over, that the gray, receding hairline belonged to Aldrich Owain. And the death bore the unmistakable mark of Scythe.

“This is Scythe’s second kill,” Levi said hoarsely. “His third card.” It was the first act in Bryce’s game that hadn’t been merely to secure a player’s safety...but to play to win. Levi had been so preoccupied with their pardons these past three months that he’d forgotten the threat of the golden Shadow Cards. There was more to throw their lives in peril than a simple contract.

Enne looked up, her horrified expression mirroring his own, but she didn’t have the chance to say anything before another camera flashed.

ENNE

In the cover of darkness, Enne freed a bobby pin from her hair and slipped it inside the gate’s padlock. Though it had been some time since she’d honed her lock-picking skills, her fingers instinctively searched for the mechanisms. She pressed her ear against the cold metal until she heard the final, satisfyingclick.

She repeated the same procedure with the front door. The wind howled around her, tearing through the barren trees and rustling their branches. The freezing temperatures made her nose and lips sting, but she knew it wouldn’t be prudent to wait until morning. In the quiet streets of Olde Town, night concealed her identity better than her old colored contacts ever could.