“Aren’t you a Dove?” Enne asked.
Lola laughed bitterly. “No. I don’t wear the white for...” Her mouth snapped shut, and she averted her gaze. “I’m not.”
Several moments passed in silence because Enne didn’t know what else to say. She lowered the knife away from Lola’s neck. Lola sighed, rubbed her throat where the knife had been, and sat up. She glared at Enne with contempt, and Enne hated seeing it.
I had no other choice, Enne told herself.
“I, Lola Baird Sanguick, swear to Enne Dondelair Scordata.”
That’s not my name, Enne thought, too numb to interrupt Lola’s speech.
“Blood by blood. Oath by oath. Life by life. I swear to live by the code of those before me—” she crossed her heart a second time “—and if I break this code, let me burn until I am only a shade.”
The words left an unsettling clamor in the air, as if they existed longer than simply when spoken.
“Is that it?” Enne breathed. She held out her hand to help Lola up.
The blood gazer ignored it. “That’s it,” she said, climbing to her feet.
Rain drummed on the roof, and Enne could hear the rushing of water in the gutter outside.
“There’s a good chance you’ll never see me again,” Enne started. “But if I needed to find you, would I come here?”
“Yes.” When Enne opened her mouth to tell her she was staying at St. Morse, Lola said, “Don’t tell me. It’s better I don’t know where you are.”
Enne considered apologizing, but she wasn’t sorry that she was alive.
She needed to go home and think about what she’d learned, and about what these secrets meant for her relationship with Lourdes—or if she even believed them.
“I’d like my gun back before I go,” she said.
Before they could return to the basement, another door burst open, and Enne screamed in surprise. Levi and Jac charged inside, rain-soaked, pointing a new set of pistols wildly around the room. Jac flipped a light switch.
“What themuck?” Lola shouted, her arms raised, squinting in the light.
Levi’s eyes narrowed as he looked between them in confusion. “Why did you scream?” he was asking Enne, but his gaze—and Jac’s—was fixed on the white in Lola’s hair.
“Because you scared me,” Enne said flatly.
“Pup?”Lola said, shakily lowering her arms.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“It’s your hair. Not many orb-makers on the North Side.”
Jac pocketed his gun. “What happened here?”
“The missy was just leaving. You should, too.” Lola rubbed her temples. “I don’t like guns or dogs in my office.”
“You’re both a little scruffed up,” Levi said, making no indication that he’d heard the jibe at his nickname. “Had a bit of an argument?”
Both Enne and Lola were covered in sweat, dirt and dried blood. Enne bit her lip. She hadn’t even had time to process Lola’s information for herself—she wasn’t sure she was ready to tell Levi. And she definitely wasn’t ready to tell Jac, whom she barely knew. If Lourdes’s connection to monarchists had been dangerous, then Enne’s very association was deadly, and she could trust no one.
“Forget it,” Enne said. “We’re leaving as soon as I get my gun.”
“Yourgun?” Levi barked out madly. She squeezed Levi’s arm in response, so he couldn’t shrug her off. As Lola walked down the stairway to the cellar, the three of them lingered in the piano room.
“Are we keeping secrets now?” Levi hissed in her ear. His breath was hot against her neck.
