The invitation was printed on expensive black card stock, Enne’s elegant handwriting scribbled in the margins in metallic ink. The grand pre-opening of Levi’s casino. Lola hadn’t realized he’d even bought a casino. Despite Enne’s note, something about the invitation itself felt distant, impersonal. It was no doubt the same card they’d sent to hundreds of others throughout the city. Like Lola was already someone they used to know.
“Can we talk?” Arabella asked quietly, hovering in the doorway.
Lola stiffened and tucked the invitation behind her. “Um...sure.” She followed Arabella into their sitting room. The walls rumbled from a passing Mole train, making the moth-eaten curtains jitter on their rods. Lola sat on the couch, the card squashed beneath her legs. Arabella paced, not meeting her eyes.
“I meant it when I told you that I don’t lie to people,” Arabella started, “but I do trick them. It’s impossible not to. I can’t read someone’s thoughts, but I know you well enough now to know that, when you made your bargain with me, I don’t think you meant to sacrifice what you did.”
Lola straightened, her heart speeding up. “Do you mean Tock?”
“I told you that you would lose someone precious to you—the last person you had left,” she said. “I don’t think you realized who I meant.”
So everything Tock had said had been...right. Arabella’s confession might’ve hurt more if Lola understoodwhatshe’d lost, because even after speaking with Tock, she didn’t. She couldn’t imagine knowing that girl, with her Iron tattoos and leather combat boots. She couldn’t imagine kissing her. She couldn’t imagine telling anyone the secrets about herself that Tock had so clearly known. Whatever they’d been didn’t feel precious—it felt alien.
“Well, that’s depressing,” Lola said flatly.
Arabella covered her mouth with her hand and took a deep, unsteady breath. “I’m alone in this city. Is it so hard to imagine that I wanted an ally?”
Of course she could. Lola had been desperate for one, too.
“I’m not mad at you,” Lola told her.
Arabella raised her eyebrows. “You’re not?”
“I don’t know how to be. I don’t know Tock.”
Lola’s words were meant to reassure Arabella, but her expression instead turned pained. “In the memories you gave up, you were different in them than the person you are now. This is...” Arabella gestured to all of her. “This is the worst version of yourself.”
Lola struggled to process the idea that Arabella knew pieces of her mind that she didn’t. So, unsure how else to react, she barked out a laugh. “Gee, thanks.”
“I mean it. You think everyone in your life has betrayed you, but that’s not true. And I can’t give you your memories back—that isn’t how shades work. But I think I’m the closest thing you have to a friend now, so I promise you—I’m going to end this game, and the two of us are going to survive it.”
Before Lola could decide whether to feel slighted or touched, Arabella sat beside her on the couch. She took Lola’s hands in hers—her skin, like when they’d first shook hands, was warm with shades, close to burning.
“And so, in return, I want you to promise me that you won’t accept this invitation.” Arabella’s gaze swept over Lola’s formal clothes. “I know you’re dressed for it, but—”
Lola jerked her hands back in surprise. “What? Why not?”
“I don’t trust the Mizer,” Arabella said coolly.
Lola understood—after all, Lola was still furious with Enne, too. Even if Enne wanted to start over, Lola didn’t know if they ever could.
But since Tock had come here, a tick had burrowed into Lola’s mind. Call it curiosity, call it paranoia, but even after Lola had sold a part of herself for the secrets of this city, she still sensed there was one more, a piece of this puzzle she’d missed.
And she worried that the girl she’d been before, the girl who’d loved Tock, wouldn’t have overlooked it.
It was why she needed to face Enne. There was still a reckoning coming, and Lola wanted to have all the answers before she faced it.
Still, sensing an edge in Arabella’s voice, Lola steered the conversation away from Enne.
“But I don’t understand,” Lola said. “How can you end the game without my card? You know that Tock—”
“I don’t need it. It doesn’t matter if I end the game without it—I’ve beaten a cursed sickness. I survived what was supposed to be my own execution. Bryce should’ve known that it will take more than this shade to kill me.”
“Even so, I still don’t understand how you think you’ll win,” Lola pressed.
Arabella grinned at her. “But it would be so much more fun if you guessed.”
Lola racked her brain for what Arabella meant, but she couldn’t find an answer. And she was tired of these games that dangled the lives of everyone she cared about in front of her. Because even though Lola should’ve felt relieved that Arabella knew a way to end the game and save them both, Lola couldn’t help but think of her old friends.
