“There has to be a way out,” Enne said. “One of the other exits must be...”
Her gaze flickered to Levi, and a chill shot down his spine. There was something eerie about this moment. They had always thought the casino resembled the black-and-white hallway in their dreams, where they spent the nights roaming in search of a particular door. A nightmare made real.
“This isn’t good,” Roy breathed, exposing the bloody wound beneath Harrison’s shirt and wincing. He tore off strips of fabric to make a bandage. “He won’t last long.”
“If he dies, so do the three of us,” Sophia squeaked.
“Then we don’t let him die,” Levi said.
“Wow,” Grace sneered, “thanks for that plan. I see why you’re the mastermind. We can’t even get out of here—”
“Of course we can,” Tock said smugly. “I don’t need a door.”
“You could collapse the whole building,” Levi pointed out.
“You have a better idea?” she shot back.
He didn’t.
While Harvey stayed down, Enne shook Delaney awake by her shoulder. Delaney’s eyes fluttered open, followed by a low groan. She rubbed the back of her head.
“Enne, help her walk,” Levi said. “Tock, you go in front. Narinder, you and Roy can carry Harrison. I’ll deal with Harvey. We need to get as far from the fire as possible, where the building is still the most durable. Tock can blow our way out.”
They each nodded, and moved fast. Levi grabbed Harvey by the backs of his arms and yanked him up. They trudged behind the group, both of their eyes bloodshot from the smoke. Harvey’s skin was oddly feverish to the touch.
“You’re the one who told us that the game’s shade is tied together by the Bargainer,” Levi told Harvey. “Is that even true? Did you set us up all for this?”
“If I’d lied, why would I have tried to stop you?” Harvey asked coolly. “I just didn’t want anyone else to die.”
“Bryce doesn’t seem to share that agenda,” Levi pointed out.
“He’s not as terrible as you think.”
“If someone is terrible to everyone but you, that doesn’t make them secretly a good person.”
They walked out of the lobby through a maze of back hallways, as far north as the casino would take them. Levi might have owned the Legendary, but he still didn’t know it well enough to know where they were going. Another grim reminder of how little he’d invested into the dream that had once meant everything to him, the dream of the person who would gladly trade his life for a sliver of New Reynes’ glory. But he no longer saw the glamour in chasing after a legend. Jac had managed it, and Levi was glad for him, but Levi had come to care more about the people—not the story—he would leave behind.
Because his story had always been a lie. He hadn’t come from nothing. He was Levi Glaisyer, grandson of the right-hand orb-maker to the king of Caroko, son of two political prisoners who’d fled the bloodshed of the Revolution. He didn’t want to build an empire out of poker chips and houses of cards—he wanted to build something that lasted. He wanted the unrest of the Revolution to finally end. He wanted to undo the corruption that lingered in the world. He wanted the legacy he’d been born for, not the one he’d conned himself into.
It had only taken setting his old dreams on fire to realize that.
“It looks like it, doesn’t it?” Enne whispered ahead of him. At first, Levi didn’t know what she meant until he recognized the eerie, grave quality to her voice.
“Like if I opened a door, I’d find a memory behind it,” Levi said, grimacing.
“What are you both talking about?” Delaney asked.
“It’s a...” Levi started, realizing immediately how shatz it would sound. Or maybe not, to a shade-maker. It was no less shatz than anything else that had happened to them recently. “Zula Slyk told us there is a shade that binds us both.”
“You mean Bryce’s game?” Delaney said.
“It’s from before that,” Enne explained. “It’s in our dreams, ever since I got to New Reynes. I still see—”
“A second shade?” Delaney asked sharply. Her face, already pale, went whitewash. “Why would Bryce do that?”
Levi elbowed Harvey in the ribs as they walked. “Well, do you know what it is?”
Harvey pursed his lips, and Levi could see the uncertainty in his expression, weighing his loyalties. “I have no idea,” he said finally.
