Except Rebecca had made a grave error. Determined to free Bryce from Vianca Augustine’s omerta, they had crafted a shade to murder her but spare his life. But shade-making came with rules. Shades were bound in metal, the way volts were bound in glass. Yet Rebecca had believed that she could increase its strength by binding it to herself, to her own body and flesh. The same way the Bargainer did, according to the stories. And, at the time, it was the most powerful shade that Bryce and Rebecca had ever created.
But Rebecca was not the Bargainer, and as shade-making was only Rebecca’s split talent, it was too weak for a task so grand. Not only had the curse failed, but now it was killing her slowly, corroding one organ at a time.
And that was how Bryce’s obsession with the city’s oldest legend had begun.
“I’ll find the supplies,” Bryce told her hastily. “But that’s not why I’m here.” He reached into his too-large cardigan and pulled out a letter. The envelope looked embossed and official. “Chancellor Fenice wants to meet. Me and the orb-maker and the Mizer.” He let out a weird, strangled laugh. “It’s begun.”
Once every doctor and mystic in New Reynes had declared Rebecca incurable, Bryce had fixated on one final, desperate option: the oldest legend of the City of Sin, the Bargainer. In the stories, the Bargainer could make a deal with you for anything—even your own soul. And due to strange workings in the House of Shadows that Harvey didn’t understand, the only way to summon the Bargainer to New Reynes was through chaos.
And so Harvey Gabbiano—pushed aside, still waiting, still hoping—had become complicit.
He’d said nothing when Bryce broke into Lourdes Alfero’s bank account and stole all her volts—and one of the strange black orbs that belonged to a pair. They were used in the Shadow Game, and—so Bryce was convinced, due to months of untangling rumors—they held the life energy of the last surviving Mizer. A souvenir from when the birth mother had played for her own child’s life.
Harvey had said nothing when Bryce wrote that letter to Lourdes’s adopted child, his target, pretending to be Lourdes, luring whoever they were to New Reynes.
Nothing when Bryce arranged Lourdes’s capture and demise, ensuring the Mizer was without protection.
Nothing when Bryce used his malison talent to bind the Mizer to the orb-maker, a royal pair.
Nothing when he bought so many stolen body parts.
When he and Rebecca planned their deadly game and enlisted Harvey in it.
When Bryce killed over a hundred people at St. Morse.
Harvey knew his own role in it all made him as sinful as Bryce, but he couldn’t leave. Not when there was a chance that Bryce could still be saved. That things could return to the way they were before Rebecca, before Vianca.
“You can’t honestly be consideringgoingto that meeting, can you?” Harvey accused Bryce. He didn’t care how expensive the Chancellor’s card stock was: it was basically a pretty warrant for Bryce’s execution.
“There are twenty-two players in our game,” Bryce answered. “They need to know the rules.”
“You won’t come out of that meeting alive,” Harvey snapped.
“But I will, if the expected company arrives.”
Harvey sucked in his breath, and he reached for the Creed around his neck. Even after all this time, some part of him hadn’t believed the legends of the Bargainer were true.
It’d been easier before the Mizer and the orb-maker had names, before he knew them, before he’d befriended Enne and consoled her in the hallway at St. Morse and buried Levi’s best friend.
Why do you need them?Harvey had once asked Bryce as he’d clutched a stolen deck of Shadow Cards from the House of Shadows. As he stared at the Emperor and Empress artwork. As he planned his ultimate game.
An expensive bargain will demand an expensive price, Bryce had answered.
Harvey’s stomach still lurched at the memory. Enne and Levi weren’t the notorious couple of a North Side legend. Bryce and Rebecca were, and Enne and Levi were bait.
As Bryce continued reassuring Rebecca, as he rubbed his hand through her greasy curls and kissed her trembling knuckles, Harvey staggered out the room. He leaned against the cement walls of the hallway to support himself. He squeezed his Creed in one hand, and his own golden Shadow Card in the other: the Fool.
I thought the price of losing your game was death, Harvey had said to Bryce the day Bryce had given him that card.You’d make me play?Harvey would do anything for Bryce, but he wouldn’t risk his life forher. Forthis.
If it wasyourlover dying tragically after trying to save you, I’d risk my life, too, Bryce had told him with that excited glimmer in his eyes whenever he spoke about romance. He loved happy endings. No—he was obsessed with them.
When Harvey pictured such a lover, he could only see Bryce. But he didn’t recognize the boy from his memories anymore, and he didn’t recognize himself, either.
“I need to warn Enne and Levi,” Harvey murmured to himself, squeezing his Shadow Card so hard it bent. He’d sworn such noble things before, but now it was different. Now the Bargainer was finally in New Reynes.
Bryce emerged from his bedroom, dark shadows beneath his unholy red eyes. He reached for Harvey’s hand, and Harvey froze at the touch. He swallowed down his desire with his vomit.
“I need to ask you something,” Bryce said.
