“’Lo?” someone answered. Lola’s heart sank—it was Marcy, not Enne.
“Is Enne there? Put her on—”
“She’s gone. She, Grace, Roy, and some of the Scarhands all left. They went to the Pinochle Mole station.”
Lola cursed, clutching Jonas’s safe to her chest like a life raft. Enne had been right earlier; Lola was no fighter—her collection of knives were just for show. The only blood she’d ever drawn had been for a talent reading. If anyone would get hurt in a showdown with the Doves, then it would be her.
“Muck,” Lola groaned, dropping the phone, running toward danger, anyway.
LEVI
“Please,”the Chancellor growled at Bryce, the sharpness of her voice snapping like static in the still air of the conference room. “I didn’t call this meeting to bend to you and your psychotic, terror-inducing games. I called this meeting because it’s clear that you don’t understand what kind of legends you’re playing with. And—as much as I am loathe to do it—I find myself in a position of having to explain myself to you. And I hope that when you understand, you will end your foolishness and agree to help me. Both of you.”
At those last words, her dark gaze shifted from the malison to Levi, and Levi stiffened. It took more than nerve for Josephine Fenice to ever lookhimin the eyes and ask for his help. The last time he had shared a table with her, Enne had been playing for his life.
And so he reminded her, “You tried to kill me. Why would I help you now?”
He expected apologies, crooked words, and empty smiles like any politician. Hedeservedthem.
Instead, she asked, “Have you ever heard of the Bargainer?”
It was a ridiculous question—everyone in New Reynes knew the story, the oldest legend of all of the North Side’s trove of tales. Though Levi still barely understood one mucking thing about Bryce’s talent, Levi did know this much: every heinous act Bryce had committed at St. Morse was in hopes of summoning the Bargainer, and—according to Sophia Torren—the Bargainer was more than a hushed story whispered in Casino District alleys.
But Levi also didn’t know if Bryce had truly succeeded. The smug look in Bryce’s scarlet eyes and the stricken paleness of Fenice told him they both thought he had.
“Of course they know the legend,” said Harrison with an awkward chuckle. He leaned back in his seat and smiled like he was forcing himself to do so. The others didn’t bother to follow suit.
“So you might know the story, but you don’t know the truth,” the Chancellor said darkly. “The Bargainer is not a legend—they’re a real person, who resembles a young woman. She is a malison by blood talent, and a shade-maker by split talent. A powerful and potent combination, one that allows her to rely on no one.”
Levi frowned, trying to keep up. “How would you know that?”
“Because I’ve met her,” the Chancellor said gravely. “And because everything I’ve done since has been to stop her from returning to this city.”
Bryce grinned widely. “But you failed.”
She shot him a seething look. “You have no idea the sacrifices that have been made. The deaths, all so that—”
“I am a malison. I lived in the House of Shadows, where my family helped tocreatethe Shadow Game,” Bryce shot back. “I think I know enough.”
“Well, I’d certainly like to be enlightened,” Levi growled.
Fenice assessed him, her steely gaze now fixed, not on his face, but on his hair, as though the black dye didn’t fully conceal his coppery orb-maker roots.
You are spared only until you remind them who you are.
In all his years here, Levi had never once been made to feel like he didn’t belong in New Reynes. The Republic’s capital drew people from all across the world, tourists and newcomers with features in such variety that Levi’s brown skin and tight curls never stuck out much. And with his sleazy pin-striped suits, sidewalk card tricks, and roguish smile, Levi looked so quintessential City of Sin that he’d had them all fooled—himself included. But so it turned out, he couldn’t wash out the Revolution’s toll on his life with soap in a pub’s bathroom sink.
If Levi had ever realized this before, he’d dismissed it, ignored it. And so Levi didn’t know how to react to the Chancellor’s stare. He didn’t know how to be Levi the dead nobleman’s grandson when he’d spent so long being Levi the Iron Lord.
Run, his father whispered. Levi didn’t, but he did look away.
“The Mizers were powerful. They werekings, and they kept those they trusted close to them while everyone else suffered on the fringes,” Fenice needlessly explained to him. As if Levi needed an education on his family’s origins and demise. “And so how do you think they fell?”
“The people grew fed up with their tyranny?” Levi guessed. Even if he was supposed to side with his family, he couldn’t deny the wrongs the Mizers had committed.
“Yes, but that doesn’t explain how the revolutionaries managed it,” Bryce answered for the Chancellor. “The Mizers fell because of a bargain.”
Levi tensed and glanced to Fenice. He knew enough about cards to know the look of someone caught. Bryce spoke the truth.
