THE MOON.
“Let me take this, or I’ll kill you,” Ivory told her flatly.
Grace lifted her chin, pressed against the blade of the Dove who held her, and said nothing.
Ivory sighed. “Let me take this, or I’ll kill him.” She nodded at Roy, who stiffened and looked to Grace warily. “There’s no need to kill either of you. Not if you say yes.”
Why would Ivory spare Grace all for a card? Why even ask for it, rather than just take it? Enne recalled Bryce’s words at St. Morse about the game that he’d concocted, and even if Enne knew not to underestimate Bryce’s power, she hadn’t considered since that night what the game meant. If Lola was right and IvorywasRebecca, then she undoubtedly knew the rules to this game. She knew the stakes—and they didn’t.
Roy must’ve been thinking the same thing because he blurted, “Don’t give it to her.”
“Thickhead,” Grace muttered under her breath. She met Ivory’s gaze. “Go ahead. Take it.”
Ivory smiled and snatched the card. “Scythe, Rope, Saber, check their pockets.”
The Doves ruffled through Roy’s and Lola’s clothes while Scythe did the same to Enne. They each pulled out all of their golden Shadow Cards. Enne realized that hers, too, looked different. The red letters on the back readTHE EMPEROR.
Levi’s card, she remembered. Even if she didn’t know what it meant, nerves quaked inside her. Whatever the answer was, it wasn’t good.
On Roy’s card—Justice—the words readTHE HANGED MAN,and on Lola’s—the Hermit—it readTHE CHARIOT.
“Are any of theirs yours?” Ivory asked Scythe.
He shook his head. “I’m after Temperance.”
They’re hunting particular cards, Enne realized.
Ivory cocked her head to the side. “Then we’re done here. Kill the others.”
Before Enne could blink, the four Doves who guarded the Scarhands slayed them. A bullet rang out, followed by several screams, the sound of bodies falling to the floor and splashing in the waste.
Blood seeped down the train tracks, and Enne swallowed down a mouthful of vomit.
It didn’t matter whose idea this was; this was her decision, her mistake. And unlike Jac’s death, this time she had no one to blame except herself.
“Now you know,” Ivory said coolly, letting out another frail cough. “You’re far from a queen.”
“And you’re Rebecca, aren’t you?” Enne asked, her voice even weaker than the assassin’s.
Ivory’s eyes flashed. The Dove Lord had a very poor poker face. “Leave. Before I change my mind.”
Scythe lowered his staff, freeing Enne from its grip, and the other Doves did the same for Roy, Grace, and Lola. Enne gasped and clutched at her neck, tears blurring her vision as she made eye contact with her friends. As she forced the image of the bodies from her mind.
They ran.
V
THE HANGED MAN
“Over two hundred witnesses confirmed what many have dismissed as impossible. Yesterday, at Veil’s execution, when Chancellor Semper went to remove the black gauze covering Veil’s face—a look that has become synonymous with Veil’s image—he couldn’t. It was as though the gauze had fused to him like a second skin.”
Jester. “The Mystery Remains.”
The Antiquist
16 July YOR 8
SOPHIA
