Bells tolled, and they didn’t sound like the church bells of Olde Town—but she heard those, too, muted in the distance. The skyline of New Reynes looked so different. Though the factory smog still smothered the clouds, the skyscrapers of the Financial District were gone. The South Side did not yet exist.
Enne couldn’t help her curiosity; she started north, in the direction of the palace. Even from here, she could spot its turrets, constructed of a striking red stone when so much of Reynes was bleakly white. The homes she passed were magnificent. They belonged to the kind of old money that Enne had never seen on the South Side. This was a time when families valued themselves as much on their lineage as they did their voltage.
Enne heard screams once she approached the palace square.
A man thrashed, his arms bound behind him to a pole. Two others stood over him. The first wore the vestments of a priest, though Enne had never seen a cassock with such intricate embroidery, even on the Street of the Holy Tombs. The other dressed like a layperson—though a wealthy one—and raised a gleaming knife into the air as the prisoner cowered beneath them.
A small crowd gathered to observe, and Enne felt a sickening reminder of Jonas’s execution in Liberty Square. She squeezed her eyes shut, certain the layman was about to bleed the man out, and she winced at the prisoner’s screams. But when she finally peeled her eyes open, she realized the man was not dead. The noble instead had dipped his fingers in the blood and smeared it over his own eyes.
A blood gazer, Enne realized, feeling a pang of guilt as she thought of Lola.
The blood gazer turned to the priest and whispered something to him. The priest shook his head gravely and announced, “This man is found guilty of possessing talents of an abominable nature, and his sentence—by order of Queen Marcelline—is death.”
Enne hadn’t heard what talent the blood gazer declared, but whispers spread through the onlookers around her. “Demon,” they growled. Several spit on the ground. Others grasped the Creeds around their necks.
But from here, Enne could see that the man’s eyes did not match the red of Bryce’s. She wondered with disgust how many talents the queen deemed worthy of capital offense. From what Enne knew of history, the answer was anyone the Mizers deemed a threat to their power. It was why they’d crafted the Faith in the first place. The Mizer talent paled in comparison to those who could ensnare a victim with a smile, who possessed the strength or speed to outmatch any foe, who knew a lie the moment it left someone’s lips. And so the Mizers had spun stories to instill fear, and on that fear, they’d built their thrones.
A woman tore through the spectators, her shrieks quelling into sobs. An officer of some sort—he wore a violet uniform instead of white—seized the woman by her shoulders and shoved her away.
Enne walked closer, compelled to help even though she knew she wandered these dreams a ghost. She reached instinctively into her pocket for her gun, the weapon that always made her feel in control, but as soon as she grabbed it, a shiver coursed through her.Thatgun.
Enne watched helplessly as the woman was led away, her screams muffled by the officer’s hand gripped around her mouth.Help her, Enne urged herself, but she was frozen, petrified from the gun, petrified from this history she wanted no part in.
The dream slowly bled away, color seeping from the palace into a crimson puddle at Enne’s feet, and the only vision that remained was that moment in between bullets, when Jac had been down but still alive, when Enne hadn’t been in control at all.
Enne awoke barely an hour into her sleep on sweat-dampened sheets, the moon splashing hazy light across her floorboards. Shaken and overheated, she threw off her comforter and held her face in her hands, willing herself not to cry. She had finally slept after so long without it, but even her dreams reminded her that she was in danger.
She collected herself enough to sit at her vanity, where she examined her violet eyes in the heart-shaped mirror. She barely recognized her own face.
“They fear you,” Enne whispered. “They’ll never give you your pardon. Not even if you stop fighting.”
Enne cleared away the mess on the vanity’s surface: blush palettes and lipsticks, her revolver and spare bullets. She packed all the weapons into drawers. Her gun had once made her feel powerful, but now she could not look at it without seeing her mistakes, without seeing Jac.
Lifting a hairbrush, Enne was surprised to find items she had been without for a long time: her tokens. She miserably studied the possessions that used to bring her old self so much comfort. The queen’s token had been a gift from Lourdes, a curious trinket from a bygone era. The king’s token was stranger—it burned with an unnatural warmth, and in the cameo of the king’s face, his eye glowed eerily purple. A mystery Enne had never solved.
Enne missed the girl who had cherished these, who’d reached for strength from within instead of reaching for her gun. But Enne didn’t know if she could be that girl anymore. The City of Sin was a game, and you couldn’t win if you played nice.
But since Lola left, Enne also realized that her hardships weren’t one she needed to endured alone. And so she crept into the hallway to Grace’s room, her tokens clutched in her fist.
Grace looked up as Enne eased open the door. Her makeup, normally washed off by this time at night, looked pristine. She’d straightened up the usual clutter of her living space, replacing the tangle of metal necklaces on her nightstand with a candle. It smelled oddly pleasant, like vanilla.
“Oh,” Grace said, her voice high-pitched. “It’s you.”
“Were you expecting someone else?” Enne asked, eyebrows furrowed.
“What? Of course not.” Grace blew out her candle and switched on her lamp instead. “What is it?”
Enne sat on the edge of Grace’s bed. “It’s about tomorrow, about the newspaper interview.”
“I thought you weren’t going to go,” Grace said. “And you shouldn’t. You’d be giving Owain all the power to describe you inhiswords. It reeks of a setup.”
“But what if I’m making a mistake?” Enne asked quietly, hugging her knees to her chest. “I’ve been pretty superb at making them lately.”
Grace squeezed Enne’s shoulder. “When you wanted to murder Owain to avenge Lourdes, I was the one who talked you out of it. But when we came back from the Mole station, after all the Scarhands had been killed...” Grace fiddled with a strand of her cleanly washed black hair. “I didn’t stop you then. Or help you. I should’ve, but I was shaken.” Grace’s voice trembled on the last word, and Enne realized with a start that she’d never seen Grace look so sensitive before. “I think we all were.”
“It’s not your job to make me a good person,” Enne grumbled.
“I’m your friend. If I think you’re going to muck up, I’m going to tell you. Just like you’d do the same for me.”
