“Are you drunk?” Levi asked incredulously. It was three o’clock.
“Yes, but unlike all of you—I’m legal.” While Levi rolled his eyes, Harrison added, “But I’m glad you called. Because I think you’re right. I think we have a pardon to negotiate.”
Levi let out what should’ve been one of the biggest sighs of his life. Except it wasn’t. He was relieved—he knew how much Enne needed this. And he’d told Tock he’d made up his mind, and he wasn’t going to change it.
But even the right decisions had a way of leaving him disappointed.
ENNE
Enne nervously rolled and unrolled the most recent edition ofThe Kiss & Tellin her hands while Grace drove. If any of her old instructors from finishing school glimpsed her photo on the front page, they would faint. Even with Levi blocking much of the cameras’ views and the magazine censoring certain details due to her age, you could still see a glimpse of her camisole, a trace of her thigh. Every time Enne looked at it, she blushed deeper.
“Cheer up,” Grace told her, smacking her shoulder. “The City of Sin loves scandal, and now they love you.”
“I feel humiliated,” Enne snapped. “Levi could have... He could have at leasttoldme what he’d planned before he made me look like a harlot in front of the whole world.”
What made it worse was that she hadn’t realized it was a show at all. She’d been all too happy to kiss him back. Who knew where she would’ve taken the encounter had they never been interrupted at all. She’d already been dreaming of such things. No matter which black door Enne opened as she roamed the hallway in her sleep, she always found Levi. Smiling—though she rarely saw him smile anymore. Kissing her—in St. Morse, in her bedroom, in the workshop. It was as though whatever strange power lurked within the hallway was urging her back to him. Enne often woke covered in sweat.
“What’s more important—your decency or your life?” Grace asked.
No sooner had Grace finished her question than she parked the motorcar in front of the Capitol. Enne stared out the window at its white stone steps, each engraved with the name of a different fallen revolutionary. The building was a monument to the perils of her legacy, yet she’d been summoned inside to a private audience: her, the Chancellor, Harrison Augustine, and Levi. And unlike last time Fenice had extended such an invitation, Enne had public support. It might not have come in the way she’d first expected it, but she wielded it all the same.
“Come in with me,” Enne blurted at Grace.
Grace knitted her eyebrows. “I wasn’t invited.”
“I don’t care—I’d like you there,” Enne urged, grasping her white-gloved hand. “I thought you were our publicist.”
Grace smirked and looked down at her scanty outfit. How Grace could bear to expose so much skin in this winter chill, Enne had no idea. “If that’s what you want, but I won’t promise to behave.”
Enne walked outside, relieved to have someone to face these steps and this building beside her. Then the two girls linked arms and strode up to where a line of servicemen waited for them by the side door.
“The others are already inside,” one told her gruffly. His eyes fell to Enne’s legs, and Enne flushed, realizing immediately what filthy thoughts were going through his mind. She didn’t care if Levi’s plan had worked—if they’d waited long enough, their performance might’ve played itself out, anyway,chastely. When she saw Levi, she’d strangle him.
Except when she did see Levi, standing inside next to Harrison Augustine, his hands tucked sheepishly in his pockets, Enne flushed so deeply she must have looked cherry red. He might’ve played her like a fool, but she couldn’t erase the details of that encounter from her memory. Like how the low rasp of his breath felt against her ear. How his hands had reached places higher on her thigh than she’d ever been touched before.
“Keep looking like that,” Harrison Augustine told her, giving her a thumbs-up, “and you’ll do great.”
Enne pressed her hands to her cheeks; they were feverishly hot, exactly as an innocent schoolgirl should react to such a scandal.
“I see you’ve brought your...” Harrison took in Grace uneasily “...muscle.”
“Chaperone,” Grace cooed, her fingers twisting around her sharpened Creed necklaces.
Levi scowled. “Come on. Let’s just get this over with.” He motioned for them to follow him into a conference room, plainly decorated except for the Republic’s flag on the wall and a framed portrait of Malcolm Semper beside it.
At the table, the Chancellor’s wizened gray-toned fingers tapped against the glossy cover ofThe Kiss & Tell.
“I’m sure you two are proud of yourselves,” Fenice said gravely. “All day, my office and those of Senators have been fielding calls from this dreadful publication’s readers, advocating for your political plights.”
Enne was far from proud, but Fenice’s words did succeed in raising her spirits. “Then it sounds like we’ll all be able to reach an understanding.”
“A pardon for your status as a Mizer,” Fenice responded flatly. “A pardon for the assassination of our first Chancellor. A pardon for your criminal activities with the gangs of the North Side. A pardon for the death of Sedric Torren. I’m to erase all your offenses, as though your actions have not cost my administration hours of stress and paperwork. Have not destabilized the confidence this government has worked so hard to achieve since the Revolution.”
“Can you hold someone accountable for the wrongs committed under an omerta?” Enne asked sweetly. “It seems to me, apart from my talent, the culprit is Vianca Augustine. And she has already answered for her crimes.”
“Yes, so you and Levi have both claimed,” the Chancellor intoned. “My concern is that, even after I pardon you, what is to prevent you from engaging in such corrupt activities again? It’s to my understanding that you continue to reside with the gang you were apparently forced to form. That you and a number of other criminals attempted a skirmish two months ago with a rival gang, costing multiple lives.”
Enne hadn’t realized the Chancellor knew so much about the Spirits. She stiffened.
