Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game Series)

by Amanda Foody

  “It was in the bank,” Enne said.

  She frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. Lourdes wouldn’t own anything like that.”

  Levi picked it up and inspected it. “These aren’t volts,” he said, which Enne already knew. “But...” He shivered. “I can sometimes feel traces of Mizer auras left on volts, but this isn’t a trace. It feels...alive.”

  “Have you ever heard of the Shadow Game?” Zula asked them. Enne’s and Levi’s heads shot up, and a sickly dread caught in Enne’s throat. “So you have. The Phoenix Club hasn’t opened the House of Shadows since the Great Street War. At least, not until eight days ago.” She opened a drawer from behind her desk and pulled out a second black orb, identical to the other, except empty inside. “The Shadow Game is a game of death, and the players bet their lives. These orbs hold life energy. They are deadly poker chips.”

  Levi hurriedly set the orb back on the table. “Whose life is inside this one, then?”

  “That’s a very good question. Only one player in history has ever survived the Shadow Game, but now that she’s dead, there shouldn’t be any life left inside it.” Zula’s eyes narrowed as she inspected Enne—her gaze fixed more over her shoulder than on Enne’s face. “I don’t know the details of that night, but it’s possible Gabrielle didn’t play with her own life. She wasn’t alone in the Game.”

  “You mean Gabrielle Dondelair,” Enne guessed. “My birth mother.”

  “Lourdes said she’d never tell you that,” Zula said sharply.

  Enne’s breath hitched. There was no question now. What they’d learned about Gabrielle was absolutely true. “I saw a blood gazer. I did my research.”

  “You saw a blood gazer?” Zula gaped. “You know your father’s blood name?”

  “Do you know who he was?” Enne asked.

  Zula slammed the desk drawer closed, making both Enne and Levi jolt. “I cannot speak his names.”

  “But...I should know. I deserve to know.”

  “I’d tell you if I could. His identity is protected, and he went to great lengths to see it so.” That meant his secret was sealed by a Protector, someone like Lourdes. Enne felt like she was grasping at smoke, trying to connect glimpses of the past together.

  Enne cleared her throat. “But he is...dead, right?”

  Zula took a shaky breath. “Yes. He’s gone.”

  Enne knew this. Of course she did. But it still hurt to hear it, after hoping...over and over again.

  “When you said that Gabrielle wasn’t alone in the Game,” Levi said, “what did you mean?”

  “There was only one other person involved that night. Since these orbs are used for nothing beyond the Game, and since it cannot belong to Gabrielle, then that only leaves her daughter.” Zula met Enne’s eyes solemnly. “Gabrielle must have been playing for your life that night.”

  Enne swallowed and stared at the orb. That was her own life inside it?

  “The reason I bring up the Game,” Zula said gravely, “is because of why you’re here. Lourdes had been running from the Game for some time, but eight days ago, they found her, and she was invited to play.”

  The shell Enne had carefully built around her heart shattered, and no number of words or rules would piece it back together now. Before Zula even confirmed Enne’s darkest fears, tears began to well in Enne’s eyes.

  “Muck,” Levi whispered.

  “Of all the stories from the Great Street War, Lourdes’s was the most heartbreaking of them all,” Zula said, shaking her head grimly. “Until the end, she did everything in her power to protect you. And now, here you are, a curse in your shadow, an omerta around your neck.”

  The past tense struck Enne deep and low, like a bell toll that shook inside of her.

  She would’ve known, she would’ve felt it if Lourdes had died.

  She placed a hand over her mouth. Her chest heaved, though she hadn’t started to cry yet. She hadn’t even taken a breath.

  “With the omerta, you can’t go home,” Zula continued. “You must keep your secret from Vianca at all costs. And, more than anything, stay away from the House of Shadows. Lourdes did not die so you would, too.”

  “Enough,” Levi snapped. He reached for Enne’s hand, but Enne’s gaze was firmly rooted on the floor.

  “The only fortune in any of this,” Zula continued, “is that you have no power yet. That’s better for you. And better for New Reynes.”

  “Enough!” Levi hollered. He stood abruptly, grabbing Enne by the shoulder and hoisting her up, as well. Enne leaned into the support of his arm around her, holding her breath so as not to cry. She should say something, she knew. Levi shouldn’t fight this battle for her. But it felt pointless, knowing she’d already lost the war. “If you were really Lourdes’s friend, you could try showing an ounce of compassion.”

  Zula’s expression hardened. “This story will end badly.”

  The same words Lola had spoken the other day.

  This story is already over, Enne thought. I’m trapped here, and I’m alone.

  Levi pulled Enne toward the door, and she numbly followed. “I don’t expect we’ll be back,” he spat. He was right. Enne had no intention of ever seeing this awful woman again, even if she had been Lourdes’s friend.

  “I’m the only one left who remembers,” Zula said solemnly. “If I need to find you, I will.”

  “Don’t.” Levi slammed the door.

  Outside, he shushed Enne even though she wasn’t crying and pressed her against his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said. The words were gentle, but uselessly so. Enne was already broken. “I’m so sorry.”

  Lourdes had died the day before Enne reached New Reynes. All this time she’d been searching for her face in the crowds, wandering memories of her in her dreams, and she’d been chasing a ghost. Had she left earlier... Had she asked questions earlier...

  “It was always the two of us and no one else,” Enne whispered. “And now I’m alone.”

  Without Lourdes, Enne was truly lost. Her mother was the only one who’d remember the girl Enne had been before, now that Enne was already starting to forget herself. Lourdes was her lighthouse, her guideline, and now Enne had no way of finding her way back—to Bellamy, to herself or to the life she’d once lived.

  Her mother had probably died thinking that, at the very least, her daughter was safe at home. And that was the tragedy of it all.

  “You’re not alone,” Levi murmured, squeezing her tighter. Enne looked up at him, studying her own heartbreak reflected in his eyes. Finally, she began to cry.

  Compared to her mother, Levi was a pale sliver of light, a fraying thread—but he was something. And so she nodded and let him guide her home.

  DAY EIGHT

  “Legends of the North Side are born in the gutters and die on the gallows.”

  —The City of Sin, a Guidebook: Where To Go and Where Not To

  ENNE

  Enne curled into a fetal position and leaned against the pole on a corner of the trapeze platform. The dusty windows of the practice warehouse gleamed with moonlight and the flashing advertisements of Tropps Street. She’d been here all night, ever since the show ended hours before.

  It was the second performance Lourdes had ever missed.

  Her mother used to claim she had the best view in the back, and last night, after her second show, Enne had checked the back row dozens of times, both out of habit and longing, staring into the faces of strangers.

  Before Enne left Bellamy, she’d already had a list of questions to ask Lourdes. Since arriving in New Reynes, she felt like the city had handed her two new mysteries for every question answered. If Enne had only one more chance to speak to Lourdes, only one question to ask, it wouldn’t be about her parents, about the bank or even about the lies.

  Tell me your story, she’d plead. The heartbreak that Zula had men
tioned, the memory of Lourdes crying while holding baby Enne... She needed to know. How had Lourdes known her parents? What happened during the Great Street War? How young had she been?

  Had she asked for this?

  White chalk coated Enne’s hands, and she drew zigzags with it on her thighs. Her fingernails left scratch marks on her pale skin.

  Alongside her grief, a darker thought lingered, one Enne had suspected but Zula had confirmed. Enne had spent her life on the periphery of her world, no matter how hard she worked, no matter how desperately she tried. Until she arrived in the City of Sin.

  Nine days ago, Zula had said. Lourdes had died the day before Enne arrived in New Reynes.

  The day before Enne arrived in New Reynes, Lourdes’s protection had broken.

  Enne had already known Lourdes had used her talents to keep Enne safe, but she hadn’t truly understood what that meant. Her mother had kept her invisible. Now Enne’s memories of Lourdes wiping away her daughter’s frustrated tears, of teasing her about her social ambitions—they all seemed tainted. Enne had never suffered in her life—not truly—but that didn’t mean those hurts hadn’t mattered to her. She’d agonized over them. She’d accepted them.

  And Lourdes had watched.

  Hot, bitter tears sprang from Enne’s eyes. She’d cried a lot since yesterday. She’d cried for the story of her mother’s life that she’d never know, for a woman she somehow both loved and resented. She’d cried for the girl she used to be. From her first lie to Levi, her poisoning of Sedric, her battle with Lola—the city was turning her into someone she didn’t recognize.

  But the more she thought about her life before, about her ambitions and her character, Enne knew she’d always been this determined, this ruthless. Thanks to Lourdes’s protection, she’d merely lacked the opportunity to truly know herself. She was a pistol wrapped up in silk. She was a blade disguised as a girl.

  Enne practiced for another hour on the trapeze, pushing her limits with tricks and moves she wasn’t ready for. Repeatedly, she lost her grip on the bar, or her strength gave out.

  She’d begun to relish how it felt to fall.

  While climbing the ladder to the platform, Enne suddenly noticed that she had a real audience. Lola watched from far below, her arms crossed. Enne vaguely remembered something about Scrap Market, a promise she’d made Before.

  “How long have you been here?” Enne called.

  “Not long,” she answered. “I couldn’t find you in the casino. Didn’t think you wanted to cancel our trip, though.”

  Enne had no reason to go to Scrap Market now. Digging up Lourdes’s old newspaper articles wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t bring her back. But telling Lola about Lourdes would acknowledge what had happened, and that seemed more difficult than pretending everything was normal.

  “Are the Iron boys coming?” Lola asked.

  She hadn’t seen Levi since yesterday evening. He’d been nothing but kind to her, but still, she preferred to be alone with her grief. If he came, she wouldn’t be able to keep up her charade.

  “No,” she said. “It’s just us.”

  * * *

  It was so early that the sun had yet to rise. Dew and fog clung to the streets in front of the abandoned factory in Scar Land, the noise inside piercing through the night’s quiet. Since her first encounter with Lola, Enne hadn’t ventured outside of St. Morse after dark, so she’d grown accustomed to the ever-present loudness of Tropps Street, where dice rattled and drunkards sang no matter the hour. Here in the Factory District, the silence felt almost tangible: heavy and cold.

  Lola pushed open the factory’s doors, and the two of them slipped inside.

  It was almost as large as a city block, with various stalls and carts clustered in the rows between machinery and conveyor belts. The bustle of the crowd reverberated around the interior, a chorus of haggling and bidding for everything from food to weapons. It smelled of cigarettes and roasted sausage, neither of which appealed to Enne’s unsettled stomach.

  A hundred feet or more above their heads, children climbed the rafters and vents as if they were a playground.

  “They could fall,” Enne said. She twisted the inside of her dress’s pocket in her fist. The crowds made her claustrophobic, though she’d never felt that way before. Maybe she simply wasn’t used to Scrap Market. Maybe what she called anxiety others called thrill. But a sense of dread imbedded itself in her stomach, and every click of her heels sounded like the loading of a gun.

  She shouldn’t have agreed to come.

  “Nah, they won’t fall,” Lola answered. “They’re just showing off. Trying to get noticed by the Guild.”

  Enne normally would have asked what she meant, but she was too exhausted. Part of her decided that she no longer cared, that this city would always be a mystery no matter how much she attempted to understand it.

  “Let’s stop over here first,” Lola said, pointing to a stall covered with huge pieces of fabric and moth-eaten tapestries. “Asking what we’re asking...we might want a bit of anonymity.” She ruffled through the bins of used clothing and fished out a thin black sash. “Here. It almost matches that lipstick you have.”

  Enne rubbed the satin between her fingers. The quality was reasonable, and unlike the rest of the clothes, there weren’t any stains or rips.

  Lola cut two even holes in the satin with her scalpel knife, then tied it behind Enne’s head.

  “Feel good?” Lola asked.

  “Sure,” Enne said flatly.

  After they paid for the sash, Lola slipped a mask of her own out of her pocket, tied it on and led Enne to another stall. The air around it was so humid from the steam vent nearby that Enne felt like she was breathing sludge. Inside, a man with yellow lips sat on a stool holding a pipe. He wore a glove on one hand, but pieces of hay stuck out of it. In fact, his entire left sleeve was lumpy and thicker than the right.

  “He’s got old newspapers he’s willing to sell,” Lola whispered.

  “’Lo,” the man greeted them. “Who are you two who look up to no good?”

  “My name is—” Enne started, until Lola elbowed her side. Enne reddened, chagrined—masks were useless if they gave away their names. “...we’re customers.”

  “Pleasure to meet ya.”

  “We’re looking for old newspapers,” Lola said. “Articles by specific journalists.”

  “How old we talking?” He set his pipe on the table.

  “Ten to twenty years ago.”

  “What journalists are you looking for?”

  Lola nodded for Enne to speak, and Enne took a deep breath until she found her voice.

  “We’re interested in a writer named Séance.” That was the pen name Reymond had told her, the day she’d arrived.

  He sucked on his bottom lip. Its yellow color made him look almost inhuman. “Ah, you are up to no good. I used to read the Pseudonyms when I was young and foolish.” He leaned forward. His straw arm remained in the same spot, so with his position, it made his shoulder look detached. “There was Jester—another pen name. Ventriloquist. Nostalgia. Shade.”

  “Do you have any of the papers?” Enne asked. She hadn’t realized until now how much she wanted to read one of Lourdes’s articles. Even knowing they had reached their ultimate dead end, and there was no chance they would find her mother alive, she could still learn more about why Lourdes had led her double life, and she could hear the words from Lourdes herself.

  It was the closest she would ever get to her mother’s story.

  “I might have one that escaped the burnings,” he said.

  “You might?”

  “It will cost ya. Fifteen volts. Or a trade.”

  Fifteen volts was hardly pocket change, but it was worth it. Vianca’s first paycheck had already arrived, both for Enne’s acrobatics performances and her other assignment. It was very
generous. Enne would not hurt for volts in this city if she continued to work at St. Morse.

  “I’ll pay in volts,” she said.

  He eyed her skeptically. “Fine.” His straw arm hung limply as he walked to one of the tables and reached for a box underneath. He riffled through piles of old newspapers and pamphlets.

  “How’d you lose your arm?” Lola asked.

  The man smiled. His teeth were even yellower than his lips. “I sold it.”

  Enne’s stomach did an unpleasant somersault.

  He grabbed a thin newspaper and a small, cheap-looking orb—gray-tinted glass, with a murky look to it—from a soup can on the table. Enne wondered if it could even hold the fifteen volts. But she pulled one of her own orbs from her pocket anyway, unscrewed the cap and paid. His shoddy orb managed the transaction without shattering.

  He handed her the paper. It was called The Antiquist. This issue must have featured one of Lourdes’s articles. Enne folded it and slipped it in her breast pocket.

  “That’s the only one I got,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Enne told him, and she meant it. She crossed her arms protectively to keep the paper close to her chest. “What’s your name? We haven’t met many who know about the Pseudonyms.”

  “Sold my name, too.”

  “Why—”

  “Thanks for your help,” Lola said suddenly. She pushed Enne out of the stall before she could finish her question. Upon reentering the Market, however, someone sprinting down the aisle slammed into Enne’s side. She yelped and nearly toppled over Lola’s boots.

  The girl who’d hit her had scars covering her palms. She ran out of sight, swallowed by the crowds.

  In the stall across from them, a man cleared away his food cart. A pile of cabbages dropped and rolled on the floor, and a woman tripped on one as she hurried past. Everywhere, people packed. People ran.

  A gun fired on the other side of the factory, and Enne’s heart jolted so fast she almost retched.

  “Whiteboots. It’s a raid on the Scarhands,” Lola said, anxiously reaching for Enne’s arm. “We need to get out of here.”