Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1)(107)

She loaded the revolver and tucked it into her pocket. Her fingers brushed against the cool ribbon of the black satin mask Lola had given her. She pulled it out and tied it around her eyes, same as she’d done at Scrap Market. The mask covered very little of her face, but it offered at least a small amount of protection. If she and Levi managed to make it out of this alive, then no one could know who she was—otherwise, the Phoenix Club would easily discover it was she who’d slain Sedric Torren.

With her lipstick reapplied and her blood-stained heel back on, Enne knocked on the front door of the House of Shadows.

A huge man opened the door, and the loud music from inside blasted through her ears.

He blinked at her for a few moments, and then his jaw dropped. “It’s you,” Shark said, his golden tooth glinting.

Enne tensed as she recognized him—one of the whiteboots from her first day in New Reynes. He knew that she had a connection to Lourdes, the woman they’d killed here only the week before. He’d seen her without her mask.

Her mind blanked except for one, desperate idea.

She took out the revolver, aimed it between his eyes and pulled the trigger.

The noise and force of it startled her so much she yelped. His body thudded to the floor, and she stood there for a few moments, her pulse a violent current, ready for someone to come running. No one did. She wondered if anyone had even heard over all the music, which pulsed loud enough to drown out everything.

She stepped over his body and the pooling blood to enter the House. The cold shell inside of her hardened with each step. Apparently she’d left her soul back at Luckluster—probably back in Bellamy.

The air smelled strongly of several kinds of smoke, and she scrunched her nose and tried to blow away the odor with the envelope. A light shone in the next room, but the hallway was otherwise cast in darkness. She shoved the revolver in her dress as she made her way through the House.

A few men lying on the carpet glanced up blankly as she entered, but their attention was quickly recaptured by a giant pipe shaped like a candlestick on the table before them. Enne eyed a stairwell in the far corner of the room. A sinister force pulled her in that direction, guiding her toward her demise. She began to climb, her hand sliding up the smooth ebony railing.

There was a single door at the top of the stairs. Behind it, she heard a rhythmic ticking, like a clock or a heartbeat. She hitched her breath and turned the knob, opening the door cautiously.

Over a dozen lifeless faces peered at her as she stepped inside, but her gaze immediately fell on Levi. All the color drained from his face as he met her eyes. He was hunched in his chair as if it hurt him to straighten up, and an ugly red mark glared at the side of his neck. Enne’s heart skipped in alarm—he’d been hurt again.

Enne closed the door behind her, and the music from downstairs disappeared, as if nothing existed outside this room. The ticking, too, was gone—maybe she hadn’t really heard it at all.

“The other player, at last,” one man said. Enne recognized him immediately: Chancellor Malcolm Semper, the Father of the Revolution—and her mother’s killer. Her heart clenched, all the anger and grief and adrenaline seizing her at once. “Please take a seat, my dear.”

She tried to reach for the revolver. This was it—she’d made it to the Game in time to stop it. But her hand was frozen at her side—not from the omerta, but some other power in the room. The same sinister force that had led her upstairs. She swallowed down a scream of panic.

“I believe you have Mr. Torren’s letter, don’t you?” Semper asked.

Enne froze. She didn’t have any choices left. She was weaponless, powerless, and she had walked directly into their hands. She’d made a fatal error for the second time that night, and now it was too late.

After a few moments of horror, she regained her composure enough to hand him Sedric’s envelope. Semper tore it open and scanned the contents, then cleared his throat. “It seems... What is your name?”

“Séance,” she said, the name Lola had given her. The name her mother had once used, long ago.

Semper blinked, as if startled for a moment. Maybe he, too, glimpsed the ghost of Lourdes at the edges of his vision.

He returned to Sedric’s letter. “Mr. Torren has recommended that Séance be the one to play.”

“What?” Levi hissed. Enne froze. What did that mean? Weren’t they both supposed to play?

“Well, with your background in cards, Mr. Glaisyer, you don’t need to prove your prowess. Perhaps this newcomer should be given a chance to impress.”

Levi shook his head. He looked utterly defeated.

“Take a seat,” Semper urged her, and Enne carefully claimed the only empty one at table. Every few moments, she tried again to reach into her pocket for the revolver, but to no avail. If she ran—if she could run—that would mean leaving Levi here, and she’d already come this far. No matter how panicked she felt, she couldn’t abandon him in his final moments. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself afterward.

“Don’t bother eyeing the door, dear,” Semper said. Every monster in this city always found a pet name for her. “The Game began the moment you stepped into the House. The rules are binding. There is no escaping. No cheating.”

That explained why Enne couldn’t reach for her gun. There was a magic to the Game, like there was in oaths. A magic she couldn’t explain.