Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1)(48)

Enne’s ears heated in a sort of shame. She hadn’t realized she’d been lying to him—and to herself. She did want to know after all. She’d broken plenty of Lourdes’s rules since leaving home, but doubting her mother felt like the worst sort of betrayal.

Reymond leaned down lower. “I don’t care if you hide something from me, but I know you’re hiding something from Levi. Why is he helping you?”

“Because I’m paying him to,” she said, her voice rising. She snatched the card out of his hand and thrust it in her pocket.

“You’re lying again.”

She froze. She intended to pay Levi, once they found Lourdes. Enne didn’t have access to the bank account or the volts on her own. But if Reymond told Levi, then Enne would be without help. Levi had promised they were in this together, and she thought she believed him, but it was hard to be sure. Volts were more of a guarantee than good intentions.

“Levi’s in trouble,” Reymond said. “He won’t tell me exactly what it is, but I have my suspicions. And if I find out you’re leading him into more, or if anything happens to him, then I will find you.” He didn’t need to add on another threat. Enne understood him perfectly well. “Levi isn’t like us. He’s better than us.”

Us, he said. But he and Levi were both criminals—Enne was better than both of them.

“I’m not like you,” she snapped.

“Lourdes was. I recognize a familiar face when I see one.”

He let her go, and Enne rubbed her arm where he’d squeezed, where her muscles ached.

“They’re over there.” He nodded at a table in the corner, where Jac and Levi were laughing over several empty glasses. Reymond left her to join them, and Enne wandered over slowly, slightly shell-shocked, still slightly drunk.

Levi locked eyes with her, and he smiled. It made her stomach knot. She needed to sober up.

“I like the lipstick,” he said.

“Did you find anything?” she asked, ignoring Reymond’s suspicious stare as she slid into the seat beside Levi.

Levi held up a napkin. “I won this.”

“Impressive.”

“No, there’s an address on it. We’ll go tomorrow.”

Enne relaxed. They wouldn’t leave empty-handed.

She wasn’t empty-handed, though. She still had the business card in her pocket. It was a terrible idea, but she did want to know the truth about herself.

Of course, she’d rather hear it from her mother. And the address Levi had could lead them straight to Lourdes, which meant Enne didn’t need a blood gazer. Not yet.

“I didn’t find anything,” Jac said sheepishly.

“I met another Salta,” Enne told them. “She’s dancing now.” Demi was still onstage, somehow wearing even less than she had before. The raunchy music and raunchier moves made Enne flush. Still, she had to admire Demi’s technique. She was very graceful.

“Maybe Levi could’ve gotten you a job here.” Jac slapped Levi on the back.

Levi looked away hurriedly and took a sip from his already empty glass.

Jac turned to her. “Too much for your sensibilities, missy?”

“I’m not a prude,” she countered, even if the suggestion made her cheeks flush furiously.

Jac snorted. “Could’ve fooled me.”

She pointed at Levi’s tie. “You weren’t wearing that earlier.”

“I like it,” he said.

Reymond rolled his eyes. “I shouldn’t leave any of you alone in cabarets.”

“Go easy on us,” Levi said, slipping his arm around Enne’s shoulders, forgetting that she was sore. She cringed, but this time, didn’t feel like pushing him away—drunk Enne didn’t so much mind that smirk of a smile. She resisted the urge to lean into him and scolded herself—maybe Levi was the only person she knew in New Reynes, but that didn’t mean they were familiar.

“Besides,” he said, unaware of Enne shifting with sudden embarrassment under his arm, “we got what we came for.”

Demi’s act ended with her brandishing sparklers in both her hands, her leg propped against a barstool, her slip scandalously riding up. The audience—their table included—cheered, and the four of them decided that was their cue to leave.

But Enne hadn’t gotten what she’d come for. As they made their way up the stairs, she scanned the faces in the crowd one last time. Lourdes was nowhere to be found.





      DAY THREE

   “All stories about the city are true.”

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





LEVI

Levi was still nursing a slight headache the evening after their night in the Sauterelle. The vomiting had stopped sometime that morning—right before making himself a Walk of Shame, the city’s supposed hangover cure. A dull ache above his brow bone lingered throughout the day—while he leaned against his shower wall, letting the hot water trail down his shoulders and back, trying to remember exactly how he’d made it back to his room last night. While he collected his paycheck—two hundred volts—from Vianca’s secretary. While he sat on his couch, painting, wondering when Vianca would return from her hopeless campaigning so she could pay him out of his desperate situation.