Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1)(51)

He frowned as he read the nearby street sign.

“Are you even listening—?”

“What’s the name of that street again?” he asked. He’d thought it would be here. Instead, they’d reached the edge of a residential complex, and they stared in confusion at the empty warehouse lot in front of them and the river and South Side beyond it.

“Are we lost?” she asked.

“We’re close.”

She grumbled something under her breath, then pulled her guidebook from her purse.

“You’re ruining my reputation,” he grunted, trudging off ahead of her to retrace their steps.

“The map says to turn here,” she argued.

“It’s definitely not there. I remember that.”

“The book says—”

“Muck the book.”

Enne rolled her eyes and marched to the left, in the direction that Levi was certain led to nothing more than factories and mills. He shoved his hands in his pocket and waited. No way was Enne going to go off on her own now that it was getting dark. She acted brave, but soon she’d be running back, if he waited long enough.

He tapped his foot as she disappeared around the corner.

After another minute passed, his irritation turned to worry. He pictured a trigger-antsy Scarhand crouching behind a train car as she passed, and Enne’s face when she turned to find a pistol pressed against her temple. Levi felt for his knife in his one pocket and his gun in the other as he ran after her.

She was in no distress. No pistol to her head. She was leaning against a doorframe, her face hidden behind her guidebook, humming a waltz. Levi scowled as he climbed the steps beside her.

“The Wayward Inn,” Levi read on the sign on the door. “Bit secluded for an inn.”

The building was made of New Reynes’s signature white stone and wedged in between a series of row homes. A wreath with daisies and a blue seersucker bow hung on the door.

“This is where you apologize for your pigheadedness,” Enne said.

Levi ignored her and opened the door.

Inside, it was clean and empty. Levi walked up and rang the bell sitting atop the counter on a white doily.

An old woman appeared from another room. Like the inn, she was also tiny, well-dressed and unassuming. She wore a strand of pearls and a floral shawl. Levi wondered how Lourdes had managed to find the quietest, most Bellamy-like inn on the North Side. The whole place smelled like chamomile soap.

“Can I help you?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “If you’re looking for a place to say, the Wayward Inn has a strict policy that unmarried men and women are to sleep separately. Women are on this floor, men on the top floor and I sleep in the middle.” This struck Levi has quite the oversight, and he wondered exactly what sort of nighttime activities occurred on their isolated floors while the old lady slept unaware.

“We’re not looking for a room,” Enne said hurriedly, her face red and clearly offended. Levi smiled wryly, then drummed his fingers against the counter in annoyance. He knew from experience he wasn’t that unappealing. “We’re searching for a woman named Lourdes Alfero, and we have reason to believe she could be staying here.”

“The inn is empty,” the woman answered, and Levi could nearly feel Enne’s disappointment, as if a palpable heaviness had descended on the room. Or maybe it was his own.

Eight days. And a dead end.

“Then maybe you’ve seen her,” Enne said, her voice and expression too collected, too poised. Levi squeezed her shoulder. “She’s in her early thirties. Fair-skinned. Blonde. Brown eyes.”

“There was a woman staying here like that last week,” the woman mused. “She checked out abruptly, even left something behind. Who are you to her?”

“Her daughter.”

“She was pretty young to have a daughter your—”

“Please.” Enne’s voice cracked. “We’d love to see what she left. And if you have any information...”

The woman hesitated, then leaned down and opened a drawer below the counter. She pulled out a single card, and the sight of the metallic silver back sent Levi’s heart plummeting into his stomach.

It was a Shadow Card.

He had the urge to loosen his collar, or to bolt out the door. The memories of the black-and-white hallway, of Sedric Torren’s menacing smile, sent goose bumps prickling across his skin.

“What is that?” Enne asked. She took it from the woman’s hands and turned it over. The face was the Hermit, a representation of isolation and knowledge. It wasn’t an invitation to the Shadow Game—that was reserved for the Fool—but it was a warning, just like the Tower card Levi had received two nights ago.

Had Lourdes run into trouble with the Phoenix Club?

Or worse...was the Phoenix Club following him?

It seemed unlikely that they’d guessed he would visit the Wayward Inn. His promise to help Enne had little to do with his investment scheme, except that finding Lourdes was supposed to be his way out. No one but him knew they were connected.

“It was the only thing in the room after she left,” the woman said.

Maybe Lourdes had received the warning and fled the city. Clearly, she hadn’t returned to Bellamy, to Enne, which meant she might have escaped somewhere else. They probably had little chance of finding her unless she intended to be found.