Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1)(52)

Or, of course, she could be dead.

“When did she leave?” Enne asked.

“About five days ago,” the woman answered.

“Did she seem agitated? Nervous?” Levi questioned, his mouth dry. Five days ago wasn’t long at all.

“I couldn’t tell. She was quiet. Didn’t say much.”

Enne squeezed the card until it bent and crumpled in her hand. “Five days ago,” she muttered, wiping her eyes.

Levi put a comforting hand on her shoulder and asked, “And there’s nothing else you know?”

The woman shook her head. “Was she in trouble or something? I don’t want whiteboots showing up and making the inn look suspicious.” She eyed them shrewdly, as if she’d already made up her mind about them. “Get out. I don’t want guests to get the wrong impression.”

What guests? Levi wanted to ask, but then Enne ripped Levi’s hand off her shoulder and stormed outside. He followed, unsure if he should tell her the truth about the Shadow Card. He would tell her later, tonight. It was dangerous to speak about things like that out in the open, especially so close to Luckluster Casino.

She leaned against a chain-link fence, and Levi waited for her to cry, as he expected she might. Instead, she stuffed the Shadow Card in her pocket, the look on her face icy. It made him uneasy, but Levi knew better than to offer her comfort now. It wasn’t his responsibility to console her, even if he felt like he should.

It was a strange notion, but Levi was beginning to consider Enne as a friend—maybe even more than that. After all, they were both trapped in the same, unspeakable cage. Such a bond might not have meant much to Enne, but it meant something to him.

“Let’s go back,” she murmured.

Levi hesitated. Where was all that earlier talk about the blood gazer and adventuring anywhere for her mother? It was difficult to tell from her expression if she was feeling defeated or faking it—her poker face was better than most.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m tired, and, like you said, it’s almost sundown.” She smiled stiffly. “Maybe we’ll try the blood gazer tomorrow.”

Their walk back to St. Morse was silent. Levi mentally prepared a speech for what he’d tell Enne about the Shadow Card, but his rehearsed words kept falling short. Any Shadow Card, not just the Fool’s invitation, signaled a probable death on the horizon. He couldn’t imagine saying those words out loud, considering the Shadow Card he carried in his own pocket.

Your mother is probably dead, he’d say. And without her, I probably will be, too.

Halfway there, it started to drizzle. The rain tasted like smoke.

“Do you want my jacket?” he offered.

“How gentlemanly.”

He slipped it off and draped it over Enne’s shoulders. It swallowed her, made her look like a lost waif as she wandered through the rain. Something in Levi’s chest constricted seeing her in his jacket, something an awful lot like satisfaction. It felt like a dangerous thing.

“Thanks.” She slipped her hands into the pockets and tugged it closer around herself.

“We should have a talk, you and I, when we get back,” he said hoarsely.

She looked up at the dark sky, her expression unreadable. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”

Levi’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Yes. Of course.” More than anything right now, he really needed a decent night’s sleep. If Lourdes was dead, Levi would need to spend the next seven nights earning the volts the only way he knew how: from card table to card table, all across the North Side. If things were different, he’d bring a team of his best dealers with him from the Irons—but that meant telling the Irons the truth, and Levi would rather die in the Shadow Game than have his friends learn how he’d betrayed them.

He’d already dug his own grave, and he wouldn’t bring the Irons down with him.

When they returned to St. Morse, they rode the elevator quietly to their floors. As Enne stepped out to walk to her own apartment, his breath hitched. He didn’t want to spend the night alone. Maybe he could invite her upstairs, pour them each a drink and confide everything to her. He had a feeling she might understand his problems better than anyone.

“Here’s your jacket,” Enne offered, her gaze on the floor. “Thanks.”

Levi took it numbly and slipped it back on. “You don’t need to... I mean, you can come...”

“I’d really like to be alone,” she said.

“Oh. Oh, yeah...of course.” He wasn’t the only one with problems, but apparently Enne didn’t want to share hers tonight.

The elevator’s gate closed, and Levi felt acutely alone.

*

Levi found Jac passed out on his couch with a five-inch cut along his right eyebrow, bruised purple and green and stitched up with black thread. The whole room smelled like his aura: light and clean, like he’d opened the window even though it was bolted shut.

Levi shook him awake. Jac sat up with a start and rubbed his eyes.

“Took a nap,” he mumbled.

“Who did those stitches? A blind man?” Levi asked.

“Oh, these?” He pointed to his forehead—as if Levi could’ve been referencing a different wound—and gently touched the scar, flinching. “I did. Last night.”