Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1)(67)

“Tell me what’s really going on here,” Jac urged.

“I can’t,” she said.

“I already know your mother is Lourdes Alfero, and I haven’t told anyone,” he said with a sigh. “You might as well tell me everything—about Lola’s oath, what you are. And if you do, I’ll tell you all you want to know about oaths and street rules.”

He had a point. He already knew half the story.

“Fine,” Enne agreed, bracing herself for Levi’s fury later. “Just please put some clothes on.”

*

“Are you sulking about Jac, or are you sulking about riding the Mole?” Enne asked Levi. This far down the line, the Mole’s train car was empty except for Enne, Levi, Jac and a homeless man sleeping on a row of seats in the back.

Levi kept his hat low, covering his identifiable hair—he’d grumbled the entire ride about someone spotting him and ruining his reputation. The two of them stood, gripping a metal pole. “Both.”

“He was very insistent,” Enne said.

“I know how he can be,” he muttered. “You still shouldn’t have told him.”

Jac sat behind them, fingering his Creed necklace. A half hour ago, in Levi’s apartment, he’d been all jokes and eagerness, but since then, Enne had caught him stealing uneasy glances at her, like she was something dangerous and he shouldn’t get too close.

Happy to help, he’d said. Happy until he wasn’t.

She tried to convince herself that she was imagining it, but even now, she felt his gaze searing into her. She pushed her anxieties away.

Enne gestured around the train car, trying to change the subject. “The Mole isn’t so bad. It’s far cleaner than I expected.”

“No one rides the Mole.”

“It was crowded earlier, so apparently people do.”

Levi grumbled something unintelligible and kicked a copy of The Kiss and Tell under a seat. Enne didn’t know why he was pouting. This was far more preferable than walking all the way to the Deadman District like she had before, and Jac wasn’t whining childishly about reputation like Levi was.

“I hope you’re thinking of something to say,” she said quietly, “because I’d just as rather never see her again.”

“Oh, I’m not doing the talking.” Levi shook his head. “You’re the lord. You think of a reason other than ‘I need to make the oath stronger so I know you won’t kill me.’”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a lord.”

“Maybe you weren’t two days ago, but that’s how oaths work. You’re Lola’s lord now.” He flicked her lightly on the forehead. Enne grimaced. Jac’s explanations earlier about her newfound title had confused her more than anything else.

Oaths are the opposite of omertas, he’d said. Omertas force you to do something, and oaths prevent it. Before Enne could counter that omertas also prevented her from openly discussing them, Jac was already launching on to new stories. The laws of the streets blended magical oaths, criminal legends and—as far as Enne could tell—utter nonsense. She’d left that conversation with nothing but confusion.

“Maybe you can win Lola over with your charm,” Levi said.

Enne very much doubted that. Lola was as easily charmed as barbed wire.

“Don’t let her see your fear,” Jac reminded her, apparently eavesdropping. “That’s the first rule.”

It was surreal to hear Lourdes’s rules from someone else’s mouth. Earlier, Jac had listed all ten of them, in the exact order Enne so often repeated to herself. It was perhaps the most unexpected and unnerving of Lourdes’s betrayals, and exactly the sort of thing Enne wished she could ask her mother about, if she was here. Why share these rules with Enne? Why teach her they were something else?

She sighed. It was during moments like these, of anger or sadness or hopelessness, that she missed Lourdes the most. She needed her mother to sort out her confusion, to take her hand and remind her of who she was and what was important.

“Where did the rules even come from?” Enne asked.

“From the Great Street War,” Levi answered. “Veil probably wrote them.”

“I heard it was Havoc,” Jac said. “They were opposing street lords, Veil and Havoc. It’s been eighteen years and people still take sides.”

“It was definitely Veil,” Levi repeated.

“You just say that because you worship Veil.”

He stiffened. “That’s not true.”

“When I first met you, you were dressed like him. In costume. You thought you were pretty neat.”

Levi kicked Jac in the shin, but Jac kept grinning. Enne relaxed a little at Jac’s dimples. Maybe she was imagining the tension.

The train car stopped, and they got off. It was early evening, the height of rush hour, yet the Deadman District was mostly quiet. The rain over the past few days had ushered a cool front over the city, and Enne shivered under her jacket. She kept both hands in her pockets. Her right finger traced along the barrel of Levi’s gun.

They found their way back to Lola’s cellar office and knocked on the door.

Lola’s green eyes appeared through the two bullet holes.

Swallowing the guilt and nervousness in her chest, Enne said, “’Lo.”