Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1)(78)

Enne took a deep breath and slid the token into the coin slot.

There was a metal clanking from inside, followed by several clicks of unlatching locks. The handle spun counterclockwise three times before the door creaked open.

Enne cautiously stepped inside. At first she was confused—she’d expected dozens of shelves of orbs, enough to contain the fortune she’d uncovered in those bank slips.

The vault was completely empty.

She placed a hand on the wall, steadying herself. Another dead end.

“Look,” Lola said, picking up a small object Enne hadn’t noticed in the corner. It was a single, miniature orb made of black glass, with golden sparks glowing faintly inside. Volts were white, not gold. Which meant it wasn’t a real orb.

“Is it a trick?” Enne asked, walking closer to Lola. She tried not to let her disappointment show, but her voice was catching. Had Lourdes emptied the vault since Enne had found the statement? Why leave behind this...toy?

Lola held it up to the light and examined it. “Do you have a volt reader?”

Enne did, in her purse. She held the sensor to the orb’s metal cap, but nothing registered. She sighed and shoved both the reader and the black orb into her bag.

“Has the account been emptied recently?” she asked the guard.

“Why would I know that?” he snapped.

Enne put her hands on her hips and stared around the empty room. The metal walls reminded her of a prison cell, and she shivered, feeling claustrophobic. No leads, no answers. She was trapped in this city.

As Enne turned around to leave, she caught a glint at the corner of her eye—there was a faint line in the wall to her left, almost imperceptible. As she walked toward it, she made out the thin outline of a square. She ran her fingers across its edges. Her nails found a latch in the metal, and she flipped it open, revealing a keyhole.

Enne fished around her purse.

“Do you have a key?” Lola asked.

“This should do,” Enne said, brandishing a bobby pin.

“You’re joking. You some expert lock-picker?”

“I’ve done it before.” Once.

Enne fiddled the bobby pin around the lock, searching for its mechanisms. The lock was no more complicated than the one on Lourdes’s office. Perhaps Lourdes had felt the box’s concealment was protection enough.

After about a minute, the lock clicked open. Enne smiled triumphantly and yanked out the bent bobby pin.

The drawer slid open, and Enne pulled out a bronze coin. It was a token matching her own, only with a king on its face rather than a queen. It was hot to the touch—almost burning, though with no discernable reason as to why. Unlike the queen’s token, this one lacked the signature ridges that made it a key. It was simply a coin.

“Feel this,” Enne said, handing the coin to Lola. “It’s warm.”

Lola touched it, then shook her head. “Most people keep volts in a bank.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Seems like a regular coin to me. It’s old, though. Much older than the key.”

“Well, it must be important, if Lourdes took the trouble to hide it like that.” That was what she tried to convince herself, anyway. She’d come here for answers but was leaving with trinkets.

The more she uncovered about her mother, the less she seemed to understand her.

Enne slid the new token into her purse, as well. She gazed around the room for any other mysterious hiding places, but found none. She swallowed her disappointment.

“So we found nothing,” Enne murmured.

Lola gave her a weak, awkward smile. “It’s not nothing—”

“Yes, it is,” Enne said stiffly. She wished Levi were here to comfort her, rather than the blood gazer. Enne would probably cry if Lola’s harsh words from yesterday weren’t so fresh in her mind. Crying now? You’re something else. She shouldn’t care what Lola thought of her—she’d certainly made her contempt perfectly clear—but Enne still didn’t want to face further judgment. She was too easily wounded right now.

Thankfully, Lola kept quiet on their return upstairs. However, as soon as they exited the elevator, Lola marched across the lobby, her boots thumping loudly on the marble floor.

“Do you have any other information on the account?” she asked the woman. Enne hovered, shocked, behind her. “Statements? Other names? Anything?”

The woman retrieved the paperwork a second time. “There’s a final name listed on the account, this one with an address.” She leaned closer to it, her real eye squinting. “A Ms. Zula Slyk. Number nineteen, the Street of the Holy Tombs. That’s everything I have.” The weight of Enne’s disappointment lifted. Lola turned around, shooting Enne a triumphant smile.

“That’s also in Olde Town,” Lola said. “We could go now.”

Enne debated for a moment. She wanted to, but her acrobatics show was that night. Even if her role in the troupe was a farce, a diversion from the real reason Vianca had hired her, she was actually looking forward to the performance. For once, she had achieved a somewhat notable role.

But her ambitions didn’t matter, not in comparison to finding her mother.

“Maybe we can—”

“But we should wait for the boys,” Lola said. “The Street of the Holy Tombs is deeper into Olde Town. We might not be safe if we ran into any Irons.”