steal your volts with only a graze of your skin. Forgoing orbs was impractical.
“The Mizers were all systematically murdered during the Revolution. Adults and children alike,” Levi said gravely. “There were protests, of course, but the Phoenix Club didn’t much care. Twenty-five years ago sounds like a long time, but not for the North Side. Mizers are still a political topic, but we don’t need them anymore, now that volts can be manufactured artificially. Still, the monarchists have been slowly gaining momentum to fight against corruption.”
“Do you agree with the monarchists?” Enne asked quietly. Levi almost made it sound like the monarchists were in the right, when all Enne had ever associated them with was extremism and violence.
He smiled in a way that wasn’t much of a smile at all. “I don’t involve myself in politics.”
Seeking reassurance, Enne took her token out of her pocket. It’d always seemed like a unique trinket, something pretty Lourdes had thought Enne might like. Now Enne saw the woman in the cameo as a Mizer queen. She saw the Revolution. The queen’s execution. The murder of every Mizer and their sympathizers. She couldn’t decide which was more horrific: that Lourdes had gifted her an object with such a blood-soaked history, or that Enne had treated it as a trinket.
“I still...” She squeezed the token, and it felt warm and steady in her palm. It was her only comfort away from home, alone in this city. “I still can’t picture Lourdes being involved with monarchists.”
“She was more than involved. She was Séance, practically the face of the Mizer sympathizers’ crusade.” He gazed at Enne fiercely, the judgment clear in his dark eyes. What exactly did Levi Glaisyer think of her—that she was desperate? Foolish? Childish? She wondered why she cared. “Why did you think she came to New Reynes so often?”
“She said she was visiting friends,” Enne answered.
“She never thought to bring you to meet those friends?”
“It was more important I stay in school.”
“You never questioned that?”
She squeezed the token in her fist. Was this some kind of interrogation?
“She’s my mother. Why should I have questioned her?” Although Enne had certainly had her suspicions, she’d ignored them. Admittedly, there had once been a time when Enne resented Lourdes for her secrets, for her strange behavior, for the way she alienated Enne from any chance of society’s approval.
But now, with Lourdes’s whereabouts and even survival unknown, she hated herself for those thoughts.
“It’s easy for Protectors to keep secrets,” Levi prodded. “They never seem as if they’re lying. It never occurred to you—”
“No. It didn’t.” Enne’s voice rose, marking the dozenth time she’d broken the show no emotion rule. She didn’t appreciate what Levi was suggesting, that Lourdes would use her talents to purposefully keep Enne in the dark. If a Protector officially swore their powers to someone, they were forever bound to act in that person’s best interest, no matter the implications for themselves. Lourdes had never sworn to anyone, thank goodness. The practice was barbaric and unused since the Revolution. Levi was suggesting Lourdes was protecting someone—probably someone in New Reynes—and, by extension, that Enne hadn’t even noticed that her mother’s life was barely her own.
“I trust her,” Enne snapped. What did he want her to say? That yes, it had occurred to her that Lourdes had purposefully kept information from her? Of course it had. Enne knew Lourdes kept secrets, but he made it sound as if their entire relationship was a lie, and Enne would never believe that. “I trust her. Maybe trust is a foreign concept to you.”
She realized, once she said it, that the words had come out rather harsh. This whole time, Levi had kept a remarkably cool expression. She was the one working herself up. For a moment, she considered apologizing. Then...
“Maybe naïveté is a foreign concept to you,” he said drily.
That thought vanished.
“How dare—”
“If you’re so jumpy answering my questions, how are you going to last one night on the North Side? How are you going to face Vianca Augustine?” He shook his head, and Enne couldn’t decide if she felt ashamed or aggravated. He wasn’t being fair. “I’m just trying to keep you from getting yourself killed.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. It wasn’t as though she was in any real danger. At least, as long as she didn’t speak to any whiteboots again.
He leaned forward and steepled his fingers, his expression grim. “Have you ever heard of the Phoenix Club?”
“Only now, when you just mentioned it,” she answered.
“They’re the most powerful and dangerous people in the Republic. Businessmen, wigheads, scholars...all with a talent for immortality. They’re the ones who orchestrated the Mizer executions. The whole Revolution, even.”
She searched his expression for one of his telltale smirks, but found none.
“There’s no talent for immortality,” she said. “That’s impossible.”
He sighed, cracked his neck and checked his watch. Enne’s nostrils flared. If anyone had a right to feel impatient, it was she. “Chancellor Semper himself is part of the Phoenix Club. He’s their leader.”
She barked out a laugh. “You expect me to believe that?”
Levi stood. “Fine, missy. I was trying to prepare you. But if you’re so sure of yourself, you’re obviously ready for Vianca.”
He walked to his front door and motioned for her to follow. Enne hesitated, wanting to challenge him. But if she kept arguing, she might start crying again. The urge to do so throbbed in her chest, and if she even used enough breath to say fine, it would explode. She’d already cried twice this morning. She didn’t know how she had enough tears left for a third.
They were silent until the elevator reached the bottom floor, where she followed Levi through another hallway lined with portraits of Mizer monarchs with amethyst eyes.
“You should address Vianca as Madame,” he said, more like a warning than a suggestion. “She likes that.”
“I’m more than comfortable addressing superiors.” Her voice sounded steady and precise. The streets might’ve been Levi’s arena, but etiquette was hers. After everything she’d faced so far this day, an interview with Vianca Augustine hardly intimidated her.
Enne held her head up high, smoothed down her hair and focused. She repeated Lourdes’s rules in the back of her mind.
His eyes trailed over her—almost enough to ruin that focus. “I take it you didn’t like my choice of dress for you.”
“It was inappropriate. Particularly for an interview.”
“Maybe that’s why I liked it.”
He smiled, and no, no, she wouldn’t let that smile break her resolve to be aggravated with him. She stared in the direction of
