“I don’t know,” Lola answered. “Not one of the royal bloodlines of Reynes. It came from your father’s side.”
Her father. The father Lourdes had claimed was a dancer, from a common family of one of the most common talents. Enne had always assumed Lourdes hadn’t known her father, and Enne had rarely dwelled on him. She’d liked to imagine that he was alive somewhere, that he’d found a happy ending, even if her mother’s had been tragic.
But Lola’s claims meant that both of her parents, beyond a reasonable doubt, were dead.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Enne said. She reached for Lourdes’s rules, for familiar words to recite until she once again felt at ease. But her mouth was dry. Lourdes had lied. Not just about her politics, about her double life, but about Enne’s very identity, and Enne, miles away from her home, a knife clutched in her trembling hand, dried blood crusting her arm, didn’t know how she would ever forgive her. “But I came to New Reynes to save someone, and I’d rather shed tears over her. Not a stranger who wishes me dead.”
Lola bit her lip and lifted her head higher, away from the knife. “Please don’t,” she whispered.
Enne’s choices, as it turned out, were one mistake after another. Tracking down Lola was a mistake—now she had secrets she didn’t want and a blood gazer who could only become a liability. Finding Levi was a mistake—he knew no more about Lourdes’s whereabouts than Enne did. Journeying to New Reynes was a mistake—if Lourdes could never be found, then the only other things Enne had left were in Bellamy, at home. But now, thanks to Vianca’s omerta, she couldn’t even go back.
Not everything she had was in Bellamy, she reminded herself. Lourdes was, hopefully, here. Levi was here. Her answers were here. Her desire to return home was only a desire to forget this place, and Enne was beyond forgetting. She had already passed the point of no return.
“Then give me a way out,” Enne pleaded.
“I won’t tell anyone who you are. I promise.”
“Your promise means nothing. You wanted to kill me just for being who I am.”
Lola glared at her. “Fine. I’ll swear to you.” She made a crossing motion over her chest, the same as the Irons did for Levi.
Enne nearly laughed. Swearing was for cheats like Levi and snakes like Reymond. Enne was simply a girl from a finishing school.
“What good will that do? I’m not a street lord.”
“There’s power in an oath. I wouldn’t be able to tell someone even if I wanted to.”
That didn’t make sense: only talents held power. The concepts of magic or anything more than that came from the Faith, from the stories the Mizer kings told to shape themselves into gods. Like Lourdes, Enne was a pragmatist; there had been no fairy tales and ancient lore in their household growing up. What Lola claimed was impossible.
“That can’t be true,” Enne said.
“Like your talents can’t be true?” Lola countered.
Enne clenched her teeth. Even if the oath’s power was real, that made her no better than Vianca. But it was also the only option they both had left.
“Aren’t you a Dove?” Enne asked.
Lola laughed bitterly. “No. I don’t wear the white for...” Her mouth snapped shut, and she averted her gaze. “I’m not.”
Several moments passed in silence because Enne didn’t know what else to say. She lowered the knife away from Lola’s neck. Lola sighed, rubbed her throat where the knife had been, and sat up. She glared at Enne with contempt, and Enne hated seeing it.
I had no other choice, Enne told herself.
“I, Lola Baird Sanguick, swear to Enne Dondelair Scordata.”
That’s not my name, Enne thought, too numb to interrupt Lola’s speech.
“Blood by blood. Oath by oath. Life by life. I swear to live by the code of those before me—” she crossed her heart a second time “—and if I break this code, let me burn until I am only a shade.”
The words left an unsettling clamor in the air, as if they existed longer than simply when spoken.
“Is that it?” Enne breathed. She held out her hand to help Lola up.
The blood gazer ignored it. “That’s it,” she said, climbing to her feet.
Rain drummed on the roof, and Enne could hear the rushing of water in the gutter outside.
“There’s a good chance you’ll never see me again,” Enne started. “But if I needed to find you, would I come here?”
“Yes.” When Enne opened her mouth to tell her she was staying at St. Morse, Lola said, “Don’t tell me. It’s better I don’t know where you are.”
Enne considered apologizing, but she wasn’t sorry that she was alive.
She needed to go home and think about what she’d learned, and about what these secrets meant for her relationship with Lourdes—or if she even believed them.
“I’d like my gun back before I go,” she said.
Before they could return to the basement, another door burst open, and Enne screamed in surprise. Levi and Jac charged inside, rain-soaked, pointing a new set of pistols wildly around the room. Jac flipped a light switch.
“What the muck?” Lola shouted, her arms raised, squinting in the light.
Levi’s eyes narrowed as he looked between them in confusion. “Why did you scream?” he was asking Enne, but his gaze—and Jac’s—was fixed on the white in Lola’s hair.
“Because you scared me,” Enne said flatly.
“Pup?” Lola said, shakily lowering her arms.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“It’s your hair. Not many orb-makers on the North Side.”
Jac pocketed his gun. “What happened here?”
“The missy was just leaving. You should, too.” Lola rubbed her temples. “I don’t like guns or dogs in my office.”
“You’re both a little scruffed up,” Levi said, making no indication that he’d heard the jibe at his nickname. “Had a bit of an argument?”
Both Enne and Lola were covered in sweat, dirt and dried blood. Enne bit her lip. She hadn’t even had time to process Lola’s information for herself—she wasn’t sure she was ready to tell Levi. And she definitely wasn’t ready to tell Jac, whom she barely knew. If Lourdes’s connection to monarchists had been dangerous, then Enne’s very association was deadly, and she could trust no one.
“Forget it,” Enne said. “We’re leaving as soon as I get my gun.”
“Your gun?” Levi barked out madly. She squeezed Levi’s arm in response, so he couldn’t shrug her off. As Lola walked down the stairway to the cellar, the three of them lingered in the piano room.
“Are we keeping secrets now?” Levi hissed in her ear. His breath was hot against her neck.
She backed away from him. “I don’t want to talk about this here.”
“You know that girl is a Dove, right?” Jac asked. “The gang of assassins?”
“I know what the white hair means,” Enne snapped. “But she’s not a Dove. She—”
“Obviously not,” Levi said darkly, “or you’d be dead.” Enne shuddered. “I need to know what happened.”
“Why do you need to know, Levi?” she seethed.
“Because I’m helping you, remember?”
“I was doing fine on my own.” That was mostly true—she’d handled it, anyway.
“Were you?” He reached for her hand, but she quickly hugged her arms around herself. “You’d rather I leave?”
“I’d rather you stop being difficult.”
He opened his mouth like he wanted to argue something else, then snapped it shut and shook his head. Behind him, Jac was peering out the window, as if he thought he’d find more Doves lurking on Lola’s front lawn.
Lola climbed back up the stairs and handed Enne the gun. Levi reached for it sourly, but Enne quickly shoved it in her pocket. He didn’t need two. She’d give it back to him later.
“Don’t follow us,” Jac warned Lola, his chest puffed out.
She picked her scalpel up off the ground and licked her lips. “Why? Worried what would happen once you split up, and it isn’t three against one?” Jac paled and kept one hand on his holster.
Despite her threat, Enne strongly doubted Lola would try anything. If Enne could overpower her, she was sure Jac could as well with his strength talent. Maybe Levi, too. She wasn’t a real Dove.