ENNE
Enne stood in the hallway of black and white doors, searching for the right one. She spun in a circle, looking for something familiar. The previous door she’d opened had been her memory of the last time she spoke to Lourdes, but she couldn’t remember which door it was. The hallway stretched endlessly in both directions, every inch of it the same.
She walked to a black door. Those belonged to her.
Inside, she heard thunder.
She opened it hesitantly and peeked into its darkness. Unlike her first visit to the hallway, when she had relived a memory, this time, she was a spectator.
She was in the basement of a home she didn’t recognize, and a storm raged outside. A young person clutched what looked like a three-year-old Enne in her arms. As a toddler, Enne’s hair had been curlier, her eyes less wide set. She was red in the face from crying, scared by the storm.
The person shushed her softly. “Loddie has you. Loddie has you.” That was the name Enne had called Lourdes when she was little.
But this person was surely too young to be Lourdes, Enne thought, even though it was clearly her. That evening, her long blond hair was tied at the nape of her neck and braided down to her waist. She wore fluid clothes, but they didn’t fit her properly—it was a time before Lourdes had tailored all her outfits. Otherwise, her women’s clothes were always too short, her men’s always hanging or tight in the wrong areas. If Enne had to guess, Lourdes was about eighteen in this memory.
Neither the child nor Lourdes took any notice of Enne standing there, so she sat down next to her mother, curled her legs to her chest and listened with them to the storm.
Eventually, the toddler stopped whimpering and fell asleep. Lourdes leaned her head back against the wall, her face weary. She winced with every new crack of thunder and, eventually, also began to cry.
It was strange to see Lourdes like this. There was something rawer about her. In all Enne’s memories, Lourdes had never cried. Apparently, she hadn’t always been so reserved.
Tell me what happened, Enne wanted to say. Tell me your story.
But, of course, her mother couldn’t hear her.
Enne didn’t leave until Lourdes fell asleep. Then she slipped out and through the next black door in the hallway, eager for more forgotten time spent with her mother.
Except in this scene, Enne was alone. She was sixteen years old, and she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. She crept across the upstairs hallway in her nightgown, an unused lantern at her side. Last time she’d attempted this, Lourdes had discovered her in the act, and it had devolved into a shouting match—one of the first they’d ever had. But Lourdes was on another one of her trips to New Reynes, and Enne was alone in the house, except for the staff.
She knelt in front of Lourdes’s office door and pulled a pin from her hair.
It took nearly thirty minutes for her to pick the lock. She had no idea what she was doing, but the longer she sat there, fiddling, the more understanding she developed of the mechanisms. Finally, she heard the lock click, and she turned the knob and crawled into the room.
The office was stark, almost empty. She went for the desk first, yanking out drawers full of pencils and rubbish—Lourdes had always been impressively messy—searching for...something, anything to explain her mother’s business in the City of Sin. Enne turned on the lantern, heart pounding, and examined the bank slips in the cabinet.
The address on the papers was in New Reynes, but neither sixteen-year-old Enne nor the Enne peering over her shoulder recognized the address.
1089 Virtue Street, New Reynes.
The statement was dated from a few months ago—from Lourdes’s last trip to the city. And—both their eyes widened as they examined the document—it was for a bank account with a balance of over two hundred million volts.
Both of them gasped.
Memory Enne threw the papers back in the cabinet and slammed it closed, and the Enne who watched her remembered what she’d been thinking. It was wealth unlike that of anyone she knew, anything she’d ever heard of. Enne knew Lourdes had inherited money from her own mysterious family, but she’d never imagined anything like that.
The memory used to hold shame for Enne. This was the one time she had betrayed Lourdes’s trust and uncovered a secret she shouldn’t have known. But as her present self left the room and returned to the hallway, her guilt was gone. She wished she’d explored more of the office that night. Maybe she would have stumbled across another clue, something to help in the present search for her mother. Had Enne known any of the secrets she knew now, everything would be different. Enne would’ve journeyed to New Reynes sooner, or asked to go with Lourdes.
She found a new black door. It was the first one that wasn’t a memory.
The room smelled sweet. Enne stood facing a mirror. Below her, a joint of Mistress burned in an ashtray, its soot golden, matching her costume and the shimmery eyeshadow she wore. Enne’s boots were black, heeled and rose to midthigh. A garter belt snaked up her legs and disappeared underneath a corseted dress, which was sequined from navel to cleavage and crisscrossed in violet ribbon. The bust was strapless, meant to be removed more than admired. The feathers protruding from its bottom would do little to cover her if she bent over.
Still, it was hard to feel exposed when there was no one here but her. She shuffled through the cosmetic products on the counter, then reached for a sweet-smelling perfume and a lipstick black as licorice.
She examined herself in the mirror. No one would call her a doll in this outfit.
Or much of a lady.
She smiled to herself. There was no one but her to know. After all—this was only a dream.
Jazzy music played outside, and she followed it to the stage. The lights were too bright to see into the audience, if there was anyone there at all. She remembered Demi’s routine with a mixture of embarrassment and thrill. Without the leering eyes of anyone watching her, she felt powerful in these clothes. Attractive. If the world were a different sort of place, she might trim off the feathers and wear it for fun.
She danced alone on the stage. Nothing suggestive...at first. It took a few minutes for her to decide such a style would be fun to try. She unlaced the ribbons on her corset.
Several minutes into the routine, she became aware of the fact that she was no longer dreaming. Her head was pressed against the pillow. Her nightdress was twisted around her stomach, her feet dangling off the edge of the bed. But she wasn’t done exploring the dream just yet, so she didn’t open her eyes.
At some point, in her sleepy, half-conscious state, she inserted someone else into her fantasy. An admiring gaze. Hands trailing down her hips. Lips brushing against her chest.
The light in her window brightened from the sunrise. She was now mostly conscious and exceptionally frustrated. She untwisted her nightdress and scratched an itch on her thigh, then her hand trailed up and lingered between her legs, making up for the fantasy that was slowly fading. If she were anywhere else but New Reynes—in her dormitory, in her own bedroom—she probably wouldn’t have dared. She rubbed her lips together, as if she could still feel the smoothness of the black lipstick, could still feel the thrilling empowerment of the stage lights and the stranger’s stomach pressed against hers.
When she finished, she was breathless and sweaty. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her St. Morse apartment. At first, she felt embarrassed, even if it was no different from that stage where no one could see her. She’d never been a prude, but inexperience lent itself to shyness, even around herself.
She climbed out of bed and sat at her vanity. Her face was slightly flushed, and the indentations of the pillow lined her cheek.
She examined her lipsticks and selected the shade closest to black.
* * *
Enne waited in the St. Morse lobby, tapping her foot. It was past the meeting time, and no one else had arrived yet. When she’d knocked on Levi’s door, there’d been no answer, and she honestly wasn’t certain if Lola would even show.
It was ludicrous to put any faith in dreams, but nothing about the hallway felt like one. The scenes were still fresh in her mind, the memories exact in every detail, as though she’d really experienced them.
She traced her finger over the guidebook’s map. Virtue Street was located in Olde Town, exactly where Lola thought the bank would be. The road ran parallel to Tropps Street, virtue and vice never intersecting.
Just as she’d begun to worry about the others, Lola strode in through the revolving doors, wearing her now-familiar top hat. She took one look around St. Morse’s gaudy interior and grimaced.
“You’re wearing lipstick,” Lola commented. She squinted at Enne’s face, as if examining an optical illusion. “It suits you.”
This was the first nice thing Lola had ever said to her. She beamed. “Thank you.” Enne felt it suited her, too.
“Where are the Iron boys?”
“I’m not sure. They should’ve been here a while ago.” She shouldn’t worry. What trouble could they have found by midmorning? Maybe they’d just slept in after a long night.
“Then it’s just us,” Lola said. Even though there was no threat in her voice, the words unnerved Enne. She was glad she’d brought Levi’s revolver—several days had passed since the night she’d stolen it, but he’d never asked for it back. Maybe she’d keep it.
Still, Lola was right. There was no point in wasting more of the day.
They ventured outside and headed to the bank. Olde Town was particularly quiet that morning, few people venturing outside due to the sudden heat. Enne, however, relished the weather; she’d felt as though she’d left summer behind her when she sailed away from Bellamy.
She pulled her guidebook out and followed the route on the map. Neither of them spoke for some time, which was just fine with Enne, as she was too lost in her own thoughts. Without even sharing Lourdes’s blood name, how would she gain access to the account? Would Lourdes have opened the account in her name or under another alias? And even if Enne gained access, what would she do with all those volts?
Lola’s voice interrupted Enne’s thoughts. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Enne said nervously. There was no bite or threat in Lola’s voice, but that was precisely why she was nervous.
“If Lourdes raised you as your mother, why do you call her by her first name?”
Enne shrugged. “She never wanted me to call her Mother.” She had wondered this herself when she was younger, but even though Lourdes never discussed her own family, Enne got the sense she’d had a complicated relationship with her own mother.
“Can I ask you a question now?” Enne asked.
Lola’s eyebrows furrowed, and she crossed her arms. “I guess.”
“If you’re not a Dove, why do you dye your hair white?”
It felt like a simple question, but clearly, it was one Lola didn’t want to answer.
“Don’t ask me that,” she growled, then brushed past Enne and walked several steps ahead of her for the rest of the trip.
The sign for Virtue Street was rusted over, and layers and layers of kiss marks covered it in all shades of lipstick.
“We’re here,” Lola said. “You can kiss the sign if you’d like. It’s a New Reynes tradition.”
Enne grimaced. “I’ll pass.”
They stopped another block down the street. According to a plaque outside, the building before them was indeed the bank, but Enne could just as easily have mistaken it for a penitentiary. Wrought iron gates encircled the grounds and guarded each of its windows. Larger-than-life obsidian statues lined the walkway to the front door, but dark sacks covered each of their heads, like the sort draped over a man as he approached the gallows.
“Mizer kings, probably,” Lola said cheerfully.
Enne shivered. “They could have just taken them down.”
“They’re reminders, not decorations.”
They walked inside and approached the main desk, entirely protected by bulletproof glass except for a sliver of space to exchange documents—a harsh contrast to the marble grandeur of its decor. The woman behind the desk was elderly, with one keen blue eye and a second wooden one.
Enne slid her token under the glass. The woman snatched it up and held it close to her good eye.
“These aren’t the standard engravings,” she remarked suspiciously. She rubbed her thumb over the cameo of the Mizer queen. “This is very outdated.”
“We’d like access to the vault that coin opens,” Enne said firmly.
“You can only enter the vault if your name is on the account.” The woman turned to a file cabinet and perused it for the correct number. “Hmm. There are several listed. Are you a Ms. Lourdes Orefla?”
Enne stilled and whispered to Lola, “Do you think that’s her real name?”
“That’s just Alfero backward, thickhead,” Lola hissed.
Enne reddened. “No,” she told the woman. “I’m not.”
The woman adjusted her bifocals. “A Ms. Erienne Salta?”
Excitement surged in Enne’s chest. Lourdes did put her name on the account. Maybe Enne had been meant to find this place after all.
She shoved her identification documents through the window. “Yes. That’s me.”
Several minutes later, a security guard led them to a rather haunting steel elevator and, from there, to the bottom-most level. The hallway had concrete walls, flickering fluorescent lighting and grated metal doors lining either side. They walked until reaching the hallway’s end, where the guard gestured to a vault on their right.
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.”
Enne had faced Dove Land unscathed—certainly she could manage the same in Olde Town. But truthfully, even if Lola had proved helpful today, Levi’s presence would be a comfort. His absence today already had her worried.
“Tomorrow morning, then,” Enne suggested.
“But I have Guild meetings tomorrow.” Lola sounded almost let down about it. “Do you think Lourdes will be there?”
Enne stilled. She didn’t want to consider that she might actually find her mother tomorrow—her chest was already weary from carrying all this repeated hope and disappointment.
“I don’t know,” Enne answered quietly.
She and Lola walked back outside. They leaned against the pedestal of one of the statues. The plaque with the Mizer’s name on it had been shattered beyond legibility, and Enne ran her fingers over the cracks, thinking about the cracks within herself.
“If nothing turns up,” Lola said, “I was thinking we could go to Scrap Market. They have old newspapers there. Ones Lourdes probably wrote for.”
Enne nodded, trying not to focus on the words if nothing turns up. Something would. At some point, the trail needed to lead somewhere.
“That sounds good,” she answered.
Lola pulled her harmonica out of her pocket. “I’ve always liked puzzles.”
Enne almost snapped that her life wasn’t a puzzle, wasn’t some game, but there was no point in angering the blood gazer. Enne preferred this Lola to the one who’d wanted her dead.
Lola blew out an eerie, low note: appropriate for a garden full of hooded statues. While she played, Enne mentally recited Lourdes’s rules to herself to release all the pressure in her heart. Those feelings of power and confidence she’d gained from New Reynes felt like a dream, in this moment, caught between another dead end and another lead.
She rubbed her lipstick off on the back of her hand. Maybe it didn’t suit her after all.