Ace Of Shades. Amanda Foody
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of fast fortune.
But neither the stories nor the cover bore any resemblance to the city before her. From what she could see, New Reynes was a wasteland of metal and white stone. The factories in the distance glinted as if coated in liquid steel, and the clouds were so black she swore the rain would fall dark as coal.
Panic seized her as she examined the skyline—white and jagged as teeth.
All you know are stories, Enne told herself. And not all stories are true.
“Next!” called the man at the customs table, and Enne hurried to his desk. He snatched the papers from her hands. “Erienne Abacus Salta.”
She cringed at the sound of her full name. No one called her that but her teachers.
The man wore round spectacles rimmed in faux gold, making his eyes appear magnified as they traveled from her face and slithered down her body. “A Salta, eh? Then you’re a dancer.” By the way he said “dancer,” drawing out the s sound and licking his lips, Enne knew he wasn’t picturing her ballet at finishing school.
Her cheeks reddened. City of Sin, indeed. She was not that kind of dancer. She. Was. A. Lady.
He glanced back at her paperwork. “From Bellamy. Seventeen years old. You know, you hardly look seventeen.”
She flushed deeper and counted backward from ten, lest she say something indecent and break one of Lourdes’s sacred rules.
Ladies should never reveal their emotions. That was the first rule.
The man checked the birth date on her passport, shrugged and returned to her travel documents. “Blood talent is dancing, of course. What is the Abacus family talent?”
“Arithmetic,” she answered. Every person possessed two talents, one inherited from each parent. The stronger one was known as the blood talent, and the weaker was called the split talent. Enne’s Abacus split talent was so weak it might as well have been nonexistent, as if all her ability had gone to pliés and pirouettes rather than to simple math.
The man scribbled her talents and family names into a grease-stained booklet. “How long is your stay?”
“The summer,” Enne said, trying to make her voice sound strong. School began again in September, and this was Enne’s final year before graduation, before her debut into society. All her life she had perfected her fouettés, memorized her table settings and obsessed over every salon invitation...all to graduate and earn the title of lady. She wanted it more than she wanted anything. It was all she’d cared about...
Until Lourdes went missing.
No matter how scared or how alone she felt, Enne swore to remain in this disgusting city until she found her mother. For however long it took. But secretly, selfishly, she hoped she’d find Lourdes before September. Without her debut, she wasn’t sure who she was supposed to become.
The man tapped his ballpoint pen at the bottom of the document. “Sign your name here. If you can’t write, just put an X. And if you can read, go ’head and verify everything.”
The document was a horror of fine print. At the top of the page was a check box for those with Talents of Mysteries. During the reigns of the Mizers, the various kingdoms had required every citizen to be classified into one of two categories based on their talents: Talents of Aptitude and Talents of Mysteries. Both Enne’s blood and split talent were considered Talents of Aptitude; anyone could develop a skill in dancing or arithmetic, even if they would never compare to those born with a family talent.
Talents of Mysteries, however, couldn’t be learned. Crudely put, they were magic—and even the Mizer kings, who’d had powerful Talents of Mysteries of their own, had considered them to be a threat. Before the Revolution, there had been harsh restrictions on where people could live and who they could marry based on their talents. It was one of the many reasons the Mizers were overthrown. And so Enne was shocked to find such a classification in an official document in New Reynes, the Republic’s capital, the home of the Revolution. It was archaic. Distasteful.
She signed her name in her best calligraphic script, ready to move on.
With a dreadful thud, the man pounded her passport with a wooden stamp bearing the Republic’s insignia, a circle with a bolt of lightning inside, meant to resemble an orb full of volts. The signature of Chancellor Malcolm Semper—the “Father of the Revolution,” and still the Republic’s leader twenty-five years later—was engraved over it.
Handing her the papers, the customs man said, “Enjoy New Reynes.”
As if she could enjoy herself when her mother was lost in this rotten city.
Enne shoved her way out of the crowd and stared blankly at the vast New Reynes skyline. At the unfamiliar fashions of the people around her. At the bleakness of the city’s polluted sky. She had no idea where to begin. As she crossed the street, the people waiting to be reunited with their families looked straight through her, as though she didn’t exist.
On her tiptoes, Enne scanned the crowd for Lourdes, for her pale blond hair or signature crimson scarf. She was nowhere.
With the passing of each day beyond Lourdes’s deadline, Enne had begun to crack. As weeks lapsed, then months, the cracks had deepened and spread. Now, as she held her breath and desperately searched the faces of the strangers around her, she felt that she was more broken than not. One exhale, one sob, and all her pieces would shatter.
Lourdes is alive, she assured herself, just as she had done every day for months. The repetition of the words steadied her more than the words themselves.
Lourdes was alive. She was in this city. And Enne would find her.
She repeated the mantra several times, like twisting the key in a porcelain doll, winding herself back together.
Never allow yourself to be lost, Enne recited in her head. That was Lourdes’s second rule.
But she wasn’t lost. She was terrified, and that was worse to admit.
She was terrified that—no matter how many times she recited Lourdes’s rules, or how many times she wound herself back together—she’d made a dangerous mistake in thinking she could brave the City of Sin. If the stories were true, she was a schoolgirl who had just wandered into the city of the wolves.
She was terrified that Lourdes was dead, just as she had warned.
Lastly, she was terrified of finding her. For all of Enne’s life, it had been only her and Lourdes and no one else. Lourdes was her home, but that home had many locked doors. Her mother had rooms full of secrets Enne had been forbidden to see, secrets Enne had pretended didn’t exist.
Once she found Lourdes, it was past time Enne opened those doors.
Hands shaking, Enne pulled Where To Go and Where Not To from her pocket and turned the pages to the city map. The Brint River split New Reynes into two halves: the North and the South. She was currently in the harbor, the smallest district of the notorious North Side.
If a storm were to further delay my return or another unforeseen circumstance occurs, you can speak to Mr. Levi Glaisyer, a friend of mine who lives in New Reynes. He will be glad to help you.
That was from the mysterious letter Lourdes had sent Enne a month after she had left home. Enne had never heard of this Mr. Levi Glaisyer, nor had she the least idea how to find him. On the map, she scanned the various neighborhoods of the much more refined South Side: the Senate District, the Park District, the Student District...he could live anywhere.
Two police officers slumped against the wall of a warehouse, talking to a boy roughly Enne’s age. The officers wore tarnished white boots and jackets buttoned from hips to throat, the threads frayed, the pits stained, the collars scuffed.
The boy speaking to them had a harsh face, like someone had carved his features with a razor so that they sharpened as he scowled. His shoulder bones, hip bones and wrist bones all jutted out uncomfortably,