Levi hesitated, not wanting to deliver the bad news so fast. She’d only just she stopped crying. Instead, he said, “You don’t look much like her.” The Lourdes Alfero he remembered was tall, nearly as tall as him, and with blond hair much lighter than Enne’s brown. She’d dressed fluidly—some days as a woman, sometimes as neither male nor female—and her angled features lent themselves easily to her identity. She preferred to be addressed as “she” and “her.”
He didn’t see any of Lourdes’s face in Enne’s.
“Lourdes is my adopted mother,” Enne explained. “But I can tell you’re stalling. Why were the whiteboots so interested in her?”
Levi sighed. She might not know much about New Reynes, but she wasn’t thick. “She’s a Mizer sympathizer. A famous one, at that.”
“What?” Her voice came out in a screech. Maybe she wasn’t as controlled as Levi had first thought.
He supposed he couldn’t blame her slip. Even if the way Chancellor Malcolm Semper governed the Republic was wildly unpopular, the Mizers had been tyrants. In New Reynes, where the Revolution began, men, women and children had cheered in Liberty Square as the royal family was beheaded. Most viewed the monarchists as radicals.
“Ever since the Revolution—especially during the Great Street War, which occurred seven or so years after—there’s been a group of journalists writing for monarchist newspapers. They use code names to expose stories the wigheads try to keep quiet, and they work in secret. They call themselves the Pseudonyms. Lourdes is one of them.” The most famous of them all, even. “The whiteboots have been searching for her for a long time.” And, sometime in the past four months, they’d probably found her.
Levi paused, gauging Enne’s reaction. “Did you really have no idea?”
She bit her lip. “I knew Lourdes had her secrets, but no, I never would’ve guessed this.”
Levi held his breath as he watched the gravity of her mother’s situation dawn on her. He didn’t need to tell her that Alfero was dead. She could probably guess it herself now.
“Do you know where Lourdes might be?” Enne asked, still using present tense. Levi sighed inwardly.
“I haven’t spoken to her in years,” he told her.
“What?” She frowned. “Then why would she recommend you?”
“I’ve got no idea. About four years ago, I got myself into a lot of trouble with a con gone wrong.” And apparently, he thought, I haven’t learned my lesson. “Lourdes paid my way out of it and got me a steady job at St. Morse.”
“St. Morse?”
“The casino. You must’ve heard of it. It’s one of the two largest in the city.”
She pulled a book out of her pocket, and Levi snorted. A tourist guide. “I think I’ve heard of it,” she said, skimming through the pages until she found the passage she was looking for. “Oh. It says not to go there.”
He glanced at the title. The City of Sin, a Guidebook: Where To Go and Where Not To. If she’d paid more attention to her guidebook, then she’d never have followed Chez into Olde Town, the heart of Iron territory. She would’ve left the harbor and gone straight to the South Side, where she clearly belonged.
Levi stood up and reached for his hat on the table.
“Where are you going?” Enne asked.
“Out. There are volts to make and people to cheat.” He flashed her a smile. She was lucky he hadn’t cheated her. He was feeling sentimental today.
“But you didn’t finish your story,” she blurted.
“That is the story. Lourdes helped me out, she got me a job and then she disappeared. I haven’t spoken to her since.”
Enne stood up, her shoulders square and her expression a challenge. He wondered if she really felt that brave, or if she was a breath away from tears again. “But you must help me. I have to find her.”
“I must help you?” he said, taking a step closer. She wasn’t very intimidating, small as she was. Not many spoke to him the way she did. “Why should I? I don’t know you. I barely know your mother.”
“Because...” Her voice wavered. “Because I’ll pay you.”
“You lost your luggage. How many volts could you possibly have on you right now?” His eyes traveled from her purse to her pockets. He doubted she had more than a few hundred.
But...that was a few hundred closer to his ten thousand. Maybe he was feeling a bit altruistic after all.
“Lourdes has a bank account,” Enne said, with the kind of seriousness that made Levi think she wasn’t lying. He searched her face for a tell—everyone always had a tell, a break in their poker face. But he found none.
“It has more volts than you could want,” she continued. “If you help me find her, I’ll pay you.”
“How much?” he asked.
“Five thousand volts,” she said unflinchingly.
He stilled. Did she really have that kind of voltage? She did look like she came from money, as Lourdes always had, too.
Maybe she had five thousand volts. Maybe she had more.
“Sorry,” he said, faking disinterest. “I don’t have time for this. I’m not the sort of guy who helps damsels in distress.”
“Ten thousand volts,” she declared.
Gotcha.
He narrowed his eyes, as if considering. He let a few moments pass, and as he waited, the boldness in her dark eyes never faded. A few minutes ago, she’d been in tears, but she wasn’t broken.
But would she be, once she realized her mother was probably dead?
Maybe Alfero is still alive, Levi thought. After all, she’d survived this long. That alone was impressive.
But unlikely. And a good player knew better than to bet against those kind of odds.
“I’m listening,” he said. “But I’m going to need some incentive up front. Who knows how long it could take to find her?”
“I’ll give you one thousand volts,” she offered, “but not until the end of the day. You said yourself that you barely know Lourdes. I want to make sure you can help me at all.”
If he pressed her for more, she’d probably relent. After all, she could play at being brave all she wanted, but Levi knew better. She’d left her belongings behind to follow Chez straight into the heart of the North Side—she was desperate.
But he didn’t haggle. He didn’t want to scare her away and lose the possibility—even if it was slim—for ten thousand volts, for a chance to save himself. After all, he was desperate, too.
If the day ended without a lead, then Levi would take his one thousand volts tonight and leave her in the dust. Even if ten thousand would cover his entire debt to Sedric, he still doubted that Lourdes Alfero was even alive. He couldn’t afford to waste time on a pointless search.
“We’ll start with a friend of mine,” Levi said. “He can answer our questions.”
Enne’s shoulders relaxed, and she let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Is your friend an...Iron?” she asked.
He smirked. “What? Don’t like my friends much?” Jac might look threatening, but he had all the aggression of a baby rabbit. Mansi was practically Levi’s younger sister. And Chez... Well, Chez and Levi weren’t on the best of terms as of late, but when Chez wanted to, he could be tolerable. Sometimes, when the stars aligned, even pleasant.
“No, my friend’s not an Iron,” he said. But Levi got the feeling Enne would be missing Olde Town’s charm within the hour.
“Good,” she huffed.
He opened the door for her. “After you, missy.”
“But what about the whiteboots?” she asked. “They could still be searching for me.”
“You think I’d go someplace with whiteboots? Please, I know better than that. You should learn to trust me.” His smile was filthy with insincerity.
“I’ll work with you because I have to, but I’m not going to trust you until I find Lourdes.”
She lifted her head and marched outside.
“One thousand volts,” Levi grumbled to himself. If he could tolerate her for a single day, then he would wake one thousand volts richer tomorrow.
Besides, Enne Salta wouldn’t last more than a night in the City of Sin.