by Amanda Foody
Levi knew where this future headed. A cell for the night, and the gallows in the morning.
Dead?
Or alive?
He’d found the answer to his question.
A gun fired, and Levi instinctively squeezed his eyes shut. Then the man let out a shout, and Levi saw that he’d been shot in the same arm that had pointed his gun. His pistol went skidding across the pavement.
“Run, you thickhead!” Tock shouted at him from across the lot.
The woman wrapped her arm around Tommy’s neck and turned her back to Levi to shoot at Tock. The lot echoed with gunfire, and Levi seized his chance. He lunged for the man’s fallen gun.
No sooner had he grabbed it that the man tackled him. The man was nearly twice Levi’s size, and the weight of him sent Levi slamming chest-first onto the pavement. With his good arm, the man pinned down Levi’s right shoulder, but Levi managed to grab the gun with his left hand. He pointed it directly behind him, and fired.
The noise was deafening. Blood splattered on the back of Levi’s neck and across the ground. His ears rang, so loud and overpowering he felt his entire world shift sideways. He groaned as the weight above him went limp, choking the breath from his lungs. He gradually rolled over and stared up into the bullet-mangled face of his assailant. At nearly point-blank range, his nose had been blown clean off, leaving a riddled mess of flesh and bone in its place. The blood dripped from him onto Levi’s own face, and his stomach lurched as he pushed the man off.
Levi staggered to his feet, so dizzy and sickened that he could barely make out what Tock was yelling at him. She held Tommy by his jacket, one hand pressed to the back of the closest motorcar.
“Run! What are you doing? Run!”
She took off in the opposite direction, Tommy stumbling to keep up. The woman held her side as though she, too, had been shot. She leaned against a car hood for support and fired, her aim wild and haphazard.
“Run! Muck, Levi, run!”
Only then did Levi realize what Tock had done. She’d laid a line when she touched that car.
The car was going to explode.
Levi sprinted, his head pounding, his balance veering from side to side. Tock had told him her limit was thirty seconds. How long had it been? A bullet whizzed past him and shattered the mirror of a nearby car. He wasn’t lucid enough. Wasn’t fast enough.
Boom!
The explosion swept him off his feet. He felt the heat pass over him, but, of course, orb-makers couldn’t burn. The crash hurt, though. He fell painfully on his shoulder, hard enough to bruise. When he turned behind him, the first car was engulfed in flames, the woman screaming and lost among them.
Levi half crawled, half staggered his way to a nearby stairwell. He found Tock and Tommy pressed against the wall, their arms still covering their heads. Tock jumped to her feet and threw her arms around him.
“Muck,” she cursed in his ear. “If I’d killed you, I never would’ve forgiven you.”
Levi stumbled down to Tommy’s level and lightly slapped his face. The dealer’s eyes had a glassy look, and Levi wondered if he’d been drugged. “Are you all right?”
“Never better,” Tommy mumbled.
“You won’t be pretty anymore with that nose,” Tock told him.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s never looked sweller.” Levi smeared some blood off Tommy’s chin. Tommy was so delirious he barely noticed.
Levi stood and shook his head to clear it. The ringing in his ears had died down, leaving only a dull headache. The lot had gone silent, and Levi hoped that meant both of the assailants were dead.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs above them.
“None of that was quiet,” Tock breathed. “People are coming.”
Levi grabbed Tommy by the arm and hoisted him up. The Martingale Casino was his most lucrative client, and the Irons murdering people downstairs hardly spoke well of their business practices. “Get in the other car.”
They ran across the lot. Tommy somehow managed to climb into the back seat without support, leaving Levi and Tock to deal with the bodies. Tock dragged the man Levi had shot across the ground, smearing the pavement with a trail of blood. Levi approached the flames, nearly vomiting from the smell, and pulled out what remained of the woman. His fingers sank into charred, crusted flesh.
By the time they dumped both bodies in the trunk, swarms of casino employees and other bystanders had begun flooding into the garage. Levi did his best to keep his face covered. He didn’t want another headline in The Crimes & The Times. He just wanted to get out of here, crawl into the silence of his bedroom, and pretend this entire night had never happened.
Levi took the driver’s seat, and soon the engine roared, their car speeding forward and onto Tropps Street. As soon as they screeched through the first turn, Tock rolled down the window and vomited.
“Delicate,” he told her, even though he was a hairbreadth from being sick himself.
Tommy snickered from the back seat, then let out a low groan.
“Shut up, Tommy,” Tock snapped at him as she wiped her mouth. “Your nose is broken. You’re not dead.”
Those were the last words they spoke for a half hour. At first, Levi wasn’t sure where he was driving. They barreled down Tropps Street, passing St. Morse Casino, and eventually veered north, to the distant edges of the Ruins District. The lights and bustle faded behind them, and when he rolled down the windows, the air smelled of the sea.
Tock turned around to peer into the back seat. “He’s asleep.” She sighed and leaned her head against the window. “Was that the only person you’ve killed besides Chez?”
“No,” he answered quietly. “I was the one who killed the Chancellor, not Enne.”
Levi wasn’t sure why he told her that. Even if Semper had been despicable, now Levi’s actions had begun to feel like a pattern. Each time, he’d killed those who’d tried to kill him. But with his reputation growing and the bounty on his head up to ten thousand volts... This probably wasn’t the last time an incident like this would happen.
Tock let out a hollow laugh. “My father saved Malcolm Semper’s life. When he blew up the National Prison, Semper had been next on death row for treason to the Mizer kings.”
Narinder told Levi part of that story the first time he’d met Tock, but Levi had forgotten it until this moment. Tock’s father ignited the Revolution that destroyed his own father’s life. Levi felt that ought to symbolize something, but everything about the world suddenly felt meaningless.
“How did it feel to blow up Revolution Bridge, then?” he asked her. “Wasn’t that part of your family’s legacy?”
“My father was a mercenary. He wasn’t some hero.” Tock crossed her arms. “Heroes are overrated. That’s why I never wanted to be one.”
Maybe their family histories did have more in common than he’d thought.
Levi parked the car where the road gave way to sand. The ocean lay in front of them, its water black in the night. The city line was ten minutes behind them, and Levi suddenly realized, in his six years living in New Reynes, he’d never once left it.
“You don’t have to help if you don’t want to,” Levi told her.
“But I will,” she answered, and he breathed a sigh of gratitude, even if he probably depended on her too much.
They made two trips, the woman first and the man second. Levi did his best not to look at them, not to think about them, and so his mind wandered. He’d grown up on the beach, along this same ocean. He tried to focus on those memories rather than the one he was making right now. The bottom of his pants soaked as they rested the bodies face-down in the water. They sank slightly into the sand and broken shells, and waves lapped at their clothes.
Tock and Levi didn’t linger. By the time they returned to the museum, Levi thought Tock had actually drifted off, as well. But as they passed through the darkened streets of Olde Town, she murmured, “The first person I killed was by accident.”
Levi was about to
ask how it had happened, but then realized he didn’t need to. He’d watched a car burst into flames tonight. He’d seen the entire structure of Revolution Bridge collapse into the Brint as though it had snapped in two. If Tock wasn’t careful, everyone around her could become collateral damage.
“I just wish it hadn’t been,” she added quietly.
Levi tried his best to give her a comforting smile while still navigating the narrow streets. “Don’t let your fallen heroes stop you from wanting to become one.”
“You always talk so highly of the old lords, like Veil and Havoc. Do you feel like a hero now?”
Levi remembered the weight of the man’s body going slack on top of him. He hoped the prize of the Iron Lord’s bounty had been worth it, to that man.
Then he thought of his view tonight from the top of Martingale Casino, and he hoped it was all still worth it to him.
ENNE
Lola pulled a stack of files from the metal cabinets and fanned herself with the manila folders. “I thought you said you had someone for us.”
Harvey pursed his lips. “Yes, we suggested Vito. But you said no.”
“Well, we’re still only taking girls.”
Harvey shot Enne an exasperated look. “You’ve hired all the female counters we had. How many more could you need?”
Enne perched by the windowsill of the warden’s office, hoping to catch a breeze. It was the hottest week in New Reynes on record.
“More organizations have expressed interest in investing,” she told Harvey, all businesslike. She was even dressed like a financier, with a pink button-up and a sleek skirt to match the ladies who worked on Hedge Street. Complete with her mask, her gang’s white satin gloves, and her favorite black lipstick, this had become her uniform. “We need more girls.”
“If you give us time, we’ll recruit more,” Bryce told her. He bent over his desk, his dark hair plastered across his forehead with sweat. For as many times as Enne came to visit, Bryce never looked pleasant. His clothes always hung on him, his eyes were always bloodshot, and despite all this sun, he actually seemed to be growing paler.
“How much longer?” Enne asked. With their stock market expanding by thousands of volts every day, Enne finally had the resources to begin digging up information on the Phoenix Club. But without new workers, she didn’t have the time to spare.
“Soon,” Harvey answered. “I’ll make the rounds at all the pubs and cabarets, where workers tired of their jobs go to unwind. That’s when they’re most receptive.”
Enne clicked her tongue in disgust. “You don’t need to poach them, Harvey.”
“I don’t poach anyone.”
“You talk like you do.”
“Then come with me. It’ll be an easier sell with you there. We can all go.” He looked at Bryce and wiggled his eyebrows. “A few cold drinks could do us some good.”
“How many times will you make her say no?” Bryce asked, and Harvey scowled.
“He has a point,” Lola muttered.
Though Enne believed Harvey’s intentions were good, it didn’t matter how much time she spent at the Guild lately—they were associates, not friends. Enne wore her mask to every appointment. She’d still never given them a name other than Séance. And when Rebecca attended their meetings—though infrequently, as of late—she made it clear she still viewed Enne as a fraud.
Enne also suspected she wasn’t the one Harvey was trying to convince to join him for a night out.
“But if you just—” Harvey started.
“I said no,” Bryce snapped, making Harvey stiffen. Bryce stood up and sighed. “I’m not your villain,” he murmured, and then he walked out of the room, and Harvey buried his face in his hands.
Enne and Lola exchanged an uncomfortable look.
Lola cleared her throat. “Well, I think we should be going.”
“Yes, let us know about those recruits...” Enne gathered her belongings and followed Lola out the door.
The pair made their way through the prison’s hallways, keeping their voices low.
“Why do they have to be so strange?” Lola hissed.
“They’ve always been like—”
Lola elbowed her sharply in the side. “It just got stranger.”
Rebecca leaned against the wall by the exit with a gun in her hand.
“This isn’t typically my weapon of choice,” she told them, examining her revolver.
Both Lola and Enne froze.
“Is there something you’d like to say?” Enne demanded. When it came to Enne, Rebeca always had something to say—but not usually while brandishing a firearm.
Rebecca let out a hacking cough, splattering flecks of blood on her sleeve. “We don’t need your business. It would be better for everyone if you stayed away.”
Lola stiffened beside her, but Enne wasn’t so easily threatened. “How do Bryce and Harvey feel about that?” Enne asked, reaching for her own gun inside her purse.
Rebecca let out a laugh. “As if Harvey’s opinion matters.”
Enne didn’t want to get into an argument with someone who was clearly ill. Rebecca didn’t look well enough to stand, let alone challenge them to a shoot-out. And either way, Enne felt she would win.
“You can either step aside, or we can go through you,” Enne told her darkly. “It’s your choice.”
Rebecca narrowed her eyes and backed away. “Just don’t come back.”
Enne and Lola passed through the broken gates outside. Lola walked stiffly, like at any moment, she might be shot between the shoulder blades. Enne kept her hand on her own gun, trying to figure out when Rebecca had stopped treating her like dirt and started treating her like an enemy.
“I knew Rebecca was ill, but I’ve never seen her like that,” Lola told Enne as they turned onto the block where they’d parked her motorcar. “No wonder Bryce has been a mess.”
Bryce had unnerved Enne from the first time they’d met, but now Enne felt a pang of sympathy.
“What is the Balfour family talent?” Enne asked.
Lola eyed her uneasily. “Why do you ask?”
“I just realized how little I know him, is all.”
Lola lowered her voice to a whisper. “The Balfour family doesn’t have a talent.”
Enne frowned. “Is that possible?”
“I don’t think so, but that’s how they’re listed in all the archives.”
“Then he’s clearly hiding something.”
“They’re all hiding something,” Lola muttered as she unlocked her car and they each climbed inside. She turned around to back the motorcar out of the narrow alley, then startled. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” Enne asked, whipping around. She only saw quiet rowhomes with their curtains drawn.
“I thought I spotted something,” Lola murmured, frowning. “Probably nothing.”
Enne shrugged and opened her Sadie Knightley novel. She’d developed a habit of rereading the same books over and over, because she craved the certainty of knowing how the stories ended.
She’d listened to enough of Grace’s lessons to know how legends ended, too.
And so each morning, before Vianca’s direct phone line could ring, before Lola could fill her schedule with appointments, Enne completed a ritual. She pictured the faces of the Phoenix Club, she practiced her shooting, and she told herself the same thing.
Not mine.
* * *
Every day, over six hundred thousand illegal volts flowed through an old finishing school classroom in the Ruins District. It was decorated in pastels, and a gaggle of girls sat on the floor, papers spread around them, pencils tapping against plush fur carpet. They each wore curlers in their hair or green, sludgy masks over their skin. Every now and then, one would shout out a new number and phrase, and several others would adjust the statistics on the chalkboard.
As Enne and Lola entered, Grace jumped to her feet, cucumbers falling off her eyes. Enne wasn’t sure the cucumbers could do her much good if sh
e still wore thick circles of eyeliner beneath them.
Grace shoved Enne a clipboard. “We’re getting calls. Lots of investors backing out.”
“Define lots,” Enne said. She squinted at the numbers on the paper.
“Two hundred thousand volts.”
“What? Who’s pulling out? From where?” Enne scanned the list. It seemed most of the investors were from gambling dens. Was Levi up to something?
“It’s not the Irons,” Grace answered. “They’re all Torren-owned dens, which makes sense. Charles doesn’t trust you. You did kill his cousin.”
If too many investors pulled out, the gangs would each lose a fortune. And with tensions rising between the whiteboots in the South Side and the gangs patrolling the North, none of the lords could afford budget cuts right now. Wealth was their most effective weapon.
“If every single Torren den sold out, how much more would we lose?” Enne asked.
“Maybe sixty thousand more volts?” Grace told her. “I have the names of every person who backed out. Give me the word, and I’ll kill them all.”
“Terror,” Enne said drily. “Because that worked out so well for past lords.”
“Suit yourself, but I want you to know—I’m doing math, and I’m very bored.”
“You’re a counter. Isn’t this what you do?”
Grace raised her eyebrows. “When’s the last time you did a cartwheel?” She poked Enne in the side with her pencil. “I could think of other uses for your bendy talent that Poppy’s list of South Side boys might find pretty appealing.” She smiled wickedly.
The girl closest to them rolled her eyes. “You spent all morning telling me how satisfying it was to make the Irons’ statements balance.”
Grace clutched her knife necklace indignantly. “Yeah, well, Pup’s books were a mess, so I fixed them.”
“These aren’t businesses—they’re gangs. Who cares if the numbers don’t add up?”
Grace bent down and snatched a glossy piece of paper hidden under the girl’s notebook, pulling away the whole magazine with it. “Really, Charlotte?” She threw the copy of The Kiss & Tell across the room. “So when you find an error, what do you do?”
