by Amanda Foody
Enne pulled away from him, tears streaming down her face. “Yes, it was,” she said hoarsely. “This was exactly what I planned.”
He frowned even as he tried to wipe the tears off her cheeks. “What are you talking about?”
She could’ve lied—she’d gotten good at lying, even to him. But he was the reason she hadn’t killed Owain. Because of him, she wanted to be better than that.
“This wasn’t Vianca’s idea—it was mine. Owain is a member of the Phoenix Club. I... I thought that if I killed him...” Enne looked away from him. It ached to see his expression change, from confusion to concern to shock.
During the drive home, Enne told him everything—about questioning Roy, manipulating Vianca, lying to him. The Shadow Game didn’t haunt Levi the way it did her, but at least he, more than anyone, might be able to understand.
Enne didn’t finish her story until after they’d reached the Ruins District. The others got out of the car, but Enne and Levi remained behind. It wasn’t until Levi slammed the door closed again that she noticed a muscle straining as he clenched his jaw.
“You manipulated Vianca so she could make me do what you wanted,” he murmured, and Enne’s breath hitched. His voice was unrecognizably cold. “You used her to use me. How am I supposed to forgive you for that?”
Each of his words sent a blade through her heart.
He made her sound despicable.
And he was right.
Enne bit her lip and blinked back tears. “You’re not.”
Levi took a shaky breath, his eyes closed. “I’ve done a lot of things I never thought I would, but not to you.” His voice cracked, and Enne resisted the urge to comfort him. She no longer felt like she had the right to.
“I don’t think I know you anymore,” he said.
Enne hugged her arms to herself and put as much distance between them as possible. It was strange to think that many months ago, when they’d first met, he’d laughed at how naïve she’d been.
“Do you wish you’d killed him?” he asked her.
She’d originally thought the price of killing Owain would be her soul, but now she knew the sacrifice had been far greater. The moment she’d used Vianca against Levi...that was when she’d paid her price.
And now she had nothing to show for it.
“I don’t know,” she murmured truthfully.
Levi shook his head and, without a goodbye, opened the door and walked away.
10
“These stories aren’t just legends. There are too many things in the North Side you can’t explain. Oaths? Shadow Cards? They have to be talents, don’t they? I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, and I think they do. You might say legends are superstition. I say they’re a pattern.
“Maybe it’s not Families or street lords or wigheads who own New Reynes. Maybe it’s one person. Maybe all these legends are the same story.”
—A legend of the North Side
JAC
Most tourists flocked to New Reynes in the summer for the warm weather and the beaches, but Jac had always preferred the City of Sin in the fall. The pubs served spiced cider in copper mugs, and the trees wore every color from saffron to gold. This year, however, it’d been hard to focus on usual fall festivities with all the chaos surrounding the election. Now, only days away, you couldn’t even turn on the radio anymore without hearing about it.
“Turn that off,” Jac grumbled to Sophia, who switched off the news station from where she perched on the desk.
“Don’t you want to hear it?” she asked.
He took a deep breath. The First Party controlled all the media outlets, but lately, even their cheerful optimism about Harrison’s victory had lost some of its usual confidence. Levi had told Jac that Harrison needed the Torren empire for his victory, so what happened if Jac couldn’t give it to him?
“I don’t,” Jac answered, turning his attention back to the map of the Casino District mounted on the wall of Liver Shot’s back office. Even with all the dens the two of them now controlled, they’d still chosen this one as their primary base. It had a central location and familiar faces.
“You are not a failure,” Sophia told him, standing up and resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
He grasped it with a weak smile. “But I will be.”
“Even if we can’t give Harrison the votes,” she murmured, “we’ll still win.”
Like the news, Sophia, too, had lost some of her confidence. The endless curfew had hit them exactly where it hurt most: their bottom lines, and now their war with Charles had devolved into a waiting game of seeing who would bleed out of voltage first.
At this rate, it would be them.
“Are you and I looking at the same ledgers, or...?”
“All that matters is that Charles is hurting, too,” she said.
Jac laughed mirthlessly. “Can he hurt?”
Sophia grimaced and dug her coin out of her pocket. She flipped heads. “Twenty-seven.” She pulled out a collection of knotted necklaces from under her shirt and examined the dull beads, checking to see if there was any luck left in them.
“Twenty-seven?” Jac echoed. “What happened to your one-hundred-flip streak?”
“Until we set this all aflame, we’re still selling drugs, and I’ll never feel good about that.” She sighed. “And without trying to cut off any of Charles’s monopoly on Lullaby, we won’t, well...”
Jac stiffened. “Three seconds ago you were telling me we’d win. Now you’re saying it’s hopeless unless we start to sell Lullaby?” He didn’t care how desperate they were; he refused to stoop to such lows.
Sophia took both of his hands in hers and turned him away from the map to face her. He didn’t like the look on her face. “I’m saying...” She bit her lip. “We need a plan in case we lose.”
He dropped her hands. No, no. They hadn’t come this far to make contingencies.
The scar on his arms gave a phantom itch, and he craved a cigarette. But he’d already had one this morning, and he’d been trying to limit himself to one per day.
“We could go somewhere else,” Sophia said. “It would be starting over—”
“You gave up everything for this,” he breathed.
Her green eyes welled with tears, and she blinked them away and hugged her arms to herself. “Yes, well, Charles won’t let this end peacefully. And before, I never had to consider losing you.” She sniffled and laughed. “You’ve made me soft, and it’s disgusting.”
He snorted and wrapped his arms around her. “You aren’t losing me.” But despite his words and how much he cared about her, too, he struggled to imagine leaving New Reynes. Leaving Levi.
You haven’t spoken in two months, he reminded himself. But that didn’t stop Jac from thinking about Levi every time he tallied their profits, every time he saw the Iron tattoos on his arms. Levi had saved him countless times, but he couldn’t save Jac from this.
But there was another option. Another deadline that drew closer.
Just because Jac had torn up Charles’s invitation didn’t mean he’d forgotten it. Tomorrow was Jac’s last day before the deadline expired, and he dreaded to think how the war would change when Charles stopped playing nice.
Sophia buried her face in his shoulder. “Don’t worry—I haven’t given up. Not—”
Suddenly, the lights went out, and the room fell into blackness. Sophia’s breath hitched, and she squeezed his arm tight enough to hurt. “What’s going on?” she hissed.
He shushed her, his heart hammering. It could’ve been coincidence, but Jac didn’t believe in coincidences.
Sedric Torren had once killed Eight Fingers to send Levi a warning.
Maybe Charles had tired of playing nice.
“Are we the only ones here?” Jac whispered. Few employees but them came to Liver Shot this early.
“I think Ken left...”
Faintly, a sound murmured in the darkness. It was eerie and high-pitched, like some sort of flute.
>
Sophia clutched at him tighter and cursed under her breath.
The music gradually came closer.
“A match,” Jac rasped. “Strike a match.”
He could hear footsteps approaching the den, the creaking of floorboards, the melody of the flute. Jac fumbled in his pocket for his pistol while Sophia dug out a match from his stash in the desk. He aimed his gun in the direction of the door.
The music stopped, plunging everything into silence.
Sophia struck the match.
They both screamed at the sight of the stranger standing directly in front of them, close enough to stare down the barrel of Jac’s gun. In the dim matchlight, Jac made out the freckled face of a young man, and greasy hair dyed white.
Jac fired, but the Dove had already ducked. Sophia shrieked and pressed herself against the wall while Jac lunged for the man, intending to tackle him to the floor. He grabbed him by the arm, spinning the Dove around. There was a flash of silver.
“Jac, watch out for—”
But then the match burned out, and the room slipped back into darkness. Jac grunted as he threw their assailant against the closest wall. Books tumbled off the adjacent shelf, thumping on wooden floorboards and the edge of the carpet. Jac stumbled on one as he pinned the man down. He was bluntly built but skinny, his elbow jamming painfully into Jac’s stomach as he struggled to break free.
Jac let out a groan, but quickly collected himself. The man landed a hard punch at Jac’s face, and Jac took it, using the opportunity to bury his pistol in the Dove’s gut.
“Don’t move,” Jac panted.
Sophia struck a second match and edged closer. She held it up to the young man’s face, and his pale green eyes narrowed at her inspection.
“Kill me,” he spat.
“Who sent you?” Sophia demanded.
He said nothing. There was something feral about his face and the way he pressed himself harder against Jac’s gun. Jac squeezed tighter on his shoulder, keeping him pinned to the wall. He didn’t want to kill if he could help it.
“Did Charles Torren send you to kill us?” Jac asked.
“I doubt it,” Sophia answered. “Charles killed Delia himself.”
But Jac wasn’t so sure.
He’d overpowered this Dove now, but how many more Doves would it take? One for every day that passed after the deadline? Two? Three? Jac didn’t think Charles could afford that, but he couldn’t be certain.
Jac twisted the gun into his stomach. “Well, you can tell Charles—”
“I’m not a messenger.” The Dove squirmed so that the gun moved closer to his heart. “Do it.”
Jac faltered.
“Do it,” he repeated.
Then Sophia grabbed a lamp off the shelf and slammed it hard against his head. The man crumpled to the carpet. Jac took several steps back and leaned against the wall to steady himself, trying to make sense of this.
He’d promised Lola that he’d listen to Levi and Sophia when they’d told him not to take Charles’s offer. But Levi was gone, and Sophia was already planning contingencies.
She could’ve died.
Which was why Jac couldn’t wait for Charles to make a second move. He couldn’t wait until tomorrow, couldn’t wait for Sophia to come up with any more final, desperate options.
The thought of facing Charles terrified him more than anything, but if he was going to save both Sophia and Levi, he needed to face his fears.
Tonight, Jac Mardlin would play a game of his own.
LEVI
As Vianca Augustine poured herself a cup of tea, Levi pictured all the ways she might die.
The cold November weather had made the air in her office dry, and each of his breaths scratched at his throat. For months, Levi had counted down the weeks until he achieved his freedom. Until Vianca Augustine was dead. And now the election was only two days away.
But the Spirits ran new polls every few days, and according to Lola, the results looked bleak. Despite Fenice’s mass deregistration and voter suppression, the North Siders held unwavering support for the monarchists.
No word from Harrison. No word from Jac. No contact with Enne. After months of following every news story and debate, their hope was waning. Levi had done everything to give Harrison this victory, but apparently everything wasn’t enough.
And the last place Levi wanted to be when mourning his losses was St. Morse Casino.
“Levi,” Vianca purred, and every hair on his neck stood on end. “Please take a seat.”
She poured him a cup of tea, spiking it with whiskey cream. He raised his eyebrows as he accepted the drink. Levi never willingly consumed anything she offered him, but he could admittedly use something strong.
Vianca unlocked one of her desk drawers to reveal a sparkling orb.
“You and Miss Salta have, once again, exceeded my expectations,” she said.
Levi tried not to stiffen at the mention of Enne. He’d avoided thinking about their last conversation for weeks, but it’d been very hard to avoid thinking about her. He’d thought it would grow easier, but hearing Vianca say her name only made his stomach clench. Enne knew the horrors of Vianca Augustine as well as he did. So he’d never understand how she could’ve taken the one thing he hated and feared most and used it against him.
Vianca clearly didn’t notice his distress, because she didn’t mention it. She usually did, when given the chance.
“I’ve been dwelling on this conversation for a long time,” she said. “Surely you must realize what I’m going to say to you.”
Levi straightened in his seat, trying to decide whether or not that was a threat. “I have no idea.”
“What does this city say about me?”
Witch. Shatz. Pathetic. Terrifying. Ruthless. Monster. The list was endless. Vianca was the villain of every fairy tale, leading helpless North Side children to ruin with a line of breadcrumbs and poker chips.
“Um,” Levi started. “That Worner Prescott is barely more than a puppet, and if he wins the election, you’ll be the one truly in power.”
The corner of her lips turned into a smile. “That’s correct, but that isn’t what I meant. St. Morse Casino isn’t run by me. It’s run by the Augustine Family. But look around...” She gestured around the office. “I have no family left. When I die, there will be no cousins feuding for my throne. My son will have nothing to do with this place, or with me. If my legacy lives on, it will do so by one of my inept employees, all of whom have only a child’s understanding of how this empire operates.”
Levi took a long sip of his drink to cool his nerves. He wasn’t sure where this was headed.
“I have no heirs,” Vianca continued. “I only have the three of you.”
“Three?” he repeated. He knew she was referring to her omertas, and he’d always suspected there was a third. Over the summer, Zula Slyk had confirmed those suspicions. I’ve always wanted to meet her other boy.
“Surely you’ve guessed the third by now,” she said with amusement. “I would’ve thought it obvious.”
“It’s Prescott, isn’t it?” The world already called him Vianca’s puppet.
“No—though it’s probably better you don’t know. I don’t want you doing something reckless and interfering. He’s useful—but he’s difficult. Anyway, after the debate, I decided he won’t be a problem much longer.”
Levi’s heart quickened. He knew Vianca well enough to recognize the cold flippancy in her voice. Vianca was going to kill him, whoever he was. If it was happening before their own plans were carried out, then Levi would be powerless to stop it. He might not know who the third was, but death at Vianca’s hand was a fate he’d imagined for himself dozens of times. If he could uncover the boy’s identity, he could try to save him.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Vianca snapped. “He’s far from innocent. And I’m one of the only ones who knows his secret.”
“Have I met him?” Levi asked.
“We’re not pla
ying that game,” Vianca said sharply. “The only person in New Reynes who truly understands how this empire works is my son, but he’ll do everything in his power to burn it down. I’ve worked too hard to be where I am to have my legacy destroyed. So, for the very first time, Levi, I am offering you a choice.”
She slid the emerald ring off her fourth finger and set it in front of him.
“The Augustine Family owns one of the largest empires in New Reynes. And I’m offering it to you.”
Levi’s initial reaction was shock, quickly overshadowed by abhorrence. When he imagined himself walking these halls, portraits of dead Mizers watching him, he could think of nothing but Vianca. In this office, he thought of nothing but Vianca. In the card rooms, the theater, the suites... The donna’s so-called legacy was only torment.
But once those emotions settled, his ambition stirred. Levi had come to New Reynes to write his own story, and rising from nothing to become a don had an attractive sound to it. It wouldn’t be the first time in his life he’d made a decision with his own legacy in mind. His relationship with Narinder, his dangerous promises to the other lords... Levi had gotten to where he was by seizing opportunities when they came his way. He wasn’t sure he wanted Vianca’s empire, but he couldn’t simply dismiss her offer, either.
“I’m not interested in the narcotics trade,” Levi said. “That’s what this casino is built on, isn’t it? Mortar and Mistress?”
Vianca pursed her lips. “The Apothecary families are keeping this Family in business, yes.”
“But once, it was just a casino,” Levi countered. “The Irons run all their operations on gambling. It could be done, if I wore both crowns.” The Irons and St. Morse. It made an impressive palace for an impressive empire.
“Is that an acceptance?” she asked.
Levi thought of the casino on the boardwalk, of the opportunity that had passed him by. But now he couldn’t imagine that casino without also remembering Enne in it.
“What about Enne?” he asked, his voice choked.
