King of Fools

by Amanda Foody

  While frantically getting dressed, she and Lola had managed to catch enough of the newscast to understand what had happened. Armed brutally with automatics, the whiteboots had executed an attack on the Orphan Guild, killing eight and injuring many others. Their meeting point was only a few blocks from the Orphan Guild’s now-abandoned hideout, and as they approached, Enne had the distinct sensation she was walking into a battleground. The silence around her could be felt, like its presence haunted these streets—like death itself lurked in every shadow.

  The last time she’d roamed the streets of New Reynes at night, she and Levi had been fleeing for their lives. Now, the reflection she passed in the dirt-crusted windows was no longer her own. Instead, she saw them. The sallow-skinned, lifeless faces of the Phoenix Club.

  She felt for the gun in her pocket, seeking reassurance, seeking the power that Lola had seen in her—that she couldn’t seem to find herself.

  At their destination, a long vertical gash stretched across the door, as though someone had dragged a knife down the wood. Lola and Enne exchanged a grim look before Lola knocked, and Jac swung the door open with a pistol pointed at eye level. Enne let out an unladylike curse and grabbed her second’s arm.

  Once he saw who they were, he lowered it. “’Lo, missies.”

  “Call me missy again,” Lola growled, “and you can be the new Eight Fingers.”

  Jac laughed, and despite his familiar dimples and easy demeanor, he looked different. Sleeker. His black hair, greased back and glossy, made his gray eyes look more like steel than dust. He might’ve been hesitant about Enne choosing his wardrobe, but, she noted smugly, he looked great. She clearly had excellent taste.

  They climbed the stairwell to the first landing. Behind the door, Levi sat stiffly in a leather office chair. His curls had been dyed black, and his shirt and jacket were colored to match. However, his new ensemble did nothing to hide how terrible he looked. Every time he shifted his posture, he winced in silent pain.

  Levi’s gaze moved from the window and met hers, and his breath hitched.

  Enne went to sleep last night reminding herself of all the reasons she couldn’t fall for Levi Glaisyer. But her heart still stuttered seeing him look at her like he was now—like he’d felt their separation every bit as acutely as she had.

  “Did anyone see you?” Levi asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Enne answered.

  The room was filled with desks and toppled chairs, each coated in a thick layer of grime. Enne grimaced as she sat down at the one beside him and tried her best not to touch anything. Jac perched on top of her desk without concern for his new clothes, and Lola resorted to standing. Everyone shared the same grim expression.

  “I assume you’ve spoken with Vianca,” Levi said to Enne.

  “I did this morning,” she replied. “I told her you’re the one who should be doing this, not me.”

  “Well...” His gaze flickered to Jac, who avoided his stare. In fact, Jac was faced away from Levi, like he had no intention of looking at him at all. “I convinced her that we should both be doing this, that we’d be better off as allies.”

  “I thought the Irons hated you,” Lola said.

  Levi pursed his lips. “They have mixed feelings.”

  “Your third tried to kill you.”

  “I said mixed.”

  Enne felt a pinch of resentment. Levi had argued against Vianca exactly as Enne had warned her he would, yet still Vianca had acquiesced to his requests and therefore left Enne without a consultant. It paid to be the donna’s favorite.

  “Were you able to catch the news?” Levi asked Lola.

  “Yes,” she answered darkly.

  “You know far more about the Orphan Guild than we do. What do you think of this?”

  “I...” Her voice was unusually high-pitched. Enne knew she must have recognized at least a few of the names on the list of casualties. “I’m shocked. Bryce keeps the location private, known only to Scavenger, Ivory, and the members of the Guild. There must have been a mole—someone who knew where it was and how to cause the most damage.”

  “But you know the location,” Levi said. “Has Bryce made any effort to contact you? He must suspect you.”

  Lola stiffened. “I doubt he suspects me.”

  “Why is that?” Levi asked.

  “Because he made it very clear that he’d kill me if I ever betrayed him.” Enne flinched at Lola’s coldness. Was that how the Guildmaster treated all his associates? “And he knows I’m not thick. Or a killer.”

  Levi’s forehead creased with worry. “I’m nervous about this. The Irons is the only gang that doesn’t hire from the Orphan Guild, but this attack was directly prompted by events Enne and I caused.”

  Enne shivered. “Which means the other lords might blame us.”

  The notion of becoming enemies with Ivory, Scavenger, and Bryce left Enne ill. Even if she needed to call herself a street lord, she wasn’t like them. They were...dangerous.

  You killed Sedric, she reminded herself. You wanted to. He was despicable. He was a predator.

  She remembered the sweetness of the drugged Lollipop Lick on her lips, the pity in the bartender’s eyes. How many girls had Sedric targeted? How many people around him had been complicit in the suffering he’d caused?

  You watched Semper die, and you were glad he did.

  Enne was just as dangerous.

  You killed the whiteboot. You didn’t even hesitate.

  She was just as deadly.

  You’re not like the other lords. You don’t want this.

  It was true that Enne didn’t have a cause to drive her, like Vianca. Or ambition to motivate her, like Levi. But she did have her anger, her grief, her frustration. She felt it all unfurling and writhing inside of her, like a snake rising from its slumber. You do have power, it whispered as it curled around the broken cavities of her heart.

  “Enne?” Levi asked, drawing her out of her thoughts. “Do you mind if we speak in private?”

  “Of course,” she said, and she cringed watching Levi shakily get to his feet. They walked back into the stairwell, keeping the door propped to let in a sliver of light. Levi leaned against the wall to support himself.

  “I want you to know that I’ll still help you,” he told her seriously. “In any way I can.”

  Her resentment waning but not quite gone, she said, “You assume I want your help. Last time you called yourself lord, I had to rescue you.”

  He put his hand to his heart as though she’d wounded him more than he was already hurt. “I’m offended you don’t think higher of my consulting skills.”

  “Then tell me: how will I pay for these associates? Where will they stay? How will I convince them I’m not a fraud?”

  He gave her a weak smile. “Just give me some time and a bottle of whiskey, and I’ll find you a few clever ideas.”

  She frowned. She didn’t want to hear about his confidence in himself—she’d suffered through enough of that already. She needed to hear that he had confidence in her.

  “That life philosophy is why you look like you do now,” she grumbled.

  “Like what?” He smoothed the front of his blazer. “I think I look rather dashing. You know, you’re pretty observant, if you guessed my measurements.” He smirked. “Very observant, even—”

  “You look terrible,” she said quickly, before he could embarrass her further.

  His laugh was followed by a wince. “I mean it, though. I’m sorry I don’t have solutions yet, but I will—I promise. I’ve spent all day trying to figure out how to piece my life back together, and it feels like every time I think I’ve gotten ahead, there’s some other problem, some other risk.” His voice grew gradually more heated. “You saved me yesterday, and I don’t have it figured out yet, but give me a chance to think and—” he angrily hit the side of his
wounded leg “—and put myself back together, so I can save you, too.”

  As touching as his feelings might have been, Enne didn’t want a savior. She wanted a partner.

  She looked away and changed the subject. “I noticed Jac... Did something happen between you two?”

  He took a shaky breath. “Jac witnessed my conversation with Vianca.”

  Levi didn’t need to say anything else; Enne could already imagine how that must’ve gone. In her conversations with Vianca, Enne could do nothing more than beg. She’d never want someone else to witness that, especially not someone she cared about. Despite being Vianca’s victim, there was a shame tied to the omerta she couldn’t describe. She didn’t deserve it—it defied her own logic—but she felt it all the same.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, reaching for his hand. It was meant to be for comfort, so she was surprised when Levi took her hand and laced her fingers with his. She flushed, thankful for the darkness.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he breathed. “I know becoming a street lord is the last thing you’d ever want. It’s the last thing you need. The more famous you are, the more you become a target. And you can’t afford for the world to realize what you are.”

  The last thing you’d ever want.

  A feeling of wrongness rumbled in Enne’s stomach, heavy and low like the toll of an iron bell. She was a Bellamy schoolgirl. She wore white lace and patent leather and had a sweet tooth. She wasn’t allowed to want this.

  To want the danger of being a street lord.

  To want the boy who stood in front of her.

  To want power.

  But who was there to stop her?

  In the darkened stairwell, Levi was silent, as though holding his breath and waiting for her to answer. Enne could tell him about how the Shadow Game’s timer still haunted her, and that she hated it. She could tell him about how she was dangerous, that maybe it was the only thing in her life she’d ever been good at. She could tell him how badly she wanted to feel powerful.

  Instead, she reached up and brushed her fingers against his chin, her thumb resting only inches from his lips. He froze in surprise. They had touched before—he had held her before—but they had always left a line uncrossed.

  She drew that line now, her fingertip trailing goose bumps across his neck and tracing down his abdomen. Each one of her heartbeats sounded as loud to her as gunshots, but she could still hear the sigh he breathed as he leaned into her, wanting her.

  This was how she’d tell him.

  Suddenly, the door swung open, and they sprang apart. Jac raised the lantern, wearing a serious expression.

  “I heard something outside,” Jac grunted.

  “Are you sure?” Levi asked, his voice higher than usual.

  Jac’s gaze dropped to their hands, and Enne quickly lowered hers and made to smooth out her skirts. Whatever had happened between Levi and Jac, she didn’t want to make it worse.

  “Sure enough that we should check,” Jac answered.

  Enne’s mood sobered. Anyone could be lurking outside—a bounty hunter, a whiteboot, a Dove. Which was why, once Jac was angrily thumping down the stairs and out of earshot, Enne stood on her tiptoes and kissed Levi on the cheek. He opened his mouth to say something, but for once, he looked at a loss for words. Enne grinned, pleased with her own daring.

  “I wish I hadn’t seen that,” Lola muttered as she pushed past them.

  “Oh, shut up,” Enne grumbled, flushing deeper as Levi shot her a wry smile. “I—I was just...” she stammered at him, her confidence dissipating after being so awkwardly interrupted. “I was just going to tell you...” Below them, Jac and Lola reached the bottom of the stairwell.

  “And I intend to be the most attentive listener...” He cleared his throat. “Later. After this.”

  They descended down the stairs and paused beside their seconds at the exit. Each brandished a gun, except for Lola, who hated firearms and pitifully wielded her favored scalpel.

  “No confrontation,” Levi whispered. “If we see someone, we run. Don’t shoot—”

  A gunshot rang out, and they all jolted back. The bullet lodged in the wall in front of them.

  “Muck,” Lola squeaked.

  “Who’s there?” their assailant called out into the night.

  “Is it just one person?” Levi hissed.

  Jac craned his head to look, but as soon as he did, another shot fired. He cursed and pulled back. “If we go back inside, we could find another exit.”

  “Come out!” the other person shouted.

  Levi cleared his throat and called out, “We don’t want trouble.”

  There was a strange thump on the ground, and after several moments of silence, Jac nodded and charged out from behind the wall, pistol raised. He blanched and immediately lowered it. “Come look,” he croaked.

  The three of them did, and Enne gasped when she saw a young man lying face-down on the pavement, gun still clutched in his hand. His sleeve was stained with blood.

  “I know him,” Lola gasped, rushing toward him. With Jac’s help, they turned the body over. He’d been shot in the chest—quite a while ago, judging by how much he’d bled. His eyes were closed.

  “Is he dead?” Levi asked.

  Lola felt for a pulse, then her eyes widened and she slapped him lightly on the cheek. “No. And he’s from the Guild.”

  His eyes fluttered open, then he grasped wildly at Lola’s hands. He coughed, spewing blood on her front. “I can’t go back,” he rasped. “I can’t go back.”

  Jac pressed against the man’s chest to stem the bleeding, but the man writhed in agony. He rolled onto his side, revealing a heinous exit wound. Lola tried to pin him down, but his face only filled with more panic.

  “It’s me,” Lola told him. “You’re going to be—”

  “I can’t go back!”

  Enne cringed and squeezed Levi’s hand as Lola tried to calm the man. Gradually, he stopped fighting and stilled. It happened so suddenly that Enne could scarcely believe what she was looking at—that a stranger had gone from a man to a corpse right in front of her.

  A siren sounded in the distance, frighteningly close.

  “The whiteboots heard the gunshots,” Levi said. “Get up. We need to go.”

  “So we just leave him here?” Lola snapped.

  “It’s that or get caught,” he answered.

  Levi pulled Enne away, but even as they ran down the street, she turned once more to look at the body. It seemed insignificant in comparison to the death she’d witnessed the previous night, but she needed to see it and remember it. These were the terms of the assignment Vianca had given her. This—not a stolen kiss—was the price to pay in New Reynes for something you wanted.

  Enne pictured each of the faces of the Phoenix Club, as quickly and deftly as she’d so often recited her mother’s rules.

  Her reason for wanting power seemed so clear now. She saw it in the body bleeding out in the alley. In the bruises covering Levi’s skin. In the memory of her mother. In the anger steeping inside of her, hot and quiet and simmering.

  Vianca wanted righteousness.

  Levi wanted glory.

  And she, Enne realized, wanted revenge.

  JAC

  “Ah.” Levi grimaced as Jac opened the trapdoor to Zula’s basement. “There’s that smell.” The office of Her Forgotten Histories was cloaked in darkness, the only light source the faint flame above Levi’s fingers.

  Jac watched the way Levi winced with each step as he descended. It was hard to tell exactly what was hurting him, other than everything. Jac still had a few sore spots from his boxing match at Dead at Dawn, but he had the Mardlin strength talent—he was made of stronger stuff than his friend.

  But Jac didn’t have it in him to both hate Levi and feel sorry for him. So as he waited at the top of the st
airs, pinching his nose, he settled on the former.

  “What are you doing?” Levi asked.

  “I’m not staying here.”

  Levi and Jac had a lot in common. They both liked to gamble. They had mastered the art of hungover mornings, of sneaking into variety shows, of wandering the streets at moonlight hours searching for food or beds or both. Levi had helped Jac clear his debt at his One-Way House. Jac had sworn Levi that oath he’d always wanted. Their first jobs, first romances, first troubles—they’d seen each other through them side by side.

  But there were differences that separated them, and to Jac, that gap had grown much wider in the past few days.

  It went like this.

  I only need four hundred more volts. Then I’ll be out, Jac had said. They were thirteen years old and sitting on a stoop in Olde Town they’d claimed because nobody else wanted it. Back then, his big dream was finding a way out of that One-Way House, one of the many “schools” that shipped in kids from across the Republic for “educational relocation.” Jac hadn’t learned to read, but he knew his way around a factory.

  Reymond offered to make me his third today, Levi had confided in him. He’d said it like it was no big deal, like he’d been expecting it. Jac had laughed because he didn’t know what else to say. He was trying to pay out an indenture, and Levi was being offered everything.

  I didn’t take it, Levi had said.

  Not quite a year later, Jac got his first job as a dishboy at a tavern, and Levi was being recruited by the best casinos in the North Side.

  And after that, when Jac’s job started paying him with Lullaby under the table, when it started to go bad—it didn’t compare. Jac had made the wrong choices. Levi hadn’t gotten a choice with Vianca.

  Whatever Jac dreamed of, Levi dreamed bigger. Whatever Jac’s problems, Levi’s were worse. It wasn’t something that Levi had done intentionally, but it was plain all the same. Ever since the beginning, Levi was going to be a legend, and Jac—at best—was going to be a cautionary tale.