King of Fools

by Amanda Foody

  It should, Levi thought bitterly, considering how much it cost us.

  “I’d love to stay and talk,” he lied, “but I can’t—”

  “It’s such a shame you rejected my offer,” she told him.

  His mouth went dry. He hadn’t spoken to Vianca since their last meeting. How did she know he’d made his decision? “What makes you think that?”

  “Because you don’t take this much time to decide things. We both know how you are—when an opportunity comes, you seize it. This would’ve been your night. But now it is mine.” When she leaned closer to him, her long earrings shook and clacked like rattlesnakes. “Where’s your date?”

  There was something insidious in Vianca’s voice. The donna might’ve known Levi well, but he also knew her, and she delighted in being cruel. She’d given him a choice, and he should’ve realized his choice would have consequences.

  Enne.

  “What did you do?” he seethed.

  She smiled. “Oh, it’s not what I did to her that you should worry about.”

  Even though he couldn’t hurt the donna, Levi took a threatening step closer. He smelled the alcohol on her breath.

  “If something happened to her,” he hissed. “I’ll never forgive you.”

  Vianca looked around the room, at the grandeur bought with the volts and lives she’d stolen, as though she watched it all from far, far away.

  “Neither did he,” she murmured.

  Levi cursed and pushed past her, frantically searching the faces in every room of the casino.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Another game had begun.

  And this time, he would save her.

  ENNE

  Enne had spent an anxious morning trapped within the St. Morse Spa, under the sadistic care of Vianca Augustine.

  You will not contact anyone, the donna had hissed as her assistant scrubbed Enne’s skin scarlet and raw. You won’t speak of my instructions. Enne gasped as the dress—several sizes too small—crushed her chest like a corset of iron. You won’t leave this casino. Not ever again.

  But because Vianca didn’t know of the plot the street lords had devised for tonight, she hadn’t known to forbid Enne from acting out her part in it. So as the gangsters waited outside the casino to set that plan in motion, Enne slipped her mask and her revolver into the pink satin of her dress, and concocted a plan of her own.

  “Hurry up,” Vianca’s assistant snapped, tapping her heels. “The guests are already arriving, and I still need to speak with the caterers.”

  Enne applied her black lipstick and puckered her lips in the mirror. She needed to match her wanted poster. “You could always leave me be.”

  “No, Madame wanted me to watch you until you arrived at the party.” She checked her watch. “Which was supposed to be ten minutes ago!”

  Fear crept over Enne’s heart like ice as she followed the assistant down several stories to the ground floor. The lobby was already crowded with people, and Enne recognized many faces she had encountered during her parties on the South Side.

  Her eyes scanned the crowds for Lola or Grace. The three girls had been assigned an important piece of Levi’s plan, and Enne would see it through.

  Even if it was the last thing she ever did.

  While searching for the Spirits, she instead found another familiar face. Poppy Prescott entered the casino on her father’s arm. Her white dress shimmered with beads like sugar crystals, and she wore black satin gloves up to her elbows, cinched with ruffles and pearls. She waved at Enne from across the room and hurried over to her.

  Enne swallowed. She didn’t have time to spend with Poppy tonight.

  Poppy gave her a hug and admired the dress Viana had chosen for her, a dress meant for a doll. “You look stunning.” Then she studied Enne’s face. “But you’re practically shaking. Are you okay?”

  “I feel fine.” Though of course, she didn’t. Across the room, Vianca Augustine watched from the entrance to the Tropps Room, and she smiled at Enne knowingly. The fear of the past night swept over her, and Enne unconsciously held a hand to her throat.

  You will break his heart, and then you will die.

  Poppy snatched her hand down. “You don’t look fine. Did something happen?”

  Enne shook her head. “No, don’t worry about me. What about you?”

  “I’m just thrilled this will all be over soon. This night couldn’t have come fast enough.” She examined the opulent decor of the casino. “I’ve never been this far up the North Side.”

  Enne let out a laugh. There was still much of the Casino District and Ruins District above them. But of course, Poppy would have no reason to come here. Enne had spent the past four months sneaking into Poppy’s world, but what would Poppy say if she learned that this was Enne’s? For all that she might tease Enne about her supposed North Side boy, Enne was sure their friendship would collapse under the weight of her real secrets.

  “My father can’t go anywhere without his bodyguards trailing after him. They’re like gnats,” Poppy complained. “I don’t see why we needed to bring them here. Half the city’s whiteboots are outside.”

  “Are they?” Enne said shakily. They’d been expecting as much, but it still worried her to hear it.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Enne tried to steady herself. The Shadow Game had ended months ago, and no matter how much the sound of the timer still haunted her, what mattered was that she had destroyed it. She closed her eyes and pictured its clockwork exploding apart, the moment the ticking stopped, the way the gun felt in her hand.

  Even so, she could still hear it. She didn’t know what it was counting down to. To the moment the gangsters shut down the casino? To the moment she broke Levi’s heart?

  Or to when her own terrible plan succeeded?

  The dread in her mouth tasted sharp and metallic.

  “Enne,” Poppy said, waving a hand in front of her face. “You’re worrying me. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  Then two girls entered the party. The first was dressed in a tux, cut formfitting and slender, her red hair curled and pinned to one side. The second wore a scandalously tight gown of black lace. When they both met Enne’s eyes, their shoulders sagged with relief, and they rushed over.

  “Not a word we’ve heard from you since last night,” Lola snapped, throwing her arms around Enne. “What’s going on? Are you hurt?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine,” Enne assured them, the omerta drawing the lie from her lips.

  “Oh, it’s been ages, hasn’t it?” Poppy said, extending her hand. Lola and Grace turned to her and blinked, as though they hadn’t realized she was there.

  Rather than greeting her, they smiled faintly and pulled Enne aside.

  “Every gangster in the North Side is out there waiting for our signal,” Lola hissed in her ear.

  Behind them, Poppy frowned and disappeared back into the crowd. Enne tried not to feel guilty about ignoring her when she’d been trying to help.

  “Have you spoken to Levi?” Enne asked.

  “He’s been trying to find you. Worried himself sick over it,” Lola told her. “He’ll be here soon. He’s with Jac right now.”

  Enne’s heart clenched in a sad sort of relief. Levi had been torn up for weeks after his fight with Jac, and he would need his best friend now. Whatever happened to Enne, whatever Vianca forced her to do to him, at least Jac would be there to pick up the pieces.

  The thought of him needing to made her ill.

  If only Enne could tell Lola to warn him. Because more than death or discovery, the one thing that could ruin her plan was to encounter him. Under no circumstances could she see Levi tonight.

  Not even to say goodbye.

  “We need to hurry,” Grace urged. “They’re all waiting for our signal.”

  The girls slipped down
a vacant hallway, one Enne had once used to go to her acrobatics rehearsals. Grace handed each of them sleeping darts, and the weapons felt steady in Enne’s hands. She took a deep breath—she’d trained for this. The others outside were depending on her—Levi was depending on her—and so she would not fail.

  They spotted a trio of whiteboots smoking cigars by the door.

  “What are you doing here?” one of them said gruffly as the girls approached. He eyed Enne in confusion, then shook his head. “The party is behind you.”

  Enne clutched Grace’s shoulders. “My friend doesn’t feel well and needs to lie down in her room. We were headed toward the elevators, but...” She flashed him a smile. “We’re a bit lost.”

  One of the other whiteboots grinned and walked toward them. He steered them around, his arm on the small of Enne’s back. As he bent down to her level, she grimaced from the stench of his breath. “It’s that way,” he said, pointing. “Pass the next two turns, then make a right.”

  Before he could turn back, Enne slammed the dart into his outstretched arm, and he crumpled to the floor.

  The others reacted immediately, stepping back and reaching for their guns. But the girls moved faster. Quickly, the whiteboots fell in a heap at their high heels.

  Grace crinkled her nose at the one with the bad breath.

  “Not exactly up to Roy’s standards, are they?” Lola asked, smirking.

  After helping Enne conceive her plans for the riot, Roy had become an honorary Spirit, as all the girls liked to say. All the girls except Grace, who still complained regularly about when Jonas could muddle his memories and get rid of him. A little too regularly to be believed, in Enne’s opinion.

  “Oh, shut up,” Grace muttered, slightly pink.

  Together, the girls dragged the bodies into the closest supply closet, bound and gagged each of them, and locked the door.

  “We’re leaving now to give Tock the signal,” Lola told Enne. “You wait here. Once the other lords arrive, you’ll be needed on the stage in the ballroom.”

  Enne swallowed, resisting the urge to pull both her friends into a hug. This could be the last time she ever saw Lola and Grace again. After Enne was gone, she liked to think they would both move on. That Lola would enroll in university like she’d clearly always wanted. That Grace would find an ever after softer and frillier than any of Sadie Knightley’s novels.

  But the omerta forbid her from letting on that something was wrong, so she said, “Good luck,” when she really meant to say, “Goodbye.”

  They each gave her a nod and disappeared out the door, leaving Enne alone to guard the hallway—or so they believed.

  But her piece of Levi’s plan was over, and it was time for her own plan to begin.

  She repeated her mother’s words to herself—something she hadn’t needed to do in a long while.

  Never allow yourself to be lost.

  Never let them see your fear.

  They steadied her heart, as they always had, and when Enne strode down the hallway, her chin lifted, she looked powerful.

  If she was going to die, it would be on her own terms.

  As she approached the lobby, where dozens of staff members and whiteboots watched the entrance, Enne reached for her mask and tied it, trembling, over her eyes.

  It was the only way to stop Vianca. Because even if this was her casino and her party, this was not her city. Séance had a warrant for execution on her head, and in a choice between a death in Vianca’s office or a death at the gallows, it was a simple decision.

  Séance was recognizable, but at a party like this, her mask might be mistaken for a costume. For Enne’s plan to work, she needed the whiteboots to be sure it was her.

  So she reached for her gun.

  She trembled as she raised it, aiming for the ceiling and its hundreds of glittering lights.

  The only way left to win, she told herself, tears blurring her vision, is to lose.

  But before she could fire, Enne felt arms wrap around her, pulling her back. And she let them. She was ready to be apprehended, ready to leave this casino once and for all, even if it was in the back of a whiteboot car.

  But when the person gripping her spun her around, she realized he wasn’t a whiteboot, and her heart sank with despair.

  “You’re alive,” Levi choked out, wrapping himself around her and pushing her face into his chest. Enne froze at his touch, something that would normally fill her with relief, but now only filled her with dread. She could feel his heart pounding beneath her ear, but all she could hear was tick, tick, tick.

  She had been so close, but he’d found her.

  And he had damned them both.

  “What did she do to you?” he whispered, fingers unlacing her mask. Wearing it was supposed to be her death sentence, but she felt twice as vulnerable with it removed.

  Enne pulled away to tell him to leave her, to focus on his own plan for saving the North Side, but she couldn’t. Even as panic rose in her throat, the omerta forced her lips into a smile.

  JAC

  “I told all of you to Shut. The muck. Up!” Jac hollered. The gangsters behind him—over a hundred in total, a mixture from all the gangs—immediately stopped their chattering.

  Jac shouldn’t have felt surprised at his own authority. With Levi in the casino and Tock cutting off the party’s power, Jac was the only leader of the Irons present. But he didn’t think that was the reason.

  Even now, he heard their hushed whispers of how he’d pushed Charles Torren to his death. That was his story. His legend.

  He and Sophia stood at the window, peeking out at the front entrance of St. Morse. All of the gangsters had been divided into two groups, and theirs was stationed at the top floor of a pub, one that had closed down from the financial pressures of the curfew. Scythe and Rebecca, sitting in a booth across the room, were also here to supervise the Doves and members of the Orphan Guild.

  Down below, the last of Vianca’s guests were arriving, and Tropps Street—once congested with expensive motorcars—was emptying for the curfew. Any minute now, Tock’s explosion would light up the Casino District brighter than any of its neon signs.

  And that would be their cue.

  There were a thousand ways for this plan fail. But it was Levi’s plan, and Levi had a way of pulling off anything. Still, Jac’s fingers fiddled with his Creed. He craved a cigarette, but he hadn’t smoked one all day yesterday, and maybe that could become a new normal. He hoped so.

  Footsteps thundered up the stairs, and Lola appeared. “The back entrance is clear.” She hurried to Jac and Sophia. “Grace went to tell the other group, and... Where’s Tock?”

  “She’s not done yet. She’ll be back soon.”

  Lola stared up at the roof of St. Morse Casino, her expression pale. “Did she go alone? I told her not to. She always does—”

  “She took another Iron with her. Tommy’s a dealer, but he has a speed talent. He’s good for more than tricks.”

  Lola swallowed and nodded.

  “I don’t think Tock hates me,” Jac told her.

  “What? Why would Tock hate you?”

  He grinned. It wasn’t the time for jokes, but he couldn’t help himself. “You told me your date would hate me.”

  The memory dawned on her, and she scowled. “It’s not your business.”

  Jac bit his lip, initially wounded. He liked to think that, by now, they were friends.

  But then she grumbled, “It’s been a few months. And yeah, I like her. She doesn’t get hung up on nonsense, like all of you.” Then Lola crossed her arms, and Jac knew that was all he would likely get out of her. Her lip curved slightly into a smile, but it quickly disappeared. “Enne is inside.”

  “She is? Is she—?”

  “She’s fine, but... I have a bad feeling.”

  “Have you ever had
a bad feeling that’s come true?” he asked nervously, because if there was ever a time for superstition, it was tonight. Levi was playing with legends, and just because Jac thought this plan was clever didn’t mean he thought it was smart.

  “Once or twice.” Lola stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Enough times that I don’t ignore them.”

  From his other side, Sophia flipped her coin, and it landed heads. “Eighty-four,” she said, her mouth full with a piece of taffy.

  “That’s just your luck,” Jac told her.

  “I’m willing to share it.” She handed Lola the coin and curled her fingers around it. Jac doubted that her talent actually worked like that, but he supposed it was a supportive gesture. “Besides, my brother and sister used coins. I’d like to try something different.” Sophia reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of dice. She rolled them on the dusty window ledge. Two sixes.

  “What does that mean?” Jac asked.

  “That means we’re getting lucky.”

  Lola crinkled her nose. “Gross.”

  Jac ignored her and pulled Sophia closer to him. Her dress was Luckluster red, with sleeves that draped off her shoulders and exposed the delicate curves of her collarbone and the sparse freckles on her arms.

  Sophia cast him a smile. “What are you thinking about?”

  Jac grinned impishly. “Tomorrow, we get to burn Luckluster to the ground. And then you and I—”

  Boom.

  Sophia jolted, and Lola let out a stifled scream. It was the sound they’d been waiting for, but it was quieter than they’d expected. The rest of the gangsters scrambled to their feet, brandishing knives and pistols. Jac squinted up at the roof of St. Morse—there’d been no light, no visible explosion.

  “What’s happening?” Sophia whispered, pressing her hand against the glass.