Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game Series)

by Amanda Foody

  I had no other choice, Enne told herself.

  “I, Lola Baird Sanguick, swear to Enne Dondelair Scordata.”

  That’s not my name, Enne thought, too numb to interrupt Lola’s speech.

  “Blood by blood. Oath by oath. Life by life. I swear to live by the code of those before me—” she crossed her heart a second time “—and if I break this code, let me burn until I am only a shade.”

  The words left an unsettling clamor in the air, as if they existed longer than simply when spoken.

  “Is that it?” Enne breathed. She held out her hand to help Lola up.

  The blood gazer ignored it. “That’s it,” she said, climbing to her feet.

  Rain drummed on the roof, and Enne could hear the rushing of water in the gutter outside.

  “There’s a good chance you’ll never see me again,” Enne started. “But if I needed to find you, would I come here?”

  “Yes.” When Enne opened her mouth to tell her she was staying at St. Morse, Lola said, “Don’t tell me. It’s better I don’t know where you are.”

  Enne considered apologizing, but she wasn’t sorry that she was alive.

  She needed to go home and think about what she’d learned, and about what these secrets meant for her relationship with Lourdes—or if she even believed them.

  “I’d like my gun back before I go,” she said.

  Before they could return to the basement, another door burst open, and Enne screamed in surprise. Levi and Jac charged inside, rain-soaked, pointing a new set of pistols wildly around the room. Jac flipped a light switch.

  “What the muck?” Lola shouted, her arms raised, squinting in the light.

  Levi’s eyes narrowed as he looked between them in confusion. “Why did you scream?” he was asking Enne, but his gaze—and Jac’s—was fixed on the white in Lola’s hair.

  “Because you scared me,” Enne said flatly.

  “Pup?” Lola said, shakily lowering her arms.

  “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “It’s your hair. Not many orb-makers on the North Side.”

  Jac pocketed his gun. “What happened here?”

  “The missy was just leaving. You should, too.” Lola rubbed her temples. “I don’t like guns or dogs in my office.”

  “You’re both a little scruffed up,” Levi said, making no indication that he’d heard the jibe at his nickname. “Had a bit of an argument?”

  Both Enne and Lola were covered in sweat, dirt and dried blood. Enne bit her lip. She hadn’t even had time to process Lola’s information for herself—she wasn’t sure she was ready to tell Levi. And she definitely wasn’t ready to tell Jac, whom she barely knew. If Lourdes’s connection to monarchists had been dangerous, then Enne’s very association was deadly, and she could trust no one.

  “Forget it,” Enne said. “We’re leaving as soon as I get my gun.”

  “Your gun?” Levi barked out madly. She squeezed Levi’s arm in response, so he couldn’t shrug her off. As Lola walked down the stairway to the cellar, the three of them lingered in the piano room.

  “Are we keeping secrets now?” Levi hissed in her ear. His breath was hot against her neck.

  She backed away from him. “I don’t want to talk about this here.”

  “You know that girl is a Dove, right?” Jac asked. “The gang of assassins?”

  “I know what the white hair means,” Enne snapped. “But she’s not a Dove. She—”

  “Obviously not,” Levi said darkly, “or you’d be dead.” Enne shuddered. “I need to know what happened.”

  “Why do you need to know, Levi?” she seethed.

  “Because I’m helping you, remember?”

  “I was doing fine on my own.” That was mostly true—she’d handled it, anyway.

  “Were you?” He reached for her hand, but she quickly hugged her arms around herself. “You’d rather I leave?”

  “I’d rather you stop being difficult.”

  He opened his mouth like he wanted to argue something else, then snapped it shut and shook his head. Behind him, Jac was peering out the window, as if he thought he’d find more Doves lurking on Lola’s front lawn.

  Lola climbed back up the stairs and handed Enne the gun. Levi reached for it sourly, but Enne quickly shoved it in her pocket. He didn’t need two. She’d give it back to him later.

  “Don’t follow us,” Jac warned Lola, his chest puffed out.

  She picked her scalpel up off the ground and licked her lips. “Why? Worried what would happen once you split up, and it isn’t three against one?” Jac paled and kept one hand on his holster.

  Despite her threat, Enne strongly doubted Lola would try anything. If Enne could overpower her, she was sure Jac could as well with his strength talent. Maybe Levi, too. She wasn’t a real Dove.

  Enne walked to the door. “Let’s go.” To her surprise, the boys followed, and Lola slammed the door behind them.

  No one spoke until they reached the safety of the crowds on Tropps Street.

  “She wasn’t that scary,” Jac said. “For a Dove.”

  “Right,” Levi said sarcastically. “You nearly mucked yourself when she picked up that knife.”

  “I’m not afraid of knives. One time, I cracked a switchblade—”

  “With your teeth, and it was very impressive. I was there, remember?” Levi’s voice sounded tired.

  Jac elbowed Enne in the side. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “Yes,” she said, bristling. “Your stitches look horrifying.”

  “I told you,” Levi muttered.

  “They make me look tough,” Jac said.

  “No, they make you look ridiculous.”

  Levi and Jac continued to exchange words about the next day and Jac sleeping on Levi’s couch. But no matter what Jac said, all of Levi’s answers were terse, letting the silence hang in the air. He was clearly waiting for Enne to explain herself, but he was going to be disappointed. She was tired. She had rehearsal tomorrow. And she needed to think.

  They paused outside St. Morse.

  “That’s it?” Jac asked her. “No thank you for coming to your rescue?”

  “You didn’t rescue me.” She turned to walk through the revolving doors, but Levi grabbed her arm.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. It wasn’t a command, but a request. For once, his expression betrayed his thoughts. He looked worried. And he was right to be.

  “Tomorrow,” she promised.

  DAY FOUR

  “Desire fame, and the city will make you a tragedy.”

  —The City of Sin, a Guidebook: Where To Go and Where Not To

  LEVI

  Levi was on dangerous ground with Enne Salta.

  He’d known it since the beginning. Her connection to monarchists, Alfero’s Shadow Card, whatever had happened at the blood gazer’s... Enne’s secrets followed her like a shadow, and Levi was shatz to mix himself up with her. If he had any sense left to him, he’d call it quits. Never mind that he’d given his word; he hadn’t known what he was getting himself into, and he was already in enough trouble.

  But maybe he didn’t have any sense about him. Every time Enne surprised him, he craved a little more trouble.

  He poured himself a cup of coffee and tried to decide exactly what he should do about himself. About Enne Salta. About Enne Salta and himself.

  Someone pounded on the door. Levi scowled. It might’ve been Enne, and he hadn’t come to a decision yet about their...working relationship. And he knew that if she barged into his apartment, all hands on her hips and flushed cheeks, he’d be incapable of anything but “yes.”

  It was Jac. He crossed his heart and brushed past Levi, his blond hair dripping with sweat.

  Levi’s brows furrowed. “Didn’t you just leave?”

  “I di
d. And I ran all the way back here,” he said, panting.

  “What happened?”

  Jac leaned against the doorframe, gathering his breath, and snatched Levi’s coffee from his hands. “There’s a huge fight—” he took a swig “—in Scrap Market. Scarhands and Torren’s men.”

  “Torren’s men?” Levi echoed. Why would they care about the Scarhands? They might’ve shared some territory, but the Families and the gangs had agreed long ago not to interfere with each other, in an effort to maintain order in the North Side. The only other connection the Torren Family had to the Scarhands was the investment scheme, but they couldn’t have uncovered his partnership with Reymond. Both of them had covered their tracks too well.

  Still, dread knotted in Levi’s throat. This couldn’t be his fault.

  “I didn’t see it happen,” Jac explained. “I ran into Chez—he was really running, you know? Trying to warn the other Irons away from Scrap Market.”

  “Where is the Market today?” Levi asked.

  “Chez said near the clock tower on the border of Dove and Scar Lands.”

  Levi grabbed his jacket and hat off the coatrack. “Let’s go.”

  Jac leaned over, his hands on his knees, and gave Levi a thumbs-up. He set the empty mug on the counter. “Yep. Yep, all good. Ready to go.”

  Ten minutes later, they were racing down Tropps Street toward Scrap Market. The morning was cool and damp from dew, and a wind blew east, carrying the smell of the sea.

  “We could’ve taken the Mole,” Jac huffed.

  “No one takes the Mole.” The subway system that sprawled across the city was infamously unreliable.

  “No, gangsters don’t take the Mole,” Jac retorted. “You’d just rather skulk around everywhere so you look with it.”

  “I am with it.” Levi charged ahead of him. “You’re just getting soft.”

  They passed the Luckluster Mole stop. Jac groaned longingly in between pants.

  “Do you know what this fight is about?” Levi asked.

  “No idea.”

  They turned the corner into Scrap Market. It was early—too early for the Market to close—but already people were in a rush to pack up their stalls. Levi and Jac ran against the crowd, knocking vendors and customers out of their way. Down the street, the bottom floor of an old tenement—the Scarhands’ residence for the day—was engulfed in flames. Smoke streamed out of the cracks in its shutters, and the closer they got, the more the air reeked of it.

  They shoved their way to the front of the spectators watching the fire. A man stormed out the front door, clutching a girl over his shoulder. She kicked and pounded at his back with hands covered in scars. The Scarhands outside watched the burning building in horror. Although several had guns raised, no shots were fired. Most people seemed confused about what was happening.

  A Scarhand beside Levi pointed at the balcony on the second floor, where Jonas Maccabees was fighting three men at once. Blood ran down Jonas’s split lip and nose. He dodged a swing toward his stomach and collided with the balcony railing.

  “What’s going on?” Levi yelled to the Scarhand beside him, but he couldn’t hear his response over the noise of the crowd.

  Someone screamed from inside the building. A moment later, the flames exploded through the third story. The building would fall within a few minutes, and whoever had screamed was still in there. But no one dared approach. Not the Scarhands. Not the whiteboots. Not Sedric’s men.

  “Hold my hat,” Levi told Jac, who took it before realizing what Levi intended to do.

  Levi lurched forward. Within three steps, a man grabbed his shoulder. He was more than a head taller than Levi. “You can’t go near there!” he hollered.

  “Someone’s still inside!” Levi ripped out of his grasp and sprinted to the entrance. The man tried to follow, but Levi slammed the door closed behind him and locked it.

  “Who’s in here?” he yelled. Fire reached for him from the walls, but it couldn’t hurt an orb-maker. The collapsing building, however, could. He didn’t have much time.

  The man pounded on the door. Levi ignored him and ran upstairs, where there were two closed doors. He tried the first one and, finding it locked, he pulled out his pistol, shot at the hinges and kicked it open. The apartment was filled with smoke, but empty of occupants. On the balcony outside, Jonas and the men were gone—climbed down, or perhaps fallen.

  Someone shouted for help from the other apartment. It sounded like Reymond.

  “Reymond!” Levi screamed. He coughed from the smoke, but it wasn’t enough to slow him down. He charged back into the hallway, toward the other door. “Reymond!”

  There was no second yell. Levi’s heart raced. No no no. This wasn’t how Reymond Kitamura was supposed to die.

  Levi aimed his gun. “If you’re in there, get away from the door,” he called. Still, no one answered. His stomach lurched. He had to save his friend.

  Three shots. His ears rang.

  “I’m coming!” He kicked open the door. “Reymond?”

  But before Levi could step over the threshold, strong arms grabbed him from behind. It was the man from outside. He pressed something against Levi’s hand, and his vision blackened. He glimpsed a flash of silver and struggled to hold on to consciousness.

  It slipped away, and he fell into darkness.

  * * *

  He woke in the hallway with black and white doors.

  Levi got to his feet. His clothes smelled of smoke, for some reason, and dirt was caked into the skin between his fingers. He wiped them on his pants and peered down the hallway. It stretched on endlessly in both directions. Everything was quiet.

  Remembering that the black doors were locked, he opened the first white one he came to.

  Suddenly, Levi was eleven years old again, and he stood by his mother’s bedside, rubbing her hand to generate the warmth she was quickly losing. The covers no longer moved as she breathed. She was cold. But he was still holding her hand, still rubbing, still hoping.

  This was his fault, the vision told him. All his fault.

  He ran downstairs to his father, who was bent over his oven, twisting a rod into the fire. The glass orb on the end sparked white with volts, and, dimly, Levi heard screaming from inside the forming sphere, heard the auras of those who had made the volts and the anguish of their murders. It made Levi’s skin crawl, made him want to throw up.

  His father was muttering something about “his king,” the Mizer he’d mourned all these years. It was very like him. Some days, it seemed as if he couldn’t remember what had happened, where his family lived now, and he obsessed over the past like it was a lock whose combination he’d forgotten. Levi had learned by now not to ask about it.

  Noticing Levi behind him, his father handed him the rod. “You do it.”

  “No.” This was their eternal argument. Levi had tried to explain to his father before that his blood and split talents simply didn’t mix, that he’d gladly accept his family’s disappointment over enduring the screams he heard when sealing volts within glass.

  His father growled and shoved the rod toward his son. Levi ran through the door that led to their backyard, led to his escape, but when he crossed the threshold, he was in the hallway again, panting from the aftereffects of the memory.

  Voices shouted from the black door in front of him. He pressed his ear against the wood.

  “You can’t go in there! You know that!” Something slammed.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” The voices were female. Levi didn’t recognize either of them. The second one sounded young—a girl.

  “I can’t do my job if you don’t do yours.” The first voice was softer now. “We need to keep each other safe.”

  Levi pulled his head back. He shouldn’t have listened. The black doors didn’t belong to him, but he wondered who else had seen this place.
>
  * * *

  “Levi!” Jac shook his shoulders.

  Levi’s eyes flew open. He rolled onto his side and coughed.

  Jac smacked Levi on the back. “What were you thinking?”

  “Get off me.” Levi rubbed his eyes and looked at the building—or what remained of it. The top floor had collapsed, so wooden beams jutted out of the structure like fiery stakes. His mouth went dry. “Reymond was in there.”

  “I know,” Jac said quietly. “The Scarhands’ oaths were broken.”

  Around them, the Scarhands sat in the center of the cobblestoned street, pressing their hands to their chests as if they couldn’t breathe.

  It hurt when your oath broke. Reymond had once described it like a blow to the chest, and you could only sit there and wait to catch your breath. Reymond had lost his when he was a Dove, fighting back after Ivory’s second cut off one of his fingers. His oath snapped. Then her second cut off another.

  Reymond had always acted like nothing could touch him, but in a few hours, a coroner would identify him by his teeth.

  Levi felt a surge of emotions all at once. Anger, grief, fear. If he’d been faster, he might’ve saved him. Stronger. Better.

  “Jonas will be the new Scar Lord,” Jac said warily.

  Jonas hated Levi, so any semblance of friendship they’d had with the Scarhands was gone.

  Something was crumpled in Levi’s fist. He opened it and stared at the gleaming silver back of a Shadow Card, smeared with black ink. The man must’ve left it in Levi’s hand once he’d used it to knock him out.

  Six more days. Don’t forget.—S.T.

  “This is my fault,” Levi whispered, echoing his vision. Sedric had said something about reminders; Levi hadn’t fully considered what that that could mean.

  “‘S.T.’? As in Sedric Torren?” Jac asked, his voice cracking. “Why would he go after Reymond?”

  “He’s playing with me,” Levi choked. It was fitting, for Sedric’s reputation. Sedric was proving he knew how to hurt him in more ways than one, and he’d succeeded.

  Levi turned the card over and studied the picture of a man dangling from the gallows. The Hanged Man. It meant sacrifice, a new point of view and waiting.