Shadow City

by Francesca Flores

  She didn’t need his help now to win.

  With a grunt, she pushed Fayes back so he slammed into the railing. Her knife had gotten caught on one of the buttons of his vest and it tore off, leaving strands of black thread behind. The button clinked across the smooth white deck and a folded piece of paper fell out of its back.

  Just then, she noticed the rest of his buttons: the stitching around them was odd, as if someone unskilled had taken them off and then hastily sewed them back on.

  And then it hit her: the notes the Jackals were passing to Fayes to plot secret entrances into the Tower.

  Fayes struck her with a punch to the gut that forced her backward and knocked the air out of her. She rolled toward him on the deck with her knife drawn, plunged it into his ankle and then ripped it out. When he shouted in pain, she pinned him to the ground.

  Her blade met his throat. “Give me your vest.”

  Struggling with her pinning him down, he shrugged out of the vest. Once it was off, she kicked it aside so he couldn’t reach it, then bent over him again with her knife. But then, a bullet pinged off the railing and froze her in place.

  Her eyes flicked toward the direction of the gunshot, and she spotted the sniper. On the top floor of the boat at the next port, the one Aina had come from, Bautix himself stood with a pistol drawn and a smirk on his face. He aimed his gun at her. She was close enough to Fayes, though, that he couldn’t shoot without risking hitting his partner.

  A surge of fury rose up in her at the sight of him, utterly fearless and unrepentant as he waited for any chance to shoot her too. The man who’d given the order to kill her parents, whose laws had killed and imprisoned the poor and the Inosen for years; the man who’d burned down the Dom.

  Just wait, she thought, meeting his eyes. You have no idea what’s coming for you.

  Then she shrugged, as if admitting that he had the upper hand here. In one quick movement, she abandoned Fayes, grabbed the vest, and threw herself toward the stairwell as another bullet flew over her head.

  But before she disappeared down the steps, she uncorked the fatal poison she kept in her pouch and rolled it along the deck. It landed next to one of the Jackals. Arin Fayes had slumped down next to the railing, trying to staunch the flow of blood at his ankle.

  That would soon be the least of his problems.

  Closing the door to the deck so none of the poison’s fumes would reach them, she went halfway down the stairs and peered through a window at the other ship, then swore. Bautix was already gone from the deck.

  Running down the last of the steps, she drew up short when she spotted the Sentinel and Diamond Guards gathered on the main floor. A crew member stood at the wheel, steering them back to shore, with a Diamond Guard aiming a gun at his head to get the job done faster.

  Maybe she’d saved the three remaining governors’ lives, but she didn’t trust them not to turn on her or somehow blame her for what had happened. She had to get off this ship before any of them noticed her. Two of the windows on the opposite side of the boat were open, with just enough space that she might be able to squeeze through.

  While the Diamond Guards were busy, she darted across the room to the windows, pausing once to glance back at the Sentinel. Mariya spotted her, her jaw tightening as she and Aina briefly locked eyes—like she was confused why Aina had bothered to save her. After rolling Fayes’s vest into a ball with the buttons inward to protect the notes and then stuffing the vest under her shirt, Aina hauled herself through the window, held her breath, and dropped into the water with a loud splash.

  It was cold even in the summer, and she fought hard against the weight of her clothes and weapons pulling her underneath. She broke the surface, gasping for breath and shoving wet strands of hair out of her face. The waves caused by the boat pushed her forward, and she almost slammed into one of the poles holding up the docks. She had to wrap herself around it not to get dragged back out into the water.

  She took deep breaths, spitting the water out of her mouth, and watched as Fayes’s boat re-docked. Her eyes flicked to the top floor, where his figure slumped against the railing—he hadn’t moved at all, and none of the Jackals were standing either.

  Dust still billowed along the docks from the explosion, with people running and shouting in different directions, Kohl’s distraction providing plenty of chaos. Her hands tightened around the pole, breaking off bits of wood with her fingers. Bautix would have already disappeared into the fray.

  “Aina,” a voice said behind her, and she nearly fell off the pole.

  Kohl was there, on a small boat he’d procured from Mothers-knew-where. He held out his hand to pull her up, and once she was on the boat, they sailed away around the northern edge of the city.

  “Bautix killed Gotaro,” she said under her breath as the docks disappeared from sight.

  There was a small pause from Kohl. And then he said, “He’s started a war.”

  16

  They traveled close to the shore, Kohl throwing Aina a set of oars as they made their way around the city. The shadows of the bridges and the grass at the shore would shield them from view of anyone walking above, but Aina’s nerves were still on edge.

  In the span of two days, Bautix had burned down the Dom and killed one of the Sentinel. His threat to take back the city in a week seemed all the more real now, and the importance of stopping the shipment of weapons tomorrow only grew. Her hands clenched around the oars. If she got out of this boat near a bridge, she could head to Amethyst Hill now to meet her friends and finish planning for tomorrow’s shipment.

  Or she could go to the Dom. Her head turned south, but she tensed at the mere idea of seeing it now. What if there was really nothing left? Her heart ached, and just as she was about to draw into herself and ignore Kohl for the rest of this trip, he spoke.

  “What else happened on there?” Kohl asked, his breath surprisingly close to her face—she couldn’t see him, as he sat behind her rowing with his own set of oars, but he must have been close.

  Before answering, she took in a deep breath of the fishy, polluted river air, grateful for the shadows that covered them and relieved some of the afternoon heat. The fight on the ship felt far away now, but Kohl’s words rang true: Bautix had started a war, and this was only the beginning.

  “Fayes was meant to lure them all to the deck, and the Jackals were there to keep them from running. Bautix himself shot Gotaro from the top of the ship at the next dock. I couldn’t get to him, but I got the rest of the Sentinel downstairs, and I killed Fayes before getting off the ship.”

  “That’s good,” Kohl finally replied, monotone.

  She craned her neck back to look at him, raising an eyebrow at his less-than-enthusiastic face. “I just took out one of Bautix’s most valued allies. After we stop the shipment tomorrow, his plans will be ruined. He’ll show himself again and we’ll kill him.”

  “And once he finds out you killed Fayes, how will he retaliate?” Kohl snapped back, a tick going off in his jaw as he spoke. “I’m glad he’s gone; it needed to happen eventually, but you underestimate Bautix’s flair for revenge.”

  “He underestimates my flair for revenge,” she hissed back at him. “I don’t care how angry he is. I wasn’t going to let him get away with attacking the Dom.”

  “I’m not saying you shouldn’t have, but to be wary of what will come. Now he knows you’re out to get his people. And if he can’t get to you specifically, if you dodge him well enough with all your skills … who do you think he’ll attack instead?”

  A cold sweat built at her brow as she took in his words. They’d curved around the northeast corner of the city and the river spread south ahead of them, the lights of Rose Court left behind.

  The answer to Kohl’s question was ahead of them too. As if reading her mind, Kohl let go of one of his oars and the wooden tool splashed in the water. He stretched out his arm and pointed, his wrist resting lightly on her shoulder.

  “The south,” he whispered
, and when she looked to the right, he’d leaned closer, his blue eyes glimmering in the sun. “Our home. The place we’ve both worked for years. Do you see why I want to win instead of him? He’ll destroy it if he takes over the city. War is all that man knows. But once I take back the south, I’ll lift it above all the rest.”

  His words left her with a chill. They both wanted the south. They both wanted it to thrive. They both wanted to rule the tradehouses, the Dom. The fact that they were really fighting each other, and that Bautix was just an obstacle in between, had never been clearer. She wondered if he felt the sudden tension rise between them, the knowledge that one would kill the other soon, even though they sat rowing a boat together in the sunlight now. But his face was as impassive as ever.

  Apart from that, though, his words shook her. Bautix had already attacked the Dom. What would he do once he realized she killed Fayes?

  “He can try as much as he wants,” she said. “He’s not getting the south. Where will you meet me for the shipment tomorrow?”

  He leaned back then, taking up his oar again, and she was grateful he wasn’t as close anymore.

  “Smugglers usually bribe Diamond Guards directly when they want cargo placed on the trains, so I won’t know where exactly the weapons will be until it’s time. I’ll ask the Jackals once we’re on the train, and then I’ll head to meet you. Wait for me in the dining car and we can get to the cargo from there.”

  She nodded, already thinking how to present this information to her friends when she met them tonight—and how she would manage to meet Kohl on the train without any of them noticing. A bitter taste rose in the back of her mouth at the idea of lying to them once again, but then she listened to Kohl’s steady breaths behind her and reminded herself she wanted this partnership to only be between them. Killing him with her own hands, with no help, was the only option if she wanted to prove to herself she could stand without him.

  “Bautix may be brutal and unpredictable, but if we stop this shipment and catch him off guard, we can end him.” Kohl paused for a moment, then asked, “Did I ever tell you how I managed to get out of serving him at the Tower? How I got him to respect me when I was an escaped child inmate with no money or influence?”

  “No,” she muttered. “Stop here.”

  They both pushed hard with the oars to steer the boat toward the shore at the eastern edge of the Wings. It still bobbed along in the water, but was moving slowly enough that she’d be able to get out at a good spot.

  She turned around to look at him. It was something she’d wondered for years, how Kohl had gone from prison inmate to founder of the tradehouses … but he didn’t like to speak about his years before the Dom.

  But maybe through the past, she could find some new weakness in him—something to use against him when the time came. Leaning forward and trying not to show too much curiosity in her eyes, she said, “I know you got in a fight and pushed your friend Clara off the balcony in the prison, and then you ran. Where did you go from there?”

  “I ran through the Tower and found Bautix’s quarters. I wasn’t trying to find him specifically, just someone from the Sentinel.”

  “How did you get all the way there with no one catching you?” she asked, remembering all the guards and servants she’d run into last month going from the underground prison to the first level of the Tower. “Don’t they live at the very top of the Tower?”

  He shrugged. “Got lucky with guard patrols and stuck to the right shadows, I suppose. I brought one of Bautix’s own knives to his throat while he slept. I thought he’d be scared, but he opened his eyes and smiled like he was already expecting me. He congratulated me on managing to put him in such a precarious position and then offered me a drink.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Aina scoffed.

  With a small chuckle, Kohl said, “When you get a lot of death threats, I suppose they start to become lackluster. So he served me a glass of wine and asked me to explain how I managed this feat. I told him I broke out of the prison, and then I got a bit more confident and told him how I used to gather information for my old boss and was one of the best at it.”

  He tapped his fingers against the side of the boat, clearly tense at the memory. Wondering why he was telling her this at all if it made him uncomfortable, Aina stayed silent, watching his small reactions—a darkening of his eyes, a small intake of breath before his next words.

  “So then he told me he didn’t like loose ends. He knew who my old boss was and that he’d learned plenty of Bautix’s secrets during the war, so Bautix had him killed. But he remembered that my boss had an excellent spy on his side. I took the opportunity: I offered to get information for him like I did my old boss, if he let me go free.”

  “And that’s when you started the Dom?”

  Kohl shook his head. “That was when he told me that the wine he’d given me was poisoned, and that I would die in an hour unless I managed to find the infirmary and ask for the antidote. If I survived, he would hire me as a spy within the Tower’s walls.”

  Aina’s mouth fell open a little. She imagined a younger Kohl, hardly out of childhood, stumbling through the cold stone halls of the Tower, poison weakening him as he fought for one chance at survival. As much of a mess as she’d been at that age, addicted to glue and struggling to find any reason to keep trying, she didn’t know if she would have made it.

  “You survived,” she said finally. “So then you worked for him.”

  “For a couple of years, yes. But I was better at figuring out secrets than Bautix wagered. I learned that he’d rigged those political murders of Steels to keep tension high during the war and profits rolling in through his arms sales. I learned he would do anything to hold on to power. But I was tired of being his rat in the Tower, so one night, I cornered him and poisoned him too. I told him I knew all his secrets and that I was leaving the Tower a free man. I left the antidote in a puddle in an empty cell on the lowest level of the prison. He had to crawl down there and drink it off the floor in front of all the prisoners.”

  He laughed a little then and, though it was the middle of a bright summer day, Aina suddenly felt like it was a cold winter morning.

  “I find poison to be useful in mocking someone before death,” he continued, his eyes wistful as he gazed at the gray apartments towering above them on the shore. “You want your victim to feel death coming from the inside—not something they can stop with a bandage. You want them to know you consider them so far beneath you that you won’t even deign to fight them head on. And sometimes you want to rob them of their dignity before they die. Some call poison a coward’s weapon, but I call it the best way to insult whomever is dying. And if you hold the antidote, that gives you even greater power over them. But stabbing someone?” He paused, letting out a low breath before saying, “That’s personal. I think, to end someone with a knife through the heart, you have to love them a little. Or at the very least, respect or fear them enough that you know poison alone or a bullet through the back just won’t give you the same satisfaction.”

  He turned to look at Aina, who said nothing. For a moment, she couldn’t help feeling bad for him. Like her, his life had been controlled by someone else at a young age, someone who worked by threats and backstabbing.

  “And then you started the Dom,” she said.

  “I did small jobs at first, leasing out criminals for hire. Bautix offered me a job a couple of years later. He told me he would let me do my work as I pleased in the city, as long as I kept discreet about his doings and did the occasional odd job for him. He’s the one who gave me the idea to set up business in one of the old manors, you know. He learned to stay out of my way, I kept his secrets, and we still benefited each other. That first job he gave me was to spy on a worship service and take out any of the Inosen found there.”

  Aina’s breath caught. That was the job where he’d found her and her parents. Glass shards seemed to pierce her heart at his words, but she forced herself to show no reaction—not
to reveal how easily he could still get to her.

  Just how weak she still was in front of him.

  “I’ve told you this before,” he finally said. “But that was the first job I was ever paid to kill someone, and only my second kill. If I told you how scared I was before going in, how much I wished my life had gone a different way, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  She looked up then, wanting to tell him this changed nothing. He’d still killed her parents, left her on the streets, promised her a future and then ripped it away again. Nothing he said about fear or regret would change that.

  “Right then, I knew I would owe Bautix my life forever if I didn’t do something about it—I had no idea then that it would bring you here as well, facing the same enemy.” The blue of his eyes deepened as he stared at her before saying, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Aina. Soon enough, Bautix will be out of our way.”

  She kept her expression unreadable as she met his gaze, wondering who would falter first; who would offer the other an antidote or a blade to the heart.

  17

  After climbing the river shore, Aina retreated to an alley in the Wings and pried off the buttons from Fayes’s vest to get to the notes inside. Leafing through them, she tried to dry the ones that had gotten wet, but they were already illegible. The ones that were still intact, though, gave enough information on the secret entrances into the Tower to be useful. Her nerves tingled at the thought. They might actually stand a chance.

  After pocketing the notes and abandoning the vest in a dumpster, she turned south toward the Dom. A few hours still remained before she’d meet at Ryuu’s mansion to practice more blood magic spells, and besides, she needed to see it. What kind of leader was she if she could never look her failures in the face?

  As she walked, it began to rain again. The dirt roads of the Stacks quickly turned to mud under her shoes, and the sheets of rain falling marred her view so she could only see about five to ten feet in front of herself at any moment. Shielding her eyes with her hands, she walked faster to reach the Dom. She’d take one good long look and then leave—just enough to fuel her anger toward Bautix. Kohl would say to never let her personal feelings get in the way of a kill, even hatred toward that person, because weapons felt nothing, and that was when they were most effective. But she wanted Bautix to know he wasn’t just another kill for her; this was revenge.