King of Fools

by Amanda Foody

  Indulge your vices in the City of Sin, where a sinister street war is brewing and fame is the deadliest killer of them all...

  On the quest to find her missing mother, prim and proper Enne Salta became reluctant allies with Levi Glaisyer, the city’s most famous con man. Saving his life in the Shadow Game forced Enne to assume the identity of Séance, a mysterious underworld figure. Now, with the Chancellor of the Republic dead and bounties on both their heads, she and Levi must play a dangerous game of crime and politics...with the very fate of New Reynes at stake.

  Thirsting for his freedom and the chance to build an empire, Levi enters an unlikely partnership with the estranged son of mafia donna Vianca Augustine. Meanwhile, Enne remains trapped by Vianca’s binding oath, playing the roles of both darling lady and cunning street lord, unsure which side of herself reflects the truth.

  As Enne and Levi walk a path of unimaginable wealth and opportunity, new relationships and deadly secrets could quickly lead them into ruin. And when unforeseen players enter the game, they must each make an impossible choice: sacrifice everything they’ve earned in order to survive...

  Or die as legends.

  Books by Amanda Foody

  Daughter of the Burning City

  The Shadow Game Series

  Ace of Shades

  King of Fools

  Amanda Foody

  King of Fools

  To Dad, for encouraging all my games, stories, and schemes.

  Contents

  PART I

  EPIGRAPH 2

  LEVI

  ENNE

  JAC

  LEVI

  EPIGRAPH 3

  ENNE

  JAC

  ENNE

  LEVI

  JAC

  ENNE

  LEVI

  EPIGRAPH 4

  JAC

  ENNE

  LEVI

  LEVI

  ENNE

  EPIGRAPH 5

  JAC

  LEVI

  ENNE

  JAC

  LEVI

  LEVI

  JAC

  ENNE

  EPIGRAPH 6

  JAC

  LEVI

  ENNE

  PART II

  EPIGRAPH 7

  LEVI

  ENNE

  JAC

  ENNE

  EPIGRAPH 8

  LEVI

  ENNE

  JAC

  ENNE

  JAC

  LEVI

  JAC

  EPIGRAPH 9

  ENNE

  LEVI

  ENNE

  EPIGRAPH 10

  JAC

  LEVI

  JAC

  LEVI

  ENNE

  EPIGRAPH J

  LEVI

  ENNE

  JAC

  EPIGRAPH Q

  ENNE

  EPIGRAPH K

  LEVI

  LEVI

  ENNE

  EPIGRAPH A

  LEVI

  ENNE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PART I

  RISK

  2

  “After the executioner lowered Veil’s body from the gallows, he claimed he couldn’t remove the wrappings covering Veil’s face. He used to wear that black gauze all around his head, you know? Well, the executioner said he couldn’t take it off. That it was part of Veil’s face like his own skin.”

  —A legend of the North Side

  LEVI

  Ten hours after escaping the Shadow Game, Levi Glaisyer found his destiny slapped onto the side of a dumpster behind St. Morse Casino.

  Criminal Wanted Dead or Alive

  Accomplice in the Assassination of the Chancellor

  If asked, Levi would deny believing in destiny. Five years on the streets of the City of Sin had taught him that destiny and luck were for the desperate and the thickheaded. As a card dealer, he’d often encountered believers bemoaning the mirrors they’d shattered or the white cats they’d passed. They’d rub lucky coins between their fingers or kiss the shriveled remains of a rabbit’s foot, praying for divine intervention in a game that Levi had already rigged.

  For Levi, when the cards no longer ran in his favor, he cheated—simple as that. Luck was a mechanism to be devised, and luck and destiny were merely two sides of the same coin.

  Yet as he stared at the wanted poster, sirens wailing across New Reynes in search of him, he couldn’t deny that something felt inevitable about this moment. The thought made his heart pound, even with the Augustine bodyguard looming beside him. Everything in Levi’s life, all his dreams and follies and tragedies, had led to this afternoon, to this alley, to this poster, to this single flip of destiny’s coin.

  Dead?

  Or alive?

  Maybe he was meant for more, the feeling of inevitability whispered to him. Maybe this was his new beginning.

  He checked his watch. His new beginning was late.

  At half past noon, the Casino District was unusually vacant. Gone were the unlucky gamblers, the slovenly drunks, the outrageous street performers, the wandering tourists. The honest and the crooked, the naïve and the wicked had all found their ways home to sleep off whiskey hangovers and mourn empty purses, leaving backwash-filled bottles and half-smoked cigars clustered in the gutters. Despite the lack of patrons, the street’s neon signs continued to flash, the ragtime music continued to hum, and the shows continued to play. No matter who you were, what you’d done, or how little you had, Tropps Street was open for your business.

  It was remarkably hot in New Reynes today, even for the mid-June afternoon. Levi’s bodyguard wiped the sweat collecting from his brow and aired out his reeking shirt.

  Levi didn’t know or trust this man. But anyone who worked for Vianca Augustine—the owner of St. Morse Casino and the donna of the notorious Augustine crime Family—knew better than to cross her. Regardless of the three-thousand-volt bounty on Levi’s head, this man would follow Vianca’s orders and protect him. Greed always answered to fear.

  Again, Levi checked his watch. He’d pace if he weren’t so exhausted and achy from his collection of injuries: two broken ribs, a black eye, several bruises, and a bandaged knife wound. The City of Sin hadn’t been merciful to him these past few days.

  After he and Enne had escaped from the Shadow Game and returned to St. Morse, he’d managed a mere five hours of shut-eye before the bodyguard had knocked on Enne’s apartment door and informed Levi that his ride to Zula Slyk’s safe house would soon arrive. Zula owned an illegal monarchist newspaper in Olde Town and, several days prior, had been the one to coldly inform Enne that her mother was dead. If Levi had a choice, he’d never see that heartless woman again. But thanks to Vianca’s unbreakable omerta, Levi never had a choice. Zula’s was safe. What mattered right now was moving from here to there without meeting trouble along the way.

  But Zula Slyk was the least of his problems.

  For the past two years, Levi had been running an investment scam, which was how he’d earned the enemies who’d invited him to the Shadow Game. Once the scam started to crumble, all he’d wanted was to clean it up so he could focus on his gang, the Irons.

  He still wanted that. To build his empire, just as he’d always dreamed.

  But Levi was in a predicament. The lords of the other two gangs were wanted criminals as well, but Ivory and Scavenger could count on the loyalty and protection of
their associates for their safety, whereas half the Irons would probably sell Levi out simply to watch him hang. If Levi was spending all his time trapped under Zula’s watch, he’d have no shot at rebuilding his gang. He’d broken out of one cage only to stumble into another.

  He tore the wanted poster from the dumpster and crumpled it in his fist.

  Maybe he was meant for nothing.

  A swanky Amberlite motorcar appeared at the mouth of the alley, painted black and matte as if coated in gunpowder. Levi ducked closer to his bodyguard. Vianca had scheduled his ride, and Vianca didn’t do inconspicuous. The car had no metallic fixtures or studded bumpers to be seen. It could be a trap.

  Once the car eased deeper into the alley, the driver’s window rolled down and a gloved hand beckoned Levi inside. Beside him, the bodyguard nodded for Levi to depart. Apparently this was his scheduled ride after all.

  Wanted men don’t do flashy, Levi reminded himself oh, so tragically.

  He groaned in pain as he slid onto the plush leather of the back seat and shut the door. The motorcar lurched forward, leaving the St. Morse escort behind.

  Inside was utter darkness.

  As his eyes adjusted, he took in a shape in the seat across from him and realized, breath catching, that his private getaway wasn’t so private.

  He snapped the fingers of one hand, sparking a faint flame that offered a pinch of light—one of the few useful tricks his orb-making blood talent provided him.

  His other hand instinctively felt for his pistol.

  The man looked nearly forty. A patch concealed his left eye, but there was no hiding the ugly pink scar that snaked across his brow into his receding copper hairline. His skin was fair, his gray trench coat designed by Ulani Maxirello, and his teeth whiter than a tooth-polish advertisement.

  “It was time we met,” the man said, as if assuming Levi already knew his identity.

  Levi never forgot a face, and although he’d never seen this man before, there was something familiar about him. Perhaps in the reptilian green of his remaining eye. In the sharp slant of his nose, the narrow shape of his jawline. Even if his individual features were neither unattractive nor unsettling, collectively and without explanation, his appearance made Levi’s skin crawl.

  Maybe this wasn’t his scheduled ride after all.

  “Let’s not have any trouble,” Levi warned, clicking the safety off his gun loud enough for his companion to hear.

  Rather than reacting to Levi’s threat, the man tossed him that day’s copy of The Crimes & The Times. Levi’s heart skipped several beats as he examined the matching wanted posters on the front page: him and Séance, whom he knew better as Enne Salta. She’d arrived in New Reynes only ten days ago, but since then, she’d managed to earn a more noteworthy reputation than Levi had in five years. In the portrait, Enne had on the same silk mask she’d worn during the Shadow Game, obscuring all but her black lips.

  Her bounty is five hundred volts more than mine, he noted sourly.

  Still, they made quite a handsome duo on the front page. Looking at them, that same feeling of inevitability stirred inside him. For a moment, he let himself fantasize about destiny, about how his and Enne’s were intertwined, about how badly he wished to intertwine them further. He knew he shouldn’t—couldn’t. Falling for Enne held its own dangers.

  Levi eased his grip on the gun. If this man was an assailant, he wouldn’t be updating Levi on today’s current events. Still, Levi didn’t let go of the weapon. Not yet.

  “We’ve never met, Pup, but I know your reputation,” the man started. Levi quietly seethed. He hated that nickname. It came from his split talent—his weaker talent—for sensing auras, but he hardly smelled auras like a dog, like everyone assumed. The nickname was just another way to belittle him. The North Side had always viewed him as a kid playing gangster. “I didn’t think you’d be the quiet type.”

  “I’m still guessing at your name.” Still guessing at why a stranger had hijacked Levi’s getaway, if not to collect the reward.

  “How quickly the city’s forgotten.” The man pouted, a rather strange look for someone his age. He didn’t seem to wear his years comfortably. “But I should think you, of all people, would see the family resemblance. Why do you think it was so easy for me to intercept your car?” He inspected Levi. “I’m told you’re my mother’s favorite.”

  Harrison Augustine. Vianca’s estranged only child and the Augustine Family prince. It was easy now to spot the resemblance. They carried the same serious, noble features, the same paleness that revealed the green of their veins snaking across their foreheads and necks. He even spoke like his mother, purring names as if he owned them.

  If he was anything like Vianca, then he couldn’t be trusted.

  “I know who you are now,” Levi said. “But I still don’t know why you’re here.”

  Harrison tapped the newspaper’s front page. “You and this Séance character, escaping the impossible Shadow Game and killing both the Chancellor and Sedric Torren in a single night. You’re the talk of the town. As soon as I heard what happened, I knew I had to meet you.”

  Levi stared at the man and reflected on his words. Even without his inheritance or his mother’s empire, Harrison was powerful. The Augustine and Torren crime Families were notorious in New Reynes, and Harrison, in his eighteen years of absence, had graduated from prince to mystery. No one knew why he’d left or what he’d been doing since.

  Yet here he sat, claiming he needed to meet Levi, of all people. If he was after the bounty, then this seemed a roundabout way of acquiring it. But he’d made a mistake if he thought Levi had anything to offer him. Levi had nothing but the stolen clothes on his back.

  “They used to say this city is a game,” Harrison mused, drawing a cigar from his pocket. He offered one to Levi, but Levi shook his head. He hated smoking. “Do they still say that?”

  “They do.”

  “Even so, New Reynes must’ve changed a lot.” Harrison lit the cigar, and the car filled with its musky odor. “A seventeen-year-old street lord. I’m impressed you’ve survived this long.”

  Levi stiffened, even though he was used to this sort of condescension. “I survived the Shadow Game. The Chancellor is dead—”

  “Yes, yes.” Harrison blew a cloud of smoke in Levi’s face, making his eyes water as he scrunched his nose and held in the urge to cough. “And street lords who kill chancellors don’t live long. So tell me—why should I bet on you? Even though you were the one who killed the Chancellor?”

  Levi narrowed his eyes. Was Harrison trying to test him? “I don’t know where you got such an idea, but—”

  “Don’t play coy. The papers say that Séance killed him, but I know the truth. I have friends in the House of Shadows.” Yet another reason not to trust him. Maybe this was death coming for Levi after all. He kept his hand on his gun. “They’re embarrassed. Chancellor Semper, the revered Father of the Revolution, killed by some scrappy card dealer? But this Séance character... Well, she’s a more impressive villain.”

  Levi’s moral compass didn’t point north past the North Side, but if it was Séance’s identity that Harrison wanted, he would never give that up. Besides, Levi felt he was an impressive enough character in his own right.

  “I’m sorry the wigheads feel that way,” Levi answered, unable to resist the empty boast. “I’m sure they’ll find me a formidable enemy.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Levi’s spirits lifted at those words. No one ever saw potential in him. Right now he could barely see potential in himself.

  Harrison turned the page of the newspaper.

  SENATE CALLS FOR WAR ON THE GANGS

  “War is a strong word,” Levi murmured.

  “It’s been said before,” Harrison replied. “And it’s why I’m here.”

  Before the Great Street War eighte
en years ago, two street lords, Veil and Havoc, had ruled the city like kings. It was the golden age of New Reynes crime. But then the wigheads had forced the North Side to its knees, and both of the lords were hanged in Liberty Square in a spectacle of justice and judgment. Ever since then, gangs like the Irons, the Scarhands, and the Doves had attempted to replicate those empires of old. But no one had succeeded, in part because the North Side had never truly recovered from the war, or from the Revolution seven years before it.

  “They’ve talked about clearing out the gangs for years,” Levi said.

  “The Chancellor was assassinated by—as the city dubs you both—two street lords,” Harrison said. “This isn’t just talk. It’s a promise. And the war has already begun.”

  Nerves quivered in Levi’s chest, and he had the urge to raise his hand to his throat to assure himself there was no noose knotted around it. New Reynes had raised him on its legends; he knew the Great Street War’s bloodbath as if he’d lived it.

  He scanned the rest of the article, which included the bounties not just of Levi and Séance, but the other lords and seconds, as well. It was the most informative write-up of the gangs he’d encountered since Enne’s unusual and questionable tourist guidebook.

  Levi grinned. His bounty was the same as Scavenger’s and Ivory’s. Even so, he had a few grievances with the article. For one, the Orphan Guild wasn’t a gang—it was an enterprise. Second, breaking the law once hardly made Enne a criminal mastermind. And last, his title wasn’t Pup; it was the Iron Lord.

  To his shock, each of those named also had a wanted poster—other than Ivory, of course, as no one alive had ever glimpsed her face. Levi’s pulse hammered as he studied each of them. In comparison to their fairer features, like those of the majority in New Reynes, Levi’s brown skin stuck out. He would be easier to spot, and more at risk.

  Then his eyes fell on the detailed sketch of his best friend, Jac Mardlin, with his messy gray-blond hair and lazy grin. He was the only one depicted smiling.

  Jac was likely still sleeping on Enne’s floor where Levi had left him. Jac always knew his association with Levi would cause him trouble, but he probably had no idea his wanted posters were already plastered across the city. Before he’d departed, Levi had shaken him awake and asked to meet with him this afternoon. He hoped Jac hadn’t ventured outside yet. The sirens were searching for him, too.