King of Fools

by Amanda Foody

  “Will you be there?” she asked him.

  Jac’s breath hitched. Muck. He was already anxious from being in this den, confused about the girl, nervous about letting Levi down, and now he had to worry about tomorrow night on top of everything else.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there,” he muttered. Because when Levi asked, Jac answered, too.

  She slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she said. Jac wasn’t sure how to take that. Tock looked like the sort of girl who came with a warning label. Before he could respond, she nodded and headed back the way she’d come.

  The Torrens tonight, the lords tomorrow. Jac tried to douse the nerves burning inside him. He couldn’t leave now, not when he knew he’d see Levi tomorrow. Levi was depending on him. Jac needed to bring good news.

  Jac put his cigarette out in an ashtray and made toward the ring. He held his breath as he walked, trying to focus on the sweat, the whistles, the cheers. He had a routine before his fights.

  It started with a song.

  I sold it all but my pride when I came to this town.

  The song wasn’t about him. It was about legends and glory and ambition, but sometimes, when Jac’s stomach churned with anticipation and the room around him thundered with shouts, he could convince himself otherwise.

  Bought my ticket at a crossroads for the long way down.

  Someone slapped him hard on the back. Jac turned and stared into the yellow-toothed smile of a Torren supplier. The man removed his jacket and placed it on the referee’s table. He would be Jac’s opponent.

  Jac hesitated—he hadn’t been expecting to fight someone he’d hoped would hire him. But maybe this wasn’t bad luck. Maybe it was an opportunity.

  Jac stripped down to his undershirt, laying his orbs, his pistol, and his belongings with the man’s. He examined the tape around his knuckles. “You fight much?” he asked.

  “I’m in the mood.” The man turned over his shoulder and waved at the girl from earlier, who shot him back a winning smile. Jac’s eyebrows furrowed. What sort of game was she playing? Hadn’t she bet on him? “You look like a fighter, though.”

  “I’m out of work,” Jac responded smoothly. “Need some voltage.”

  “There’s always work here if you’re willing to look.” The man offered him a grin.

  The referee whistled and motioned for them to enter the ring, and Jac held his breath. Should he let the man win, or try to win himself? He examined the man’s broad shoulders and impressive height. Without a doubt, the bookie would’ve marked Jac as the underdog. The girl said she’d bet on him, but she worked here, and Liver Shot would pocket more volts if Jac lost. If he wanted a job here, he should think about the den first.

  Wanted the name on my tombstone to match my crown.

  He swallowed down his disappointment. He wouldn’t be a legend tonight.

  Jac and his opponent readied their stances, fists raised, shoulders squared. For a brief moment, the den was silent. Then the referee blew his whistle, and the room erupted.

  His opponent threw the first punch. Jac dodged it easily and went for the man’s stomach. Another miss, another jab. Soon the man’s shoulder dug into Jac’s abdomen, shoving him against the wall. The crowds around them cheered as Jac grunted and kicked his opponent off him.

  They circled each other. Jac was hyperaware of the smell of Rapture, of the gaze of the girl from the suppliers’ table. It all made his head spin. It made the scar on his arms itch.

  The rest of the match passed in a blur. He ended it on his stomach, the man’s knee in his back, the taste of blood in his mouth from his split lip. The man didn’t look much better—a cut on his jaw, a hobble to his step from a kick in his groin—but he’d won, and that was what mattered.

  The man held out his hand to Jac, and Jac grabbed it gratefully and got to his feet.

  “You’ve got more to you than you look,” he said. “You should come sit with my friends. Let them buy you a drink.”

  Jac flashed a smile, even though he usually tried not to drink. “I can’t turn that down,” he lied.

  After collecting their possessions from the referee, they made their way to the table. There were six suppliers sitting there—four men and two women, one of them being the girl from earlier. Jac tried to keep his expression neutral even as she winked at him.

  His opponent gestured at the open seat next to the girl. “We all work here most nights. We bring in the supplies and oversee the orders and the stock...and make sure there isn’t trouble. We can always use extra help.”

  “Who pays you? The tavern?” Jac asked.

  “We get our volts directly from the Torrens. Sophia’s the manager. She keeps charge of all that, and transporting the stock here.” He nodded at the girl, who smiled. “Plus, a name like Torren will get you places. The Family really watches out for us. Pays for doctor bills or emergencies if they come up. It’s more than you could ever ask for.”

  Jac cleared his throat nervously. “And none of... I mean, I heard about what happened to Sedric—it was all over the papers—”

  They exchanged wary glances. “We’ve been assured our volts are still coming.”

  He hesitated. Jac wanted to press further—who were the volts coming from?—but he also didn’t want to arouse suspicion. Todd Walsh was jobless and needed volts, and the Torren Family name carried weight in New Reynes. This was his ticket to the inside and, soon, he would find out all Levi needed him to know.

  “Well,” Jac said, smiling. “I can’t say no to that, either.”

  His opponent slapped him on the back. “Great. Why don’t you grab drinks for the table? There’s no charge for us here.”

  Jac nodded and stood up. As he made to move to the bar, the girl—Sophia—stood up, as well. “I’ll go with you,” she offered, and didn’t bother to wait for Jac to accept or decline. She popped another piece of taffy in her mouth as she walked beside him. “So, did it feel good throwing that fight?”

  His mouth went dry. How could she tell? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  They reached the edge of the bar, and she leaned one elbow on it, crinkling a green taffy wrapper between her fingers. “I won two hundred volts.”

  “I thought you bet on the underdog.”

  “I did,” she said, nodding at Jac’s opponent from earlier. “Just not the one the bookie picked.”

  Jac wasn’t sure if she was trying to flatter him or not. Something about the girl gave him a bad feeling, but he’d need to ignore that if he was going to work with her. And from what the man had told him, Sophia wouldn’t just be his colleague—she’d be his boss.

  “Well, I’m happy to earn anyone a few volts,” he answered carefully.

  “What’s your name again?” she asked.

  “Todd Walsh.”

  She pursed her lips. “Well, Todd, I’m Sophia Caro.” She said both of their names like they tasted of phoniness. “Welcome to the Torren empire.”

  ENNE

  The doors lining the hallway alternated black and white, extending endlessly in both directions. The architecture resembled a palace, with checkered marble tiles to match the doors and numerous scalloped columns that made Enne feel as though she wandered in a forest of grandeur and stone.

  As she treaded past door after door, Enne’s thoughts were muddled, as they usually were when she was dreaming. She’d visited this place before. She’d dreamed this dream before. And like always, only one clear thought took hold in her mind: she was searching for a particular door.

  She paused in front of a black one and ran her fingertips over its smooth, glossy paint. She remembered this place well enough to expect one of three things behind it: a memory, a fantasy, or a nightmare.

  She pushed open the door.

  It was a nightmare.

  A chandelier of murky glass
offered meager light to the room, obscuring the features of most of its occupants. They sat, ghostly silhouettes surrounding a long table covered in black felt. Silver gleamed as each new Shadow Card was turned over and tossed into the table’s center. It was deathly quiet except for a familiar tick, tick, tick.

  Enne’s breath hitched as she entered. She was back. She couldn’t be back. She whipped around to flee, but the door behind her slammed closed, like the lid of a coffin. She shakily turned around, working up her courage to once more take a seat at this dreadful table. But then she realized she wasn’t the invited player.

  Lourdes was.

  Lourdes identified fluidly between female and as neither male nor female. Currently, she was dressed in gender-neutral clothes, her long blond hair braided behind her, a linen blazer draped over her shoulders. She smoked a cigarette with trembling fingers as she played.

  Enne looked at her mother’s measly stack of Shadow Cards, then at the timer, panic lodging in her chest. Lourdes was losing. Lourdes would lose.

  This was the night she’d died.

  “You’re not trying,” Malcolm Semper told her.

  “There were other ways you could’ve chosen to kill me,” Lourdes answered. They spoke as though they knew each other well. She even laughed. “I know you think the North Side corrupted me, but I’ve always been terrible at cards.”

  “This was the only way.” He turned over another Card. It was Death. To Enne’s surprise, the Chancellor cringed when he saw it. When he dealt out a new hand, he did so quickly—quite the opposite from what he had done for Enne, and Enne could think of no good explanation for it. “I had to—”

  Lourdes cleared her throat, and her gaze shot in Enne’s direction. Enne froze in the room’s corner. Her mother couldn’t see her. That wasn’t possible. But she narrowed her eyes as though she sensed Enne standing there, eavesdropping on a memory where she didn’t belong.

  “Go,” she murmured under her breath. Enne couldn’t tell if this was real or the dream playing tricks. But of course, none of this was real, her practical mind told her. Her mother hadn’t actually known the Chancellor. The hallway was a recurring figment of Enne’s imagination.

  Then the door opened, and a force wrenched Enne out of the room. And Enne woke up feeling like, even in death, Lourdes Alfero still kept her secrets.

  * * *

  The Ruins District was as vacant and silent as a graveyard. It sprawled across the northeastern region of the city. Grass and beachy sand from the nearby shore coated its cobblestones, left untamed in the twenty-five years since the Revolution. The estates of noble families still stood, their belongings looted, their doorframes painted with crude, bloody words. Bits of glass cracked beneath Enne’s heels as she walked—pieces of the windows that had been shattered when the city of Reynes fell.

  “I did some researching in old newspapers,” Lola said, indicating for them to stop at the street corner. “I thought this would be a good laugh.”

  Enne read the sign with irritation.

  MADAME FAUSTING’S FINISHING SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

  “I get it!” Enne seethed. “I went to finishing school! I’m not from the North Side!”

  “I think it’s funny.” Grace smirked.

  “It is funny,” Lola said smugly. “But it’s also perfect.”

  Enne’s gaze swept over the abandoned campus, with its overgrown gardens and ivy-covered white brick. It looked nothing like her own school, which was all stone and woods and baskets of flowers underneath every window. But Lola was right—it was spacious, secluded, and exactly what they were looking for.

  The front doors hung on their hinges, the wood splintered and broken as though hacked with a dull axe, and cobwebs filled the missing slivers. Much like Levi’s museum, the Revolution had carved out the school like a carcass and left it to rot. The girls crept inside. Sunlight shone through the dust-coated window glass in fractured rays. The display cases in the lobby had been smashed, their contents stolen or discarded, and Enne gingerly stepped over the fallen photographs that age had yellowed and curled like dying flowers.

  “This is not the glamor I was expecting,” Grace said. Enne imagined sleeping in Lola’s six hundred square feet apartment last night had left quite a lot to be desired.

  “Not yet,” Enne admitted. “But with a little cleaning—”

  “I don’t get it,” Grace snapped as they turned into the first classroom. The remnants of a lesson still lingered on the chalkboard, and she wrinkled her nose as she inspected the dirt coating each of the desks. “You’ve written yourself some kind of checklist for what a gang looks like. You call yourself a lord, but as far as I can tell, you’re just some tourist with almost no experience, no voltage, and no common sense. You haven’t even asked me to swear, yet you’re touring me around your future hideout.”

  Enne could’ve easily risen to her provocation. By the way Lola grinded her teeth beside her, she clearly wanted Enne to.

  But then Enne pictured the gray, lifeless faces of the Phoenix Club fading out one by one. The practice soothed her, grounded her.

  She’d never thought this would be simple. But checklist or not, she refused to still be taken as a joke.

  “You’re right—we’re not a gang. Not yet. That’s why you can swear when you choose to.” Even if an oath was different from an omerta, Enne had no desire to push Grace into anything. She’d rather earn her respect.

  Grace gave her a pointed look. “That isn’t the way things work in the North Side.”

  “As you can tell, I’m not like the rest of the North Side,” Enne said. She marched over to the blackboard and grabbed a piece of chalk, which she thrust into Grace’s hands. “Lola and I will clean this place. You have a different job.”

  Grace stared at the faded arithmetic on the board with displeasure. “I can already tell I’m not going to like this.”

  “You’re a counter, and we need volts,” Enne said.

  Grace tossed the chalk over her shoulder. “I have quite literally killed men to avoid doing math. Besides, I’m a counter, not a Mizer. I can’t make volts appear out of nothing.”

  Behind them, there was a crash as Lola tripped and dropped all the cleaning supplies. She sheepishly muttered an apology and bent down to pick everything up.

  “We don’t need a miracle,” Enne told her. “Just a business model.”

  “Set up a flower shop, then.”

  “You know that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m a wanted criminal. Design me a crime.”

  Grace’s face twisted with anger. “You don’t get it. There used to be dozens of gangs in New Reynes, and not that long ago, either. The Doves weren’t the only killers. The Scarhands weren’t the only forgers and arms dealers. But over time, as lords died and turf wars were fought, the gangs condensed. Whatever crime you decide to claim, one of the other lords has already claimed it. And it would be a bad idea to make an enemy out of Ivory or Scavenger.”

  Enne agreed with her there. “Then all we need is something that no one has thought of before.”

  Grace scoffed. “If that were simple, you wouldn’t need me to come up with it.”

  Enne ran her gaze over Grace’s chain-link belt and sharpened Creed jewelry and wondered how they both cherished the same romance novels. But they did, and Enne had to believe that somehow—very, very deep down—that made them kindred spirits. No matter if she wore a lacy blouse while Grace wore studded boots.

  “The first South Side party is in two weeks. You haven’t sworn to me, and until then, I don’t need to explain myself to you. But if you still want this.” Enne held up one of the invitations. “Then you better figure out that business model, because it’s going to take time to prepare you to pass as a South Sider.”

  Grace stalked to the blackboard. “I hate puzzles,” she growled.

  “I hate cleaning,” Enne said flatly.<
br />
  “And I hate both of you,” Lola muttered.

  * * *

  The cleaning was backbreaking, disgusting work, and no matter how many times Enne scrubbed the windows, they never seemed to shine. Lola had been attacking cobwebs and dust mites all morning, and she looked it. Her trousers were covered in dirt, and both girls smelled of sweat and disinfectant. After three hours, they’d removed the disturbing film from the walls, leaving only faint stains behind, and scrubbed the wooden floor clean.

  But while Enne and Lola might’ve been miserable, Grace had lied about hating puzzles.

  For the first hour, Grace had merely stared at the blackboard while muttering curses under her breath. When the second hour struck, she scribbled furiously over every inch of it. By the third hour, she’d screamed profanities, thrown her chalk against the wall, and stormed out of the room. Then she’d skulked back in a few minutes later and started over.

  When she at last shouted out, “I am a mucking genius,” a mess of numbers covered the board that made Enne’s head throb.

  “What is this?” she asked warily.

  “This is your answer. Something to help the North Side, not to hurt it. Something to make allies of the other lords, not enemies. Something to make you rich.” Grace swung herself around on the teacher’s desk and faced them, like Enne and Lola were both her students. She had a terrifying gleam in her eyes that Enne suspected was also there when she talked about murder. “This is a stock market.”

  Lola frowned. “Like in the Financial District?”

  “If it were like the stock market on Hedge Street, what would you invest in?” Grace asked, though she didn’t wait for either of them to answer. “You’d invest in corporations, like motorcar companies and product manufacturers. But we’re not on the South Side, are we? So what will the North Side invest in?” She pointed to the board’s corner, where she’d written DVES, SCRH, IRNS, and OPHG. “The gangs.”

  Enne squinted at the garbled tickers long enough to see the names of each of the gangs hidden within them. “I don’t have any idea how a stock market works.”