by Amanda Foody
Levi slapped Tommy on the back, making him wince. “Muck, Tommy, I’m the one with the broken ribs here.” He scanned the other faces around the foyer. It seemed the tabloid wasn’t why they looked anxious. “Anyone going to fill me in on what I’ve missed?”
Mansi stood abruptly, making her stool skid across the stone floor. “Chez is dead.”
Whatever Levi had been expecting her to say, it wasn’t that.
“Dead?” Levi rasped. “From what?”
“From burns.” The look in her eyes made it clear her words were an accusation—no, a conviction. Chez had tried to challenge Levi, and so Levi had murdered his third.
Mansi stalked past him, bumping painfully into his side, and stormed out of the building. Levi watched the door close behind her with nausea churning in his stomach. He squeezed Tommy’s shoulder and bent over, certain he was about to be sick.
No, he wasn’t like the other lords.
“You’re hurting me,” Tommy told him, and Levi wrenched his hand away.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“So it’s true?” Tommy asked nervously.
Levi remembered it all with disturbing clarity. The starved look in Chez’s eyes when he’d found Levi in that alley. The feeling of Chez’s gun pressed against his temple. The burning mouthful of Gambler’s Ruin that Levi had spit on him. The bloody flesh and exposed bone circling Chez’s wrists where Levi had grabbed him.
They’d been friends, once.
Now Levi actually did taste vomit. “I...”
“Levi!” Tock called from the top of the stairwell. All the charms and chimes clattered as she descended a few steps. “You have a phone call.”
Levi barely even registered her words before he rushed up the stairs, fleeing from the other Irons. Tock grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him up the last step. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she hissed. “They’ve been sitting there all day like this.” She grabbed the copy of The Kiss & Tell he was still holding and threw it on the ground.
“Is it true?” Levi whispered.
“It’s true.” She led him to his room, and he numbly followed. “But you need to pull yourself together. Harrison Augustine is on the phone.”
Levi’s stomach lurched again. Finally. He ran to the telephone resting on a repurposed absinthe crate in the room’s corner. “’Lo?” he breathed into the receiver.
“You called?” The purr in the voice was unmistakable.
“Yes,” Levi growled. “Two weeks ago. Where have you been?”
“It’s been busy since the announcement. Interviews, visits, speeches—”
“I need your help.” Levi didn’t have time to listen to Harrison’s rehearsed excuses. He’d already been waiting too long.
“Yes, I got that from your message. It’s an incredible request to make, yet you’ve provided me with almost nothing I originally asked for. There’s still no word from your associate at the Torren den, and I’m not even sure all the information you gave me from your meeting with the other lords is reliable.”
“What do you mean?” Levi asked sharply.
“I’m not accusing you. I just have a few questions about what happened at the Orphan Guild. I don’t believe the whiteboots were responsible.”
Levi frowned and swatted at Tock, who kept trying to press her ear against the other side of the receiver. Levi’s entire promise to the other lords was built on vengeance for what the whiteboots did to the Orphan Guild. Was someone else responsible? And if so, did he care enough to change his plan?
“Why do you say that?” Levi asked.
“Because I was with Jameson Hector that night. He was of the same mind as me—he didn’t want to see the conflict between the North and South Sides escalate.”
“If Hector didn’t do it, why would he claim credit?” Levi asked.
“I haven’t spoken to him since the attack, but I believe he feels it’s best that the people believe the authorities have the situation under control.”
“So someone else is pulling the strings.” Levi furrowed his eyebrows. “It might be Scavenger.” Tock rolled her eyes beside him. “He has access to those sort of weapons. He admitted as much during our meeting.”
“It’s not him. He has no motive. He does business with the Guild.”
“Well, we won’t learn anything by doing nothing,” Levi said. “I agree with you—this will only escalate the conflict further—but if I don’t do this, I can’t get you the information you want, and I won’t be able to figure out who’s actually behind this.”
“Are you that confident in your associate? We’ve heard nothing about the Torrens in weeks.”
“I am,” Levi said, even though he wasn’t—not entirely. “Let me do this tonight, and I’ll have the name of the new don for you by tomorrow.” When Harrison didn’t respond right away, Levi pressed further. “I only need your help ensuring it’s shut down.”
Harrison sighed. “You want to do this tonight?”
“Yes,” Levi answered. He was tired of waiting.
After another moment of silence, Harrison said, “Fine. I’ll arrange for an anonymous tip to go to Hector, but tomorrow, we’ll meet at the Kipling’s Hotel at four in the afternoon. Bring your associate along. The waiting on both our parts ends tonight.”
The line went dead.
It wasn’t until Levi hung up and looked back at Tock that the weight of everything crashed down on him. The pressure to pull this off. The news about Chez.
His plan was finally coming to fruition; his empire would rise tonight. But for the first time, he thought, Maybe I don’t deserve it.
“Did he agree?” Tock asked.
Levi looked up and nodded.
She pumped her fist in victory. “So it’s happening. It’s happening.”
Levi looked out the window, where the magnificent, historic structure of Revolution Bridge crossed the Brint. The city’s most symbolic landmark.
This evening, Tock was going to blow it up.
But even the thought of that did nothing to change Levi’s mood. He couldn’t shake the image of the way the Irons had looked at him. Like they were afraid of him.
“I murdered Chez,” Levi breathed. “That’s what everyone is saying, and they’re right.”
The words finally pushed his nausea over the edge, and he vomited behind the absinthe crate.
Tock made a disgusted noise as Levi heaved and awkwardly patted him on the back. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me. If anything, this is good news. Everyone is shocked. They didn’t think you had it in you.”
“How is that a good thing?” he gasped, trying not to throw up again.
“Your silver jewelry, your ridiculous palace... You’re trying to write yourself a legend, but you forget—all stories from the North Side are penned in blood.”
“Not mine,” Levi ground out.
She tilted her head to the side and gave him a pitiful look. “Maybe you’re just too good for all of this.”
Levi grew up in a family whose power had been forcibly removed from them. He’d listened, enraptured, to the stories of the North Side gangsters, people who’d come from nothing but seized power all the same. When he thought of those legends, of the Phoenix Club, of the sort of people who held power in this world, it sickened him to realize that the only path to it was a wicked conscience. He didn’t pretend to be a saint, but he’d foolishly hoped that he could change the repeated theme of all the stories. He’d thought his story could be different.
Maybe it wasn’t that the wicked always gained power—maybe power itself corrupted. Maybe Levi had spent so long calling himself a victim that he hadn’t noticed that he’d become a villain.
Maybe you’re too good for all this, Tock had said. So had Narinder, and Reymond before him.
Levi spat out what remained of
the vomit in his mouth. “Not anymore.”
ENNE
Three girls walked down Guillory Street wearing pearls, frocked jackets, and impeccable plumberry lipstick. Their hair was tucked into dainty feathered hats, showing off slender necks and feminine collarbones. They clutched pastries and ruffled purses in delicate, white-gloved hands. Nearly everyone tipped their hats or smiled at them as they passed. They looked like a photo shoot from The Guillory Street Gossip waiting to happen, an exclusive clique the South Side didn’t know, but felt they ought to.
Never might they have expected the ladies to be gangsters.
According to Enne’s guidebook, Guillory Street was the social center of the South Side. Like the buildings, the cobblestoned streets were white, barely besmirched by the wheels of motorcars or the soles of brogued oxfords and kitten heels. Twinkling string lights crisscrossed overhead, illuminating shopfronts selling such luxuries as imported chocolate, fine jewelry, and overpriced real estate. The gardens were blooming and well-manicured. The street performers on clarinets and violins were Von Ballard–trained. The passersby carried colorful shopping parcels and smelled of high-end cologne.
“What a muckhole,” Lola muttered under her breath. An elderly woman who passed shot Lola a horrified look.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Enne told her. This was easily the nicest place in New Reynes she’d ever visited, one that came with glowing recommendations from her guidebook. She itched to tour some of the sights—the famous Kipling’s department store, the boutique cupcake shop, the opera hall. But they had come for one reason today: an afternoon salon that Worner Prescott was attending.
It had been two weeks since she’d last seen Levi. Their plans for the stock market were entirely stalled until Levi fulfilled his reckless promise to the other lords. She was depending on him, had no idea what was going on, and he hadn’t even bothered to contact her.
That stung worse than she cared to admit.
With their volts nearly gone, all three of the girls were irritated and hungry. And their clothes, though beautiful, were stolen from expensive Tropps Street boutiques and the laundry at St. Morse Casino.
Enne took a deep breath of the sweet-smelling South Side air, as though it could cleanse her bitterness from the inside out. She might’ve felt betrayed, petty, and mildly faint from a lack of sugar, but that was nothing a box of rose macarons and the scream of a whizzing bullet couldn’t fix.
“This is it,” Lola said, looking up from the guidebook.
The condominium complex was painted peony pink, and a flower box of lilies perched on every windowsill. The girls stepped through the revolving doors and into a pristine lobby, and Enne slid her invitation to a nearby attendant.
“My friends and I are here for the salon,” she told him. He looked at her lace and pearls and smiled pleasantly.
“Right this way.”
After a short elevator ride, the three girls stepped into a cheerful common room, crowded with people in seersucker and satin. Pastries were stacked into towers, teacups rested on end tables, and crowds gathered to discuss the recent editorials and columns in The Gossip.
“Oh, sweet muck,” Lola muttered, her expression growing ever more horrified.
Across the room, Enne locked eyes with Vianca Augustine. Vianca beckoned with her bony finger, and Enne felt the terrible, familiar squeeze of the omerta around her throat.
“I’ll be right back,” Enne told the other girls hoarsely. “Introduce yourselves.” The two of them shot her alarmed looks as she pushed through the party to Vianca’s side.
“Get up,” Vianca snapped at the scrawny man beside her. He paled and jumped to his feet, gesturing for Enne to sit.
Once Enne did, Vianca clamped a hand around her arm and leaned toward her. Enne cringed. “I see you’ve brought your associates with you,” she whispered. “You dressed them up well. They both look like little dolls.”
Vianca was probably the only person in New Reynes who would ever feel comfortable describing Lola and Grace like that. “I can’t be everywhere at once,” Enne answered. “And I trust them.” That was the truth. Even if Enne hadn’t yet won Grace’s oath, she’d earned her respect. And while Enne might’ve softened the edges of her friends, she’d also sharpened her own.
“Is Worner Prescott here?” Enne asked.
Vianca nodded to a man across the room. He was short and fair, with shoulders made broader by thick pads and balding hair half-concealed beneath a top hat. He had the sort of face you could pass in the street unnoticed, even if you knew him.
Enne fought to contain her surprise. She associated monarchists with arson and vandalism, not cherry cheeks and tea parties.
As they watched, Worner made his way over to Grace and Lola. “He likes to introduce himself to everyone,” Vianca muttered. “He’s a buffoon, but he remembers names and faces. Some people find that charming.”
Enne wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Vianca share such a comment with her, as though Enne were a confidante. It was deeply uncomfortable, especially with Vianca’s hand still latched on her arm.
“You feel so thin,” the donna said, shaking Enne’s skinny wrist. “Don’t tell me the pressure is getting to you.”
Enne considered telling Vianca about how Levi’s ambitions were getting in the way of her own. She couldn’t imagine any real consequence to Levi—after all, he was Vianca’s favorite. But even if they hadn’t been speaking, it still felt like a line she couldn’t cross.
“Of course not,” Enne answered.
“Then why don’t you talk to Worner?” Vianca suggested. “Feel him out. He’s been terribly awkward around me lately. As if I care about what my son does or doesn’t do.”
Lola had advised her to avoid this subject, but Enne couldn’t contain her curiosity. “So it doesn’t bother you that Harrison is running for the First Party?”
Vianca’s nails dug deeper into Enne’s skin at the mention of her son’s name. “Of course not,” she said, echoing Enne’s own words and tone. Then she released Enne’s arm and carefully tucked a loose strand of white hair behind her ear, gazing into the distance. Enne realized that every few moments, the others in the room stole curious glances at the donna, followed by whispers.
Maybe the pressure was actually getting to Vianca.
“I’m very glad you’re here,” Vianca said, surprising Enne once again. She patted the back of Enne’s hand, as though her presence was a comfort.
Enne had never seen the donna betray vulnerability before, but still, she remained wary. After all, it wasn’t as though Enne had a choice about being here.
“What will you get if Worner wins?” Enne asked. “More power?”
“There are a thousand ways to power. You think I’d go to all this trouble if it were that simple?” Vianca’s voice grew colder and colder, and Enne leaned back into the comforting support of the cushions. “Do you know how it feels to have no value? For every person to see through you, no matter what you’ve accomplished?”
Enne didn’t look at the donna when she spoke, in case she saw something common in their expressions. She didn’t want to share anything with Vianca. Not ever. “I might,” she answered carefully.
“I was never supposed to be the donna of this Family,” Vianca said. Her bitterness was so palpable, Enne could nearly taste the vinegar in her words. “A long time ago, when there were still kings, my Family lived like royalty, too. And though Reynes was always a City of Sin, it felt different then, and my grandfather was adept at concealing his secret lifestyle. He spent his nights throwing dice and his mornings clutching prayer beads. He was a self-made man, but he was obsessed with his legacy. From nothing, he had built something. My father, my uncles, my brother—those were his something. I was not.”
Vianca’s voice remained cool, steady. Enne wasn’t sure she herself could speak about the things that had hurt her witho
ut them hurting her all over again. Maybe that was weak, but she also felt it was human.
“I was always overlooked,” the donna continued. “Even when my entire Family was executed for supporting the Mizers, I was spared.”
“But you’ve continued to support them. Because that’s what the monarchists want, isn’t it?” Enne asked quietly. “New kings?”
“It was, once. My family died because they wavered in their convictions, not because they upheld them. I am stalwart. The only one who ever continued the family legacy. After all, family is everything. Conviction is everything.” Then Vianca laughed under her breath, far too light and cheerful to match their conversation. “I know you believe me to be the enemy, but I do wish you’d told me about the stock market earlier. It’s very clever. And very unfair for Levi to throw your work into jeopardy.”
Enne froze. “How did you know about that?”
“It’s not exactly a secret that the lords met in the Catacombs, is it? Everyone in there saw you. Of course I find out these things.” Vianca reached over Enne’s shoulder to a drink tray and grabbed herself a glass. “I think it’s a marvelous idea—both of yours, really. I’d love nothing better than to see the North Side united against the South. I told Levi I wouldn’t interfere—not for six weeks. But the clock is ticking, and...it really isn’t fair to you, is it?” She leaned down to whisper into Enne’s ear. “Should I punish him for you?”
Enne coughed, startled. “No. You don’t need... I mean...”
Vianca raised her eyebrows and sipped her drink. “I’m surprised by how all this is turning out. I would’ve thought you two would be more than happy to work together. You’re such a pretty set on the front page.”
Vianca still wanted to play matchmaker, for whatever reason beyond her own cruel entertainment, Enne couldn’t fathom. Well, lucky for everyone, those plans had failed.
Vianca removed a pouch from her purse and pressed it into Enne’s hand. Enne felt the shape of glass orbs inside. “Your last gift. No point in wasting it on the boys this time.”