by Amanda Foody
“I guess so,” Jac answered. He still didn’t anticipate getting much sleep tonight.
Jac crept back into the main hall of the church. Paintings filled each wall, depicting stories that were included in the scriptures. The Faith was a collection of stories, of lessons and superstitions, each one adding more texture to the Faith’s overall fabric.
The largest painting on the back wall was from a recent story—the martyrdom of a Mizer princess who credited the Revolution to the work of a malison, a Faith term for someone with an unholy talent. The painting illustrated her last moments of life, her head bent low with a noose slipped around her neck. It’d taken place in New Reynes, in Liberty Square—the same place crime lords were executed now.
A number of blue votive candles burned in rows beneath her, and Jac treaded carefully toward the display. A votive candle symbolized a prayer offering, a wish.
He wondered if he would die like she did—the death of a gangster. All for an oath he’d made to Levi on a drunken night five years ago. Jac had agreed to this assignment because he’d been prepared to face the worst for his friend, but he wondered if Levi even flinched at the thought of such a death for himself. It was a fitting ending for a lord. For a king.
Jac reached forward and lit a votive candle for Levi.
Maybe Jac would die at the hand of Charles Torren. At least then it would be because of his own decision, his own choices, but he couldn’t imagine a more gruesome end. The rumors he’d heard about Charles were frightening enough to paint and frame on one of the walls of this church.
Jac lit a candle for Sophia. Because of all the rumors he’d heard, he still suspected her tales were the worst.
Lastly, he lit a candle for himself, and prayed that if he did die, that he’d do so unburdened and unafraid.
“I don’t meet many gangsters who are Faithful,” Harvey said behind him, causing Jac to startle and knock his candle on the floor. The glass shattered, and the flame flickered out. “Muck. I’m sorry. Let me—”
“No. No,” Jac told him sharply. He didn’t want a favor from Harvey—a favor from a Chainer meant a debt that demanded something in return. But then pain radiated out from his shoulder, and he let out a groan.
“What did you do to yourself?” Harvey asked.
“I dislocated my shoulder,” Jac grumbled. “I’ve had worse.” He realized he said that phrase a lot.
“Give me five volts, and I’ll fix it.”
Jac narrowed his eyes. “Like I’d let you help me.”
“It’s not a favor if you pay me.” Harvey also spoke those words like he said them a lot. “Or sit around and moan to yourself and play martyr, if that’s what you’d like. As if I’d try to trick you in a church.”
Jac glanced at Harvey’s Creed, the one that shared a chain with an antique gold key. Reluctantly, he paid Harvey his five volts and let him fix his shoulder. This time, he was ready for the pain, and he didn’t make a sound.
“You’re made of sturdy stuff,” Harvey told him, clearly impressed.
Jac cleaned up the broken bits of glass and wax and deposited them in an empty bowl of holy water. He slipped into a pew beside Harvey.
“It’s funny I ended up in a church,” Harvey murmured. “It’s been a while.”
Jac also hadn’t visited a church for several months. “It hasn’t exactly been an easy year.”
“No, but that’s when you make the time for it, as my parents used to say. They’re real Faithful people. They’d probably tell me I don’t deserve to step foot in here, not even for asylum.”
His words reminded Jac of the priest he’d met at the hospital, the night he’d overdosed and Levi had saved his life. The priest who told him a sinner’s prayers wouldn’t go answered. Looking around the quiet church full of trembling North Siders, Jac was feeling more repentant than usual.
He should’ve just apologized to Sophia about the boxing. He still wished she’d be honest with him, but the last thing he wanted to be was a burden. Not with the way he felt about her.
“Do you believe in demons?” Jac asked Harvey quietly.
“Strictly speaking—by the Faith, I mean—demons exist, whether you believe in them or not. They’re just called something else.” Harvey peered up at the painting behind them, featuring a red-eyed malison with a dozen shadows meant to be shades. Shades were curses malisons placed on the souls of sinners, according to more esoteric stories.
Maybe Jac was too gullible, or maybe it was the sounds of the storm rumbling through the quiet reverence of the church, but he could almost believe in that moment that Charles Torren was as unholy as any story Jac had ever heard.
“Can you unlove someone?” Harvey asked Jac suddenly, pulling Jac’s thoughts from his own problems.
Jac cleared his throat awkwardly. He didn’t know Harvey well enough to give advice. “I don’t think so, not really,” he answered. “But you can love someone differently.”
Harvey sighed. “That won’t be enough.”
A menacing crack of thunder boomed overhead. Both boys jolted as though it’d been meant for them.
ENNE
By the time they reached the museum, Enne’s clothes were soaked through from the storm, her wet shoe leather had blistered her heels, and her gun was out of bullets. Still, she pointed it ahead of her, taking comfort in its steady weight in her hand. The lockdown had begun nearly forty minutes ago, and the rain continued to pour. Water rushed in streams below the street curbs, and the wind at times whipped hard enough to send Enne skidding sideways.
Levi ran to the wrought iron gates of the museum’s grounds. He shook them, and chains rattled. “Who’s on watch?” he called.
“It’s Stella,” someone answered through the darkness. “Who’s that?”
“It’s Levi.” Lightning flashed between tree branches and church spires.
A figure stepped out from behind the trees. “Pup. You’re back. We didn’t know—” Stella stopped as she approached, taking them both in. “What happened to you?”
“We’ve been running in circles dodging whiteboots. Half the streets in Olde Town are blockaded, and the other half are flooded.”
Stella unlocked the gate and opened it for them. They slipped inside, and Enne felt a rush of relief to have something separating her and the rest of the North Side.
“We’re missing a few others,” Stella told him. “Hwan and Liddy.”
Levi’s face darkened. “Is Tock here?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll go see her now.”
Stella looked nervously at Enne. “And...Séance?” Last time Enne had entered the museum, she hadn’t been wearing her mask. Now, she looked like a rival lord.
Enne cleared her throat. “Are the phone lines working?”
“The storm took them all down.”
She wouldn’t be able to contact the Spirits until morning. She’d told Grace to take Roy to Jonas’s contact, but she hoped that Grace had the good sense to stay inside.
The three of them retreated into the museum. The Irons slouched over card tables, playing Tropps in the dim candlelight. Enne recognized a few faces from the Catacombs and the party, but even with some missing, the Irons’ numbers had grown—maybe even doubled—since she’d last seen them. The building itself had changed, as well. A black carpet draped down its magnificent grand staircase, and flowing curtains now concealed the boarded windows.
Tock appeared around the corner. Her eyes widened, and she threw her arms around Levi. “I thought the sirens meant you’d been caught.”
“You think I’m worth all this commotion?”
He smirked, and she punched him in the arm. “Hwan and Liddy are still missing. They were both at shifts at the Sauterelle.” Her expression turned serious. “We need to send searches out.”
As Levi launched into a heated discussion with his
third, the other Irons peered at Enne curiously, taking in the sight of her soaked South Side dress and the gun by her side. Her hands trembled. They’d nearly died tonight. She’d killed tonight. But instead of feeling scared or horrified, she only felt numb.
She wanted to convince herself that the worst was over, but she had no idea what this “lockdown” would mean. They should’ve expected this level of retaliation. For the past month, the North Side had been theirs, and Enne wondered how many people had died tonight for the wigheads to take it back.
“We can’t leave them out there,” Tock growled.
“We have to. We all have death warrants on our heads. The streets are crawling with whiteboots. No one else is leaving here tonight,” Levi commanded. “They’re smart. We need to believe they found some place to wait out the night.”
“Do you believe that?” she challenged.
“No one knows Olde Town better than us,” he answered. “Keep the watches out, but don’t leave the grounds.”
Tock gritted her teeth. “Fine. We’ll wait until morning.”
“Good. Now, unless there’s an emergency, please don’t disturb us. We’ve been shot at for the last hour.” Levi’s voice remained impressively nonchalant as he started up the steps and motioned for Enne to follow.
Her heart was still racing from earlier, and she almost didn’t have it in her to be embarrassed. Almost. And though no one snickered, Levi’s steady voice didn’t fool Tock, who shot Enne a lewd smirk before she turned away.
Enne nearly ran up the steps, eager to escape their stares. But that left her and Levi alone in the empty hallway, and the quietness made her breath hitch. Every sound—his breathing, the rain’s drumming on the roof, the click of the door sliding open—made her stomach loop in uncomfortable, delirious knots. She’d faced far scarier predicaments tonight than a room alone with Levi Glaisyer, but her heart seemed to believe otherwise.
“Are you worried about the missing Irons?” she asked. Though subtle, she could see the angry force in his movements as he jammed his keys in the lock and threw open the door.
“Of course I’m worried,” he said, stalking into the room. Enne followed him, but could make out nothing in the dark.
Levi flipped the light switch, then muttered something under his breath about the storm and snapped his fingers, igniting several candles along his bureau. Like his old bedroom at St. Morse, everything here was impeccably clean, and his headboard looked like it had been made from Olde Town iron.
In the shifting darkness, she could just make out Levi’s furrowed eyebrows and pained expression. “But I can’t send anyone out, right?” he asked her. “Would you?”
“It’s the right decision,” she agreed. Then, because it seemed far easier than staring at him, she turned around and opened the drawers of his dresser. She pulled out a shirt several sizes too large for her, but blessedly dry.
“I think so, too... What are you doing?” Levi asked.
She peeked over her shoulder. “Finding myself dry clothes.”
He opened his mouth, then promptly shut it. “Probably a good idea.” Though his voice seemed to hint that he’d had other ideas.
They each turned around so the other could dress. “I nearly lost Tommy last night, and now this?” Levi said. “It doesn’t matter how rich we are now. If anyone gets caught, I can’t bail them out without getting arrested myself.”
Enne turned around, feeling swallowed by his shirt—it hung nearly to her knees. And though she was far warmer than she had been, she shivered from the way he looked at her in that moment. He’d changed into a sweater, old and clearly worn many nights before. He looked particularly boyish in it.
“You’re already making plans for every terrible scenario,” she told him. “I can see it in your face.”
“I can’t help it—I like to be prepared. I need to be prepared.” Even as he spoke, he made for the papers organized with tabs and clips all over his desk, like he could find his answers hidden in the numbers. “When I had problems before, I’d go to Reymond. And you know what Reymond would say if he were here?”
“That he was proud of you?” Enne guessed.
“That I’m in over my head.” He collapsed into the desk chair.
When Enne felt that way, she found an isolated corner of the finishing school and fired bullets into the wallpaper. But joking about that felt wrong after everything that had happened tonight.
“Do you ever feel like it’s all our fault?” Enne asked.
“The lockdown?”
“The street war. The Orphan Guild. All of it.” Enne swallowed down a painful lump in her throat. “Ever since the Shadow Game, since you killed—”
“Do you regret saving me?” Levi asked.
She gaped. “What? No, of course not—”
“Do you wish I hadn’t killed Semper?”
Enne remembered the thump his body had made when it hit the table, how the blood had seeped across the cards. Lourdes had died at that same table, at his hand.
“Never,” Enne whispered. “Do you?”
“I should, but I don’t.” Levi looked to the window as a crack of lightning flashed across the sky. “Even after the worst does happen, I can’t bring myself to stop, and I don’t want to. I want to be legendary. I want my mark on this world to stain.”
Enne looked out at the storm and thought of all the night remaining between now and morning. If a violent end awaited them at sunrise, then she wanted the hours until then to be infinite.
She walked until she stood in front of him. It was hard to think of their kiss earlier without also remembering the whiteboot she’d killed, but she hadn’t survived this night only to fill it with regrets.
Levi watched her, his breath hitched and silent, as Enne lowered herself onto his lap. No sooner had she slipped her arms behind his neck did his mouth find hers.
Even with the sirens fading miles away, kissing Levi still felt like waiting for the axe to fall. She couldn’t touch him without remembering the bruises that had once painted his skin. She couldn’t taste him without recalling the blood as it mixed with summer rain. They both understood what each kiss was worth in secrets and volts and sins, and so they did not spend them carelessly. They were slow and savored, like the last meal of those condemned.
Her wet hair had dampened both their shirts, and the coldness left chills across her neck. Levi’s hand slid beneath the fabric and up her spine, burning against her bare skin, pulling her closer to him until her chest and stomach felt crushed against his. His other hand crept up her thigh, teasing the hem of her skirt higher. She shuddered, and he smiled against her lips.
When his fingers reached her hips, when there was no more space to close between them, Levi stood up, her legs wrapped around his waist, and carried her to the bed.
After laying her down, he took a step back, as though simply to admire the image of her there. A flush crept up her face, and a memory stirred in her of the vision from the Lovers card during the Shadow Game, of her and Levi in a position much like this one. How many doors in that hallway led to this night? Or did all of them, eventually, even if they’d tried to avoid it?
As he climbed onto the bed, his lips trailed the slopes of her until they returned to hers. Enne’s hands roamed over him, finding the places and doors left unexplored, and she drew her name from him like a dying breath.
“We should stop,” he whispered, even as his arm snaked beneath her back and raised her toward him. She protested, lifting her head to resume their kiss. “This isn’t our last night.”
“You don’t know that,” she murmured.
He pulled away. “I’ve been thinking like that for too long. I don’t want that here, with us.” He lay back, and Enne rested her head against his shoulder.
She interlaced his fingers with hers. “But it will always feel that way,” she said softly. “E
ven if we pretend otherwise.”
Levi sighed. “I know.”
The sirens outside had faded out. Every few moments, thunder rumbled overhead, the only reminder that this night was not infinite. The storm would pass, and dawn would come.
And a different North Side would await them when it did.
JAC
Jac had worn his good suit for their lunch with Charles Torren, because it was his only piece of clothing that he’d be willing to die in. When Sophia answered her apartment door, dressed in her usual red clothes and thigh-high boots, she gasped, swung the door wider, and threw her arms around him.
“You didn’t come back last night. I thought after the lockdown, you might’ve—”
“I had to spend the night in a church.” Jac stretched out his shoulders. “But other than being a bit stiff, I’m fine.”
She took a step back and looked him over. Jac expected her to ask him how his meeting with the den manager had gone, but instead she asked, “Did you bring me a corsage or something?”
So they were back to this place. At least empty banter was preferable to fighting.
“I thought I’d dress to impress. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you meet the family?”
“Not my family,” she said.
They took the Mole the few stops to the casino. The passengers who shared their train car were unusually quiet for a commuter’s morning, unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes. When they emerged onto Tropps Street, Jac noticed the gambling taverns had already opened their doors in a pitiful attempt to attract business before the new curfew. Whiteboots and troopers directed traffic with assault rifles slung over their shoulders.
A concierge greeted Jac and Sophia at the front doors of Luckluster. Jac had never actually been inside the casino before, and its black-and-red decor made him feel like he was walking into a haunted fun house, everything striped and glossy as though candy coated.
Sophia’s eyes roamed over every detail of the place, from the flowers carved into the crown molding to the dark candlesticks arranged on a center table, like the pipes of an unholy organ. She ran her fingers over everything, as though deciding which piece to ignite first.