King of Fools

by Amanda Foody

  Her lipstick even tasted like cherries.

  Jac had kissed—and more than kissed—several girls before. But never in his own apartment, never with so much shared past and future between them.

  He’d always thought of what he’d overcome as the broken pieces of himself, but even damaged as they were, he could still build something good upon them. With every kiss, he felt a little closer to collapsing. But with every kiss, he also felt more secure. The weight of her burdens supported his own.

  Sophia stumbled as she kicked off her boots. Once she did, they stood at eye level. It made it easier to brush her hair to the side and kiss a trail down her neck. She sighed as she leaned into him, and her fingers dug into his back. She pulled him closer to her, so that there was no space between them—not for secrets, not for second guesses. Every moment of empty flirting and teasing, moments that had originally seemed like a game between them, now felt like promises, waiting to be collected.

  Sophia pulled clumsily at the buttons of his shirt, but it was hard to undress him when he was already focused on undressing her. The breeze from his open window sent goose bumps prickling across bare skin. Jac shivered, but not from the cold. Then she pulled him into the bed and climbed on top of him, so she could make him shiver some more.

  Her dark hair draped over the both of them, and while he soon discovered how much he liked to run his hands through it, it nearly made his heart stop dead to watch her do it. She might’ve been dangerous and cursed, but he still smiled against her lips when he said, “Do that again.”

  Those words, however satisfying to say, proved far more so to hear from her.

  “Do that again,” she commanded several minutes later, clutching at his wrist as his fingers wandered upwards. Jac obliged and trailed back down.

  All or nothing, it turned out, did not mean one thing or the other. It meant whatever could be contained with the grasp of a single night. It meant giving now what the future could take away.

  * * *

  Many hours later, Jac carefully crawled out of bed so as not to disturb Sophia sleeping beside him. He had a lot of practice with that, but this time, he didn’t intend to sneak out.

  Jac reached into his discarded jacket and pulled the invitation out of the pocket. He held it up to the moonlight and squinted as he attempted to make out the words. His eyes skipped over the letters to a date scribbled on the bottom.

  11/8/25

  Three months. That gave him time.

  Jac needed to find Levi, to ask him for help—even advice.

  And, if it came down to it, he needed to play.

  LEVI

  “Two weeks?” Levi barked angrily into the phone. “The Irons already missed their shifts yesterday. They have more tonight. We need those papers now.”

  “Pup, you know how much I love doing business with you,” Jonas said, and his voice sounded slimy even through the receiver. “But I’m still making calls. You’re not the only one in the North Side suddenly scrambling for new identification papers.”

  Levi slammed his fist on his desk. Since Enne had left this morning, his phone had rung every other minute with another concerned casino manager trying to cancel their contracts due to the lockdown on the North Side. The talent registration period would begin in three days’ time, and until the “violent crime lords were apprehended and brought to justice,” all those with either a blood or split Talent of Mysteries were required to be home by nine o’clock. All others, ten o’clock.

  This is only a temporary situation, Levi had repeated over and over this morning. We’ll have it under control soon. But, of course, he’d been lying through his teeth. The wigheads had sent a military force to patrol the North Side, and the only thing the lords could do was wait until the tension died down.

  “We can’t work without those papers,” Levi grunted.

  “You’re supposed to be rich now, aren’t you? Surely you can get by for two weeks.”

  Two weeks, sure. But if all the casinos pulled out, how would they get by after?

  “And you’re supposed to be the most connected person in the city,” Levi countered. “I don’t see why—”

  “You think you’re the only one with these problems?” Jonas shouted. “Scrap Market has been permanently shut down—the Scarhands are scattered across the city. I’m sitting in a basement closet with fourteen different phone lines, all ringing with calls from my clients and suppliers, but you know which one rings the most? Yours. So maybe you could try solving some of my problems before you expect me to solve yours.”

  Levi pressed his head against the desk. He didn’t have any clever ideas. Not this time.

  Sure enough, Levi made out the ringing of another phone in the background. “Do you really think I’m taking custom orders right now?” he heard Jonas bark to some other client.

  “Well, smart-ass?” Jonas snapped, once again on Levi’s line. “You got a solution for me?”

  “We’re all mucked!” Levi growled and slammed the receiver back down.

  As soon as he did, his phone rang again. He ripped the cord out of the wall and collapsed onto his bed. It was hard to believe he and Enne had lain here only two nights before, talking as if the rest of the world didn’t exist, when really, the rest of the world was ending.

  * * *

  In his dream, Levi’s footsteps echoed down the alternating black-and-white tiles of the hallway. He approached a white door, hoping it held the answers he needed, but all it contained was a nightmare.

  Levi’s father had a regal face, with wide, square features, a strong jaw, and brown skin like Levi’s own. He wore the same linen tunic whenever he worked as an orb-maker, the one with gold embroidery along the collar—finer than anything else they owned. Their family home was just a collection of cheap furniture and hidden treasures. It’d also felt empty since his mother died. Levi still slept in the bedroom across the hall from his father, but no one had truly lived in this place for over a year.

  “So when will you leave?” his father asked him, startling Levi from the book he read. Levi quickly concealed his surprise—and his guilt—and molded his face into something expressionless. He’d gotten good at doing that. “That’s what you’re planning to do, right? To leave?”

  “No,” Levi lied.

  “Don’t lie to me.” His father ripped the book out of Levi’s hands. Levi carefully sat up from his seat, in case he’d need to run. “You think you can go anywhere? There are restrictions on this family, even if you might pretend you’re not part of it.”

  Levi wasn’t pretending. He was rejecting. He’d spent years listening to his father’s stories about the Revolution, about the tragic events that had led them to this miserable house on a cliff so far from their original home. He’d listened, and he rejected it. He rejected his father’s victimized apologies for the plates, the windows, the bones he’d broken. He rejected his father’s claims that the Mizers had been fair rulers, when history told otherwise. He rejected the idea that he was trapped here, bound to this same house, to this same tragedy.

  “I’m going to New Reynes,” he said quietly.

  His father started toward him, but Levi had already stood up and backed into the parlor.

  “You know what they did to all the orb-makers who served the queen in Reynes?” his father asked. “They hanged them.”

  That had been twenty years ago. Another tragedy Levi refused to claim.

  His father reached for the book Levi had left on the cushions. It was thick, with sharp leather edges and a real weight to it.

  As freeing as it’d seemed to reject the Glaisyer name, it hadn’t felt so simple to leave. That night, he cried out of guilt the entire train ride to New Reynes, his ticket bought by one of his father’s treasures that he’d stolen and sold. He cried because its new owner wouldn’t understand what it meant. They wouldn’t know that Levi’s grandfather’s
head had been hanged like an ornament from the palace walls before they’d burned. They wouldn’t know that Levi’s father had smuggled the treasure in his shoes when he fled the city. They wouldn’t know the story because it was tragic, and no one wanted to hear a tragic story, Levi least of anyone.

  That was why his new life wouldn’t begin with tragedy. In the legend he planned on writing for himself, he had come from nothing. He whispered it under his breath so often that, by the time his train pulled to a stop in the City of Sin’s North Side, he’d even begun to believe it.

  * * *

  Levi woke from his unpleasant nap to find Jac standing over him. He jolted and sat up. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?” He shook out the grogginess in his head and looked out the window. It was still daylight, so he couldn’t have slept for long.

  “Nice to see you, too,” Jac said, a strange edge to his voice.

  Of course, Jac was allowed to be on edge—as anyone would be, with all this curfew business—but that didn’t stop Levi from examining him. He checked the circles under his eyes—dark, but not too dark. He stared at Jac’s pupils, undilated. At his fingers, untrembling. Those were all good signs, but he still had a vicious cut across his lip from fighting. Altogether though, Jac probably looked better than he did.

  “All done?” Jac gritted through his teeth. Levi cleared his throat. He wasn’t trying to be rude—he was trying to be a good friend. “I’ve been wanting to talk.”

  “So have I,” Levi said. “I’m glad you came.”

  But then a terrible thought occurred to him, sitting in this bed. Enne’s aura still clung to one of the pillows, making his sheets smell faintly of coffee. Levi changed places for his desk.

  “You don’t look glad,” Jac said.

  Levi had rehearsed his words to his friend over the past few days. I’m sorry I broke my promise, he’d say. But I’m sorry I made it. I know I asked—

  “I need your help,” Jac told him.

  Levi glanced at the stacks of ledgers in front of him. He wasn’t sure he was in a condition to help anyone. “My help? With what?”

  “I think Charles is going to kill Sophia.”

  Levi should probably have considered his words before he spoke them. And he might have, had he had another seven hours of sleep. “Hasn’t that been a concern from the start?”

  “Of course,” Jac snapped. “But we met with him yesterday for the first time, and—”

  “You what? Why would you—”

  “Because we needed to know what we were up against. I never met Sedric, but I swear, this one is worse.” Jac shivered. “Sophia is—”

  “Sophia knew the risks, and so did you.” Levi tidied up his papers just to have something to do with his hands, tossing nearly all of it into the waste bin. He didn’t mean to be so frustrated, but the past two days had been far from easy. “Harrison is depending on this. If the deal is compro—”

  “It’s about more than the deal, Levi,” Jac growled, now pacing around his bedroom. Levi winced as Jac leaned against the exact spot on the wall where he and Enne had kissed. “This isn’t just business.”

  “Of course it isn’t just business!” Levi said, then cleared his throat. He shouldn’t raise his voice. “You need to get out before you get hurt.”

  “What about the election? What about the deal?” Jac asked.

  “My biggest priority is making sure that you’re all right.”

  “Since when?” Jac asked, making Levi wince. “This has always been about your freedom. You don’t get to pretend like this is suddenly about keeping me safe.”

  Levi’s mouth went dry. Was that what his friend really thought of him? “I never should’ve asked you to do this, but I never asked you to stay there. This hasn’t been about me for a long time. It’s been about you and her.”

  “Am I supposed to just not care? You know what the Torrens did to me. Are you upset that it isn’t all about you?”

  “I’m upset because I don’t want to see them destroy you all over again!”

  Levi stood up. He didn’t want to have this argument with Jac. He was too frustrated about the volts for Vianca’s party, about the Irons, about the city. He was holding so much together that Jac’s words threatened to make Levi say something he didn’t mean—or worse, something he did.

  So Levi walked toward his door, trying to come up with an excuse to speak to Tock or the other Irons, but then he stopped and turned around.

  “What help did you need?” he asked, his voice strained.

  Jac crossed his arms. “I need volts—and men.”

  “What about the volts Harrison gave you?”

  “I don’t think outplaying Charles is the best strategy anymore. The only way to end this is to kill him. Sophia doesn’t agree with me, but she wouldn’t need to be involved. It would only take—”

  “So you’re acting alone now? Are you shatz?”

  “I’m doing what needs to be done.”

  Levi didn’t even know what to say to that. Since when did his Creed-clutching friend talk so casually about murder? “The city’s on curfew. You think the Irons are making voltage now? I can’t help you. And Harrison won’t help you. What would you have me do?”

  I sound like Jonas, he realized, hating himself a bit.

  “I’d have you care,” Jac growled, as though Levi didn’t. As though those papers in his waste bin meant nothing to him. Not his friends, not his dreams.

  “I care about you, but I think you should leave.”

  “What about Enne? Isn’t she one of the richest people in the North Side now?”

  “Not anymore, with...” Levi squeezed his hand into a fist. “You’d ask her? You’d ask her after the promise you made me swear?”

  Jac stiffened. “I only asked because of Vianca. It’s Enne’s freedom on the line, too.”

  “Vianca is our problem. You overheard one conversation and pretend like you understand. It isn’t that simple, and these past few weeks have been awful because of it.” Levi took a deep breath. When he’d practiced saying this, he hadn’t imagined it would be here, in this room. He didn’t want to taint his good memories with an added layer of guilt. “Jac, I... I broke the promise I made to you. I tried not to for a long time, but—”

  “I’m not surprised, Levi,” he said brusquely. “And it’s fine. I don’t care. If anything, I get it—”

  “You’re not surprised? You don’t care?” Levi bit back the urge to shout. He’d spent months trying to be better about keeping his promises, and his best friend was telling him he’d known all along that his effort was useless? That it hadn’t mattered to him anyway?

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Jac said quickly. “Just that knowing you both...it was going to happen. And no, I don’t know everything about Vianca, but I know it would’ve been better for you and Enne to wait.”

  “How can you say that you don’t care?” Levi snapped. “I’ve been beating myself up for months about this. I made her cry. I’ve been so unhappy, and just... You don’t care?”

  “Unhappy? You’ve gotten everything, Levi. You got the gang. You have more volts than you could ever need. Everything you’ve ever wanted fell right into your lap. Just like it always does.”

  “Like it always does?” Levi kicked over his waste bin, sending crumbled paper scattering across the floor. “Like that time Chez nearly killed me? Or Vianca trapped me? Or I was invited to the Shadow Game? Meanwhile, I’ve been so worried that sending you on this assignment would be a mistake—would be terrible for you. Now I realize I sent you away to have the time of your life. What was I worried about?”

  “You told me you trusted me,” Jac said sternly. “Did you lie about that?”

  “Of course I lied,” Levi hissed. His voice was rising—he wanted to scream—but he restrained himself. It was a habit with Jac.

 
“You still won’t yell at me.” Jac shook his head. “I can’t believe this. I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t even think you’d have it in you to last this long.”

  Levi winced. He was used to taking blows from Jac—he’d said far worse years ago when he’d been desperate for his next lull. But that had been then. And while he knew Jac wasn’t coming from the same place, whenever his friend grew harsh with him, it left a bad taste in his mouth. Like worry and helplessness.

  As Jac headed for the door, Levi followed. “You don’t get to claim the high ground when you’re taking the same risks—worse, even! You don’t get to ask for help when you should be leaving the Torren business behind!” Jac stopped, his shoulders tensed. “Are you happy? I’m yelling now!”

  Jac whirled around, and Levi took a step back. Jac looked angry enough to punch him. “When you take risks, it’s part of the game. When I do it, I’m self-destructive.” He curled his hands into fists. “When I ask for help, you make a business decision. When you ask for help, there is no decision. I’m constantly trying to make it up to you, keeping my cool so you don’t get worried, not wanting to weigh you down.”

  “You’ve never weighed me down,” Levi said, quickly sobering. “I just want to understand why you’re doing this. I never asked you to take it this far. Is it just for her?”

  Jac took a slow, steady breath, and that was when Levi knew he’d lost him. “You still don’t get it. I’m doing this for me.” Then he turned around, opened the door, and left.

  Levi froze in shock. That was his best friend walking away.

  But Levi didn’t know what words to say that wouldn’t be lies. He wouldn’t apologize, because he wasn’t sorry.

  Everything you’ve ever wanted fell right into your lap. Just like it always does.

  He sighed and bent down to clean up the mess. The waste bin overflowed with schedules and invoices that no longer mattered, thanks to the lockdown.