King of Fools

by Amanda Foody

  For weeks, the lords had lived like kings. And now he feared they might die like kings, too.

  Levi plugged his phone back into the wall.

  Moments later, it rang.

  He kept the receiver several inches from his ear as the casino manager yelled. “This is only a temporary situation,” Levi said reassuringly. When the yelling continued, he forced a tired lie. “Believe me, I understand. But you know me. I came from nothing, and here I am. I’ll have it under control soon.”

  JAC

  Jac fell asleep on the bench outside his old One-Way House, and he woke to an unpleasant jabbing on his forehead. He swatted it away, expecting it to be a pigeon or a seagull, but then Lola grunted, “Did you ask me here to tell me you’re homeless now?”

  Jac groaned and sat up. He hadn’t meant to take a nap while he waited for Lola, but he hadn’t slept well last night, dwelling on Charles’s threat, and his argument with Levi had drained him down to empty.

  “You look terrible,” Lola told him.

  “And did you come here just to insult me?”

  “I came because you sounded desperate.” She sat beside him on the bench. “But I don’t have forever. I’m meeting a date later.”

  Jac furrowed his eyebrows. Lola’s hair, as always, was tangled and unkempt. She’d donned the same pleated men’s clothes she wore every day, in varying shades of beige, as well as his stolen watch. “Lucky them,” he said sarcastically.

  “I could leave, Polka Dots.”

  Jac admittedly hadn’t called Lola to fight. He needed advice, and though Lola Sanguick was far from a sage, she was a keen listener. So he launched into the story from the beginning, filling in the pieces of what Lola had already heard from the radio and from Enne, all the way through his fight with Levi.

  “Of course Levi didn’t give you volts. According to Grace, the Irons are about to go dead broke,” Lola said. Levi had told him as much, but it did little to lessen Jac’s anger.

  “It’s not about the volts. It’s about the fact that he can’t see why I want this.”

  “Why do you want this?”

  “Because this is my story. It’s not Levi’s or Enne’s or Vianca’s. It’s mine. But the whole city revolves around them. He can barely sneeze without making the front page.”

  “So it’s about your ego,” Lola prodded.

  “So what if it is? Don’t I get one?” He squeezed the iron arm of the bench in his fist, hard enough to make it bend.

  She smacked him. “Stop destroying property with your toxic masculinity.”

  Jac frowned and put his hands in his lap. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t protect Sophia, not from Charles. And I know it’s not just about me. It’s her fight, too. But I don’t think she realizes—”

  “If this was also her fight, you’d be talking to her right now, not to me.”

  He cleared his throat. “I haven’t seen her since last night. And...you know...”

  Lola crinkled her nose. “Gross.”

  “I didn’t want to ruin it by being like this.” He’d left his cigarettes in his apartment because he hadn’t wanted Sophia to see him grab them. He hadn’t told her he was going to speak with Levi because he didn’t want her to suspect that he was planning something. It’d barely been twelve hours, and he was already being weak and dishonest and avoiding her, and it would all crumble, just like everything in his life always did. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into this. These are my problems.”

  She smacked him again. “Do you think I came out here thinking we were going to a taffy store? I came out because I knew we would sit here, on this bench, and you would cry to me about your problems and you wouldn’t ask me about mine. But that’s okay, because I want to be here. Because I’m your friend. I want to help you, not hear you apologize to me.”

  It hadn’t even occurred to Jac to ask about Lola’s problems. “Thanks. Now I feel like an asshole twice over.”

  “It’s not my fault you don’t know how to have a healthy conversation. I’m not trying to make you feel lousy. I’m trying to help you decide how to make yourself feel better.”

  Jac narrowed his eyes and begrudgingly continued. “I still stand by what I told Levi. I think Charles needs to be taken down.” Before he has the chance to take us down.

  “You told me his deadline isn’t until November.”

  “He didn’t seem like the sort of guy who cares much about deadlines.” Jac resisted the urge to squeeze the arm of the bench and for Lola to scold him again. “He wants some sort of brawl, and I refuse to give him that. But I don’t have the resources I’d need to take him down otherwise.”

  “What would Sophia say?” Lola asked.

  “She’d say that it’s only been one night, and we have months to figure out a new plan.” Jac normally wasn’t the man with the plan—that was Levi. But now Jac was alone in this. “What would you say?”

  “I’d say it’s only been one night, and you have months to figure out a new plan.”

  Jac scowled. “And what if he kills her between now and then?”

  “She decided to do this as much as you did. She knows the consequences, probably better than you do, even.” Lola gave him an awkward, reassuring pat on the shoulder. “You’re convinced something terrible is going to happen because a lot of terrible things have happened to you. I mean, of all the places in the North Side, you wanted to meet here again. The sad origin story of sad Jac Mardlin. So if something terrible does happen, you can turn around, you can point to this, and you can have an excuse.”

  Jac winced. Lola didn’t need to carry any of those daggers when she could throw around words like that. “You’re the one who used to always say, ‘This story will end badly.’”

  “We’re psychoanalyzing you right now, not me,” she snapped. “All I’m saying is that, however much of a monster Charles Torren is, he’s gotten into your head. And when you let something get into your head, you don’t tell anyone about it. You avoid your girlfriend. You get in an argument with your best friend. And when every single one of them gives you the same advice, you ignore them.”

  Jac stood up. “I really do that, don’t I? I’m...” He rubbed his temples and cursed himself for craving a cigarette. Everything Lola told him was absolutely true. He was a muck partner, a muck friend, and an all-around muck person. And not because he was rotten, but because he sat around and let himself rot and claimed he didn’t know how to stop it.

  Lola stood up, too. “Don’t walk away. I’m not done. You don’t get to leave yet.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and turned him around. She glared down at him until he returned to their bench, and Jac swore that tall women would be the death of him.

  “When we last spoke months ago, you were anxious and resentful. You were convinced this assignment was going to kill you, and you talked about it like, when Levi asked, you didn’t even have a choice. But you don’t talk like that anymore. You’re more confident. You’re less twitchy. You’re better.”

  Lola had a way with words that made you want to believe her. Probably because she was an honest person who had been unwillingly dragged into all of this. But it wasn’t like that for her, either. Not anymore. She’d chosen this, just like he had.

  “You’re better, too,” he told her.

  Lola crossed her arms, but she didn’t quite manage to hold back her smile. “This isn’t about me, though.”

  “It could be. I’m very curious about this date. Do you like them?”

  She flushed. “Stop it.”

  “I bet I can guess who it is. I remember, that night at—”

  “You’ve never met her. She’s not from here. She’s from, um, far away. She won’t even be here long, because she’s just visiting. She doesn’t read the papers or know who any of you are. She—”

  “So when’s our double date?”

 
Lola had an awfully serious face that didn’t handle embarrassment well. Nor did she lie well, but Jac could forgive her for that...for now.

  “She’d...she’d hate you,” she stammered.

  Jac placed a hand on his heart. “And yet you’d keep her?”

  Lola apparently decided she’d suffered enough humiliation, because she spun around and walked away.

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” he called after her.

  She held up a rude hand gesture.

  “Thank you!” he added, no longer joking. Lola didn’t have to drop everything and travel across town for someone she’d barely spoken to in weeks, but she had. And Jac might’ve preferred gentle comfort to her particular brand of tough love, but he’d needed to hear it. He was still far too angry at Levi right now to walk back to Olde Town and apologize, but he knew Levi still cared about him, and so he’d listen to everyone’s advice. He’d wait.

  Lola turned back for a moment, hands stuffed in her pockets, and gave him a smile.

  “Next time we’ll talk about your problems!” Jac called. “Like why you’re far too private with your personal life when I already know—”

  “Goodbye, Jac!” Then she swiveled away, quickened her pace, and waited for the pedestrian light to flash.

  Once she’d disappeared from sight, Jac turned to stare at his One-Way House, and he decided that chapter of his life would finally end here. He had a far grander story to write.

  He took Charles’s invitation from his pocket, shredded it, and tossed it away.

  9

  “Eight Fingers didn’t create the Scarhands on his own, you know. There was someone else. Not just his second—he was his partner.

  “But that’s not how oaths work. There can only be one lord, and without oaths, there’s no loyalty.

  “They were good friends, I heard. That’s why gangsters don’t have friends. Because one day, you might have to put a bullet in their head.”

  —A legend of the North Side

  ENNE

  Morning meals at Enne’s finishing school had always been extravagant affairs, with frittatas in scallion cream and teas mixed with flower petals. In the Spirits, each of the girls washed down stale bread with spiked coffee, their dark under-eye circles hidden beneath the day’s copies of The Crimes & The Times.

  “Did any of you feed Roy yet?” Enne asked.

  “Why can’t we just get rid of him? He barely eats his food, and he still refuses to talk,” Grace grumbled. Her eyes—like Enne’s—were only half-open, and she slid her plate away to lay her head against the table. The lockdown had cost the Spirits thousands of volts in a matter of weeks, and both Grace and Enne had stayed awake through the night discussing possible solutions. Without success.

  “Because until the occupation of the North Side is lifted, Jonas suspended our meeting indefinitely.” Enne poured herself a mug of sugar with a side of coffee. She desperately needed caffeine, but she couldn’t tolerate the drink’s bitterness any other way. “Marcy, why don’t you take something up for him to eat?”

  Marcy’s face had been permanently flushed since Roy arrived, and Enne’s suggestion made her choke on her toast. “Me?”

  “He only eats if Grace brings him his meals,” Charlotte said.

  Enne furrowed her eyebrows. “Why?”

  Grace stabbed her butter knife into the table. “He has a death wish, probably.”

  In the hall outside the dining room, there was a giggle. All of the girls looked up groggily, eyes squinting at who could possibly be in such a good mood at this hour. Enne counted heads and noticed one was missing.

  A figure darted past the archway, but not fast enough for Enne to miss the bluntly cut black hair and a pair of leather combat boots...and someone who looked an awful lot like Tock. Lola turned the corner into the dining room wearing a lopsided grin. She stopped abruptly when she saw them all. “You’re all up early.”

  “It’s not that early,” Enne pointed out.

  “Oh, well...” She cleared her throat and sat down in the last empty seat at the table.

  Grace shot Lola a coy glance. “Aren’t you always complaining about the Iron boys?”

  Lola poured herself a cup of coffee, very carefully avoiding their stares. “The boys, yes.” She smirked as she took a sip, and her comment was met by several snickers. Then she examined Enne and Grace with narrowed eyes. “You both look terrible.”

  Enne downed her coffee and forced a half smile. “We’ve never been better—”

  “You’re both going upstairs and taking the day off,” Lola declared. “Charlotte can handle the numbers today.”

  Charlotte’s eyes widened. “So can Marcy.”

  “Either way,” Lola grunted, “you’re both useless like this. Go sleep.”

  Grace needed little encouragement. She staggered up and wordlessly left the room, her eyes fluttering closed as though she were already drifting off.

  Enne, however, hesitated. If they were communicating with other lords or with investors, she needed to be available.

  “Go,” Lola told her sharply, and Enne, both defeated and grateful, climbed up the stairs and collapsed into her bed.

  * * *

  Enne roamed the black-and-white hallway in her dreams, and the first door she opened led into a classroom. Unlike those at Madame Fausting’s, these girls carried schoolbooks rather than firearms.

  The teacher at the front of the classroom read down the roster. “Erienne Salta?” she asked. Her neatly plucked eyebrows furrowed at the name, and she looked up, scanning the students with confusion. Her gaze fell on an empty desk in the back of the room.

  “Who?” one of the girls asked. The others around her shrugged in equal bewilderment.

  The teacher crossed off the name and moved on.

  Enne closed the door with an acute feeling of distance. Only one summer had passed since she’d last seen those girls, but a scene that would’ve once brought her to tears now only left her empty. Erienne Salta no longer existed.

  The next door proved far more painful—it was always painful to look at Lourdes Alfero, especially in New Reynes. Whether or not the visions of the hallway could be believed, this was the side of her mother Enne had never known, that Lourdes had purposefully concealed from her.

  It was daytime. Lourdes perched on a couch in a parlor that, judging from the lavish decorations, was located in the South Side.

  Sitting across from her was Josephine Fenice. Unlike Malcolm Semper, who’d started his career as a famous revolutionary, Fenice had a law degree from one of the most esteemed universities in the world. Amid all the articles and radio shows Enne followed about the new talent registrations and curfews, the senator-turned-chancellor made few statements and no appearances. But it was she who’d initiated the street war, she who’d signed the order for the lockdown of the North Side, she—Enne suspected—who pulled the strings of the First Party.

  She was also a member of the Phoenix Club.

  “When will it be?” Lourdes asked.

  “Tonight,” Fenice answered. Her voice had an eerie flatness. “But it wouldn’t have to be, if you gave it up.”

  Lourdes crossed her arms with an expression of indifference. “He’ll have to kill me.”

  “You really are that cold.”

  “I just know the truth of it. More of it than you do, even. Because you think that the story is over.”

  Fenice frowned. “All these years, you dug up these secrets. But even if you know the story, you’ve done nothing to change it. You are inconsequential. And come midnight, you will be dead.”

  It’d been several months since her mother’s death, but still the words dug into Enne. She recalled the scene of Lourdes at the Shadow Game, another vision from the hallway. She’d worn these same clothes.

  This was the day she died.

&
nbsp; The scene changed around her. The walls of the parlor fell away, revealing a crowded public square and a wooden platform raised at its center. A woman walked upon it. She wore tattered clothes, so torn they barely covered her, and her body looked bruised and scarred even from a distance. Her eyes burned violet.

  Enne stood on her tiptoes to peer over the crowd. It was too far, and she could hear nothing over the disjointed chatter and chanting. Until she heard the slam of the axe.

  The scene changed. It was another face, another set of violet eyes.

  Another axe.

  Enne pushed her way to the front of the crowd, so close to the platform that the cobblestones had flooded red. It was a gruesome display. Of nakedness. Of bodies that had already suffered enough. Of the young and the old, made a spectacle for an increasingly boisterous audience.

  Soon the executioner was replaced with a noose. Enne winced at the sound of every snapped neck. Even though she understood the tyranny of these kings, she also knew that not every person was a king. Some were guilty by association. Guilty by birth. And when Enne looked into their eyes, she saw her own staring back.

  Years flew by as she stood witness to death after death. A man approached the gallows, this one with a mask covering his face. It wasn’t until he reached the platform that Enne realized it was actually layers of black gauze wrapped tightly around his head, exposing not even a stray hair. He was hauntingly faceless, as though he could’ve been anyone.

  But Enne knew who he was. He was Veil, the most notorious street lord of New Reynes history. And he was about to die.

  At the snap of the rope, she was transported once more. Her own weight creaked on the wooden platform, and her wrists were bound behind her back, blistered and raw. She winced as the whiteboot pushed her forward, but she didn’t stumble.

  Not even when he slipped a noose around her neck.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Enne awoke gasping and clawing at sweat-soaked sheets. She could still hear her mother in her head, discussing secrets that Enne would never understand. She could still feel the roughness of the noose around her throat.