King of Fools

by Amanda Foody

  Enne’s stomach clenched in horror. No. That couldn’t be true. She didn’t want to believe it was true. If so, then Levi’s bargain had been empty from the start. Everything they’d worked and sacrificed for was meaningless.

  They would never be free.

  “No, no, that won’t be enough,” Vianca murmured to herself, as though Enne was no longer even there.

  “Madame,” Enne cut in, in the gentle voice she’d grown accustomed to using around Vianca, “I’m sorry for not—”

  “You may not speak!” Vianca shrieked, and Enne felt her jaw snap closed, so hard she bit her tongue. Her mouth filled with the taste of blood.

  Vianca leaned forward over the desk’s corner, unwittingly knocking papers and baubles aside onto the carpet. “I could slit your pale little throat, just like I did Leah Torren’s. It would be poetic, wouldn’t it? History repeating itself.”

  Enne had never stopped despising Vianca, but somewhere along the line, she’d stopped fearing her. Now that would be her downfall. Vianca was like a wounded animal, cornered and desperate, and unlike the heroine of a fairy tale, Enne had no means of escape. She was utterly at the witch’s mercy.

  This is how I die, she thought, attempting but failing to squirm out of her seat. Her wrists were tethered to her chair by invisible constraints. Her head even leaned back of its own accord, exposing her throat to Vianca. Enne’s heart beat so fiercely she felt its pulsing all over her skin.

  “I could kill you both, and Levi would still be devastated, wouldn’t he?” she mused, and Enne wondered who else Vianca was referring to. “He’d be alone. He could spend his life at my card tables. And I could find new pretty dolls and watch him try to save them. How many dolls would it take for him to break?”

  For a brief, desperate moment, Enne considered telling Vianca the truth about herself. Her true identity was the only card left up her sleeve. The Augustines were a family of Mizer sympathizers, and surely, if Vianca knew, she wouldn’t kill Enne. It would buy her time.

  But then Vianca would own her. Completely. This was the only secret Enne had left.

  Before Enne could make a decision, Vianca continued. “No. I’ve been betrayed. Now I know that all this time, Levi has hated me. Anything I do would only burn his hate brighter. It won’t be enough.” Her gaze fell on Enne. “It will come from you.”

  “What?” Enne gasped.

  “You will do it.” Vianca took several steps closer to Enne so that she loomed over her. She dug her finger into Enne’s breastbone. “You will be the one to break him.”

  Dread seeped into her. “I don’t understand. We’re not... We’re not together. Not anymore.”

  Vianca laughed, high and sharp. “Leaving him—that’s all your creativity can come up with? I know there’s darkness hidden beneath that pretty face. Think. Harder.” She leaned back onto the desk and twisted her family’s ring around her finger. “Tell him what he wants to hear—anything. Repair whatever you managed to break. And then, you will do it. I don’t want the first method you think of, but the way that will hurt the most.” She purred out her last words.

  “I won’t do it,” Enne said firmly.

  “You’re just as guilty as he is. Would you like me to kill him instead? I know you don’t believe I could, but I’ve. Done. Worse,” Vianca seethed, snapping forward like something rabid. Bits of white hair slipped out of her bun, clinging to her flushed skin. She grabbed the liquor bottle and cradled it in her lap. “Apparently the most dangerous position to be in is within my affections.”

  And then the donna cried.

  Enne imagined Vianca Augustine must’ve hated to cry.

  After all, Vianca was a woman. She’d been tossed aside and ignored her entire life because of it. And she despised herself for it. Enne didn’t pretend to know her full story, or the circumstances around her family and her husband’s death, and how it must’ve felt to live the life of a mother, a wife, a crime boss, an activist, and a monster.

  But she would never disregard that last title.

  Monster.

  The world had once led Enne to believe that to cry—to be weak—was to be a woman. Vianca certainly still believed that. And maybe that was why Vianca had always surrounded herself with men, why she sought the favor of political parties ruled by men, why—until now—Levi could always fight against her and she’d still welcome him back with fondness.

  Maybe she had turned herself into a monster because the only other option was to be a woman.

  Enne swallowed down her own sob. “People betray you because you don’t love them. You own them. And you revel in it.”

  Vianca’s face twisted into something ugly, something truly monstrous. “You will stay here tonight. You won’t breathe a word of this conversation to anyone. You will pretend like nothing has happened.” Then the donna smiled so brightly it reached her eyes. “Tomorrow, you will break his heart. And then you will die.”

  J

  “A buddy of mine used to go around Olde Town robbing graves. Not a close buddy. Just someone I knew, all right? But he told me this story. He opened up a coffin—it belonged to a woman, died only a few months before. He wanted to steal jewelry. But he found two bodies inside.

  “That’s not even the spooky part. The spooky part is that both of the women had the same face. Same exact face.

  “And the woman whose grave it was?

  She didn’t have a twin sister.”

  —A legend of the North Side

  LEVI

  The Irons filled every seat in the Catacombs, dressed in the swankiest clothes they’d managed to steal. Politicians, celebrities, lobbyists, and paparazzi would fill the streets outside St. Morse tonight, and in order to crash a white-tie affair, the Irons would need to blend into the crowds. However, there was something definitively not South Sider about their outfits: heels measured an inch too high, hair combed a bit too slick, and pockets and purses bulged with the unmistakable shapes of guns.

  Beside him, Jac fiddled with an unlit cigarette. “Have you heard from her yet?”

  Fear blossomed in Levi’s stomach. “No.”

  Last night, Lola had called to tell him that Enne hadn’t returned to the finishing school before curfew. Levi had struggled to focus on his plan while he spent hours with his ear to the radio, anxious for news about whether she’d somehow been apprehended. She’d probably found somewhere to wait out the night, or so Tock had tried to assure him. But morning had arrived and, still, there’d been no call.

  “I’m sure there’s a good reason,” Jac said nervously. He reached for his Creed, his classic tell.

  “Liar,” Levi snapped. Even after what Enne had done, he still cared. Probably too much.

  Tock approached their booth wearing a glittering silver dress. She’d been speaking with Narinder upstairs, who—unsurprisingly, given his hatred of gangsters—had refused to join them.

  “Looking sharp, boys,” Tock said, even though Levi was fairly certain he looked like muck. “All of the Irons are here,” she added, her eyes falling on Jac. “Even the prodigal second.”

  Jac examined the clusters of Irons sitting around the club. “I haven’t seen the Irons looking this good in a long time.”

  Levi might’ve felt nauseous with nerves, but he still gave his friend an appreciative smile. Only four months ago, the Irons had been half-starved, squatting across abandoned places in Olde Town, scrounging for volts while Levi fed their earnings into Vianca’s investment scheme. He wasn’t sure any amount of amends would make up for what he did to Chez Phillips and the rest of his gang, but it felt good to know that, no matter what happened today, he’d done this much right.

  The front doors to the Catacombs opened, and several new faces filtered inside. Levi recognized a few of them as Spirits. He sighed with relief...until he noticed that Enne wasn’t among them.

  Lola broke away
from the group and hurried over. She wore a full tux, red lipstick, and a nervous knot between her brows. “I thought Enne would be with you,” she hissed.

  “We thought she’d be with you.” Levi stood up, his heart racing. “We need to look for her.”

  “Where?” Lola snapped. “She could be anywhere.” Her voice cracked, and Levi couldn’t tell if she was scolding him or volunteering to join him.

  Tock pushed herself between them and squeezed both their shoulders. “Listen. She already knows her role today at St. Morse. She’s deadlier than you—” she looked at Lola “—and smarter than you.” She looked at Levi. “We should trust her.”

  Levi had always thought Reymond was invincible. He wasn’t about to make that mistake again with another person he cared about. “The party doesn’t start for another hour.” St. Morse was thirty minutes uptown, but that still gave him time to do something. Anything.

  Jac cleared his throat. “Tock, are you still prepared for what you need to do today?”

  “I’m always prepared to blow things up,” Tock answered smoothly.

  Several eyes around the room watched them, and Levi took a reluctant seat. Tock was right. He needed to trust in Enne—she already knew her part in the plan, and if the worst had happened, then Grace or Lola would step in.

  He’d planned for everything, even destruction.

  Within the next ten minutes, Jonas, Ivory, Bryce, and Harvey arrived, as well. Jonas brought all the Scarhands, who each looked as though they’d purchased their clothes second-and thirdhand from Scrap Market. It wasn’t until all the Scarhands were gathered in one room that Levi realized how large his gang was, maybe twice the size as when Reymond had been alive.

  Then his eyes fell on one of the Scarhands, on a face he recognized but hadn’t seen in months. Mansi. His heart gave a painful clench. Why am I surprised? he asked himself. Mansi had left him, and her oath had broken. Even if she’d given it to someone he despised, it was nothing that Levi didn’t deserve. He hoped, at least, that she saw something different when she looked at the Irons now. Something better.

  The Doves, though not as few in number as the Spirits, were still smaller than Levi expected. He counted fourteen of them, including Ivory and Scythe. Each wore a haunted look in their eyes and had hair bleached white.

  The Orphan Guild was the scrappiest lot. Their formal attire was ragged and old-fashioned, as though they’d been dug up out of graves. Bryce, with dark circles under his bloodshot eyes and wearing a dress shirt several sizes too large, looked the most ragged of them all.

  “I brought what you asked for,” Jonas told Levi. He reached into his pocket and produced a large pack of counterfeit silver Shadow Cards. He flipped several over to reveal that each face was the Fool.

  This was the brilliance of Levi’s plan: he would leverage an old legend to write a new one. Every Sinner who held that card knew it meant a death sentence, and tonight, every partygoer in St. Morse would receive one.

  “You think an ultimatum will end this street war,” Ivory sneered, “but you’re wrong.”

  Lola, Tock, and Jac gaped at Ivory as though they’d never seen her before, and Levi remembered, of course, that only the lords had seen her face.

  The entire club fell silent. They were in the presence of a legend.

  Without warning, she drew her ivory knife and pressed it against Harvey’s throat.

  Everyone around her froze, but no one made a move to stop her. Harvey looked around and paled.

  “Anything I asked you right now, Harvey—would you do it?” She spoke her words against his ear, then ran a hand through his head of curls. There was something strangely possessive about her touch. Ivory was old enough to be Harvey’s mother.

  “Obviously,” Harvey said darkly.

  “And, Bryce, what about you? Would you do anything right now?” If possible, Harvey stiffened more.

  “Obviously,” Bryce echoed, glaring at her.

  “If you did what I asked, and then I backed down,” Ivory told Harvey, “you’d come for me the second my back was turned.” Her gaze met Levi’s. “You’ll give the wigheads the Shadow Cards. You’ll fill them with fear. You’ll make them swear to end the war. But whatever promises they make in this position are worthless. And worse, it’ll only show them that we’re desperate.” She pressed the knife harder against Harvey and spoke into his ear. “Killing you is a better promise. The only promise you cannot break.”

  “Murdering the entire party won’t end the war, either,” Levi said hotly.

  Ivory lowered her knife and laughed. “All of you! So tense.” She flicked Harvey underneath his nose, and he scowled. “I’m merely proving a point.”

  “You act as though we aren’t prepared to follow through on our threats,” Jonas told her. “Those Shadow Cards will be a promise—whoever strikes against the North Side will die.”

  Levi didn’t like the idea of murder, but Jonas was right—they were playing with legends, and every legend needed a shred of truth.

  Their truth would be blood.

  * * *

  Levi couldn’t have been more on edge when his car arrived at St. Morse. Through dark-tinted windows, he watched the guests waiting in a queue in front of the building. Whiteboots were swarming everywhere, and Levi’s heart jumped nervously at the thought of them spotting him. Of course, his name would be on Vianca’s secret guest list, and every employee at the casino would know to let him inside, but he still needed to make it to the entrance. And amid the mostly fair skin of the other attendees, his darker coloring would call more attention.

  The valet opened the door, and Levi slid out of the motorcar. Like always, he wore all black except for the bits of silver on his clothes. The real Fool card peeked out of his breast pocket.

  Levi paid the valet, keeping his head down. As he slipped inconspicuously into the queue, he noticed someone familiar in the car behind his.

  When Harrison Augustine stepped onto the sidewalk, every head in the crowd turned toward him—not because he was one of the candidates and thus a man of this occasion, but because everyone knew about the bad blood between him and his mother. For the first time in eighteen years, Harrison Augustine was returning home.

  He spotted Levi and gestured for him to join him. Levi froze; if he wasn’t Harrison’s ally, did that make him his enemy? Lately the friends and foes in Levi’s life had grown harder to differentiate. But none of the whiteboots parading up and down Tropps Street with assault rifles strapped over their shoulders would dare give him trouble if he looked like Harrison’s companion. So Levi strode over and flashed his best smile.

  “How are you feeling about the results being announced?” Levi asked him.

  “I feel great,” Harrison answered smoothly. He studied the revolving doors of the casino, a ghost in the edges of his one eye. “The story finally ends tonight.”

  Levi’s skin broke out in goose bumps as he remembered the words Zula Slyk had spoken months ago.

  This story will end badly.

  He chalked up his nerves to Enne’s disappearance. He needed to find her, but he, too, had a role to play tonight. Almost three hundred gangsters awaited his signal, divided between two nearby Tropps Street buildings Bryce and the Orphan Guild had secured. That was three hundred people who were depending on Levi, but he was beginning to realize how much he depended on Enne.

  “Did you take my mother up on her offer?” Harrison asked.

  “You told me yesterday that you want to grind this casino beneath your heels,” Levi said. “I know better than to bet against you.”

  Harrison raised his eyebrows. “So no offer ended up being good enough for the Iron Lord.”

  With the staff checking names for the guests just a few feet in front of them, Levi lowered his voice. “Just because we’re no longer partners doesn’t mean we’re working against each other. There’s a lo
t of ground between friends and enemies.”

  Harrison absentmindedly handed the attendant his paperwork. “That’s a pretty thought.”

  And then he walked inside, leaving Levi with an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

  The inside of the casino was more crowded than he’d ever seen, and with the volts from Levi and Enne, Vianca had spared no expense. Servers carried crystal buckets of sparkling wine and every sort of North and South Side cocktail. Live music played in every room. The ceiling, usually covered in faux chandeliers, glowed from hundreds of twinkling lights, like the night-time New Reynes skyline.

  This was the part of the plan when Levi was supposed to head to the ballroom, but Enne’s absence still made everything feel wrong. He searched the faces around him, weaving his way between shoulders, tripping over the trains of gowns.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Watch where you’re—”

  “Excuse me—”

  Levi helplessly pushed his way through the casino. She could be here, lost amid the crowds and drinks and laughter, and he would never find her. She could be in a cell. In the trunk of a car. In the trash clogged at the bottom of the Brint.

  He fought the urge to be sick.

  An invisible force pulled him toward the Tropps Room, and though he’d like to call it destiny, it was purely habit. Anxious and heart racing, he was walking toward the most familiar place, even if that place had once been his cage.

  “Don’t you look dashing,” a voice purred behind him, and Levi whipped around to face Vianca. She wore a floor-length emerald gown that matched her eyes, the eyes she and her son shared. She kissed him on both cheeks, as though he were truly a beloved guest. Then she gestured to the casino around her. “St. Morse has never looked so grand.”