It was only dirt, splattered back from the graves he dug in the Kingpin’s name.
Slowly, Tavia removed Wesley’s hand from her wrist.
He stared at her for a moment and then slid his hand indifferently into his pocket.
“Threats are like promises,” Wesley said. “Don’t make the ones you can’t keep.”
“I’m not going to leave Saxony to die.”
Wesley sighed and his tattoo bobbed alongside his throat.
Tavia pictured the thick lines slotting down to his fingertips, leaking onto his chest and around the scars on his shoulder. The buildings and streets of Creije, covering half of his dark skin in ink. She remembered being there when he got that tattoo, both of them just kids, watching the city being built onto his back.
“Fine. Have it your way,” Wesley said. “We’ll go save your little friend.”
Because apparently neither of them was quite ready to cut the last, fraying thread of friendship that still dangled between them.
WESLEY DIDN’T LIKE PEOPLE, on account of them always trying to kill him. Which made rescuing someone he knew wanted to kill him feel a little odd. Saxony may have been Tavia’s friend, but she was no fan of his.
The day ebbed and night slipped across the sky in a sudden blanket. Wesley liked the city most this way: not quite bright enough to cast light on the misdeeds and miscreants. He liked that it became the perfect haven for all the wonderful and awful things to gather.
Wesley looked up at the amity precinct, which was probably one of the most depressing buildings in Creije. It was painted yellow, or had been some time ago, and now it peeled off the outer walls, cracking like wrinkles around the windowpane and toward the slow steep of the roof.
It was on the wrong side of the bridge that separated the city, where the dreamers steered clear and the sky outside was the color of an old knife wound. This was a place no tourist ever went, because the crease of dead streets on this side of the city were aglow in darkness, even when the sun tiptoed across, save for the flickers of magic and cigarette lights.
You didn’t want to walk many places across the bridge after dark, but if you were going to, then it was best to stay out of the creases.
A group of amityguards hung by the entrance to the precinct, glaring at Wesley not so subtly. Their hands hovered by the sedation charms on their belts.
Wesley turned to Tavia, the walls in his mind higher than ever, guarded against his ghost.
“Keep your head down and let me do the talking,” he said.
Tavia rolled her eyes and pushed past him, plowing ahead as though Wesley hadn’t spoken at all.
Many Gods forbid she actually listened to him for a change.
When they entered the precinct, it was as though time stopped. Every amityguard looked up from their desks, or paused mid-walk to wherever they were headed, like they could sense the specific brand of trouble that had just walked in and were not at all welcoming of it.
“What was that you said about keeping our heads down?” Tavia asked. “Because if looks could kill …”
Wesley adjusted his lapels. “Nothing wrong with making an entrance.”
Which was usually true, but in this case Wesley wasn’t quite sure having the eyes of every amityguard in Creije focused on him was a good thing.
Still, as an underboss, it was Wesley’s duty to make sure the law and those who broke it were in harmony, and he had lined the pockets of enough amityguards in Creije to make this all go smoothly.
They may have hated him, but they were also flush because of him.
“Oh, look,” a voice said. “It’s the prodigal young underboss.”
The man, who was far too soft-spoken to be in the dregs of the amity precinct, stepped forward and gave Wesley an uppity grin.
There were not many things that surprised Wesley—least of all people, who tended to be the easiest to predict—and Wesley’s legion of spies and snitches had made it so there was rarely a secret in Creije he didn’t know. So Wesley was caught a little off guard to find the Vice Doyen of the realm standing in front of him, a bodyguard in tow.
“We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Thornton Walcott,” Vice Doyen Krause said.
“That would explain the warm welcome.”
“Oh, I assure you we’re all honored to finally meet the underboss of Creije.”
Wesley smartened his tie. “Alleged underboss. I’m only here to pick someone up. I didn’t realize I’d have such esteemed company.”
Krause pushed his glasses up his nose. “If only I could say the same.”
The high tilt of his chin did nothing to make Wesley fond of him.
Armin Krause was a clear politician through and through, and not just because of his woeful suit. He had a look about him, like he’d never gone through anything awful, and all the evils of the realms were things he’d witnessed secondhand, through people he’d never met and would never know, but he did offer his dearest sympathies to them all.
“Saxony works at the Crook,” Wesley said. “She’s my employee and I’d like her back.”
“I thought you might,” Krause said. “But she’s still in the medical wing recovering from her little spell.”
He seemed to think the pun was amusing.
“So she’s going to be okay?” Tavia asked. “The magic sickness didn’t—”
Krause held up a hand. “She’s unconscious, but fine. The affliction was only minor and the magic sickness did not spread, despite the mark’s appearance. A couple of days’ rest and all will be well.”
Tavia heaved a sigh of relief. “I need to see her.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’m under strict commands from Doyen Schulze to keep all cases of magic sickness under quarantine until symptoms subside.”
“It’s not contagious,” Wesley said, though Krause already knew that.
“Precautions are always necessary when it comes to black magic.”
Tavia stepped forward and Wesley’s eyes drew to the knives he knew were hidden amongst the various pockets and slits in her clothes.
“I want to see my friend,” she said. “And you don’t get to stop me just because you’re wearing a nice tie.”
Wesley did not think it was a nice tie.
Krause’s bodyguard shifted and his hand inched too close to his belt for Wesley’s liking.
“Back off, busker,” the guard sneered.
Tavia glared over to him and made to say something in retort, probably something that would get her thrown in a cell and put an end to this newly intriguing conversation.
Wesley stepped in front of her.
“Tell me,” he said, taking in the lines of Krause’s suit. “Is the Realm Doyen here too?”
Though Wesley had yet to meet Fenna Schulze in person, it wasn’t for lack of wanting.
She was making quite a reputation for herself, giving speeches at rallies opposing dark magic and starting programs for addicts. There was graffiti of her throughout Uskhanya, with her hands raised devoutly and the words Schulze for a brighter realm underneath. She’d set up rewards for information leading to the arrests of underbosses and banks where people could hand in their dark charms, no questions asked.
Since her election, Doyen Fenna Schulze was on a mission to put an end to Wesley’s business. Which made this whole situation a little interesting.
“Doyen Schulze is still in Yejlath,” Krause said.
It was one of Uskhanya’s smaller central cities, where the Halls of Government stood tall and laws were passed rather than broken. All of the officials worked there and most lived in the city too, making it swell in politicians and stiff upper lips.
Wesley felt a little bad for Greta, Yejlath’s underboss. She must have had a hard job sticking to the shadows with such well-lit streets to find her.
“The Doyen is far too busy to waste time looking into all of your magic victims,” Krause said.
“And yet you’re not.”
Krause’s eyes narr
owed ever so slightly and Wesley couldn’t help but smile.
“I find it strange that she’d send her second in command here for something so trivial.”
And by strange, Wesley also meant irritating. He didn’t like being the last to know things. In fact, he didn’t like not being the very first to know everything, especially when those things were happening in his city.
“You are not getting the girl back,” Krause said. “She’ll be penalized under the full extent of the law for breaking the dark magic code.”
“She’s hurt,” Tavia said. “You can’t keep her locked away.”
Krause propped his chin up. “Actually, I can do whatever I want.”
He shot Tavia a smug little smile that made Wesley’s jaw clench, but this was not the time for anger; it was the time for opportunity.
“How about I offer you a trade?” Wesley said.
“You have nothing I want, underboss.”
Wesley stepped close enough to Krause so that only a whisper could be heard between them.
“That’s not entirely true,” he said.
The bodyguard swallowed nervously, but he didn’t make a play for his weapon, or even pretend to. Krause may have been a Vice Doyen, but Wesley was an underboss and Creije was his city.
“You give me what I want,” Wesley said, voice low and calm. “And I’ll give you Dante Ashwood on a platter.”
WESLEY HAD never been in an interrogation room before and he felt a little ashamed of that. It seemed like a necessary step on the road to becoming underboss that he had skipped.
Still, part of him was also grateful, because the room was all cold grays and dirty concrete and the distinct aroma of stale coffee lingered.
“This is really the only private place we can talk?” Wesley asked. He tapped the metallic chair. “I was at least expecting cushions, considering how lucrative my offer was.”
Tavia kicked her feet up onto the table. “I feel right at home,” she said.
Krause took his glasses off and polished them with a crisp white handkerchief. Perhaps to try to get rid of the sight of an underboss and a busker, sitting smugly without restraints in front of him. Or maybe he just didn’t want to look at the mud on Tavia’s boots.
“You said you wanted no prying eyes,” Krause said. “I apologize for not being able to prepare a banquet.”
“Apology accepted,” Wesley said.
Krause’s sigh was sharp. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t insult my intelligence with this charade any longer.”
“It’s not a charade,” Wesley said. “The Kingpin has brand-new magic. That’s what made Saxony sick.”
Tavia turned to Wesley with wide eyes—she looked paler then usual—but it was Krause who spoke first.
“Yes,” he said. “We know. She is not the first case.”
Now that was interesting.
“So Schulze sent you to Creije to monitor the situation,” Wesley said.
Tavia stood and let out a choked laugh. “Okay, let’s go back a minute. There’s no such thing as new magic.”
And she was right, in a way.
There was only one race of people who could alter the laws of nature and craft new magic, spinning words into spells and sun into storms.
And they were all supposed to be gone.
There hadn’t been new magic, or Crafters, on the streets in over fifty years for one reason: the War of Ages. A bloody uprising that saw the only magic left behind was the same old junk that had already been made, recycling its way around the realms in different packaging.
It was why magic held such fascination and cachet, because at any moment it could all be gone.
“Be realistic,” Tavia said. “You’re saying that Ashwood found a Crafter hiding under a rock somewhere?”
“The realms are a big place,” Wesley said. “Plenty of rocks.”
Tavia’s jaw dropped. “And you knew about this?”
Wesley could almost feel Tavia’s teeth gritting together.
She doesn’t understand. She could never understand.
Wesley pressed down onto his cuff links, to try and shut the voice out. His shirt looked stark against his skin.
Krause eyed him curiously.
“I knew Ashwood was up to something,” Wesley said. He tried to level his voice, but it was about as smooth as the teeth of a blade. “And now I know what. He’ll destroy the city with this new magic if we let him. Ashwood sees Doyen Schulze’s campaigns against dark magic as an attack and he’s preparing to fight.”
Krause shuffled in his seat and though he was trying to hide his shock, the rigid and unblinking stare on his face told another story.
Everyone knew Ashwood was evil, but apparently the politicians of the realm didn’t think he was reckless enough to directly attack a Doyen. Which meant that they didn’t really know Ashwood at all.
Not like Wesley did.
“We can deal with Ashwood ourselves,” Krause said, but he was blustering so obviously that Wesley let the words hang between them for a moment.
He waited, placing a clover breezily into his mouth, watching for Krause to grow more anxious.
The magic the leaf held was loose, barely there at all, and a person would be stretched to get ten minutes of luck out of it, but Wesley had always liked the taste. The tang of bitter lemon. He’d practically grown up on them. Though as he thought that he realized what a strange thing it was, to say he’d grown up on something, as if people were plants, climbing and clambering to whatever they could to survive, unable to grow without a steady constant.
Wesley never much liked constants. They didn’t afford surprise or interest and they were dangerous enough to trap people inside the ordinary.
Except for Creije. That was the only constant he needed.
Krause shifted and when Wesley sensed the Vice Doyen’s nerves at a peak, he finally spoke.
“Bullshit. You need me. You don’t have a choice.”
Krause’s nostrils flared.
“The Kingpin’s consort is the only one who knows where he is and I’m the only one who knows where the consort is,” Wesley said. “I’m also the only one who has access to that consort. I’m the only one Ashwood trusts. And I’m clearly the only one in this room with half a brain.”
“Hey,” Tavia said. “Watch it.”
“You’ve tried to take Ashwood down for years,” Wesley said to Krause. “And his magic is stronger than ever. Exploiting Crafters was illegal even before the war, but all those fancy new laws the realms put in place to protect them afterward? He’s ignoring those too. You don’t have a choice but to work with me.”
“And what would you get out of it?” Krause asked. “Why would you turn against him?”
The answer to that was simple: because Creije was Wesley’s home and he had spent too long building it up just to watch it be torn down.
It was the wonder of Northern Uskhanya, with cobblestones that glistened silver with stray magic dust, and there was no feeling to match the one Wesley had when he took this place and made it his own.
The Kingpin stole so many things, mostly lives, and Wesley stood by and watched it happen. He helped it happen time and again. But this was Wesley’s home and it was all he had. He traded money and magic and his damn humanity for it.
Sometimes, Wesley thought that he wasn’t just born in Creije, but that he was made from it. The best and the worst parts of the city, taken shape and molded to create the man he had become.
Wesley would never let Ashwood take that from him.
He’d never let the old man’s tyranny rip it apart.
“I guess I’m feeling philanthropic,” Wesley said.
Krause’s laugh was dry. “With Ashwood gone, there would be no need for underbosses. You would be shooting yourself in the foot.”
The thought had crossed Wesley’s mind.
Doyen Schulze wanted black magic out of Uskhanya and she wanted Dante Ashwood gone as much as Wesley, but there was always the chance her c
rusade was about more.
It was black magic now, but what if tomorrow it was all magic?
Schulze was making everyone a little paranoid, doubting what magic was right and what had the potential to be wrong. She made the streets safer and that garnered her a strange kind of devotion, which made Wesley worry if her true endgame was to turn Uskhanya into some kind of scholarly realm like Naustrio, where magic was looked down upon in favor of science and technology. He didn’t think he could live in that sort of a world.
Wesley slipped his hands into his pockets. A sign that what he said next, this part of his proposal, didn’t need a handshake. It was nonnegotiable. The only way to protect Creije for good and keep it as filled with wonder as it was now.
Ever my clever boy, his ghost cooed.
“I want your word,” Wesley said. “That when I take down Ashwood, I get to be Kingpin.”
Tavia stiffened beside him. Wesley forced himself not to look at her.
“Why would we trade one crook for another?” Krause asked.
“I’m the lesser evil,” Wesley said with a shrug. “And I’m willing to negotiate terms for dark-magic-free cities. I’ll lessen the hold if Schulze lessens her crusade and allows more magic to be legalized in the realm. She can play ball, just like the other Doyens do and pretend not to.”
Krause sat back in his chair with a long breath.
All Wesley needed was a green light. No amityguards on his tail and no pesky legal repercussions for whatever happened once he started on this path. Just some supplies and whatever was sharpest enough to cut through red tape, before the Kingpin’s elixir spread across the streets and turned them to ash.
Krause seemed to be debating it, but as far as Wesley was concerned, the officials didn’t have the smarts or the connections to take Ashwood down and they weren’t prepared for what evil would await them, no matter how much their bravado tried to convince them otherwise.
But Wesley was.
He knew Ashwood and what he was capable of, and that made Wesley uniquely placed to put an end to it all.
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