Indulge your vices in the City of Sin, where a sinister street war is brewing and fame is the deadliest killer of them all...

On the quest to find her missing mother, prim and proper Enne Salta became reluctant allies with Levi Glaisyer, the city’s most famous con man. Saving his life in the Shadow Game forced Enne to assume the identity of Séance, a mysterious underworld figure. Now, with the Chancellor of the Republic dead and bounties on both their heads, she and Levi must play a dangerous game of crime and politics...with the very fate of New Reynes at stake.

Thirsting for his freedom and the chance to build an empire, Levi enters an unlikely partnership with the estranged son of mafia donna Vianca Augustine. Meanwhile, Enne remains trapped by Vianca’s binding oath, playing the roles of both darling lady and cunning street lord, unsure which side of herself reflects the truth.

As Enne and Levi walk a path of unimaginable wealth and opportunity, new relationships and deadly secrets could quickly lead them into ruin. And when unforeseen players enter the game, they must each make an impossible choice: sacrifice everything they’ve earned in order to survive...

Or die as legends.

Also by Amanda Foody

Daughter of the Burning City

The Shadow Game Series

Ace of Shades

King of Fools

King of Fools

Amanda Foody

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Amanda Foody 2019

Amanda Foody asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9781474083096

Version: 2019-04-24

To Dad, for encouraging all my games, stories, and schemes.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

PART I

EPIGRAPH 2

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

LEVI

EPIGRAPH 3

ENNE

JAC

ENNE

LEVI

JAC

ENNE

LEVI

EPIGRAPH 4

JAC

ENNE

LEVI

LEVI

ENNE

EPIGRAPH 5

JAC

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

LEVI

LEVI

JAC

ENNE

EPIGRAPH 6

JAC

LEVI

ENNE

PART II

EPIGRAPH 7

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

ENNE

EPIGRAPH 8

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

ENNE

JAC

LEVI

JAC

EPIGRAPH 9

ENNE

LEVI

ENNE

EPIGRAPH 10

JAC

LEVI

JAC

LEVI

ENNE

EPIGRAPH J

LEVI

ENNE

JAC

EPIGRAPH Q

ENNE

EPIGRAPH K

LEVI

LEVI

ENNE

EPIGRAPH A

LEVI

ENNE

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

About the Publisher

PART I

RISK

2

“After the executioner lowered Veil’s body from the gallows, he claimed he couldn’t remove the wrappings covering Veil’s face. He used to wear that black gauze all around his head, you know? Well, the executioner said he couldn’t take it off. That it was part of Veil’s face like his own skin.”

—A legend of the North Side

LEVI

Ten hours after escaping the Shadow Game, Levi Glaisyer found his destiny slapped onto the side of a dumpster behind St. Morse Casino.

Criminal Wanted Dead or Alive

Accomplice in the Assassination of the Chancellor

If asked, Levi would deny believing in destiny. Five years on the streets of the City of Sin had taught him that destiny and luck were for the desperate and the thickheaded. As a card dealer, he’d often encountered believers bemoaning the mirrors they’d shattered or the white cats they’d passed. They’d rub lucky coins between their fingers or kiss the shriveled remains of a rabbit’s foot, praying for divine intervention in a game that Levi had already rigged.

For Levi, when the cards no longer ran in his favor, he cheated—simple as that. Luck was a mechanism to be devised, and luck and destiny were merely two sides of the same coin.

Yet as he stared at the wanted poster, sirens wailing across New Reynes in search of him, he couldn’t deny that something felt inevitable about this moment. The thought made his heart pound, even with the Augustine bodyguard looming beside him. Everything in Levi’s life, all his dreams and follies and tragedies, had led to this afternoon, to this alley, to this poster, to this single flip of destiny’s coin.

Dead?

Or alive?

Maybe he was meant for more, the feeling of inevitability whispered to him. Maybe this was his new beginning.

He checked his watch. His new beginning was late.

At half past noon, the Casino District was unusually vacant. Gone were the unlucky gamblers, the slovenly drunks, the outrageous street performers, the wandering tourists. The honest and the crooked, the naïve and the wicked had all found their ways home to sleep off whiskey hangovers and mourn empty purses, leaving backwash-filled bottles and half-smoked cigars clustered in the gutters. Despite the lack of patrons, the street’s neon signs continued to flash, the ragtime music continued to hum, and the shows continued to play. No matter who you were, what you’d done, or how little you had, Tropps Street was open for your business.

It was remarkably hot in New Reynes today, even for the mid-June afternoon. Levi’s bodyguard wiped the sweat collecting from his brow and aired out his reeking shirt.

Levi didn’t know or trust this man. But anyone who worked for Vianca Augustine—the owner of St. Morse Casino and the donna of the notorious Augustine crime Family—knew better than to cross her. Regardless of the three-thousand-volt bounty on Levi’s head, this man would follow Vianca’s orders and protect him. Greed always answered to fear.

Again, Levi checked his watch. He’d pace if he weren’t so exhausted and achy from his collection of injuries: two broken ribs, a black eye, several bruises, and a bandaged knife wound. The City of Sin hadn’t been merciful to him these past few days.

After he and Enne had escaped from the Shadow Game and returned to St. Morse, he’d managed a mere five hours of shut-eye before the bodyguard had knocked on Enne’s apartment door and informed Levi that his ride to Zula Slyk’s safe house would soon arrive. Zula owned an illegal monarchist newspaper in Olde Town and, several days prior, had been the one to coldly inform Enne that her mother was dead. If Levi had a choice, he’d never see that heartless woman again. But thanks to Vianca’s unbreakable omerta, Levi never had a choice. Zula’s was safe. What mattered right now was moving from here to there without meeting trouble along the way.

But Zula Slyk was the least of his problems.

For the past two years, Levi had been running an investment scam, which was how he’d earned the enemies who’d invited him to the Shadow Game. Once the scam started to crumble, all he’d wanted was to clean it up so he could focus on his gang, the Irons.

He still wanted that. To build his empire, just as he’d always dreamed.

But Levi was in a predicament. The lords of the other two gangs were wanted criminals as well, but Ivory and Scavenger could count on the loyalty and protection of their associates for their safety, whereas half the Irons would probably sell Levi out simply to watch him hang. If Levi was spending all his time trapped under Zula’s watch, he’d have no shot at rebuilding his gang. He’d broken out of one cage only to stumble into another.

He tore the wanted poster from the dumpster and crumpled it in his fist.

Maybe he was meant for nothing.

A swanky Amberlite motorcar appeared at the mouth of the alley, painted black and matte as if coated in gunpowder. Levi ducked closer to his bodyguard. Vianca had scheduled his ride, and Vianca didn’t do inconspicuous. The car had no metallic fixtures or studded bumpers to be seen. It could be a trap.

Once the car eased deeper into the alley, the driver’s window rolled down and a gloved hand beckoned Levi inside. Beside him, the bodyguard nodded for Levi to depart. Apparently this was his scheduled ride after all.

Wanted men don’t do flashy, Levi reminded himself oh, so tragically.

He groaned in pain as he slid onto the plush leather of the back seat and shut the door. The motorcar lurched forward, leaving the St. Morse escort behind.

Inside was utter darkness.

As his eyes adjusted, he took in a shape in the seat across from him and realized, breath catching, that his private getaway wasn’t so private.

He snapped the fingers of one hand, sparking a faint flame that offered a pinch of light—one of the few useful tricks his orb-making blood talent provided him.

His other hand instinctively felt for his pistol.

The man looked nearly forty. A patch concealed his left eye, but there was no hiding the ugly pink scar that snaked across his brow into his receding copper hairline. His skin was fair, his gray trench coat designed by Ulani Maxirello, and his teeth whiter than a tooth-polish advertisement.

“It was time we met,” the man said, as if assuming Levi already knew his identity.

Levi never forgot a face, and although he’d never seen this man before, there was something familiar about him. Perhaps in the reptilian green of his remaining eye. In the sharp slant of his nose, the narrow shape of his jawline. Even if his individual features were neither unattractive nor unsettling, collectively and without explanation, his appearance made Levi’s skin crawl.

Maybe this wasn’t his scheduled ride after all.

“Let’s not have any trouble,” Levi warned, clicking the safety off his gun loud enough for his companion to hear.

Rather than reacting to Levi’s threat, the man tossed him that day’s copy of The Crimes & The Times. Levi’s heart skipped several beats as he examined the matching wanted posters on the front page: him and Séance, whom he knew better as Enne Salta. She’d arrived in New Reynes only ten days ago, but since then, she’d managed to earn a more noteworthy reputation than Levi had in five years. In the portrait, Enne had on the same silk mask she’d worn during the Shadow Game, obscuring all but her black lips.

Her bounty is five hundred volts more than mine, he noted sourly.

Still, they made quite a handsome duo on the front page. Looking at them, that same feeling of inevitability stirred inside him. For a moment, he let himself fantasize about destiny, about how his and Enne’s were intertwined, about how badly he wished to intertwine them further. He knew he shouldn’t—couldn’t. Falling for Enne held its own dangers.

Levi eased his grip on the gun. If this man was an assailant, he wouldn’t be updating Levi on today’s current events. Still, Levi didn’t let go of the weapon. Not yet.

“We’ve never met, Pup, but I know your reputation,” the man started. Levi quietly seethed. He hated that nickname. It came from his split talent—his weaker talent—for sensing auras, but he hardly smelled auras like a dog, like everyone assumed. The nickname was just another way to belittle him. The North Side had always viewed him as a kid playing gangster. “I didn’t think you’d be the quiet type.”

“I’m still guessing at your name.” Still guessing at why a stranger had hijacked Levi’s getaway, if not to collect the reward.

“How quickly the city’s forgotten.” The man pouted, a rather strange look for someone his age. He didn’t seem to wear his years comfortably. “But I should think you, of all people, would see the family resemblance. Why do you think it was so easy for me to intercept your car?” He inspected Levi. “I’m told you’re my mother’s favorite.”

Harrison Augustine. Vianca’s estranged only child and the Augustine Family prince. It was easy now to spot the resemblance. They carried the same serious, noble features, the same paleness that revealed the green of their veins snaking across their foreheads and necks. He even spoke like his mother, purring names as if he owned them.

If he was anything like Vianca, then he couldn’t be trusted.

“I know who you are now,” Levi said. “But I still don’t know why you’re here.”

Harrison tapped the newspaper’s front page. “You and this Séance character, escaping the impossible Shadow Game and killing both the Chancellor and Sedric Torren in a single night. You’re the talk of the town. As soon as I heard what happened, I knew I had to meet you.”

Levi stared at the man and reflected on his words. Even without his inheritance or his mother’s empire, Harrison was powerful. The Augustine and Torren crime Families were notorious in New Reynes, and Harrison, in his eighteen years of absence, had graduated from prince to mystery. No one knew why he’d left or what he’d been doing since.

Yet here he sat, claiming he needed to meet Levi, of all people. If he was after the bounty, then this seemed a roundabout way of acquiring it. But he’d made a mistake if he thought Levi had anything to offer him. Levi had nothing but the stolen clothes on his back.

“They used to say this city is a game,” Harrison mused, drawing a cigar from his pocket. He offered one to Levi, but Levi shook his head. He hated smoking. “Do they still say that?”

“They do.”

“Even so, New Reynes must’ve changed a lot.” Harrison lit the cigar, and the car filled with its musky odor. “A seventeen-year-old street lord. I’m impressed you’ve survived this long.”

Levi stiffened, even though he was used to this sort of condescension. “I survived the Shadow Game. The Chancellor is dead—”

“Yes, yes.” Harrison blew a cloud of smoke in Levi’s face, making his eyes water as he scrunched his nose and held in the urge to cough. “And street lords who kill chancellors don’t live long. So tell me—why should I bet on you? Even though you were the one who killed the Chancellor?”

Levi narrowed his eyes. Was Harrison trying to test him? “I don’t know where you got such an idea, but—”

“Don’t play coy. The papers say that Séance killed him, but I know the truth. I have friends in the House of Shadows.” Yet another reason not to trust him. Maybe this was death coming for Levi after all. He kept his hand on his gun. “They’re embarrassed. Chancellor Semper, the revered Father of the Revolution, killed by some scrappy card dealer? But this Séance character... Well, she’s a more impressive villain.”

Levi’s moral compass didn’t point north past the North Side, but if it was Séance’s identity that Harrison wanted, he would never give that up. Besides, Levi felt he was an impressive enough character in his own right.

“I’m sorry the wigheads feel that way,” Levi answered, unable to resist the empty boast. “I’m sure they’ll find me a formidable enemy.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

Levi’s spirits lifted at those words. No one ever saw potential in him. Right now he could barely see potential in himself.

Harrison turned the page of the newspaper.

SENATE CALLS FOR WAR ON THE GANGS

“War is a strong word,” Levi murmured.

“It’s been said before,” Harrison replied. “And it’s why I’m here.”

Before the Great Street War eighteen years ago, two street lords, Veil and Havoc, had ruled the city like kings. It was the golden age of New Reynes crime. But then the wigheads had forced the North Side to its knees, and both of the lords were hanged in Liberty Square in a spectacle of justice and judgment. Ever since then, gangs like the Irons, the Scarhands, and the Doves had attempted to replicate those empires of old. But no one had succeeded, in part because the North Side had never truly recovered from the war, or from the Revolution seven years before it.

“They’ve talked about clearing out the gangs for years,” Levi said.

“The Chancellor was assassinated by—as the city dubs you both—two street lords,” Harrison said. “This isn’t just talk. It’s a promise. And the war has already begun.”

Nerves quivered in Levi’s chest, and he had the urge to raise his hand to his throat to assure himself there was no noose knotted around it. New Reynes had raised him on its legends; he knew the Great Street War’s bloodbath as if he’d lived it.

He scanned the rest of the article, which included the bounties not just of Levi and Séance, but the other lords and seconds, as well. It was the most informative write-up of the gangs he’d encountered since Enne’s unusual and questionable tourist guidebook.

Levi grinned. His bounty was the same as Scavenger’s and Ivory’s. Even so, he had a few grievances with the article. For one, the Orphan Guild wasn’t a gang—it was an enterprise. Second, breaking the law once hardly made Enne a criminal mastermind. And last, his title wasn’t Pup; it was the Iron Lord.

To his shock, each of those named also had a wanted poster—other than Ivory, of course, as no one alive had ever glimpsed her face. Levi’s pulse hammered as he studied each of them. In comparison to their fairer features, like those of the majority in New Reynes, Levi’s brown skin stuck out. He would be easier to spot, and more at risk.

Then his eyes fell on the detailed sketch of his best friend, Jac Mardlin, with his messy gray-blond hair and lazy grin. He was the only one depicted smiling.

Jac was likely still sleeping on Enne’s floor where Levi had left him. Jac always knew his association with Levi would cause him trouble, but he probably had no idea his wanted posters were already plastered across the city. Before he’d departed, Levi had shaken him awake and asked to meet with him this afternoon. He hoped Jac hadn’t ventured outside yet. The sirens were searching for him, too.

“They should put these posters on trading cards.” Levi faked a laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

“You’re rather cavalier about all of this.” Harrison slapped the paper. “This is a death sentence.” That, too, he said like a purr.

“So was the Shadow Game,” Levi countered. “Now tell me—why are you here?”

Harrison drummed his fingers on the window ledge. On his middle finger, he wore the Augustine emerald ring, same as Vianca.

“I’ve returned to destroy my mother,” he said.

For the second time that morning, Levi had come face-to-face with his destiny. The sirens outside grew quieter, and the nerves knotting in his chest began to unravel. It was a second sign. Too blatant for Levi not to pay attention.

A New Reynes without Vianca—that he’d risk nearly anything for.

Maybe this was a new beginning after all.

“You know I can’t help you.” The omerta, an unbreakable oath Vianca had trapped him into taking, prevented Levi from hurting her. Harrison’s blood name was Augustine, which meant he’d inherited his mother’s talent for omertas, so he knew their rules better than anyone. And, of course, all of New Reynes—and certainly Harrison—knew that Levi was at Vianca’s mercy.

“But you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have a plan,” Levi added.

“I know my way around omertas. You can’t directly hurt her, but you can do almost anything else so long as she doesn’t expressly forbid it,” Harrison explained. “The Senate election for the New Reynes representative seat is in November. It’s one of the most influential positions in politics. Sedric Torren was the First Party’s candidate, but now that he’s been so conveniently removed, I’ll be taking his place.”

Levi’s breath hitched. It was no secret that Vianca supported the monarchist party, the First Party’s only opposition. However, despite radical measures, the monarchists had never once won an election, and they likely never would. Politics was Vianca’s crusade, and she would view Harrison’s campaign as the ultimate betrayal.

“You’re certain you’ll replace Sedric?” Levi asked. The city hadn’t seen Harrison in eighteen years. He seemed like a dark horse candidate taken to a new extreme.

“The new chancellor herself asked me to. You see, unlike previous years, the monarchist party has a growing amount of support—primarily here, in the North Side. Being from the North Side and with his Family’s connections, Sedric provided votes that are now crucial to whoever wins this election. So she gave me a call.”

“But you’ve been gone for years,” Levi said, furrowing his eyebrows. “What do you know about anything that’s been happening here?”

Harrison leaned forward. In the darkness of the car, all Levi saw was the glow of Harrison’s cigar and the outline of his once-broken nose. Nervously, Levi wondered if he’d offended him.

“That’s exactly why I need you to work for me in the North Side. I don’t have friends here anymore, but you do. We could become powerful together.”

That was almost funny enough to be a joke. The whole city was after Levi. His own gang had betrayed him. Even if the Shadow Game had given him a slight boost in reputation, he’d always been the boy in way over his head.

Before Levi could correct him, Harrison said, “In return, I’ll kill my mother. It will have to be after the election, after I win. I won’t let her be hailed by the monarchist party as some sort of martyr.”

Not only would Harrison see his Family’s empire destroyed, but he’d end Vianca along with it.

Levi was struck speechless.

“I realize, with the headlines, you’re in a tough spot,” Harrison added, “so if you do agree to help me, I’m willing to leverage my own assets to ensure you won’t need to worry about the bounty.”

It was too good to be true—of course it was. And Harrison had expectations Levi would certainly fail to meet.

But even with his heart racing in warning, all Levi asked was, “How?”

“I know the whiteboot captain,” Harrison answered, his voice slick as a businessman’s, even as they discussed murder and war. “He can be convinced to ignore Iron Territory, if given enough voltage. I’ll purchase local property to make it seem like my interests in Olde Town are purely financial. It should provide you some safety. But while I pay him off, you’ll still need to do your own work increasing your personal protection. You might be safe from the whiteboots, but you’ll be vulnerable to betrayal. I hear you know a thing or two about that.”

Harrison Augustine hears a lot of things.

He was referring to Chez Phillips, Levi’s previous third in the Irons. A few days ago, Chez had turned the Irons against Levi and challenged him for lordship—nearly killing him. In the end, Levi had overpowered him, but he’d gone further than he’d meant to. Chez would bear those scars for life, and he’d never be back.

If Harrison knew about Chez, then he knew Levi’s friends were few. Yet still he saw potential in him.

It made Levi want to prove him right.

Harrison rolled down the window to let out the smoke building in the back seat. The noise of sirens filled the car, but Levi stayed focused on Harrison’s words. “Visit the Catacombs. Ask for Narinder Basra. He’s on the Street of the Holy Tombs in Olde Town, and he’s well connected. He’ll find you a replacement for your third. Maybe even a new reputation.”

Hesitance pinched the back of Levi’s mind. This was too simple. If Harrison was offering him the world, then what would Levi need to sacrifice in return?

“You’ve thought of everything. This would solve all my problems,” Levi conceded. “So what would you have me do for you?”

“I’m nervous that any violence between the North and South Sides will only fuel the monarchist cause. They believe the First Party has taken advantage of the system to keep themselves in power, to keep the North Side weak. I’m not sure either of us can stop the conflict from escalating, but what I need is information. You were friends with Eight Fingers—become friends with the other lords. I need to know about everyone who matters in the North Side. I want to know the plans before they happen.”

Though it was true Levi had been friends with Reymond—Eight Fingers, the previous lord of the Scarhands—he had no reason to be friends with the other lords. Despite what The Crimes & The Times reported, Levi barely was a lord anymore. And if he was going to cultivate any relationship or influence with them, at the very least he needed to have the Irons back. The Irons might have betrayed him, but they were the slickest, most cunning tricksters in the city, and Levi had spent years scouting his gangsters and building their clientele. He wouldn’t turn his back on them yet. But regaining their trust would mean taking deadly risks, rising up when he should be lying low. Even with the protection Harrison offered, it was a dangerous gamble.

It was lucky for Harrison that what Levi wanted, more than anything, was to have the Irons back.

Lucky for Harrison that Levi was a gambling man.

“That could be arranged,” Levi said. Even as he tried to keep his voice steady and professional, his own excitement betrayed him. This was truly an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Harrison smiled. “I like your confidence.”

“It won’t be easy,” Levi admitted. “But it can be done.”

“There’s one job in particular, though, that my entire plan absolutely hinges upon. What Sedric Torren was providing that I cannot,” Harrison continued, and Levi leaned closer. “The gangs might have monopolies on certain crimes, but the Augustine and Torren Families control almost the entirety of the North Side. If they don’t directly employ someone, they own their building. They provided them a loan. They did them a favor. With the monarchist support growing, the votes that Sedric would have provided for the First Party are pivotal to the whole election. Without them, as things stand now, I would lose by a landslide.”

Levi’s eyes widened. He always thought the monarchists were a radical minority. He had no idea they wielded that much power. Maybe he should’ve paid more attention to Vianca’s political lectures.

“It seems Chancellor Fenice should’ve just tapped Sedric’s Family successor, then, rather than you,” Levi said.

“That’s true, but the Torren Family is likely to be without a don for a long time—maybe months. Neither Charles nor Delia—Sedric’s cousins, brother and sister and equally bloodthirsty—will relinquish their claim without a fight. I could help one of them win, but I can’t ensure it. So I need to know who to sponsor. I need the next don of the Family to be in my debt, otherwise my election and your freedom are off the table.”

“You’re asking me to call the winner,” Levi said slowly. “I don’t have the means to do that. I still owe the Torren Family ten thousand volts that I have no intention or ability to repay. I can’t give you more than fifty-fifty odds.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be you. You’ll send someone inside the Torren empire, someone you trust.”

Levi could count the number of people he trusted on two fingers: Enne and Jac. Vianca was certainly already concocting her own plans for Enne as Séance.

Which left Jac.

Levi’s stomach churned. There was no way he could send his best friend, barely two years clean, into the very narcotics empire that had nearly destroyed him.

Levi couldn’t manage even a smile of false confidence. “Surely you have someone you trust?”

“I don’t want this traced back to me,” Harrison answered. “The monarchists—somewhat correctly—believe the First Party is corrupt. The other advantage I offer as a candidate is my blank slate. I might be able to bribe some whiteboots for what appear to be business ventures, but I can’t be caught rigging power struggles in crime Families or making deals with the person who killed the Chancellor, can I?” His smile looked uncomfortably wide.

Levi took a deep breath and swallowed his nausea. He knew what Jac would say, of course. That Harrison was too great of an opportunity to lose. That Levi always had too little faith in him. That Jac was ready for it.

Levi wasn’t so sure.

“These are my terms,” Harrison told him. “Will you accept?”

“Can I think on it?” Even if this opportunity meant everything and then some to Levi, it meant asking a lot of Jac—Levi needed to speak to him first.

“There’s no time for that. I have campaign strategy meetings in a few hours. I need your decision now.”

The car was coming to a stop. Harrison flicked what remained of his cigar out the window.

What Harrison was offering Levi was invaluable. A chance to escape Vianca. A level of protection while Levi built his empire. An opportunity to ally with power instead of merely playing with it.

Harrison was offering Levi his destiny.

But it meant throwing Jac into an assignment that could set him back years—or worse. It meant lying to Vianca for however long it took Harrison to carry out his plans. Those were dangerous risks. Levi preferred gambling with volts—not his best friend’s life, not his own.

Harrison peeked out the crack in the window. “You don’t have much time. The whiteboots are all over Olde Town.” His lips curled into a smile. “But give me the word and a few hours. They’ll be gone before this evening.”

Everything Levi had ever dreamed of versus throwing Jac into a dangerous assignment. He knew exactly what he wanted, of course: to play the game. He wanted it so badly he ached.

A relapse would be Jac’s fault, not Levi’s, but that didn’t mean Levi wouldn’t blame himself if it happened.

He knew he wasn’t being fair to Jac. If his friend were here, he’d be furious that Levi thought so little of him. Jac would tell him to worry about making them rich, and Jac would worry about himself.

Jac would tell him to take the offer.

At least he hoped that was the case, and not just his own selfishness swaying him.

“I accept,” Levi said, nearly choking on the words.

Harrison opened the door for him and handed him a business card. The only thing written on it was a phone number. “Contact me when you have something.”

Levi nodded, adjusted his felt homburg hat, and painfully climbed out of the car. Outside, the Street of the Holy Tombs was a grim lane of gothic cathedrals, sharpened spires, and ghostly remnants of the Faith. They’d traveled to the quiet eastern quarter of Olde Town, the most historic neighborhood of the city, where even the shadows were prickly, and where darkness reigned over the day.

It was home.

“I’m glad we met, Levi,” Harrison said. With that, he closed the door and the car sped off.

Collar popped, hat shielding his face, Levi ducked into Zula’s quaint shop front of Her Forgotten Histories, humming a ragtime tune and drowning out his nerves. He’d made his decision, and whatever dangers he faced as a result, from this moment on, his life was changed.

Yesterday he was Levi Glaisyer, a card dealer famous in niche circles.

Today he was Levi Glaisyer, accomplice in the greatest political assassination since the Revolution, survivor of a notorious execution game, and ally with a soon-to-be powerful force on the South Side.

Yesterday he was vulnerable. Today he would become untouchable.

His destiny was upon him.

ENNE

In her dream, she wore a gown. The sleeves were sheer, the color of meringue cream, and as delicate as moth wings. A lilac ribbon cinched her waist and fluttered down her skirts, lost amid the scalloped tiers and cascading chiffon ruffles. As she descended the grand staircase, the others in the hall watched her join them with approving smiles, and the chandeliers of Bellamy had never glowed so brightly.

Enne Salta woke with a gun tucked beneath her pillow, her Tokens clutched in her fist, and volts humming in her blood.

For a sweet moment, Enne lingered in the dream and forgot the events of the past ten days. Forgot that she’d abandoned all she knew to find her mother, Lourdes, in the City of Sin. That she was trapped within an unbreakable oath to a despicable Mafia donna. That she’d killed two men. That her mother was dead. That her old life—the life of that dream—was gone, and her innocence and identity along with it.

Then she rolled over to see Lola Sanguick—reluctant criminal, blood gazer for the Orphan Guild, and collector of pointy objects—drooling on the other pillow, and Enne’s reveries vanished. Lola looked just as unnerving asleep as she did awake, her white hair tangled and greasy, her canines bared, her arms resting at her sides like a corpse. If you asked Lola, she was Enne’s second. If you asked Enne, she was her friend.

Across the room, Jac Mardlin loomed in the bedroom doorway. Whether consciously or not, he always stood like a soldier—shoulders back, expression serious, fists clenched and braced for battle. Every inch of his upper body was covered in intricate tattoos—all black, except for the red J on the underside of his right arm, and the matching diamond on the left. Like Lola, he was intimidating at first glance—until his single dimple betrayed his stern exterior, or until he opened his mouth...to say anything at all, really.

Enne scrambled to cover herself. She was wearing only a nightdress. “Barging into a lady’s bedroom, are you?”

Jac cocked an eyebrow. “Is that how you’re going to refer to yourself? As a street lady?”

Admittedly, it did sound like a more fitting title to Enne than street lord.

“Where’s Levi?” she asked. Last night, she and Levi had returned to St. Morse in the hour after sunrise, and all four of them had slept through the morning in her apartment.

“He already left,” Jac answered.

Enne fought off a troublesome pinch of disappointment. Thinking about Levi brought back a rush of painful memories from the Shadow Game. The panic that had washed over her when she’d first glimpsed the House of Shadows. How dreadful Levi had looked as she gambled for his life. The surge of power she’d felt as she fired the gun and the Shadow Game’s timer shattered into a hundred pieces.

By now, the news of what had happened in the House of Shadows had surely traveled across the city. Although Enne’s true identity was unknown, Levi’s wasn’t. She hoped he’d left St. Morse without trouble. She didn’t even know when they’d next see each other. Levi had become something like a lifeline for her since she’d arrived in New Reynes, and he’d always been merely an elevator ride away.

She caught herself. Her emotions were stormy and twisted in her stomach, as they lately were whenever she thought about Levi. But she wasn’t a fool; Levi was being hunted by the law, and due to her Mizer heritage and persona as Séance, she was only one mistake away from exposure and execution. Romance was hardly worth that risk.

“I’m gonna meet him in a few hours,” Jac told her. He walked to the window on the far side of the room and peeked out the curtain. There was a faint sounding of sirens. “Listen to this. It hasn’t stopped for a second—not all night. I’m surprised Levi slept at all.”

“Did you?” Enne asked.

He ran his fingers nervously through his dull blond hair. He was already fair, but right now he looked especially pale. “I never sleep well.”

Enne’s hand trembled as she squeezed her two Tokens. The pair of coins were similar in many ways: both brass, both old, both depicting a cameo of a Mizer—a member of the families who had once ruled the world’s many kingdoms, until revolutionaries overthrew their thrones and killed every Mizer left alive. The smaller coin—the queen’s Token—was a gift from Lourdes, a trinket Enne always kept with her to remind her of her mother. Lola was the one who’d recognized the uneven ridge patterns on its side as a key, and together, they’d opened up Lourdes’ secret bank account, where an impossible fortune had once been stored.

By the time they got there, it was nearly empty. One of the objects that remained was the king’s Token, larger and purely a coin. Although the metal always hummed with an inexplicable warmth, last night, the king’s eye had turned purple. But only Enne could see that.

Likely because she’d awakened her dormant Mizer blood talent during the Shadow Game. Even now, she could feel the volts, warm and buzzing within her skin—faint, but there. Maybe the color of the king’s eyes was something only a Mizer could see.

Or maybe she was simply going shatz. The City of Sin had changed Enne in many ways, but she was far too practical to start thinking like a superstitious Faithful.

She closed her eyes and squeezed the coins again, tuning out the sirens searching for her and Levi. The more she listened to them, the more she could hear something else in their sounds—a phantom tick, tick, tick, like the timer from the Shadow Game. She could still picture the gray, unfeeling faces of the other players from the Phoenix Club. It haunted her that somewhere in New Reynes, they went about their own lives, despite how they had tried to end hers.

Lourdes was dead at their hands, and Enne’s birth mother had suffered the same fate.

Yet still the perpetrators lived.

Before Enne’s thoughts could continue down this unsettling path, Jac choked out, “They won’t stop looking for Levi.” He looked up through the space between the curtains, as if searching for gathering storm clouds in a clear sky.

His words did nothing to calm her nerves. The tick, tick, tick grew louder. She shot an anxious glance at her night table to assure herself the clockwork timer wasn’t actually beside her. Her free hand instinctively felt for the gun underneath her pillow.

She’d destroyed the timer once. She’d escaped.

She could do it again.

Lola stirred and pulled the blankets over her head. “Sounds like doom.”

“You could see doom in the burn markings on your toast,” Enne snapped. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with Lola’s constant pessimism.

Lola clicked her tongue and rolled over, her back to both of them.

Enne carefully set both the Tokens and her revolver on the nightstand before standing up. Once she did, she realized how tired she was—tired all the way down to her bones. The stains on her bedsheets betrayed how terribly she’d slept the past few nights; they were gray from sweat and grief-stricken tears.

Three days ago, Enne had learned that her mother was dead. And despite all that had happened, and all the mystery still clouding Lourdes’ double life, three days was hardly enough time to mourn.

Especially when there were other emotions layered within her grief, complicating it, twisting it. There was the frustration at never truly knowing Lourdes. Guilt that Enne had unwittingly foiled her mother’s efforts to protect her. Hurt that Lourdes had used her talents to keep Enne isolated her entire life.

Even worse than realizing she’d been wrong about Lourdes was realizing she’d been wrong about herself. Talents were more than simply abilities—they were a part of a person’s identity. Every person possessed two. The stronger one was called the blood talent, and the weaker one, the split talent. All of Enne’s life, she’d believed she was a Salta, that she came from a common, mundane dancing family. In Bellamy, she’d struggled and wept trying to keep up with the illustrious dancing talents of her classmates. That was who she had been—the person always reaching for next to last. The person never truly belonging. The person who couldn’t help but fail.

Because Lourdes had let her believe it.

It would take a long time to untangle those emotions. For now, all she understood was how deeply she missed her mother.

“Vianca will want to see you,” Jac said warily, once again interrupting Enne’s thoughts. He was right—last night, Vianca had instructed Enne to find her as soon as she woke up.

I have excellent plans for you, my dear, Vianca had purred.

An acidic mixture of fear and hatred rose in her throat when she thought about Vianca. Whatever Vianca had planned for her, it had little to do with Enne’s well-being and all to do with the donna’s games with her enemies across the city. Enne’s only value was her usefulness. Even though Vianca couldn’t remove her omerta even if she wanted to, there were other ways to dispose of Enne...if Enne no longer impressed.

Enne refused to let that happen. She’d lost too much to the City of Sin to lose her life, as well. No matter what it took, she would survive this city.

She rose, pushing her concerns away. “I’ll go see Vianca now. Both of you, wait here until I come back.”

“I didn’t realize I was taking orders from you now, missy,” Jac said, smirking.

Enne didn’t rise to his provocation. “It’s past noon. Vianca will have news about what’s happened while we slept. You shouldn’t go outside unaware.”

“And what will we do while we wait?” Lola asked, yanking the blankets from her face. “Play cards?”

“You look like a sore loser, Dove,” Jac teased.

“I don’t gamble away my voltage.”

He shot her a sly smile. “Oh, there’s more you can bet than volts.”

Lola sat up, her expression unamused. “I’ve killed men twice as big as you.”

Enne knew better than to believe her. Lola was all talk, like when she’d claimed she could drive and then nearly flipped their hot-wired motorcar, or when she’d threatened Enne’s life but could barely hold her own ground under attack. Jac would best her within seconds in a fight.

But still, her glare cut sharper than any of her knives. Jac averted his eyes and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

Enne grabbed a dress out of her closet and walked to the bathroom. She stared at her strange violet eyes in the mirror, eyes that had been brown until last night. Her hand trembled as she reached for the trick contact lenses Levi had given her. It would be easier if he were here. If she didn’t have to face the donna—and the consequences of what they had done—alone.

She wondered if he’d woken thinking the same.

On her way out the door, Enne called back to Lola, “Don’t scare Jac too much while I’m gone.”

* * *

One thing Enne missed desperately about Bellamy was the decor. There, upholstery was floral, curtains were frilled, and everything was the color of macarons—cantaloupe orange, pistachio green, and rose pink. Enne’s bedroom had resembled a patisserie, and for her, serenity was curling up on her bed amid cream-colored blankets, with a plate of cucumber sandwiches, a scandalous romance novel by her favorite author, and a beeswax candle scenting her room with lavender.

If Enne’s aesthetic was a bakery, then Vianca’s was a very expensive grotto. All of St. Morse Casino was decorated in emerald and sapphire, with dark wood and velvet fabric and whatever else devoured the light. There was something sinister in its details. The way the legs of tables curled like coiled snakes. The way it smelled of vinegar, like something pickled and preserved. The way the portraits of executed Mizer families lined each of the hallways, staring at unsettled patrons as they passed.

And Vianca, her long fingernails clacking against her desk, her reptilian green eyes narrowed and fixed on Enne’s throat, was exactly the sort of monster that slithered out of grottos.

“Come here,” Vianca cooed as Enne shut the office door. The pale skin around her forehead and lips sagged in the dim fluorescent light. “Let me look at you.”

Enne gulped and walked to Vianca’s desk. The old woman wrapped her bony, ring-covered fingers around Enne’s chin and pulled her down to examine her face. Her breath smelled of tea and vermouth.

Startled at the close inspection, Enne swallowed as her stomach leaped into her throat, and she prayed the purple of her eyes didn’t show through the contacts. Keeping secrets from Vianca Augustine was dangerous. She kept enough portraits of Mizers in her casino to recognize when one was trembling right in front of her, even if the world believed every Mizer to be dead.

Don’t let them see your fear. She mentally recited one of Lourdes’s rules, which her mother had always told her were for proper behavior. She’d learned last week that they were actually the street rules of New Reynes. Apparently behaving like a lady or like a criminal wasn’t so different.

“You’d never know, looking at you,” Vianca mused. “You must have fangs hidden beneath your cupid’s bow. Or shadows lurking in those doe eyes.”

Those words didn’t sit well with Enne. Vianca was the only monster in this room.

Vianca let her go. “I gained more than I’d imagined with you, my dear. And I reward those who please me.”

She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a leather pouch. She opened it and removed a glass orb, sparking with volts. It glowed bright enough to light the room, and Enne guessed there were at least a hundred inside. A small fortune on its own, and there looked to be several orbs in the pouch.

“I’ve put up with interviews about Mr. Glaisyer all morning for this voltage, and here I am, giving it to you.” Vianca patted Enne’s hand. “Remember this. Remember how well I treat you.”

“Thank you, Madame,” Enne managed. Volts were hardly enough to forgive how Vianca had quite literally delivered Enne to Sedric Torren, wrapped in a bow and all, but Enne wasn’t so proud that she wouldn’t take them—nor so unintelligent as not to thank the donna of the Augustine Family for such a generous gift.

“Buy yourself whatever you need. And Mr. Glaisyer and Mr. Mardlin, as well. Now take a seat.”

Enne did so, laying the pouch on her lap. Of course she hadn’t come here only to be doted on. Vianca always wanted something. She might give occasionally, but she would always take twice as much.

Vianca slid Enne that morning’s edition of The Crimes & The Times. Enne stared in horror at the wanted sketch of herself below the headline. Séance’s black mask covered most of her features, and although Enne knew it was supposed to be her, it wasn’t an exact match. Her jawline wasn’t wide enough, and her forehead was much too high. No one would pass her on the street and look twice.

Unlike hers, Levi’s adjacent sketch was entirely recognizable. He wore his signature smirk, like he wasn’t the least bit surprised to find himself on the front page.

SENATE CALLS FOR WAR ON THE GANGS

Enne’s stomach dropped as she scanned the article. There were portraits of the lord and second of every gang, as well as the Orphan Guild. She held her breath as she examined Jac’s easy smile and the warrant for his arrest and execution below it. She really hoped he’d listened to her and stayed in her room.

“Have you heard of Worner Prescott?” Vianca asked.

Enne skimmed the page, in case she’d missed his name. He wasn’t mentioned. “No, Madame.”

“And that is precisely the problem.” Vianca sighed and poured herself a refill of her tea, though the drink looked long cold. “There’s an election this November for the seat of the New Reynes representative—one of the most influential positions in the Senate. Worner Prescott is the monarchist party’s candidate.”

Enne knew little of politics. Because Bellamy was only a territory, not a state of the Republic, they didn’t have voting or representation rights. The rivalry of the First and monarchist parties was no concern to them. Most found politics a beastly discussion at salons and parties.

Still, she knew the reputation of the monarchists: violent radicals. Lourdes had devoted her life to their cause, but Enne didn’t know why. She wasn’t sure if this meant Lourdes, too, had been a violent radical, or if the monarchist party was less despicable than she’d always believed. It unnerved her that Lourdes and Vianca had something so fundamental in common.

Malcolm Semper, the late Chancellor of the Republic, had been the father of the First Party. Josephine Fenice, his successor, was another First Party politician, another soulless member of the Phoenix Club. Enne might hesitate to call herself a monarchist, but she did know if the Phoenix Club was on one side, then she was on the other.

“Sedric Torren was running against Prescott,” Vianca continued. “Now that he’s dead—much thanks to you, my dear—the First Party will need to scramble for a new candidate and campaign. For once, we have the advantage.”

The Augustine and Torren Families had rival casino and drug empires, and so Enne had always assumed Vianca had wanted Sedric gone because he was a business competitor. But clearly Vianca had also had political motives since the beginning.

“On top of this, we have this supposed war,” Vianca continued. “Do you know anything about the Great Street War?”

Enne shook her head. She only vaguely remembered it from Levi’s stories and from her guidebook.

“For the South Side, it wasn’t noteworthy. It barely touched them,” Vianca explained. “But for the North, it was bloodbaths and chaos.” Her tongue lingered on those last few words, as if savoring their taste. “We can only hope for history to repeat itself. The monarchist party thrives on troubled times.”

Bloodbaths and chaos. Would that happen again? What must that have meant, by New Reynes’s standards?

“You’ve thoroughly impressed me, Miss Salta. But this new assignment is long-term, and you’ll need more than luck and charm to manage it,” Vianca told her, as if Enne had escaped the Shadow Game solely on her superficial qualities. “Because of it, I’m terminating your role with the acrobatics troupe.”

Enne gaped. “But...but—”

“It’s decided. The troupe takes up too much of your time. And I would prefer our working relationship to remain outside of public knowledge...unlike my relationship with Mr. Glaisyer.”

Acrobatics was the only thing in New Reynes Enne had actually enjoyed. She might not have had her cucumber sandwiches, but at least she had her work as a release. Enne had spent her entire life fighting to achieve mediocrity, and for the first time, she’d discovered that she was naturally talented at something. For once, she could compete. She could excel. And just like that, after only a week and a half, Vianca was taking it from her.

“What is this new assignment?” Enne gritted out between her teeth.

“You’re going to embrace Séance’s newfound infamy and fashion yourself into a proper street lord.” The donna let out an unnatural giggle and sipped her tea.

“You can’t be serious,” Enne whispered. The streets of the North Side had always been dangerous, and now they were even more so, according to the article right in front of her. And Enne might’ve been friends with Levi, but she didn’t know the first thing about being a successful street lord—as if Levi really served as any example.

“Am I ever not serious?” Vianca poured a second cup of stale tea and slid it to her. Enne took it only to have something to fiddle with to soothe her nerves. “I need someone influencing the North Side from the streets, and who better than the famous Séance?”

“The Iron Lord?” Enne suggested.

Vianca scoffed. “Levi’s ridiculous dreams of becoming a street lord are over. Will he be managing a gambling enterprise from Zula’s basement? He doesn’t have the volts or the connections, and with the Scar Lord dead and Mr. Mardlin now an equally wanted man, who will be Levi’s face?” She shook her head, the corners of her lips tilting into a smile. Enne didn’t understand how Vianca could pretend to care about Levi, yet take such pleasure in the mutilation of his desires. “That boy has always had delusions of grandeur. Besides, I intend for Levi to help you. As a consultant, if you will. You’re a more promising criminal than he ever was.”

It was a compliment Enne neither wanted nor appreciated. Lola might’ve called Enne a lord, but Enne wasn’t someone who could command a real gang. She’d hoped that, in a few months’ time, Séance’s name would slowly fade from notoriety to memory. If she had to embrace Séance’s persona and live the life of Enne Scordata, a born criminal, then how much of Enne Salta—the dancer, the lady, the romantic—would remain? She had so little left to surrender to New Reynes.

“This is what you will do. Now listen closely.” Vianca leaned forward and lowered her voice. “First, you must pay a visit to dear Bryce.”

Enne frowned in confusion. “Bryce?”

“The Guildmaster,” Vianca said impatiently. “He’ll help you recruit others. Use the remaining volts I gave you to purchase members.”

The Guildmaster referred to the Orphan Guild. Enne didn’t know much about them. She knew Lola worked for them as a blood gazer—she could read the talents of those who didn’t know their ancestry. Enne remembered Harvey Gabbiano, their salesman, who had used his Chaining blood talent to try to ensnare Enne at a cabaret. She also knew from Reymond that Levi opposed the practices of the Orphan Guild on some sort of moral high ground.

“I have a busy schedule these next few months supporting the campaign,” Vianca continued. “I cannot be everywhere at once. I need someone to insert themselves into Worner Prescott’s inner circle. I’m investing a fortune into this candidate, so I want to know what he’s doing at all times—who he speaks with, where he goes. That information is invaluable. The First Party has already succumbed to corruption, and we can’t afford to do the same.”

Enne gaped. Anyone operating in Prescott’s inner circle would need to be wealthy, refined... Goodness knew how Enne could locate such a person in the North Side. She imagined herself attempting to teach etiquette to Jac or Lola, who would probably question the purpose of a butter knife if you couldn’t stab anything with it.

“I’m not sure the Orphan Guild will be able to supply such a person,” Enne said slowly.

Vianca raised her eyebrows. “I was referring to you. We’ll see if that finishing school of yours paid off, won’t we?”

Enne caught her breath. The South Side might’ve been the closest place to Bellamy in New Reynes, but it was also the place the Phoenix Club called home.

When she had last looked a member of the Phoenix Club in the eyes, she’d been wearing a mask. Would they recognize her if she did so wearing pearls?

Before Enne could formulate a response, Vianca continued. It seemed as though, despite Enne’s and Levi’s actions making front-page news, Vianca had barely penciled in fifteen minutes for this meeting.

“Keeping tabs on Prescott will hardly be a full-time commitment. You’ll have plenty of time to find and train your associates. You’ll perform tasks as I suggest them, and of course, you can improvise on your own as you find appropriate. Whatever benefits Prescott and the monarchist party.”

Vianca was right—this wasn’t like poisoning Sedric or stopping the Shadow Game. This was four months of organization until the election in November. It was complex and all-consuming, just like Levi’s investment scam had been. And if not for Enne, that scam would’ve gotten Levi killed.

In the span of minutes, without Enne being able to interject a word edgewise, Vianca was sealing Enne’s fate for her.

But Enne knew what it would mean to object. Vianca’s omerta held a terrible power over her. Twice now, Enne’s past refusals had resulted in her suffocating and groveling on the donna’s carpet, and she had no intention of doing so again. Her only option to save herself was to convince Vianca her plan wouldn’t work.

“Levi won’t want to be a consultant while I’m the one playing lord.” That, at least, Enne knew was true.

Vianca raised her tea to her lips and looked at Enne pointedly. “That’s not my concern.”

“He’ll be difficult.”

“He knows by now not to make me impatient.”

The already dark room seemed to grow darker still. She was running out of options.

“If I’m not an acrobat, how will I earn income?” Enne asked, as though she were being strategic rather than desperate. “I’ll need to pay these associates.”

As if in answer to her own question, her fingertips suddenly tingled with the static of the volts pulsing inside her skin. The Mizer blood talent was to create volts. Now that she’d awakened hers, there was no limit to her potential for wealth. All it would take was an orb-maker, and she happened to know one very well.

She quickly dismissed the thought. If her ancestry was discovered, she would be killed. There was no quicker path to death than using her talent.

Vianca set down her empty teacup. “Miss Salta, this is the City of Sin. Opportunity is only a flip of the card or roll of the dice away. I’m sure even you can think of something. Besides, you can still live here on my generosity, and you’re quite welcome for that.” She tossed The Crimes & The Times into her waste bin. “You’re dismissed.”

Thirty minutes later, the bells above the door chimed as Enne slipped into a Tropps Street clothing boutique. The store’s floral perfume filled the air, and Enne inhaled it deeply, willing it to soothe her the way such comforts once had. The more she reflected on her conversation with Vianca, the more helpless she felt.

The Casino District, ordinarily so crowded with ruckus and filth, was quiet. In the wake of the headlines, the citizens of New Reynes had stayed indoors. The sirens had gradually stopped. The city felt like the hush before a stage curtain lifted, but what the city waited for was war.

Enne fingered the lace details on a dress sleeve. She liked it. She liked the beads embedded in its neckline. She liked the creamy white canvas boots on display in the window.

She liked the feeling of a gun in her hand.

And it was that thought, that last thought, that made her hand falter as she examined the dress. It didn’t feel right that she could like all of these things without contradiction. Somewhere, there was a lie. She was a lie. How could she pretend to be her old self after all of the horrible things she had done?

Enne had never been someone to feel apologetic about herself. She hadn’t been sorry that she always trailed behind her classmates—they’d hardly noticed her enough to claim she got in their way. She never apologized to Levi when she demanded courtesy, or cried, or wanted for things she knew meant less than nothing to him. So the weight of this shame that she carried for who she was felt wrong. It felt ugly. And she was apologizing to no one but herself.

She had been a lost, naïve, spoiled girl overwhelmed by the City of Sin. And she wasn’t sorry for that.

Now she was no longer lost, or naïve, or spoiled. She was hardened, and strong, and heartbroken. She had made terrible, difficult choices—including murder—but she had survived. She wouldn’t apologize for that.

Vianca would force her to make more terrible, difficult choices, and if Enne ever hesitated to apologize for herself, then she would fail—just like Levi had failed. If someone wanted to call her naïve, then they would. If someone wanted to call her heartless, then they would. It didn’t matter whether she decked herself in knives or pearls. The world would always demand that a girl apologize for herself, but she would apologize for nothing.

And so Enne filled her arms with as many frilled, beaded, silly clothes that she could carry, and she paid with the volts she’d earned through blood.

“You know what would look splendid with this?” the cashier asked her, with the first genuine smile Enne had seen in a while. She reached for the basket behind her and retrieved a pair of white satin gloves. They were delicate, ladylike, and indeed splendid.

Enne pursed her lips, images of the Irons’ signature card tattoos and the Scarhands’ marked palms coming to mind. Vianca had instructed Enne to form a gang, but had “no concern” for how Enne would lead it.

“You’re exactly right,” Enne answered. “But let’s make it two pairs.”

JAC

Last night, Jac Mardlin dreamed of his own death.

It started with a bad decision; he jumped into the driver’s seat of the flashiest motorcar he’d ever seen—white leather seats and a black racing stripe streaking across the hood. He hadn’t intended to steal it; all he wanted was to lean back, close his eyes, and fantasize about owning something so luxurious. But suddenly, the locks on the doors bolted, the keys twisted in the ignition, and the car raced forward at a stomach-lurching speed.

He cursed and fought against the steering wheel. The wind rushed at him so fast his eyes watered, and everything he passed became a blur. Even as he slammed his foot on the brakes and tugged the clutch so hard it snapped, the car still sped on.

Until it drove straight off Revolution Bridge.

Many hours later, in the waking world, Jac eyed his hand of cards and chewed his bottom lip, mentally tallying every foggy detail of the dream. The white from the car’s seat leather made him think he should pick an even-numbered card. But there’d been that black racing stripe, and black always symbolized an odd number, a contrast.

He settled on the four of hearts and threw it down. “Better save your luck, Dove, because—”

Lola let out a wild cackle of victory and snatched a switchblade from the pot of weapons. “You muckhead.” She threw down her own pair of fours on the table.

He scowled. “I don’t like Pilfer. It’s a kids’ game.”

“Then deal a game of Tropps. You don’t have much else to lose.” She shrugged and slipped what had once been his best switchblade into the pocket of her jacket. The nightdress she wore underneath, borrowed from Enne, was clearly several sizes too small and made her look bone-skinny and vaguely feral. Jac had encountered stray cats who looked more charming than Lola did in the morning.

She rested her feet on the table, and he crinkled his nose as he yanked the pile of cards out from under them. “I thought Irons were supposed to be good at these sort of games,” she said.

Strictly speaking, Jac wasn’t half lousy at cards. But the sirens that had blared all through the night in search of his best friend had suddenly gone silent. He twitched his leg restlessly. “I’m gonna open a window.”

“It’s hotter outside,” Lola warned. Both of their foreheads dripped with sweat. It was officially a New Reynes summer.

“I need a smoke.” He stood up and slid the window open. Twelve years he’d lived in New Reynes, and he’d never heard Tropps Street so quiet. Not after One-One-Six, a long dead street lord, shot up every last soul in a private auction house. Not after the casket of Sedric’s father, Garth Torren, had been solemnly paraded outside his casino, as though he’d died some kind of saint.

It was hard to scandalize a city built on sin, a city that had seen it all. But today—more than any other day—the city was shaken to its core.

Jac struck a match and watched it burn like a votive candle.

“I can turn on the radio, if you want,” Lola offered. “But Levi’s probably fine.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Afraid you’ll hear your name?”

He inhaled his cigarette deeply. It was no secret that he worked with Levi; that he lived on 125 Genever Street in Olde Town, apartment 4C; that he covered the Wednesday through Saturday shifts at the Hound’s Tooth tavern. The whiteboots had probably already interviewed his boss, already rummaged through his home and what little he had. He tried to imagine what conclusion they could’ve drawn from his possessions. A loner, this one, they’d say. No decorations. No sentimentals. Jac had lived there for two years and still treated his place like it was temporary—a side effect of someone who’d never really had a home.

“I wasn’t in a good place not that long ago, but I have been lately, or at least in a better one,” he explained. He didn’t normally share these details with anyone, even ones so vague. But he needed to unload his thoughts on someone other than Levi, someone who could feel sympathetic without also feeling responsible. “I guess that’s gone now.”

Levi and Enne had made sure of that last night.

He squeezed his hand into a fist. He knew Levi hadn’t wanted to start that shatz investment scheme that got him invited to the Shadow Game. And Levi had looked out for Jac time and time again, so Jac didn’t feel he had a right to be angry. Hell, he was angry at himself for feeling angry.

But Jac also knew Levi and his reckless dreams. And if Levi was safe right now, then Jac would swear some part of his friend was mucking pleased—even if Levi had put everyone around him in danger.

But he didn’t say that. Instead, he bitterly spat out, “I hate this casino.”

Lola pursed her lips, and Jac waited for her to say something about how, while he’d sworn his allegiance to Levi willingly, she’d been forced to give Enne her oath with a knife at her throat. Or how good people did bad things, and bad things happened to good people, and neither they nor their friends could really call themselves good people anyway. She was annoying and wise like that.

But all she said was, “Deal the cards. You’re clearly very vulnerable right now, and I intend to take advantage of that.”

Jac snorted and tapped his cigarette ashes into the rim of a teacup as he slid back into his seat.

“Enne will hate that, you know,” Lola told him. The teacup was porcelain, covered in some floral design that Enne would find pretty. Jac realized Enne, who’d only lived here for ten days, probably didn’t possess much she could call her own, so he retrieved his cigarette guiltily and pushed the cup away.

Lola leaned over and slid it back toward him. “But fuck them.” The corner of her lips slid into a smile.

Jac barked out a surprised laugh, and the knots in his shoulders loosened. Over the next ten minutes of Tropps, the teacup’s bottom steadily grew coated in ash.

Then the apartment’s front door swung open, and Enne marched inside wearing an outrageous floppy hat, a floor-length jacket she definitely didn’t have on when she left, and at least a dozen bags hanging off of each arm. “I’m back,” she chirped. She set the bags down in a heap by the couch.

“Why are you dressed like you’ve suddenly become a rich widow?” Lola asked.

“I went shopping. Levi doesn’t exactly own anything anymore, does he?” she huffed, collapsing into an armchair as though she’d just finished back to back gloves-off matches in the ring.

Jac raised an eyebrow. “Dressing him now, are you?”

Enne ignored him and gestured aimlessly to all the bags. “I also bought him some medication, since he looked terrible last night. There’s stuff for you, too, Jac. I guessed at your measurements.”

Jac stood up and examined the pile skeptically. “I’m almost afraid to look. What do gentlemen wear in Bellamy? White ribbon boater hats and daisy cufflinks?”

“As if that soiled newsboy cap you wear every day is such a deliberate fashion choice?” Enne countered. Jac cleared his throat, prepared to defend his beloved, patched-up hat to his grave, when Enne furrowed her eyebrows and sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

“Jac’s been using one of your prized teacups as an ashtray,” Lola said quickly.

Jac glared at her and muttered, “You traitor.”

Enne waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t care. And I didn’t just go shopping. There’s something I want to talk to you both about.” She reached into the closest bag and pulled out a copy of today’s The Crimes & The Times. She tossed it at Jac, who caught and unfurled it. He squinted at the headline for a moment, untangling the words he recognized, but he didn’t need to read them to understand the significance of the two wanted posters on the front.

Lola’s chair screeched as she stood up. She studied the paper from over Jac’s shoulder.

“Three thousand volts,” Lola read under Levi’s sketch. Instantly, all Jac’s resentment from earlier vanished like a puff of cigarette smoke.

His best friend was a dead man walking.

“I’m getting out of here,” Jac breathed. It was still several hours before Levi had asked to meet, but he didn’t care. If Levi was in danger, then Jac would find a way to save him.

Because that was what they did for each other. There was no line they wouldn’t cross. Not even a line of fire.

“Wait,” Enne said sharply. “Turn the page.”

He did, though a part of him already knew what he would find.

“One thousand volts,” Lola murmured, reading his own bounty.

Jac stared at his face with the feeling like there’d been some terrible mistake. Levi was hardly a notorious political assassin, and Jac was barely a second-string bouncer at a third-rate pub. Not that long ago, the two of them had sat on street corners in the Casino District, goading passersby with games of coins and cards in the hopes of conning at least enough for a meal.

“Vianca said there could be a repeat of the Great Street War,” Enne told him, which was the last thing she could’ve said to make him feel better. He supposed she wasn’t trying to comfort him. The clothes she’d bought weren’t gifts—they were necessities. And if daisy cufflinks were what it took to make him unrecognizable now, then he’d happily strut around town like a dandy. “If you want a motorcar to Olde Town, I can call you one.”

Enne’s voice was level, calm, all practicality. For the first time, Jac wasn’t at all surprised that he was looking into the eyes of the person who’d killed Sedric Torren. If she was afraid, she was damn good at hiding it.

“How did you pay for all this?” he asked her, eyeing the shopping bags with suspicion.

“Vianca gave me the voltage.”

“And you took it?” It was Vianca’s fault that they were in this scramble to begin with. And if they all hanged for it tomorrow, the donna would hardly deign to host their funerals.

Enne stood up and held out two more of the bags. “Of course I did. Just like you’re going to take these.”

He hesitated. He wanted nothing to do with Vianca, but that was impossible. So long as he was friends with Levi, so long as Levi was infatuated with Enne and they were both prisoners of the donna’s omertas... They would all be in bed with Vianca Augustine.

“I’m really, really sorry, Jac.” Enne said it like she meant it. Then she shoved the bags into his hands. “But don’t be thick.”

Jac took them with a weary sigh.

“I’m going to call you a motorcar,” she told him. It wasn’t a suggestion. She walked to the other room to find the telephone, leaving him alone with Lola.

“Bossy,” he grumbled.

“No, she’s just the boss.” Lola clicked her tongue. “I guess I wasn’t deserving enough to be showered with expensive gifts.”

Jac reached into one of the bags and fished out the first thing he noticed—a scrap of yellow silk with polka dots. “Here. Take this...”

“Cravat,” Lola finished for him. “And I think I’ll leave that for you. It’ll match your wanted poster. They made you look very dapper, for some reason. Doesn’t suit that terrible scrape you’ve given yourself across your eyebrow.”

Jac sheepishly brushed his finger over the stitches on his browbone, a souvenir from a boxing match he’d lost the other night at Dead at Dawn. His skin was still swollen and tender.

Lola instead pulled out a black felt case and opened it to reveal a leather wristwatch. “Excellent.” She tossed the box on the armchair and buckled the watch around her bony wrist. It hung ridiculously.

“I actually like that one,” he muttered.

“Keep the cravat, Polka Dots.”

Enne returned from the other room. “Jac, the car is waiting for you downstairs. It’ll take you straight to Zula’s. When you get there, can you tell Levi...” She flushed, and Jac had half a mind to crack a very lewd joke, but the other half of him wanted to roll his eyes and stalk out. They might’ve had the good sense not to let anything more happen between them, but he didn’t know why they made things so dramatic for themselves. “Tell him if he so much as opens a window before all of this has died down, I will personally turn him in and collect his bounty. Which, please remind him, is five hundred volts less than mine.”

Jac had braced himself for something sweet and nauseating, so he wound up laughing so hard he wheezed. “With pleasure.”

Then, without warning, Enne wrapped her arms around him in a fierce hug. “Be careful,” she told him.

“Always am,” he managed. But Enne still looked skeptical.

“No, you’re not.”

He shot Lola a smile. “Now’s your chance, Dove.”

“I don’t do hugs,” she said flatly. “Just don’t die.”

“Words I’ll cherish forever.”

After Enne let him go, he grabbed the bags, exchanged goodbyes, and left. He found his driver waiting for him in the alley out back. Before climbing in the car, Jac took a deep gulp of air—his first full breath since he’d entered St. Morse Casino the night before. It didn’t matter how many gifts he received or how much protection he was given; he could never bring himself to think of Vianca Augustine as anything less than despicable.

“I’d like to make a detour,” Jac told the driver, and he gave him the address to his apartment.

Olde Town, much like the Casino District, was quiet and still. Jac peeked from behind his window screen at the streets they passed, at the barred windows and chipped paint. The sunlight came and went as they drove, disappearing behind spires and church towers and reappearing for fleeting moments in the too-narrow alleys.

Jac lived on a large residential street. His building was too old to have central heating or electricity, and on a day like this, he would shove his bed close to the window, drenched in sweat, and listen to his neighbors fighting down the hall while he waited for his shift to start. It wasn’t a great place, but it was far better than his last. There were no bad memories there.

Now, his entire block was cut off with bright yellow signs, informing Olde Town residents that Genever Street was a crime scene. The car came to a slow halt, and Jac stared at the whiteboots standing outside his front steps, speaking to a neighbor of his whom he only dimly recognized. They held wanted posters in their hands.

Have you seen this man before? they probably asked.

Jac fiddled with his necklace. It was a Creed, a symbol of the old Faith. Jac was more superstitious than he was reverent, but it was nice, now and again, to pray for something.

When a priest had first taught Jac to pray, he told him the prayers of a sinful conscience would go unanswered. Jac thought of the volts he’d helped Levi scam—both from the rich and from the Irons. He thought of the wounds he’d left on Chez Phillips to save Levi’s life. He thought of his own anger and resentment and desires, and the ashes left in the bottom of Enne’s teacup.

He tried very hard to feel sorry.

But as he stared at those yellow signs, at what all of this had led up to, he knew he wouldn’t pray for forgiveness. They could all pray for forgiveness when they escaped to a place far, far away from here, where there were no bounties on their heads, where no one knew their faces at all. A place he doubted Levi would ever willingly go.

Or they could pray for forgiveness when they all hanged. That seemed a more likely scenario.

But because Jac Mardlin was an unrepentant sinner who didn’t want to die, all he had left to pray for was mercy.

LEVI

Levi hadn’t forgiven Zula Slyk. Three days ago, he and Enne had arrived at Her Forgotten Histories, Zula’s monarchist newspaper, grasping at their last threads of hope and searching for answers about Lourdes Alfero. Bad news hurt no matter how gently you dealt it, but Zula had crafted knives out of her words, designed to bleed and infect and scar.

And all for what? For Enne to flee to the safety of her old life in Bellamy? She bore Vianca’s omerta. She was a prisoner of the City of Sin, just like him.

As he stepped into Her Forgotten Histories and found Zula sitting at her desk, he glared at the journalist’s serious, unfriendly face and decided he hated her.

“Your shades are darker since you were last here,” Zula said as a form of greeting—though Levi still had no idea what that meant. She had short, curly hair, fair skin, and wore far too much jewelry—most notably a large wooden Creed that hung down past her navel. The black tattoos of eyes over her eyelids sent a shiver down Levi’s spine. “You’ve killed.”

He felt no guilt over killing Chancellor Semper, just as Semper had undoubtedly felt no guilt over almost killing him.

“I’ve survived,” Levi said darkly.

She glanced over him. “Barely, by the looks of you.”

Her Forgotten Histories resembled a typical office, filled with unoccupied desks, an old printing press, and a gnarled gray carpet. It looked like it belonged on the South Side, where middle-aged men carrying briefcases and toiling over paperwork could earn the wages they’d later gamble away on Tropps Street. But unlike those places, bits of Faith merchandise were tucked discreetly around the room—ancient etchings in wind chimes, paintings with Creeds hidden in their background, prayer tokens scattered on countertops. Those would never be spotted below the Brint River; the Faith reminded the wigheads too much of the Mizer kings, who had used the Faith’s lore to gain more political power for themselves. It was technically banned after the Revolution.

“Vianca didn’t give me much of a choice in letting you stay here,” Zula huffed. “I don’t want any trouble. Not from the whiteboots. Not from that gang of yours.”

“There won’t be trouble. I’m an excellent houseguest.”

Zula hmphed like she didn’t believe him, then stood up and slid aside the carpet to reveal a trapdoor. “You’ll be down there.”

As she pulled it open and ushered Levi down the wooden steps, excitement stirred in his stomach. He was a person of interest now. Living a life of whispers and mystery, raising empires out of shadows. Now that he wasn’t bemoaning his future, he could see the glamor in his situation.

Until he smelled the sewage.

Zula pulled the string on a dangling light bulb, illuminating an unfinished cellar filled with dusty, forbidden books; a cot; and, in the corner, a sink and a toilet. The stench wafted from behind a door that Levi guessed led to the sewers—probably to serve as a less conspicuous exit.

It took all Levi had not to retch. Even hooch kept down here would sour.

“Not exactly your penthouse in St. Morse, is it?” Zula asked smugly.

He clicked his tongue. “It was never mine. It was always Vianca’s.”

“It was comfort all the same.”

Levi ignored that comment. “I’m expecting company,” he told her. Jac would meet him here this evening, assuming his friend found a means of safely venturing outside of St. Morse.

“I don’t host playdates.”

“We won’t be trouble. Just let him inside when he comes.”

Zula clicked her tongue and walked up the stairs. Before she closed the trapdoor behind her, she added, “And the girl? Is she this Séance character in all the newspapers?”

“It’s none of your business.” Zula had made it clear she’d rather criticize Enne than help her, and Levi didn’t care that Zula had been Lourdes’s friend. She didn’t deserve to know anything about Enne.

“This will end badly,” Zula snapped, echoing her words from their last meeting, and slammed the trapdoor.

* * *

Two hours later, footsteps creaked upstairs. Levi lay on the rigid cot, attempting to sleep, but he suspected Zula was slamming her drawers and clacking her pens against her desk just to irritate him.

“How long are you staying? This isn’t a hostel,” he heard Zula snap. “And look at you. All those burdens on your soul. They’ll devour you, if you let them.”

“Um... Yeah, well, the bags are actually for Levi.” That sounded like Jac. He was early.

The trapdoor opened, and Jac’s calming aura mingled with the unpleasant odors of the cellar. It wafted in wisps and ribbons and smelled like linen and the color gray. Everything about Jac was gray. His blond hair was more colorless than golden. His irises, his skin...even the ever-present dark circles drooping beneath his eyes. During a bright afternoon, with the sun reflecting off his fair features, you’d almost mistake him for a trick of the light.

Jac thumped down the steps, shopping bags from several ritzy Tropps Street boutiques hoisted over his shoulders. He dropped them on the bed and crossed his heart, as gangsters did for their lord.

“That woman’s spooky,” Jac said, coughing. “And it smells like muck down here.” His face twisted in disgust as he lit a match and waved it around the room.

“You might as well light the whole building on fire,” Levi grumbled.

Jac sighed and resigned himself to breathing through his shirt. “You look terrible.”

“I’ll heal,” Levi responded blandly, even though it seemed like the more time that passed, the more he ached.

“I know you’ll say no, but I’m offering anyway.” Jac gave him a pointed look.

Jac’s split name was Dorner, from a family capable of manipulating pain. Because it was his split talent, his abilities were weaker—he could take pain away, but when he did, he held onto the pain himself. Jac claimed his strength blood talent made him more resistant, that he could heal faster, hurt less, and take more, but Levi didn’t believe that.

Besides, this pain should be his and his alone.

“I’ve never been better,” Levi lied.

Jac pursed his lips. “Well, I brought meds. And clothes.”

“I don’t want any more of Vianca’s clothes.”

“They’re from Enne.”

Levi sat up and eyed the bags with curiosity. He couldn’t believe she’d had time to go shopping, especially on his behalf, but he was surprised to find a full new wardrobe inside. The clothes weren’t exactly his style—all pinstripes and subtle and black—but that was probably the point. Levi needed to be less recognizable.

As if he’d heard his thoughts, Jac handed Levi a tube of something. “Hair dye,” he explained. “It’s for both of us.”

Levi snorted as he popped open the bottle of pain medication. “Do we have matching outfits, as well?”

“Don’t be thick. You look terrible in plaid.” Indeed, Jac pulled out a blazer identical to Levi’s in every way except for the print. The color was burgundy, the stitches silky and light-catching—something flashy that Reymond would’ve worn. The thought hit Levi with a wave of grief. If Reymond were alive, Levi would’ve been hiding with him, not with a woman he detested and barely knew.

The raven black hair dye would suit Levi’s dark complexion, but he was hesitant to lose his natural hair. The coloring—copper at the roots and black at the ends—was the mark of an orb-maker, and it was as much a part of his identity as his brown skin, as the Iron ace and spade tattoos on his arms, as the memories of every boy and every girl he’d kissed. Even though Levi didn’t make orbs, his talent, his family, and his past still defined him. The dye felt like an erasure.

But that was exactly why he needed it. His hair was too recognizable, especially when orb-makers were so scarce. A bounty hunter wouldn’t even need to know his face to guess his identity.

As they washed their hair out in the sink, Jac quietly asked, “Have you seen the papers?”

“I have,” he answered, not meeting his friend’s eyes. He’d hoped for a little more time before telling Jac about Harrison. Maybe it was unfair to stall, under the circumstances, but Levi had just dyed over centuries of Glaisyer history and pride in his hair, and he could use some extra time to pretend at least one part of his life was still normal.

“Do you think it really will be like last time? The war?” Jac asked.

A thrill danced in Levi’s chest—a dangerous, irrational thrill. Because Levi might have raised himself on the legends of the Great Street War and made heroes out of masterminds like Veil and Havoc, but all of those stories had ended in ruin.

The only thing he should’ve felt was fear.

“I doubt it will be like last time,” Levi answered, even if a small part of him hoped that wasn’t true. Despite his many recent and frightening brushes with death, the thought of failure scared him more. He would rather die a legend than end his life in anonymity. Jac would probably punch him if he heard him say that, though.

Once Levi finished rinsing out the dye, he nervously checked his reflection in the mirror. It was silly to claim he looked drastically different, but he felt like he did. He wondered what his father would say to see him like this. He’d probably grunt that, because Levi’s two talents clashed with one another, Levi had never been much of an orb-maker, anyway.

Without the mark of his blood talent, Levi’s head of tight, short curls resembled those of most people from Caroko, the city where his parents had been born. Levi was actually pleased with his new look. He’d never noticed how closely he resembled his mother.

Jac, meanwhile, appeared nearly unrecognizable. The black hair contrasted harshly against the pallor of his skin, as did the new pair of thick-rimmed glasses. Apparently Enne had provided them with a full dress-up set. The plaid burgundy suit, the bow-tie, the hint of his tattoos beneath his collar—Jac was remade. Something slicker and more wicked.

“How do I look?” he asked, grinning wide enough to show his dimples.

“You look sharp. What about me?”

Jac examined his all-black ensemble. “Like a menace.”

Levi smugly rubbed some hair grease through his curls, then straightened his jacket. He didn’t normally wear this much black, and the platforms on his shoes made him unusually tall, but he did feel good. Fresh. A new look for a new beginning.

Zula’s voice echoed above them. “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said, sounding annoyed. “You’re asking quite a lot of my hospitality.”

“I thought we were in agreement about Mr. Glaisyer,” the intruder responded.

Levi and Jac warily met each other’s eyes. Levi would recognize that voice anywhere, and sure enough, he sensed the faint wisps of the donna’s green, acidic aura from upstairs. Jac turned a similar shade of green himself.

“He’s downstairs,” Zula told her.

Levi’s skin prickled as the trapdoor swung open and Vianca Augustine descended into the grimy cellar. She scanned the room, narrowing her green eyes—an exact match of her son’s, he realized. She passed over Jac with disinterest, as if he might as well have been wallpaper. Her gaze, instead, fell on Levi, and his stomach clenched.

“You’ve changed your hair.” Vianca pouted. “You used to be so striking.”

Levi rolled his eyes. Dyeing his hair had been a hard decision, but it had nothing to do with his vanity.

“How have you found your accommodations here?” Vianca asked. She ran a finger along one of the liquor shelves and inspected the dust.

“Who wouldn’t want to live in a cellar that smells like muck?” he said flatly.

“Missing St. Morse already?”

Levi would gladly inhale the odors of sewage every night if it meant avoiding her casino. Even if he could barely breathe, he was still breathing somewhat free. And if he had his way, he’d find a more suitable place in Olde Town as soon as possible. Maybe even tonight. As long as Vianca had a means of contacting him, what did she care where he lived? She and Zula didn’t exactly seem like friends.

“Why are you here?” he asked. He didn’t like the idea of Vianca paying him visits whenever she wished, or Jac witnessing exactly how helpless Levi was in the donna’s presence.

“Because I’m in need of you, of course.”

She twisted the emerald ring around her fourth finger, identical to the one Harrison also wore. Levi resisted the urge to wipe his sweaty hands on his jacket; his betrayal was probably written plain on his face.

“I spoke with Miss Salta this morning. Since you’re already so close...” Vianca looked at him pointedly, as though accusing the two of them of something. Perhaps she assumed their relationship was more than a casual acquaintance. The thought didn’t sit well with Levi. All of his weaknesses and desires were Vianca’s to exploit, and he didn’t want Enne to face Vianca’s torment more than she already did. “I thought a joint assignment would be appropriate.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t drag her with you, then,” he responded, even though he wasn’t truly surprised. In Vianca’s opinion, fear was best felt while alone. Having Enne here would have been too much of a comfort.

“I need your undivided attention,” she said slyly.

And then she launched into one of Levi’s most loathed subjects—politics. He was accustomed to her radical monologues, and he was typically well-skilled at zoning out while appearing to listen. Whoever wore the wigs in the South Side had no effect on him.

But since his deal with Harrison, he could no longer ignore news from below the Brint. So he listened. And very quickly, Vianca’s words made his blood run cold.

“Whoever is running against Worner Prescott won’t matter,” she said dismissively. “Séance is going to win him the election, and you’re going to help her do it.”

Harrison Augustine had not yet announced his candidacy, so Vianca didn’t know that the person running against her party was her own son. Levi needed Harrison to win the election, otherwise the hopes he harbored for his freedom were futile.

He was powerless to defy Vianca’s direct orders, but he had no idea how he could follow them and help Harrison at the same time. He swallowed down an urge to throw up. The expression of glee on Vianca’s face and the look of horror on Jac’s hardly helped.

On top of this dilemma, if Vianca forced Enne to become a lord, then Enne would spend more time in the city’s spotlight. She couldn’t afford to risk exposure.

If she were here, if they’d faced the donna together, maybe they could have found a way out of this situation. They’d escaped the Shadow Game after all.

But she was somewhere else, and he was here.

“And what will I be doing to help her?” he managed.

“You had that little gang of yours.” Vianca waved her hand dismissively, and Levi caught her use of the past tense. His stomach sank further. Without the Irons, without the power of being a lord, Levi would have no means of providing information to Harrison. He was running out of loopholes. “You’ll be her consultant.”

“But the Irons—”

“Are a distraction. It’s time to abandon these fantasies and turn your attention to your true strengths.”

“My true strengths?” he gritted out between his teeth. Was she trying to flatter him by taking away everything he’d ever wanted?

“You’re a businessman, not a lord. There’s more than one way to achieve grandeur.”

“If that’s what you think, then why bother making me Enne’s consultant?” Nothing good had ever come to him by angering Vianca Augustine, but he couldn’t swallow down his sarcasm. “If I’m so lousy at what I do, what could I possibly have to offer her?”

“You look unhappy, my dear,” Vianca said, feigning maternal concern. “I thought you’d be thrilled for something to fill your time, as you’ll be spending so much of it in Zula’s basement.” She spoke with delight, as though she loved the picture of Levi locked away somewhere only she could reach him.

“But you wouldn’t have dyed your hair if you intended to stay here, would you?” She leaned forward and smiled, accentuating the harshness of her frown lines. Levi dug his nails into his thighs. He was playing a dangerous game, keeping secrets from her. “Tell me—what have you been planning?”

She coaxed her finger, forcing Levi to speak. He frantically searched for some kind of excuse, anything that wouldn’t give away what he’d planned with Harrison. Pressure from the omerta built around his neck, forcing the air out.

“I’m rebuilding the Irons,” he rasped. It wasn’t the full truth, but it was a truth, and that was enough for the omerta.

“The what?” Vianca asked coolly.

He ground his teeth. He hadn’t seen her investment scheme through and escaped the Shadow Game to remain her plaything. He hadn’t made a reckless bargain with her son only to see it collapse that very same day. She was ripping away his ambitions one by one. She was humiliating him in front of his best friend. After all, she knew all the ways to make him hurt.

But he knew her weaknesses, too.

Even if he couldn’t resist her orders, if he was truly a moment away from the omerta killing him, Vianca would relent. The donna wasn’t interested in seeing him dead. She wanted to see him tormented.

So Levi mustered up his willpower and declared, “I won’t.”

The grip around his throat tightened, and tears sprang from his eyes. Across the room, Jac stood up, as though he’d charge Vianca. But even Jac would know that a small army of Vianca’s henchmen undoubtedly waited outside Zula’s door, should Vianca fail to return. “You’re making a mistake,” Levi sputtered.

“The matter is decided,” she said firmly.

“Would you care to place a wager?” he asked with the little breath he had left.

Vianca eyed him coolly for several moments. He strained his neck, gasping for air. Even as black spots darkened around his vision, even as doubt and fear crept into his mind, he refused to lift a hand to his throat.

“You’re killing him,” Jac croaked. He lunged for one of the bags and pulled out his pistol. He pointed it at her head, his chest heaving.

“If you don’t lower the gun,” Vianca snapped, “I will.”

Levi sputtered and waved his arm, trying to call Jac off.

She wouldn’t let him die.

She wouldn’t let him die.

She wouldn’t let him die.

Jac grimaced and laid the gun on the bed. Suddenly, the grip on Levi’s neck slackened, and he gulped in air.

“What sort of wager?” Vianca asked impatiently.

Levi grimaced and wiped the spit off his chin with his shirt. “You think Enne should be the lord over me. I’m telling you we both can—and with greater success.”

She laughed. “And what do you have to bet? Your dignity?”

“You know I want this,” he said. “You know I won’t stop trying. Enne, a lord? Instead of me?” He forced a laugh. “I was the one who killed the Chancellor. I’m the one who knows this city. I’m the one who already has the connections, the resources, the associates.”

Jac paled at Levi’s words, and even Levi could agree the Irons wasn’t worth dying for.

But his freedom was.

“Give me two months,” Levi told Vianca, “and I will prove to you that the Irons are worth keeping. That you won’t even need Enne to do this.”

“How selfless of you,” Vianca purred. “But though it might be difficult to imagine, Enne possesses certain skills that you lack. Why should I let you waste your time on a pointless wager when you could be helping her?”

He didn’t mean to deny Enne aid; he would still gladly assist her—whatever she needed. But, he quickly decided, under no circumstances could he tell Enne about his deal with Harrison. Even if Vianca’s death would free her, too, telling her would give Vianca another opportunity to discover the truth. This risk was his and his alone to take.

“Three thousand volts,” Levi said. “That’s what the city placed on my head, what they think my gang and my reputation are worth. It might be less than hers, but it’s the same as Scavenger, the same as Ivory. And as far as I can tell, six and a half thousand combined is a far better value than what Enne could offer alone.”

Vianca licked her lips. “I’ll give you six weeks.”

“Six weeks,” he echoed, his voice high-pitched with relief.

Levi knew this plan wasn’t foolproof. Even if he did manage to rebuild the Irons in so little time, once the wager was over, the gang would only become another tool at Vianca’s disposal. So when the time came, he’d find another loophole, another desperate solution. He’d wager everything, over and over again, if that was what it took.

“If you fail, then you will abandon the Irons and your fantasies about them forever. Including that one.” She nodded at Jac.

Levi inhaled sharply. He had bet his dreams, his freedom on this wager, but now his best friend was at stake. Levi tried to imagine a future where he never saw Jac again. There was so little that the donna could take from him that would still hurt, but sure enough, she had found the only remaining good in his life and seized it.

No, not Jac. Not for this. The risk was too great.

But hadn’t he risked worse for Jac already with Harrison?

“Don’t look so frazzled, Levi,” she said, turning to go up the stairs. “I’m the one who should be disappointed. I was looking forward to a partnership between you and Miss Salta. I thought you would have, as well. Unless you think now you’ll get both things you want. The gang...and the girl.”

Levi didn’t give Vianca the satisfaction of seeing him grimace. If Vianca could dangle his friendship with Jac as bait, he hated to think what she could do with him and Enne. No wonder she was so keen to play matchmaker. Jac must have agreed with him, because his aura was prickly with warning.

“It’s not like that between us,” Levi said quickly.

Vianca shot him back an icy smile. “I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?” And then she climbed up to the top floor and shut the trapdoor behind her.

Levi and Jac didn’t speak until the sound of her footsteps disappeared. Levi sat down on the cot, heart pounding. He didn’t know if he’d managed to save or damn himself. It felt like he’d done both at the same time.

Levi took a deep breath, ready to come clean to Jac on all of the events of this morning, every detail of his deal with Harrison. But then Jac stood up, seething.

“Is that what I’m worth to you?” he demanded. “Muck, Levi. I’m not just another thing for you to gamble away.”

He made toward the stairs, and Levi shot up after him.

“Jac, wait! I had a reason for this. A good reason—”

“Yeah, I bet you did.” Jac threw open the trapdoor.

Levi winced as he raced to follow him. His broken ribs made it agonizing to move, let alone run. “Where are you going?” he called. Jac couldn’t go home—not with a bounty on his head.

“Like you care,” Jac snapped.

Before he made it to the door, Zula let out a shrill shriek. “You—boy—don’t you dare go outside. Both of you, be quiet.”

They whipped toward her. Zula was seated at her desk, a beaded shawl wrapped around her shoulders and a mug of tea in her hand. She hunched over the radio and turned up the volume.

“The most recent reports are confirming eight casualties,” the newscaster spoke. “Several of the injured have been rushed to New Reynes North General Hospital. Although Captain Hector declined to comment, we were able to get in touch with Sergeant Roy Pritchard, who personally participated in the operation. Sergeant, what information can you give us about tonight’s events?”

“After the tragic assassination of Chancellor Semper, the precincts across the city have been working around the clock to bring the perpetrators—Levi Glaisyer and this so-called Séance—to justice. But as far as we see it, these are two individuals who make up part of a much larger problem. We fully intend to purge organized crime from the North Side, and the success of today’s operation sends a clear message to criminals: We will show no tolerance...and no mercy.”

Levi and Jac crowded around the radio together, their fight momentarily forgotten. “What happened? What does he mean?” Levi asked, his mouth dry. He wasn’t exactly used to hearing his name on the radio.

“Eight people are dead?” Jac murmured. “Who did they say—?”

“If you’d both be quiet, you’d have your answers,” Zula hissed.

The newscaster continued, “Many have already called our station expressing outrage at the age of the victims. The Orphan Guild—”

“Is a misleading title,” the Sergeant said quickly. “They are an organization comprised of people of all ages, feeding agents directly into gangs such as the Scarhands and the Doves. It’s little better than human trafficking. Although we were unable to apprehend the Guildmaster, Bryce Balfour—”

“Lola works for the Orphan Guild,” Jac squeaked.

“She couldn’t have been there,” Levi said, even though he didn’t know if that was true. Eight casualties at the Orphan Guild wasn’t just an operation—it was a massacre.

It was war.

Zula switched the radio off and glared at them. “This is how it began last time. Already, people are dead.” Her gaze fell on Jac’s fingers, clamped around his Creed. “Your prayers are worth nothing, boy. You’re the ones who started all this.”

But Levi wasn’t in the mood to swallow Zula’s pointless judgment. He shot Jac a desperate look. “Please don’t leave.” Without Jac, he had no means of securing the information Harrison needed about the Torren empire. Without Jac, Levi was without a second, without a best friend, with the entire world in flames around him.

Jac averted his gaze. “I won’t. Yet.”

Levi realized this was the best he could hope for until he explained the truth. But there wasn’t time for that now.

He spotted Zula’s telephone against the wall and limped toward it. His fingers trembled as he turned the dial. “Operator? I need you to connect me to St. Morse Casino. I need to speak to Erienne Salta.”

3

“They say the Bargainer wanders the world, approaching those desperate enough to strike a deal. But everyone knows that the Bargainer is from New Reynes. The most fearsome legend ever told, and it started here.

“And one day...the Bargainer will come back.”

—A legend of the North Side

ENNE

Enne sat on her bathroom counter, gingerly examining her bloodshot eyes in the foggy mirror. The contacts Levi had given her were uncomfortable and, she suspected, deeply unsanitary. She’d managed to find better ones at a costume shop, colored a warm brown as opposed to the unnatural blue of the old ones. She prayed Vianca didn’t notice her eye color changing every other day. Thankfully, the donna had other things on her mind.

“It looks like a crime scene in here,” Lola said from behind the shower curtain.

“Pleasant,” Enne muttered.

“I still resent this. I want you to know that.”

Enne rolled her eyes and unscrewed the bottle of eyedrops. “You can’t keep your white hair. You look like a killer.”

“That’s why I liked it.”

Enne cringed as the cold liquid touched her eye. The redness still looked no better.

Lola turned off the water and drew back the curtain. She looked gangly and awkward in Enne’s short towel, her newly red hair plastered across her shoulders and dripping on the floor.

Despite Lola’s jokes, Enne knew her old hair meant far more to her than just the intimidation factor. Lola had originally bleached it because her brother had joined the Doves, and white hair was their trademark. Years had passed since then, but she still kindled the hope of finding him. And though her disguise had gotten her nowhere but trouble—which Lola herself acknowledged—Enne knew it couldn’t have been easy to let her past go.

Lola glanced at herself in the mirror. “Wow. I hate it.”

“You can’t keep looking like a Dove,” Enne told her. “Not when we’re supposed to...”

Enne trailed off and bit her lip. She’d recounted her conversation with Vianca to Lola earlier, and Lola hadn’t taken it well. Since then, all she’d done was order them the most expensive room service on St. Morse’s menu and pick at her food in stony silence. Enne had waited for her to say something—anything—all day, but Lola’s cold shoulder treatment meant Enne just wound up reading one of her favorite Sadie Knightley romance novels and brooding for six hours.

When Lola didn’t respond and walked back to the bedroom to change, Enne jumped off the counter and called after her, “Are we going to talk about this?”

Lola whipped around. “Talk about what, Enne?” Still clutching her towel, she marched over to the bags of clothes from Enne’s shopping trip. She grabbed the top item—a simple blouse with a lacy collar. “What are you supposed to wear? This?” Lola threw the shirt on the couch. “What are you supposed to say? With your posh, South Sider accent?”

She stormed back to Enne and loomed over her. “You’re going to march into the Orphan Guild and...and what? No one there went to finishing school. They’re thieves and killers and liars, and all you look like is a target. Bryce Balfour will eat you alive.”

Enne blinked back tears. She’d already made the decision not to apologize for who she was, and besides, there was nothing Lola said that Enne hadn’t already considered herself. She didn’t know anything about organized crime, how she’d find the volts to pay for associates, how she’d ever convince anyone to follow a clueless schoolgirl from Bellamy. It didn’t matter that the world thought she’d assassinated the Chancellor. Within minutes of meeting her, anyone would know she was a fraud.

“I thought you wanted this! Isn’t that what you said at Scrap Market? That I could be a—”

“That was before I knew about you and Vianca.”

“So did you mean anything that you said about me, then?” Enne asked, her voice shaking. Lola once saw a potential in her when no one else did, but it seemed like now she only saw her as a pawn.

Lola crossed her arms and looked away. “Of course I meant what I said. You’re a Mizer, Enne. And the world doesn’t know that—the world can’t know that—but regardless of Vianca, you have real power. And you don’t want it. That’s what makes you different from the other lords, different from everyone in New Reynes. You don’t want it, and so, maybe, you could do good with it.”

Enne went silent. Of course, Lola was right. Enne didn’t want this, hadn’t asked for this.

“You...” Enne said carefully. “You think I can do this?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I thought otherwise.”

Lola was bony and uncomfortably wet, but Enne threw her arms around her, anyway. “Thank you,” she whispered, her mind whirling with Lola’s words.

Did she have real power?

And if so, what could she do with it?

“You’re welcome. Now please let go of me.” Lola writhed out of Enne’s grip, smirking. “I’m going to get dressed, and then we can talk about making an appointment with the Guildmaster.”

The telephone rang.

Enne froze. Only two people would have any reason to call her: Vianca or Levi. She moved to answer it and prayed it was the latter.

“’Lo?” whispered the voice on the other line.

Enne sucked in her breath. “It’s you. Are you all right? Are you safe?” she asked.

“Have you heard the news?” Levi asked.

She pursed her lips. Yes, I’m fine. I suppose you must be, too. “No.”

“We need to meet—now. Write down this address.” He read off the name of a place Enne didn’t recognize. “Leave as soon as possible.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked, voice hitched.

“Yes, it’s...we’ll talk about it there.” He paused, and the sound of voices bickering around him almost muffled Levi’s next words. “Please be careful.” He hung up.

Enne set down the phone, worry knotting in her chest. She grabbed her tourist guidebook off the dining table and flipped to the map. “Lola,” she called. “Turn on the radio and get dressed. We’re going to the Deadman District.”

* * *

By the time they exited the Mole Station, the sun had set. The streetlights of the Deadman District shone through shattered glass, and the metallic mortar between the white stone of the buildings glinted in the darkness, so bright that Enne squinted and shaded her eyes as she walked. Everywhere she turned, she saw a chain, a gun barrel, a blade—her mind playing deadly tricks.

While frantically getting dressed, she and Lola had managed to catch enough of the newscast to understand what had happened. Armed brutally with automatics, the whiteboots had executed an attack on the Orphan Guild, killing eight and injuring many others. Their meeting point was only a few blocks from the Orphan Guild’s now-abandoned hideout, and as they approached, Enne had the distinct sensation she was walking into a battleground. The silence around her could be felt, like its presence haunted these streets—like death itself lurked in every shadow.

The last time she’d roamed the streets of New Reynes at night, she and Levi had been fleeing for their lives. Now, the reflection she passed in the dirt-crusted windows was no longer her own. Instead, she saw them. The sallow-skinned, lifeless faces of the Phoenix Club.

She felt for the gun in her pocket, seeking reassurance, seeking the power that Lola had seen in her—that she couldn’t seem to find herself.

At their destination, a long vertical gash stretched across the door, as though someone had dragged a knife down the wood. Lola and Enne exchanged a grim look before Lola knocked, and Jac swung the door open with a pistol pointed at eye level. Enne let out an unladylike curse and grabbed her second’s arm.

Once he saw who they were, he lowered it. “’Lo, missies.”

“Call me missy again,” Lola growled, “and you can be the new Eight Fingers.”

Jac laughed, and despite his familiar dimples and easy demeanor, he looked different. Sleeker. His black hair, greased back and glossy, made his gray eyes look more like steel than dust. He might’ve been hesitant about Enne choosing his wardrobe, but, she noted smugly, he looked great. She clearly had excellent taste.

They climbed the stairwell to the first landing. Behind the door, Levi sat stiffly in a leather office chair. His curls had been dyed black, and his shirt and jacket were colored to match. However, his new ensemble did nothing to hide how terrible he looked. Every time he shifted his posture, he winced in silent pain.

Levi’s gaze moved from the window and met hers, and his breath hitched.

Enne went to sleep last night reminding herself of all the reasons she couldn’t fall for Levi Glaisyer. But her heart still stuttered seeing him look at her like he was now—like he’d felt their separation every bit as acutely as she had.

“Did anyone see you?” Levi asked.

“I don’t think so,” Enne answered.

The room was filled with desks and toppled chairs, each coated in a thick layer of grime. Enne grimaced as she sat down at the one beside him and tried her best not to touch anything. Jac perched on top of her desk without concern for his new clothes, and Lola resorted to standing. Everyone shared the same grim expression.

“I assume you’ve spoken with Vianca,” Levi said to Enne.

“I did this morning,” she replied. “I told her you’re the one who should be doing this, not me.”

“Well...” His gaze flickered to Jac, who avoided his stare. In fact, Jac was faced away from Levi, like he had no intention of looking at him at all. “I convinced her that we should both be doing this, that we’d be better off as allies.”

“I thought the Irons hated you,” Lola said.

Levi pursed his lips. “They have mixed feelings.”

“Your third tried to kill you.”

“I said mixed.”

Enne felt a pinch of resentment. Levi had argued against Vianca exactly as Enne had warned her he would, yet still Vianca had acquiesced to his requests and therefore left Enne without a consultant. It paid to be the donna’s favorite.

“Were you able to catch the news?” Levi asked Lola.

“Yes,” she answered darkly.

“You know far more about the Orphan Guild than we do. What do you think of this?”

“I...” Her voice was unusually high-pitched. Enne knew she must have recognized at least a few of the names on the list of casualties. “I’m shocked. Bryce keeps the location private, known only to Scavenger, Ivory, and the members of the Guild. There must have been a mole—someone who knew where it was and how to cause the most damage.”

“But you know the location,” Levi said. “Has Bryce made any effort to contact you? He must suspect you.”

Lola stiffened. “I doubt he suspects me.”

“Why is that?” Levi asked.

“Because he made it very clear that he’d kill me if I ever betrayed him.” Enne flinched at Lola’s coldness. Was that how the Guildmaster treated all his associates? “And he knows I’m not thick. Or a killer.”

Levi’s forehead creased with worry. “I’m nervous about this. The Irons is the only gang that doesn’t hire from the Orphan Guild, but this attack was directly prompted by events Enne and I caused.”

Enne shivered. “Which means the other lords might blame us.”

The notion of becoming enemies with Ivory, Scavenger, and Bryce left Enne ill. Even if she needed to call herself a street lord, she wasn’t like them. They were...dangerous.

You killed Sedric, she reminded herself. You wanted to. He was despicable. He was a predator.

She remembered the sweetness of the drugged Lollipop Lick on her lips, the pity in the bartender’s eyes. How many girls had Sedric targeted? How many people around him had been complicit in the suffering he’d caused?

You watched Semper die, and you were glad he did.

Enne was just as dangerous.

You killed the whiteboot. You didn’t even hesitate.

She was just as deadly.

You’re not like the other lords. You don’t want this.

It was true that Enne didn’t have a cause to drive her, like Vianca. Or ambition to motivate her, like Levi. But she did have her anger, her grief, her frustration. She felt it all unfurling and writhing inside of her, like a snake rising from its slumber. You do have power, it whispered as it curled around the broken cavities of her heart.

“Enne?” Levi asked, drawing her out of her thoughts. “Do you mind if we speak in private?”

“Of course,” she said, and she cringed watching Levi shakily get to his feet. They walked back into the stairwell, keeping the door propped to let in a sliver of light. Levi leaned against the wall to support himself.

“I want you to know that I’ll still help you,” he told her seriously. “In any way I can.”

Her resentment waning but not quite gone, she said, “You assume I want your help. Last time you called yourself lord, I had to rescue you.”

He put his hand to his heart as though she’d wounded him more than he was already hurt. “I’m offended you don’t think higher of my consulting skills.”

“Then tell me: how will I pay for these associates? Where will they stay? How will I convince them I’m not a fraud?”

He gave her a weak smile. “Just give me some time and a bottle of whiskey, and I’ll find you a few clever ideas.”

She frowned. She didn’t want to hear about his confidence in himself—she’d suffered through enough of that already. She needed to hear that he had confidence in her.

“That life philosophy is why you look like you do now,” she grumbled.

“Like what?” He smoothed the front of his blazer. “I think I look rather dashing. You know, you’re pretty observant, if you guessed my measurements.” He smirked. “Very observant, even—”

“You look terrible,” she said quickly, before he could embarrass her further.

His laugh was followed by a wince. “I mean it, though. I’m sorry I don’t have solutions yet, but I will—I promise. I’ve spent all day trying to figure out how to piece my life back together, and it feels like every time I think I’ve gotten ahead, there’s some other problem, some other risk.” His voice grew gradually more heated. “You saved me yesterday, and I don’t have it figured out yet, but give me a chance to think and—” he angrily hit the side of his wounded leg “—and put myself back together, so I can save you, too.”

As touching as his feelings might have been, Enne didn’t want a savior. She wanted a partner.

She looked away and changed the subject. “I noticed Jac... Did something happen between you two?”

He took a shaky breath. “Jac witnessed my conversation with Vianca.”

Levi didn’t need to say anything else; Enne could already imagine how that must’ve gone. In her conversations with Vianca, Enne could do nothing more than beg. She’d never want someone else to witness that, especially not someone she cared about. Despite being Vianca’s victim, there was a shame tied to the omerta she couldn’t describe. She didn’t deserve it—it defied her own logic—but she felt it all the same.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, reaching for his hand. It was meant to be for comfort, so she was surprised when Levi took her hand and laced her fingers with his. She flushed, thankful for the darkness.

“I’m sorry, too,” he breathed. “I know becoming a street lord is the last thing you’d ever want. It’s the last thing you need. The more famous you are, the more you become a target. And you can’t afford for the world to realize what you are.”

The last thing you’d ever want.

A feeling of wrongness rumbled in Enne’s stomach, heavy and low like the toll of an iron bell. She was a Bellamy schoolgirl. She wore white lace and patent leather and had a sweet tooth. She wasn’t allowed to want this.

To want the danger of being a street lord.

To want the boy who stood in front of her.

To want power.

But who was there to stop her?

In the darkened stairwell, Levi was silent, as though holding his breath and waiting for her to answer. Enne could tell him about how the Shadow Game’s timer still haunted her, and that she hated it. She could tell him about how she was dangerous, that maybe it was the only thing in her life she’d ever been good at. She could tell him how badly she wanted to feel powerful.

Instead, she reached up and brushed her fingers against his chin, her thumb resting only inches from his lips. He froze in surprise. They had touched before—he had held her before—but they had always left a line uncrossed.

She drew that line now, her fingertip trailing goose bumps across his neck and tracing down his abdomen. Each one of her heartbeats sounded as loud to her as gunshots, but she could still hear the sigh he breathed as he leaned into her, wanting her.

This was how she’d tell him.

Suddenly, the door swung open, and they sprang apart. Jac raised the lantern, wearing a serious expression.

“I heard something outside,” Jac grunted.

“Are you sure?” Levi asked, his voice higher than usual.

Jac’s gaze dropped to their hands, and Enne quickly lowered hers and made to smooth out her skirts. Whatever had happened between Levi and Jac, she didn’t want to make it worse.

“Sure enough that we should check,” Jac answered.

Enne’s mood sobered. Anyone could be lurking outside—a bounty hunter, a whiteboot, a Dove. Which was why, once Jac was angrily thumping down the stairs and out of earshot, Enne stood on her tiptoes and kissed Levi on the cheek. He opened his mouth to say something, but for once, he looked at a loss for words. Enne grinned, pleased with her own daring.

“I wish I hadn’t seen that,” Lola muttered as she pushed past them.

“Oh, shut up,” Enne grumbled, flushing deeper as Levi shot her a wry smile. “I—I was just...” she stammered at him, her confidence dissipating after being so awkwardly interrupted. “I was just going to tell you...” Below them, Jac and Lola reached the bottom of the stairwell.

“And I intend to be the most attentive listener...” He cleared his throat. “Later. After this.”

They descended down the stairs and paused beside their seconds at the exit. Each brandished a gun, except for Lola, who hated firearms and pitifully wielded her favored scalpel.

“No confrontation,” Levi whispered. “If we see someone, we run. Don’t shoot—”

A gunshot rang out, and they all jolted back. The bullet lodged in the wall in front of them.

“Muck,” Lola squeaked.

“Who’s there?” their assailant called out into the night.

“Is it just one person?” Levi hissed.

Jac craned his head to look, but as soon as he did, another shot fired. He cursed and pulled back. “If we go back inside, we could find another exit.”

“Come out!” the other person shouted.

Levi cleared his throat and called out, “We don’t want trouble.”

There was a strange thump on the ground, and after several moments of silence, Jac nodded and charged out from behind the wall, pistol raised. He blanched and immediately lowered it. “Come look,” he croaked.

The three of them did, and Enne gasped when she saw a young man lying face-down on the pavement, gun still clutched in his hand. His sleeve was stained with blood.

“I know him,” Lola gasped, rushing toward him. With Jac’s help, they turned the body over. He’d been shot in the chest—quite a while ago, judging by how much he’d bled. His eyes were closed.

“Is he dead?” Levi asked.

Lola felt for a pulse, then her eyes widened and she slapped him lightly on the cheek. “No. And he’s from the Guild.”

His eyes fluttered open, then he grasped wildly at Lola’s hands. He coughed, spewing blood on her front. “I can’t go back,” he rasped. “I can’t go back.”

Jac pressed against the man’s chest to stem the bleeding, but the man writhed in agony. He rolled onto his side, revealing a heinous exit wound. Lola tried to pin him down, but his face only filled with more panic.

“It’s me,” Lola told him. “You’re going to be—”

“I can’t go back!”

Enne cringed and squeezed Levi’s hand as Lola tried to calm the man. Gradually, he stopped fighting and stilled. It happened so suddenly that Enne could scarcely believe what she was looking at—that a stranger had gone from a man to a corpse right in front of her.

A siren sounded in the distance, frighteningly close.

“The whiteboots heard the gunshots,” Levi said. “Get up. We need to go.”

“So we just leave him here?” Lola snapped.

“It’s that or get caught,” he answered.

Levi pulled Enne away, but even as they ran down the street, she turned once more to look at the body. It seemed insignificant in comparison to the death she’d witnessed the previous night, but she needed to see it and remember it. These were the terms of the assignment Vianca had given her. This—not a stolen kiss—was the price to pay in New Reynes for something you wanted.

Enne pictured each of the faces of the Phoenix Club, as quickly and deftly as she’d so often recited her mother’s rules.

Her reason for wanting power seemed so clear now. She saw it in the body bleeding out in the alley. In the bruises covering Levi’s skin. In the memory of her mother. In the anger steeping inside of her, hot and quiet and simmering.

Vianca wanted righteousness.

Levi wanted glory.

And she, Enne realized, wanted revenge.

JAC

“Ah.” Levi grimaced as Jac opened the trapdoor to Zula’s basement. “There’s that smell.” The office of Her Forgotten Histories was cloaked in darkness, the only light source the faint flame above Levi’s fingers.

Jac watched the way Levi winced with each step as he descended. It was hard to tell exactly what was hurting him, other than everything. Jac still had a few sore spots from his boxing match at Dead at Dawn, but he had the Mardlin strength talent—he was made of stronger stuff than his friend.

But Jac didn’t have it in him to both hate Levi and feel sorry for him. So as he waited at the top of the stairs, pinching his nose, he settled on the former.

“What are you doing?” Levi asked.

“I’m not staying here.”

Levi and Jac had a lot in common. They both liked to gamble. They had mastered the art of hungover mornings, of sneaking into variety shows, of wandering the streets at moonlight hours searching for food or beds or both. Levi had helped Jac clear his debt at his One-Way House. Jac had sworn Levi that oath he’d always wanted. Their first jobs, first romances, first troubles—they’d seen each other through them side by side.

But there were differences that separated them, and to Jac, that gap had grown much wider in the past few days.

It went like this.

I only need four hundred more volts. Then I’ll be out, Jac had said. They were thirteen years old and sitting on a stoop in Olde Town they’d claimed because nobody else wanted it. Back then, his big dream was finding a way out of that One-Way House, one of the many “schools” that shipped in kids from across the Republic for “educational relocation.” Jac hadn’t learned to read, but he knew his way around a factory.

Reymond offered to make me his third today, Levi had confided in him. He’d said it like it was no big deal, like he’d been expecting it. Jac had laughed because he didn’t know what else to say. He was trying to pay out an indenture, and Levi was being offered everything.

I didn’t take it, Levi had said.

Not quite a year later, Jac got his first job as a dishboy at a tavern, and Levi was being recruited by the best casinos in the North Side.

And after that, when Jac’s job started paying him with Lullaby under the table, when it started to go bad—it didn’t compare. Jac had made the wrong choices. Levi hadn’t gotten a choice with Vianca.

Whatever Jac dreamed of, Levi dreamed bigger. Whatever Jac’s problems, Levi’s were worse. It wasn’t something that Levi had done intentionally, but it was plain all the same. Ever since the beginning, Levi was going to be a legend, and Jac—at best—was going to be a cautionary tale.

“Just give me a chance to explain,” Levi pleaded, shaking Jac out of his dark thoughts.

“I don’t want you to. I know how these wagers of yours work—you always think you’ll win. And you probably will. But I’m not a bargaining chip.” Though a pathetic part of him wondered if he always had been.

“Where will you go?”

Three Bells Church was always open. “I’ll be fine. Go decorate your room with your wanted posters.”

“You think I’m happy about this?” he asked, voice rising. If they weren’t careful, they would wake Zula sleeping in the apartment above them.

“Aren’t you?” Jac demanded. Levi had gotten everything he’d always wanted—a chance to rebuild the Irons, the repeat of his glorified Great Street War...and Enne, or so it seemed from earlier.

“Muck no,” Levi snapped. “But if you come down, if you give me ten minutes...” He let out an unnerving laugh. “You’ll probably hate me even more then. And I’ll deserve it. Today has spiraled, and every moment I think I’m getting ahead of it all, I just fall deeper into the red.”

Jac didn’t like the sound of that. “Hard to imagine hating you any more, right now.”

“Well, I’m asking for your help, and I know I don’t deserve it.”

“You don’t,” Jac said, but he was already climbing down the stairs. Because even if he did spend the night on a church pew, he’d just lay awake worrying about what Levi meant and wasting prayers—and then he’d be right back here in the morning.

Levi sat down on the edge of his bed, gingerly touching the places on his arms and chest where he’d been bruised. “This morning, I had a run-in with Harrison Augustine.”

“A bad sign if I ever knew one,” Jac responded darkly. He didn’t know much about Harrison, but the man shared his mother’s name, and thus her talent for omertas. That was enough of a reason to steer clear of him.

Levi recounted their conversation in his getaway car—how Harrison was replacing Sedric Torren as the First Party’s candidate for the New Reynes representative, how the monarchists actually held a strong chance of turning the election, how Harrison needed Levi’s influence to help him sway the North Side.

“He knows the only thing to your name is your bounty, right?” Jac asked. “Even if Chez is gone, that doesn’t mean the Irons will take you back.”

“It won’t be easy to convince the Irons to trust me again, but I have to try.”

“Why?” Jac demanded. “You’re wanted dead or alive, and playing Iron Lord will only make you more likely to get hanged.”

“Because if he wins, he’ll kill Vianca.”

Jac stilled.

The omerta marked the exact moment in Levi’s life when everything had gone wrong. Jac had spent years watching his friend scrape to hold his ambitions together while Vianca took everything from him. It was because of her scheme that the Irons had betrayed him. That Reymond was dead.

Which was precisely why Jac had been so furious that Levi would wager their friendship like that. Jac was one of the last good things Levi had left, and he’d basically offered that up to Vianca.

“That’s why you made the wager,” Jac realized out loud, “because Vianca was going to take away the Irons. And you—”

“Need them. Without the Irons, I can’t help Harrison. And if Harrison loses—”

“You stay trapped with Vianca,” Jac finished, his head spinning.

“That’s why I’m asking you to forgive me,” Levi said grimly. “And to help me.”

Jac had lost his home today. He’d colored his hair and changed his clothes. He’d said goodbye to the job he’d grown comfortable with, the places he liked to frequent and called his own. In the two years since he’d hit bottom, Jac had struggled every day to rebuild his life. So it had infuriated him to think that Levi—who had played a part in causing all of this—could feel even remotely happy about their newfound reputations while Jac lost everything.

But it was Vianca who got Levi invited to the Shadow Game. It was Vianca who’d thrown their friendship on the line.

Like Levi, Jac had a precise moment when his life had gone wrong. And it had taken nearly a year of heartache and rock bottoms, but Levi had helped tear Jac out of it. So it didn’t matter how many times Jac needed to start over—he would do the same for his best friend.

“Of course I’ll help,” Jac told him. “But what if Vianca finds out about Harrison?”

“She can’t. If she did...” He shuddered. “I’m telling no one but you.”

“It’s no wonder she loves you so much, if her son hates her enough to kill her,” Jac said, collapsing onto the other side of Levi’s bed. The cot creaked with his added weight. “You’re probably some sick replacement for him. The one who can never leave.”

Levi looked like he wanted to snort, but his expression turned serious. “There’s something else that Harrison needs, something I can’t provide him. Without it, it doesn’t matter how much I do for him—he’ll lose the election. He’s sure of it.”

Jac squinted. He didn’t know much about politics. “Like what?”

“The Torren Family’s influence will ultimately be what makes or breaks his victory. And with Sedric dead, it’s unclear who will end up the Family’s next don. It’s vital that Harrison is able to sponsor whoever wins. He asked me to watch the feud unfold from the inside, so he can make a clear bet on who that don will be.”

It was Levi’s expression, not his words, that gave him away. Levi only wore his poker face when playing cards or keeping secrets.

“And how will do you do that for him, Levi?” he asked softly, even though he’d already guessed the answer.

“He told me to ask someone I trust,” his friend answered, voice steady and practiced. “And you’re the only person I trust.”

Jac stood up abruptly and faced the wall farthest from Levi. Unlike him, Jac wasn’t skilled at hiding his emotions, and he wasn’t sure he could look at Levi right now with anything other than betrayal. Levi had saved him during the lowest points in his life, but now...he was asking Jac to return to them?

“No. No. I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you ask me,” Jac growled. If Levi was willing to make such a bold request, then he could at least say the words. If words were too terrible to utter out loud, then they shouldn’t be said at all.

Levi cleared his throat. “I’m asking you to be that person.”

The words did sound terrible when spoken, but it wasn’t the words themselves that left Jac so breathless. It was the strangled way that Levi said them.

“I’m sorry—” Levi started.

“You’re sorry?” he spat. “What were you thinking, agreeing to that?”

Jac tried to summon the anger Levi more than deserved. He should throw over every last shelf in this cellar, just to hear something crash.

But all he felt instead was guilt.

“I...” Levi paused as his voice cracked. “I made a mistake. I never should have assumed you’d do this.”

If Levi had any other friend in this city, Jac knew there would have been no question. Jac always said he would go down any road for Levi, but this was one road—the only road—that he’d sworn to himself he’d never cross again.

“Do you actually think I’m capable of this?” Jac asked. He liked to think he was stronger now. He’d survived Lullaby. He’d glued himself back together, piece by piece. He’d prayed hopeless prayers to never break again. But while their lives might have changed in two years, truthfully, the scars on his arms might as well have still been raw. Even once he’d sobered up, for months after, there’d been the drinking. The fighting. The smoking. And he’d still never kicked the last two.

Addiction had a way of changing courses like that. Jac was a far throw from lull trips in empty warehouse lots and taking his wages in stamps. But he wasn’t exactly clean, either. This morning and its two whole packs of cigarettes had been one of his worst in a while.

“That’s your decision,” Levi answered him. “Do you think you are?”

“You don’t get to ask me that now. You agreed to this with Harrison, so you must think I’m ready for it. Right?” Jac whipped around, expecting once again to see Levi’s poker face. Instead, Levi was anxiously flipping a business card over in his hands, and Jac swore, from his bloodshot eyes, that his friend might actually cry. It brought back painful memories of the last time Jac had seen him like this, the morning after Jac had nearly died in New Reynes North General Hospital.

That had been his lowest point.

Jac could forgive Levi for betting their friendship as a wager for his freedom.

But betting Jac’s health? His dignity? His life?

He didn’t know if he could ever forgive him for this.

But if he didn’t accept, he didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself, either.

“I trust you,” was all Levi said. It wasn’t exactly the enthusiastic vote of confidence Jac needed, but it was something. “It was wrong for me to agree to this without asking you, but I can still decline. There are more important things.”

“No, there aren’t.” Jac ripped the business card out of Levi’s hands. “If this was another scheme for volts or admirers, then I’d tell you to go to hell. But this is the end of Vianca. You’re the slickest, cleverest person I know. Watching the way she treats you... I thought she’d kill you today. And I felt like I couldn’t even stop it, not without killing us both.” The way Levi had simply stood there as he choked, standing his ground like he’d been in that position many times before, made Jac delirious with fury. “Of course I’ll do it. Anything is worth seeing her rot.”

Levi’s smile was bright even as he blinked back tears. He gradually lowered himself onto his back, as though every inch brought its own pain, and stared up at the ceiling.

“You’re worth more to me than all the other Irons put together,” Levi told him, and it was the best thank-you Jac had ever received.

“Yeah, well, you better be able to handle them when I’m gone. If I’m spending all my time at Luckluster Casino, I won’t be able to save you from Chez a second time.”

“Don’t worry. Next time you see the Irons, they’ll be the richest gang in the North Side.” The determined sound to Levi’s voice took Jac back. If he closed his eyes, they could have been thirteen years old again, fantasizing about all the fortune their futures held. Now Jac couldn’t envision their futures with anything other than dread.

“Did you tell Enne about Harrison?” Jac asked. After all, Vianca’s death would free her, too.

“No,” Levi said firmly. “That would only give Vianca another opportunity to find out. It’s better that Enne doesn’t know, for both our sakes.”

Jac agreed with that, but he was still surprised. It didn’t seem like Enne and Levi kept secrets from each other.

Jac let several moments pass before he worked up his nerve. Because yes, Jac would do absolutely anything for Levi, but that didn’t change the fact that what Levi had asked of him was almost unthinkable. Had it been anything short of this prize, it would have been despicable. But this was the price it took to end Vianca Augustine.

And if Levi’s suffering was worth all of this, then Jac refused to watch him walk down a path that would only lead to more heartache. Especially when that path was so obviously what the donna wanted.

“Can I ask you a favor, when I’m gone?” Jac asked.

“Anything,” Levi replied quickly.

“Don’t be with Enne.” Even as he noticed Levi tense beside him, Jac didn’t let himself falter. “Vianca used me to play with you, and she already suspects that you’re both together. Don’t give her any more ways to hurt you. To hurt both of you.”

It took Levi several seconds to say anything, and when he did, his voice was strained. “Of course. I said anything. And you’re...you’re right.”

“It’s better for both of you.”

“Until Vianca is gone.”

Jac cringed at the hope in Levi’s voice, but he didn’t take his request back.

After a few minutes, Levi’s breathing slowed into a rhythmic sleep. Jac shifted uncomfortably, his heart racing with an all too familiar dread. Although he desperately wanted to sleep, for the next several hours, the sensation of drifting off terrified him. Every time he felt his consciousness slip, he yanked it back, as though he might fall off the edge. His mind kept revisiting the same memories over and over, unraveling the threads he’d spent years knotting.

When he did eventually sleep, he did so fitfully. It wasn’t deep sleep. It certainly wasn’t a lull.

And for the second night in a row, Jac Mardlin dreamed of his own death.

ENNE

Church bells tolled across Olde Town, making the wrought-iron gates and window bars tremble. Everything in Olde Town was sharp—the spindly towers, the spear-like points atop the fences, the crumbling spires. It was a neighborhood of thorns and barbed wire. And with every new haunting graveyard or condemned building that Enne passed, she wondered how Levi and Jac could possibly be so fond of this place.

The address Levi had given her over the phone this morning led her down the Street of the Holy Tombs, to an abandoned, overgrown park and an impressive marble building hidden among the trees. She tread up its stone steps and peered at the graffiti painted over its once beautiful oak doors. The building was grand enough to be a palace, with the columns and sweeping windows to match. But over a period of probably many years, after hurricanes and infestations and general waste, Olde Town had swallowed it whole.

The door creaked open, making Enne jolt, and Levi peered out with a smirk. “Did I spook you?”

Enne hmphed and straightened her skirts. “What is this place?”

“The remnants of an art museum that was looted and closed during the Revolution,” Levi explained. Then he grinned. “Pretty swanky, right?”

Enne slipped inside. The floor was coated in dust and broken glass, and the magnificent dome ceiling was home to several bats. “That wouldn’t have been my first descriptor.”

“Well, it’s vacant, and no one comes here,” he said, shrugging. “The Scarhands have Scrap Market. The Doves have...whatever hole they crawl out of. So the first thing on both our agendas should be finding our own places to claim. This is right in the middle of Olde Town, safe, large—”

“You intend for people to live here?” Enne asked in disbelief.

“Yes, myself included.”

“It’s filthy.”

“There’s history here.”

“Not anymore.”

Levi cracked his neck. “Then there will be.” He made for the stairs and motioned for her to follow. “Come on.”

They climbed to the third, top floor, where a large set of windows offered a magnificent view of the Brint, and, beyond it, the glittering skyscrapers of the Financial District. The stairwell forked, leading to two separate hallways, each one lined with rooms.

“This is it,” Levi declared, rubbing his hands together. “I have a good feeling.”

Enne grimaced at a dead rat on the floor. “Your good feelings are not to be trusted.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’ll be happy to know I did do some thinking last night on how I’m going to help you.”

“That’s interesting you say that,” she said, trailing after him as he continued down the hall. For someone so injured, he walked very fast, and she suspected he was running on nothing but his delusions of grandeur. “Because I have an idea myself.”

She rummaged around in her purse. It was filled with invitations Vianca had recently sent her for political salons and parties in the South Side, some of them dated as soon as two weeks from now. She dug around them and found the worn edges of The City of Sin, a Guidebook: Where To Go and Where Not To. She pulled it out and flipped to the map.

“The gangs have each claimed a neighborhood of the North Side. You have Olde Town and the Casino District. The Scarhands have the Factory District. The Doves have the Deadman District. But no one has this one.” She held up the book and tapped the Ruins District, in the northwest corner of the map.

“That’s because no one goes there,” Levi said. “It’s where the royal family and the nobles used to live. It’s just rat nests and empty estates now. The Faithful think it’s cursed.”

Enne triumphantly snapped the guidebook closed. “Then it’s simple. I could claim anything in the Ruins District that’s still standing.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Levi admitted. “But you’ll still need to recruit members—”

“I have an appointment with the Orphan Guild today at three o’clock.”

“The Orphan Guild?” he echoed, his brown eyes wide. “But that’s—”

“Lola’s already spoken to Bryce.” Lola had woken up early today to meet with him—partially on Enne’s behalf, partially to hear for herself if the news was true. She’d returned to St. Morse several shades paler and with an appointment scheduled for this afternoon.

Levi shook his head. “I don’t like the Orphan Guild. Reymond always relied on them, but I won’t pretend that Reymond had a straight moral compass.”

Enne didn’t think she was in a position to limit herself to good morals. “Well,” she responded, “Vianca told me to, so I don’t really have a choice.”

They turned down an archway and into the final room in the hallway. Inside was a bench covered in a thick film of dust, and walls decorated with a mélange of cobwebs.

Levi took one look at the bench and sat down with a sigh of relief, dust and all. He winced and held a hand to his abdomen. “Even the wicked need to rest sometimes,” he breathed.

Enne sat down beside him and flushed, remembering how she’d kissed him last night. The memory had replayed in her mind a few times on the walk here.

But there was still business to attend to.

“I have another idea, too,” she said quietly. “I have something to ask you. I’m pretty sure you’ll say no...”

Levi shot her a coy smile. “For all your ideas, are you sure you need my help at all?”

She cleared her throat and tried not to look too pleased. “The Scarhands sell weapons, the Doves kill people, you...” She didn’t particularly understand how the Irons made volts. “Steal from people?”

“I contract dealers and workers to casinos,” he said flatly, as though offended she didn’t care more about his business.

Enne nodded like she understood what that meant. “I need a way to pay for this gang, and it occurred to me... Of all the worries we have, why should volts be one of them? When both of us—”

Levi shook his head. “Enne, making volts is dangerous. What you are is dangerous.”

His concerns weren’t anything she hadn’t considered herself only the day before. But she could feel the volts in her skin constantly, pulsing in tune with her heartbeat. It was an incessant reminder that real power was so easily within reach.

“We could be rich,” she said.

He threw his head back and let out a sound somewhere betweent a sigh and a groan. “Careful. You’re appealing to my vices.”

“When Lourdes led me to you, we could think of no good reason why she’d give me your name. Now it seems obvious. An orb-maker and a Mizer, of course she—”

“Enne, do you know any other orb-makers?” Levi asked seriously.

“No.” It wasn’t a very common talent.

“That’s because almost all the orb-makers are dead. The estates in the Ruins District belonged to them, too.” Levi took a deep, steady breath. For all his broken bones and bruises, it was obvious the pain on his face right now was a different sort. It came from older wounds. “This is all very new for you. Not only did you not know your true talents until a few days ago—a shock I can’t even imagine—but you also didn’t grow up on the Republic’s mainland. There aren’t Revolution landmarks on every other block in Bellamy.” His expression darkened. “I grew up in the shadows of that history.”

Enne knew that Levi hadn’t been born in New Reynes, as much as he liked to call himself a Sinner. But the details of his past were a mystery to her. “Do you want to talk about it, then?”

“I... There’s nothing to talk about. I’m a different person now.” He said it like he was trying to convince himself. “My father’s father was the personal orb-maker to the king of Caroko.” Enne knew Caroko was the capital of one of the seven Mizer nations that existed before the Revolution. “The monarchists believe the First Party went too far after the Revolution. Families like mine, who served the Mizers, were forcefully relocated closer to New Reynes, where we could more easily be watched. My parents lost their home and the lives they knew, but they were considered the lucky ones. Plenty of other orb-makers were executed.”

Enne realized how insensitive she must’ve sounded. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have suggested it.”

“We’ll think of something else,” he offered.

“Before I meet Bryce?”

He closed his eyes. “We have to try.”

Enne allowed a few moments of silence to pass between them. Part of her was still ashamed for her suggestion, and so she glanced at the empty space between their hands, looking for assurances.

Later, Levi had promised her. I will be the most attentive listener.

There was no one to interrupt them now.

And so she placed her hand on his.

Levi stiffened and looked down to where they touched with a pained expression.

“Enne.” All of his wry smiles from last night were gone. He moved away from her with slow, reluctant restraint. “This is dangerous.”

Enne’s cheeks burned. “Everything in our lives is dangerous—”

“This is different,” he said suddenly, almost forcefully. “I’ll help you—of course I’ll help you—in any way I can. We’re a team. We’re partners. But this...it’s not a good idea, for either of us.”

“But last night...” Enne swallowed. “You seemed—”

“It was a mistake,” he answered, looking away from her.

Enne didn’t pretend to understand everything going through Levi’s mind these past few days, while his entire life had fallen part. But a memory stirred in her of Luckluster Casino, when Levi had been a moment away from kissing her, like it was the last chance he’d ever have.

So that was it, then. She was a danger he would only risk when he had nothing left to lose.

He was allowed to feel that way, but that didn’t make it hurt less. They had faced the worst together and sacrificed for each other. She could tell he was holding back from the way he spoke, that he wanted this as much as she did.

But he’d decided he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

Well, she wouldn’t push him into something he would only regret.

“I should go meet with Lola,” Enne said, as an excuse. It was silly to let her feelings get in the way of the help she needed, but she couldn’t remember last night and feel anything less than humiliated.

“You don’t need to leave,” he told her weakly.

“Don’t I?” she asked, her words somewhere between a question and a challenge.

“What will you tell Bryce? What sort of associates are you looking for?” Levi asked. “Or are you expecting to find others who follow your finishing school curriculum?”

She gritted her teeth. “No, but—”

“If you’d like, I’m sure you can make them call you a lady, rather than lord.”

The comment shouldn’t have struck her like it did. She’d heard those jokes before. But in that moment, seconds after his stinging rejection, she decided she didn’t need this sort of help.

Muck Levi’s jokes, she thought to herself, not even cringing at the curse. She’d already decided yesterday not to be ashamed of who she was. When Enne did hire her gangsters, she would do so in pointed toe heels. She would shake hands for business deals in lace gloves. She would claim herself a palace.

Enne stood up. “I should head back.” Levi made to get to his feet, but Enne quickly stopped him. “Don’t rush up and hurt yourself. You’ve been enough help today.”

“Have I?” He bit his lip. “Don’t answer that. I know I haven’t. And I’m sorry. I... I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

Enne shouldn’t feel petty. Levi was her friend—and no matter how many times he claimed they were in this together, he was allowed to draw this line between them. But she was also allowed to be hurt.

“Goodbye, Levi,” she said, and then she walked out, in the direction of an empire of her own.

LEVI

The Catacombs nightclub wasn’t much to look at on the outside, all decrepit and centuries-worn. It’d once been a church to the old Faith, and the flying buttresses and unlabeled crypts along its walls still gave off the air of someplace sacred.

Levi only knew its owner, Narinder Basra, by reputation—the Catacombs was the most famous nightclub in the city after all. And while Harrison trusted Narinder enough to recommend him to Levi as a contact, Levi wasn’t sure he could trust anyone while he had a three-thousand-volt bounty on his head.

Not that I have much of a choice, he thought as he rapped on the back door.

The music inside paused. A moment later, one of the musicians—a violinist, which seemed a strange choice for a dance club—answered the door, and a cloud of pungent smoke escaped from inside. He ran his eyes over Levi with a bored expression and spoke with his cigar between his teeth. He didn’t seem to recognize Levi’s face. “We’re not open.”

“Is Narinder here?” Levi asked.

“Who’s asking?”

“A neighbor.”

The musician rolled his eyes and opened the door.

The Catacombs was an apt name for this place. The decor varied somewhere between macabre and distastefully irreverent. Surrounded by chandeliers of human bones, clacking and vibrating with each note of the music, the stage stood where the altar once had. The band was a half orchestra—complete with a grand piano, a saxophone, a variety of strings and woodwind instruments, even a harp. Skeletons unearthed from their crypts had been cemented to the walls, piece by piece, casting unnatural red and purple shadows in the light from the stained glass ceiling. The pipe organ in the back had been painted ivory, its gold crowning lined with teeth.

It was pretty over-the-top, even for Levi’s taste. “Cozy,” he commented sarcastically.

“I’ve always thought so, too.” The voice came from the bar, where a lone young man sat on a stool drinking a mug of coffee. He had dark brown skin with a delicate face and straight black hair tied at the nape of his neck. Beneath his jawline, on the left side, was a tattoo of a pair of dice.

Levi’s voice dropped somewhere deep in his stomach, and he gaped at him, speechless. No matter how drunk he’d been, he never forgot a face. The memory of him felt like the trace of lips against his neck.

“Neighbors, indeed,” Dice murmured. “All this time you’ve claimed Olde Town, yet only now we officially get to meet.” His eyes roamed over Levi’s body, pausing on places he’d previously claimed himself. “Don’t you look dashing with your designer suit and matching black eye.”

Levi cleared his throat. “You never mentioned, um—”

“My name? No, I didn’t.” Dice smiled wickedly. “I’m Narinder Basra. I own this place.”

Levi had met Dice—Narinder—at the Sauterelle, a burlesque cabaret in the Casino District where he and Enne had gone searching for information on Lourdes Alfero.

Narinder finished his drink and left it on the bar. “Come on. We can reacquaint ourselves in my office.”

Just because Narinder had helped Levi once didn’t mean he wouldn’t sell him out now. There was no loyalty between them. When they’d met before, Levi hadn’t even asked his name. He had no idea how to treat their relationship.

He followed Narinder to his office, which was plainly decorated and well-lit—far different from the rest of the nightclub. He kept a number of instruments behind his desk: a flute, a sitar, and a harp. The Basra family must’ve had a musical blood talent.

Levi’s gaze fell on the couch, then, remembering his last encounter with Narinder, he flushed and loosened his shirt collar.

“You look terrible,” Narinder commented.

“Eh, just a few broken ribs is all,” Levi said, wincing as he lowered himself onto the couch. “A friend of mine suggested I pay you a visit. I’m recruiting. He seemed to think you were well connected.”

Narinder lifted an eyebrow as he sat behind the desk. “I hear things about the Irons, us being neighbors and all. Like how Chez Phillips went missing two nights ago, and now here you are, looking for replacements. I guess dead chancellors make the news, and dead gangsters get nothing.”

Levi stiffened. “I didn’t kill Chez.” He would never have gone so far.

“I wouldn’t blame you, if you did.” Narinder leaned back in his chair and aimlessly plucked a few strings on the harp. “That’s how it works in the gangs, isn’t it?”

“Not mine,” he said.

Narinder rolled his eyes. “You can’t have a heart of gold and do the work you do. The greedy would only carve it out of you.”

Levi thought a heart of gold might have been stretching it. “I’ll take my chances. As I said, I was told that you have a lot of connections, and I came here to see if you knew anyone who might be interested in working for me.”

“Joining a gang has just been made a capital offense, and either way, yours hasn’t exactly been doing too well lately,” Narinder said in an accusatory tone. “Why should I recommend anyone to you?”

He doesn’t like gangsters, Levi realized. Considering their last encounter, Levi liked to think he was the exception.

“Because my luck has changed,” Levi said smoothly, “and because this ‘street war’ is about more than crime. It’s about the rich watching from their ivory towers in the South Side while the North Side becomes a battleground. This is our city, not theirs.”

“You sound like a politician,” Narinder said.

“But what I said is true,” Levi told him.

Narinder gave him a look of approval and stood up. He sat beside Levi on the couch, and Levi noticed he still smelled like honey. He stared at the dice tattoo on Narinder’s jawline, pushing away intrusive thoughts of the look on Enne’s face when he’d lied to her about how he felt. Jac’s request had been reasonable, but that didn’t make it ache less.

“It’s funny,” Narinder said with a smirk. Levi could see why the musician was well-liked; he had an easy smile. “At the Sauterelle, you were so preoccupied with being recognized yourself, you had no idea everyone else there recognized me.”

“I haven’t spent enough time in Olde Town,” Levi explained with a pinch of embarrassment. “But I’ll be around more now.”

“A dangerous idea,” Narinder murmured coyly.

A heat swept through Levi, starting in his stomach and spreading across his neck. Levi did his fair share of flirting, but this wasn’t how he typically did business. He preferred to have a level head, and nothing about the way Narinder smiled kept his head clear.

He thought of Enne, and her look of betrayal found its way back into his mind. He didn’t think starting something between him and Narinder was wise. And if Enne ever found out...

Levi shifted, putting a little more distance between them. “So, do you know anyone you’d recommend? If not, I’ll be leaving. I only came on a referral.”

“You don’t trust me,” Narinder observed.

“It’s nothing personal.” Even though it was. They clearly had unresolved history.

Narinder leaned in. “It feels personal. I’m not interested in turning you in, you know, and it’s not because we’ve...met before. Olde Town is my home, but Olde Town is all that stands between the rest of the North Side and the South. Like you said, last time there was a war, my home was the battleground, while Veil and Havoc watched from elsewhere.”

Levi searched for a tell in his expression, but found none. The history was true: Veil and Havoc had sacrificed Olde Town for the good of everyone else. Even now, barely anyone lived here. “You’re the only other person with any power in this neighborhood,” Narinder said. “So I have a personal stake in helping you rise, if you’d see my home protected.”

The word rise lingered in Levi’s mind. He was a sucker for anyone who saw potential in him. He couldn’t help it—his gaze darted to Narinder’s lips.

“And...” Narinder added, noticing Levi’s stare and grinning. “Maybe it’s also because we met.”

“I’m grateful, either way,” Levi told him truthfully.

“I have someone for you. You could interview her now, if you’d like.” Narinder’s gaze flickered from Levi’s eyes to his lips and back again. “Well, it doesn’t have to be just now.”

Levi swallowed. He’d come here with a purpose, but maybe he could also use a distraction.

You have three thousand volts on your head, he scolded himself. But, for better or for worse, he trusted Narinder. Twice now, he’d agreed to help Levi for little in return. Levi had spent so much time clearing his debts that he forgot not every good deed came with a price.

He could get used to that again.

Levi leaned closer to him, and it only took the brush of Narinder’s mouth against his for his desire to win out.

Last time, they’d both been far from sober, but the feeling of Narinder’s hands on his waist and the honey smell of his skin still brought flashbacks of a secluded booth in the Sauterelle. Of ragtime music drowning out the sounds of their breaths. Of Enne wearing a fur coat several sizes too large and looking every bit a Sinner.

He shoved that last thought away. He’d made a promise—a mucking awful promise, he was already realizing—but it couldn’t be helped. Falling for her was no good for either of them, and kissing Narinder felt good enough to forget everything else.

Levi’s back met the edge of the couch, forceful enough to make him wince, and Narinder paused and rested his forehead against his.

“When you say you’ll be in Olde Town more, will it only be for business?” the musician asked.

“You tell me,” he murmured.

“Pay me another visit, when you’re not so bruised.”

Levi smirked. “The shiner doesn’t look that bad.”

Narinder’s breath was hot against his neck. “It’s no fun hurting you if you’re already hurt.”

Levi felt so dazed he barely noticed Narinder open the door and ask for someone named “Tock.”

While they waited, Levi cleared his throat, no longer as keen to return to business. “I have a free morning.”

Narinder shook his head. “Remember when I said your ego was too big to notice mine?”

“Ah,” Levi said, embarrassed. “You’re busy. But you’re the one who suggested we wait.”

“I’m successful, not responsible.”

Someone knocked on the door, and Narinder opened it. A girl strode in, a saxophone hanging from a cord around her neck. Her short black hair looked as if she’d cut it herself, and her laced leather boots appeared military grade. She had thick thighs and a knife strapped to each one.

She smirked when she saw Levi. “You’re better looking in your wanted poster.” Behind her, Narinder gaped in exasperation.

Levi shrugged and sent Narinder a sly glance. “At least I’m wanted.”

“Levi, this is my cousin, Tock Ridley.” Narinder said it like an apology. “Tock, this is Levi.”

Levi had already noticed the resemblance. Though Tock’s tan skin was a few shades fairer than Narinder’s deep brown, they both had warm, dark eyes and brows with the same determined set to them.

“So this is why I should trust her? Because she’s family?” Levi noted.

“Yes,” Narinder said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Tock bristled and elbowed him in the side. He winced. “We’re very close.”

Levi had to admit her clothes and weapons gave her an intimidating air—a quality he certainly didn’t possess. But she didn’t look like she’d be thrilled about taking orders. “What are your talents?”

She tapped her sax. “A split music talent—”

“That’s worth nothing on—”

“And a blood talent for explosives.”

Levi stilled. He’d heard of those talents, of course, but they were extremely rare. Before the Revolution, those with Talents of Mysteries had largely populated the upper classes. When the First Party overthrew the Mizers, those with Talents of Aptitudes, like dancing, music, strength, and others, rose to power and removed or relocated those they viewed as a threat. Someone with the ability to conjure a potentially deadly explosion shouldn’t have survived the Revolution.

“Her father—my uncle—created the blast that blew open the National Prison’s gates during the Revolution and freed Chancellor Semper,” Narinder said, as though he could hear Levi’s thoughts. That explained the reason Tock had been spared.

“Impressive,” Levi told her. “Do you have any leadership experience? Done any casino work?”

She inspected her fingernails with disinterest. “Nope.”

With her talent, if Tock approached the Orphan Guild, the Doves or the Scarhands would fork over a fortune for her. But she hadn’t gone to the Guild, and judging by her current bored expression, Levi had no reason to believe she actually wanted this sort of work.

“Narinder, can I talk to you for a moment?” he asked. Narinder followed him out into the hallway, and Levi hastily shut the door behind them. “Is she really the best you’ve got?”

Narinder looked away sheepishly. “I promise you—she’s good at what she does.”

“She doesn’t seem to want gang work.”

“She does. She’s just...like that.” He gestured toward the door helplessly. “She’s wanted to do something like this for months. I’m finally giving in.”

“Giving in?” Family members didn’t normally encourage each other to join the gangs.

“Well, I’m tired of her blowing my things up. This cathedral has stood for four hundred years, through fires and disasters and revolution. But it’s never had to face Tock when she’s in a mood.”

“You’re not really selling her,” Levi said warily. “And I’m having a hard time believing that you’d put your cousin at risk with this job.”

“That’s always been my fear, but I know Tock is capable of protecting herself.” His eyes fell on the bruise around Levi’s eye. “Far more than you are.”

Levi ignored the gibe. “If she really wanted this, I’d think she’d act a little more interested.”

“She knows you’re broke,” Narinder admitted. “She thinks she wants volts and thrill, but I know her better than that. She’s not shallow. And the way you talk about Olde Town... I think this would be good for her. That’s the only reason I’m okay with this. Because it’s not the other gangs—it’s you.”

Maybe he did have a heart of gold, because Narinder’s words struck Levi in all the right places. And whatever his thoughts about Enne and his promise to Jac, he liked Narinder. Narinder’s help might’ve been freely given, but Levi wanted to do something for him in return.

“Fine,” he breathed, praying he wouldn’t regret it.

Narinder sighed in relief and kissed Levi in a way that said thank you. Levi decided he could, as it turned out, grow fonder of doing business this way.

They returned to the room, and Levi announced, “You’re hired.”

“I am?” she asked.

“Yep. You can start immediately. If you want the job, that is.”

Tock straightened, her surprised expression turning smug. “Doing what?”

“You’re going to round up all the Irons around Olde Town, armed with that natural intimidation you wear so well. And you’re going to make it clear to the whole neighborhood that Chez Phillips is gone, war is coming, and I’m the only chance they’ve got.” He hid a smile. His little speech sounded pretty impressive, if he said so himself.

“You sound as desperate as you look,” she said. “And that job sounds pretty boring.”

Levi’s irritation rose. “Joining a gang is cause for execution these days. If you were scared, I’d understand, but exactly what about this is boring?”

“I don’t get scared,” she said.

“Well, you should,” he snapped. He’d spent the past two days—before and after the Shadow Game—scared out of his mind. Every day working with Vianca was a day lived in fear. He might’ve been the youngest street lord by at least ten years, and he might’ve been so injured he could barely walk, but of all the things he could be belittled for, he wasn’t a coward.

“The Orphan Guild was attacked last night without warning, with automatics that fire five bullets a second. The Guild might work primarily with the gangs, but you know where else the workers go? Casinos. Dens. Bars. Night clubs.” He lifted his arms up, gesturing to all of the Catacombs. “I’m willing to bet someone who works here has a past. I’m willing to bet gangsters find their way here every weekend, just like any other patron. The wigheads are only going after the gangs now, but at some point, what they call a gangster just means a criminal. Then what they call a criminal means an accomplice. Then what they call an accomplice means a bystander. Sit it out, if you want. But the life I want for the people loyal to me isn’t one of violence. Sorry if that’s boring to you. Maybe one day, if they ever come for this place with automatics or matches, you’ll get to see something exciting.”

Levi clenched his fists and whipped around, if not to storm out the door, then to drag Narinder back into the hallway and ask for someone better. He didn’t care if she could blow up the entire South Side—maybe the violinist or the pianist would have more moral fiber.

But before he could leave the office, he was grabbed by the shoulder. His knees nearly gave out with the sudden pain of it, like a bolt of lightning straight to his ribs. He shouted out a curse.

“Muck,” Tock said, startled by his volume. “You’re delicate.”

“And you’re—”

“Sorry,” she said, cutting off the insult before he spat it. “I’ll take the job.”

“What job?” he growled, turning around.

“Convincing people you’re a smart-ass, or whatever you said,” she said. Narinder’s face, which had seconds ago brightened, slid back into a scowl. “Not being a bystander when the Great Street War happens all over again. I don’t care that the Chancellor is dead, or that you and this Séance person killed him. I don’t think anyone in the North Side cares about politics and the laws that doesn’t affect them. But like you said, it’s the whole North Side that will go to war.”

Levi had heard far better apologies. “Is that the best you can do?” he asked.

“I’m sorry I called you delicate.”

He cringed. That wasn’t what he meant, but it did strike him as just absurd enough that he could laugh. “How do I know you mean it?” Levi asked.

“Because I’ll say the oath.”

If Tock grew up in this city, then she knew the legends of the North Side. When you swore a street oath to your lord, it wasn’t simply for show. There was a power to the words. It wasn’t like the omerta, which was power taken. An oath didn’t force you to do someone’s bidding. An oath was loyalty given, a solemn promise not to harm the lord or others who had sworn to them.

Levi nodded. “Go ahead then.”

She crossed her heart and recited the words. “Blood by blood. Oath by oath. Life by life.” When she finished the rest of the speech, there was an unmistakable tingling in the air. If Tock noticed it, though, she paid it no mind.

“There’s a tattoo parlor across from St. Morse,” he told her. “Tell her I sent you, that you need a diamond and a ten. She’ll do it no charge.” At least, with the papers saying what they did, he hoped that was still the case.

Tock’s gaze flickered to the set of tattoos on Levi’s forearms: the black A and spade. “What does the suit mean?”

“Diamonds mean you’ll get to blow things up.”

She grinned. Then she took the saxophone off her shoulder and heaved it ungraciously onto the couch. Narinder winced and picked it up.

“After you get your tattoos,” Levi continued, “find Mansi Chandra, at the Sauterelle. She’ll help you find the others.”

Mansi was a card dealer in the Irons. Levi had always considered her his protégée, and she’d once looked up to him like a little sister. Then she’d betrayed him and sided with Chez. That blow had hurt more than any of the ones Chez had landed.

Levi should’ve been angry with her. But really, he just wanted her admiration back.

“Yeah, I know the Sauterelle,” Tock said. “So I find your gangsters, I give them your message, and then what?”

“We’ll all meet tomorrow at the abandoned art museum,” he said. If Levi was going to lead differently this time, then he needed to appear more present in the Irons than before. He’d been too distant, and he wouldn’t make that mistake again. “Seven o’clock. Make sure they know.”

“And for the ones who say no?” she asked.

Unlike the Scar or Dove Lords, Levi swore he’d never run his gang on fear. But the Irons had betrayed him, and there had to be a better line between being weak and being a monster.

“They bear the tattoos, which means they each have bounties on their heads,” he said. “Tell them, as long as they stay in Olde Town with me, they have my protection.”

“And if they leave?” Tock asked.

Levi didn’t know what he’d do if the Irons left. He couldn’t help Harrison. He couldn’t help Olde Town. He might not like it, but in New Reynes, power wasn’t a commodity freely given. If he wanted it, he had to take it.

“Then they can face the gallows.”

JAC

By eleven o’clock the next day, Jac had smoked another half a pack of cigarettes—far more than he typically burned through in a morning. Every time he finished one, after twenty minutes or so passed, his fingers started to tremble and his heart palpitations sent him reaching into his pocket for another. All his new clothes already reeked of smoke.

He’d left Zula’s nearly as soon as he’d woken up, and the walk to the eastern side of the Casino District had cleared his head. For a while, he stood outside Luckluster Casino, staring at its slick black stone and flashing scarlet lights, and thought about how choosing a don for Harrison to sponsor would only help the Family to survive.

Jac would prefer to see them burn.

But Jac was one man against the entire Torren Empire. That included Luckluster Casino, the only other casino in New Reynes as large as St. Morse. It included the profits of drug sales all across the North Side, particularly its two most popular substances: Rapture and Lullaby. It included thirty-four different pubs they’d bought and converted into smaller gambling enterprises or drug dens. It included hundreds of employees, thousands of addicts, and millions of volts.

And he was just one man.

At eleven thirty, Jac slid into a yellow phone booth and called St. Morse. He knew Levi had scheduled a meeting with Enne around now, but it wasn’t Enne he wanted to talk to.

“’Lo?” Lola answered. Her voice sounded strangely on edge.

“It’s me.”

“Is that supposed to mean something? Who is this?”

Jac choked in surprise and coughed out a puff of smoke. “It’s Jac. Why do you sound all wrung out? What’s wrong with you?”

“I just spoke to my bosses, and now we have an appointment scheduled later today,” she explained. Jac supposed her bosses meant Bryce Balfour and the two others who ran the Orphan Guild. Judging from what he’d heard about that trio, that seemed a reasonable excuse for anxiety. “Why do you sound all wrung out?” Lola asked snidely.

If Jac explained all that over the phone, he’d run out of volts to feed the call. “Can you meet me?”

“Now? Where?”

“At, um...” He gave the first cross-street he could think of in this neighborhood that wasn’t near a Torren place. “18th and Rummy.”

“Fine,” Lola huffed. “But you better not be in trouble, because I really don’t have time today to save you.”

* * *

There was a bench on the corner, just as he remembered. He sat on it, his back to the building, trying to convince himself to wait an hour before his next smoke. He stared at the line of pubs across the street, a sight that had once been the view from his cramped bedroom window for nearly eight years. From here, it was a short walk to the factory where he’d worked. Jac imagined one of the wardens walking past him on the sidewalk, not recognizing him with his dyed hair or glasses.

It made him feel powerful.

It also made him feel like a ghost.

Lola appeared across the street. Even though no cars were coming, she waited for the light to turn before she crossed over. For nearly a whole minute, Jac watched her just stand there and thought...maybe she’d gotten herself lost. But when the light finally flashed green, he realized she was actually a rule-abiding, knife-collecting fraud.

Lola sat on the bench beside him. She wore her usual top hat, but it was strange seeing her hair down, now that she no longer needed to hide it in public.

“You’re less scary with the red hair,” he commented.

She frowned. “It’s blood red.”

“It’s...cherry red.”

“Why are we here?” she asked, ignoring him and turning around to look at where the address had brought her. “Is this some kind of school?”

“It’s my old One-Way House,” Jac explained.

Because many had fled the city during the Revolution, the wigheads had started shipping in children from orphanages across much of the western coast about two decades ago, in an effort to bring workers and “community” back into New Reynes. Most of those children ended up in One-Way Houses like the building behind them.

The worst part of the One-Way Houses wasn’t the work—it was the debt. From the moment Jac arrived when he was six years old, he was given a tally. Everything he was provided had a price, and the earnings he made at the factory were supposed to pay for his necessities. But within months, the charges quickly surpassed his earnings. Once in the indenture, it was nearly impossible to work his way out. Jac finally managed it when he was thirteen, through the volts he’d earned helping Levi with his schemes.

Lola crinkled her nose and turned back around. “Well, that’s depressing.”

“I’m going to tell you a few things that you have to promise not to tell Enne,” he said. He remembered how she’d ratted him out about the teacup, but he liked to think that’d been a joke. He liked to think that he could trust her.

She sighed. “Why not?”

“Because none of this can get back to Vianca.” He rubbed his hands together. Even talking about the donna made him nervous.

“Fine,” Lola said, though she didn’t sound happy about it.

And so he told her everything that Levi had confided in him last night—and what he’d asked Jac to do.

“What happens when everything doesn’t go to plan?” she demanded once he finished.

Jac pursed his lips. “It’s a gamble.”

“It’s a disaster,” she hissed. “You’re right—Enne can’t know about this. So why are you telling me?”

Because he didn’t have anyone else to share the burden with—not that he would admit that.

Lola took off her top hat and ran her fingers nervously through her hair. The shade from the buildings behind them was creeping back, and now that they sat in the sun, both their faces were slick with sweat. “This will end badly.”

“Your catchphrase,” he muttered, because he couldn’t help himself.

“And when Levi’s deadline with Vianca expires? How is he going to help Harrison then?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Jac answered. “Which is why the most important piece is the Torrens. If anything happens with Vianca, or if—muck—if Levi loses this wager, at least there’s still the Torrens’ vote. At least Harrison could maybe still win. And then the wager won’t matter, because Vianca will be dead.” It was an awful lot of pressure, far more than he felt he was capable of taking on. His fingers shook as he reached for another cigarette, hating himself for it.

Lola stared at her knotted fingers for several silent moments. Finally, she looked up, her expression dark.

“Was it Rapture or Lullaby?” she murmured.

Jac’s fingers slipped as he flicked the lighter. He hated the idea that she could know such a thing by looking at him, but he also suspected she’d known for a while.

“Lullaby,” he admitted. “I’m two years sober.”

He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. It was almost too hot outside to take a full breath. He hated the stifling feeling of smoking in summer, but he didn’t feel like he could breathe without the nicotine.

“I have it all figured out,” he said quickly, coughing a bit. “There’s this place that’s Torren-owned. It’s called Liver Shot. It’s the only den that—” he counted off on his fingers “—one, has a boxing pit. An easy way for me to get an in. And two, that sells exclusively Rapture, not Lullaby.”

“And you’ll... What? Fight your way into getting a job? Is that how that works?” she asked.

“That’s about as far as I’ve worked out, yeah.”

“Muck, Jac, you can’t do this. The fact that Levi even asked you is... It’s repulsive. He knows, right? Of course he must know—”

“Levi literally pulled me out of a Lull den when I overdosed and saved my life,” he told her seriously.

“That makes it even worse, and you shouldn’t be defending him,” Lola chided. “You might have this all planned out now, but you don’t really know what sort of situation you could walk into. If this family feud gets messy, you’ll be right in the middle of it. It’d be dangerous for anyone, but for you—”

“Well, it’s not like Levi has anyone else he could ask, does he?” Jac snapped. Maybe Lola was right. Maybe he shouldn’t defend Levi, but he still felt he had to. “Anyone else could handle this better, but instead, he has me. Unlucky for him, I’m the only friend he’s got.”

He threw the stub of his cigarette behind him, toward the One-Way House. “I grew up in that place, trapped by a debt I never thought I’d escape until I met him. And I think all the time about how easy it is to get trapped in this city. How my first real job after that really wasn’t any type of improvement. How I kept feeling trapped, so I took the Lullaby when they offered it to me the first time, and then I trapped myself when I kept going back.

“I might be the absolute worst person for this job, but he’s my best friend. If it means he’s not trapped anymore, then maybe it’s worth it.”

Lola leaned back on the bench, still knotting her fingers together. “You realize what this means for the city—for the whole Republic, right? An election that the monarchists could actually win?” She shook her head. “It’s just one seat, but that isn’t what matters. What matters is that, ever since the Revolution, we’ve pretended this is peace. But there are talents that don’t exist anymore because people were systematically killed by the First Party. And not just Mizers—anyone with true power, anyone who could be a threat. That’s been the heart of the monarchist platform for years. That this is not peace. That we cannot stop changing. And to think—the fate of an entire history-altering election could rest on your shoulders.”

Jac didn’t actually think he could have felt worse, but now he did. “Very eloquent. You have a real way with words, you know that?” he snapped. “But you missed the last bit you meant to say. The ‘we’re doomed’ part.”

She half smiled, the sort of expression that told Jac there was an element of truth to his joke. “You know how they say this city is a game? Well, I always felt like I was surrounded by players. My bosses at the Orphan Guild, my brothers, and now Enne... I’m the sort of person who watches from the outskirts of the story. Who hopefully lives to tell the story.”

“I get that,” Jac said, and he did. At least up until the point about living to tell the story. He’d honestly never been quite so optimistic.

“So when are you going to this place? Liver Shot?” Lola asked. “Tonight?”

“No, it’s a Thursday. If I wait until tomorrow, it’ll be busier, and my chances of talking to the right people will be better. I have a few volts. I’ll stay at a hostel.” He could save his volts and go back to Levi’s, but he didn’t think he had it in him to face his friend a second time.

Lola checked the expensive watch she’d stolen from him. “I have to meet Enne soon. I...” She bit her lip.

“You know, I only told you because I thought you of all people wouldn’t worry about me,” Jac said.

She punched him in the arm. “Of course I’ll worry about you, muckhead.”

Jac smirked. “That didn’t hurt much. You won’t jaywalk. You’ve got no strength. No wonder you collect all those knives—how else would you convince people to fear you?”

She scowled. “I have my methods.”

Jac wondered why someone like Lola would stay in New Reynes. When they were in the National Library a few days ago, she’d claimed she had people she cared about in this city, but as far as he could tell, she was alone. But she was smart, and she could read, and even if it was sometimes easy to forget, the world was a lot bigger than the City of Sin. And a lot kinder, too.

“If volts weren’t an issue,” he started, “if you weren’t some assistant to the Orphan Guild, if you weren’t Enne’s second... What would you be? What would you be if you could be anything?”

“A librarian,” she answered matter-of-factly.

He couldn’t help himself. He hollered. “I can’t believe you just admitted that you’re actually a softie.”

She crossed her arms. “What’s your answer, then? What would you be?”

“I don’t know,” he said. It was a depressing thought. “But thanks for coming out here. I don’t... I don’t actually have a lot of people to talk to, other than Levi. But you get things that he really doesn’t. You’re a good friend.”

“Friend.” She squinted. “That’s pushing it, don’t you think?”

“Acquaintance?” he offered.

“Better,” she said, smirking.

The two of them stood up, and she eyed him with suspicion. “You look like you’re about to hug me. I don’t like hugs.”

He held out his hand. “Fine. Acquaintances.”

She snorted and shook it. “The ones who never wanted to be players.” And with that, she gave him a final order to be careful and a wave goodbye. Jac watched her walk down the block and disappear around the corner.

He was glad he’d called her—he did feel better now, with far less of an urge to smoke, at least for a few hours.

But there was still something that bothered him. Something about the last words she’d said.

The ones who never wanted to be players.

Sure, maybe Jac had never asked to be a player.

But Lola’s words about him weren’t entirely true.

ENNE

Lola scanned Enne’s ruffled sleeves, visible even beneath her black trench coat. “That’s what you’re wearing? To meet my bosses?” Her voice was barely more than a squeak.

“I like the blue.” Enne pouted her lips and followed Lola into the Tropps Street Mole station. Though it hadn’t rained in several days, the cement steps were mysteriously and disturbingly covered in puddles, which Enne carefully avoided.

“You have a reputation now,” Lola groaned. “You have to look the part, otherwise we won’t attract the best.”

“And what attracts the best?”

Lola frowned at Enne’s necklace. “Not pearls.”

“This city thinks I killed the Chancellor. Everyone knows I killed Sedric Torren. And I did so while wearing pearls.”

“You’re in a mood,” Lola grumbled as they slid their tickets through the turnstile and followed the signs for the gold line.

Enne thought of her meeting that morning with Levi and soured further. “Maybe I am.”

They descended the steps and waited along the platform.

“If you could buy anything you wanted, what would it be?” Enne asked her.

Lola narrowed her eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve just been thinking about it lately.”

“Well, you shouldn’t. It’s—”

“Only a question.” Enne leaned her head back, smiling to herself wistfully. “I bet I can guess it. You strike me as a Houssen girl. In silver? In—”

“In black,” Lola answered quickly. This was clearly a fantasy she’d already given some thought. “Are you trying to buy my contentment for some reason? Because we should really be discussing the plan for today. You said Levi would—”

“There is no plan,” Enne responded. “I’d hoped Levi would have one, but he didn’t.” Her voice dripped with resentment. At least she’d learned her lesson: if she wanted something in New Reynes, then she needed to learn to depend on herself.

The train sped its way to the platform in a rush of wind, saving Enne from having to look at Lola’s undoubtedly frustrated expression. They claimed seats in a shadowed corner of the train. Advertisements by the doors featured perfumes held by famous opera stars and prima ballerinas of the South Side, or the address of a real estate agent selling “Once in a Lifetime” properties on the up-and-coming New Reynes boardwalk.

“Then what were you and Levi doing all morning?” Lola hissed. “No, no, I don’t actually want to know.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Enne said, flushing. “But I’d rather not talk about it.”

“So that explains the mood,” Lola remarked. “Regardless, you can’t be distracted. Not today. In fact, we need to be very, very careful. I don’t like Bryce on a good day, and after what happened at the Guild, he’s distraught.” She looked around the train car nervously, as though Bryce might’ve been able to overhear. “And he’s not typically a stable person.”

The more she heard Lola speak of Bryce, the more the prospect of this meeting intimidated her. “Tell me more about the Guild?” Enne asked.

“It works like a temp agency,” Lola explained. “If you’re interested in work, Bryce will find it for you, whether it’s with the gangs or otherwise, temporary or permanent. Bryce sets the price of each guildworker based on their talents and various skills. Two thirds goes to the worker, and one third goes to him.”

“Why give a portion of your earnings to Bryce when you could find a job yourself?” Enne asked.

“Some people aren’t looking for steady work. And some places only hire from the Guild, like the Doves. Expect a lot of assassin hopefuls there.”

Enne nervously tucked her ruffles into her sleeve. Maybe everyone else’s jokes were right. Maybe she was about to be eaten alive.

Lola drummed her fingers on the metal seat. “So we have no idea how to earn an income. No idea what sort of talents we’re looking to hire. No place for them to live—”

“I want to find a place in the Ruins District,” Enne told her.

“By tonight?” Lola asked with exasperation.

“Well, I don’t want to bring them to St. Morse. Can’t they stay with you?”

“I live in a studio. I’m not hosting some would-be killer for a slumber party in six hundred square feet.”

“Who said they have to be a would-be killer?” Enne asked.

“Well, it’s not like you’re going to find a lady,” she muttered, piquing Enne’s irritation. “I’ve convinced Bryce you’re some aspiring street lord, and so you’ll need to act like it. For starters, we need a trademark. The Irons have tattoos—”

“I already have that covered,” Enne said hotly, pulling two pairs of lacy, cream-colored gloves from her purse. “Let me guess, you hate them.”

“These are...ridiculous,” Lola sputtered with exasperation. “They’ll stain. A bit of dirt, a bit of blood—”

“Well, then,” Enne replied, her voice weary with fatigue and nerves. “Don’t get blood on them.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, as they wove through the Deadman District’s maze of alleys, Enne slipped on the black silk mask that she hadn’t worn since the Shadow Game. She and Lola walked the path side by side, dressed all in black except for the whites of their gloves and the bits of blue ruffle peeking out from Enne’s jacket. As they approached the end of the street, Enne suddenly wished she’d listened to Lola’s advice and changed her shirt.

After the attack, the Orphan Guild had relocated into what had once been called the National Prison. It was the tallest building for a mile in either direction, with a watchtower that overlooked the entire North Side. The metal gate stood open, one door broken off its hinges and leaning against the adjacent wall, the other in pieces on the ground, rusting away to nothing. The pathway inside was littered with loose barbed wire, cigarette butts, and wrappers of Tiggy’s Saltwater Taffy.

Unlike Scrap Market or Olde Town, which crawled with Scarhands and Irons, the National Prison looked vacant, a ruin from a ruined time. If they were to encounter anyone here, it would probably be the ghost of a prisoner executed within these walls, or a revolutionary who’d given their life to see the building blown apart.

Enne and Lola walked inside. There was no noise, no sign of life, except for the scurrying of a rat.

“Are you sure they’re here?” Enne whispered.

“They were this morning,” Lola answered. A crow cawed from outside. Lola jolted so much her top hat fell off, and she had to pick it up and dust it off. Even though Enne knew much of Lola’s tough exterior to be a farce, it was still strange to see her so openly on edge. “Let’s turn through here.”

A hallway spanned a hundred feet in either direction, lined with cells—most of them empty. The few occupants slept on cots or hung cheap artwork and torn pages of The Kiss & Tell in their new living quarters.

Enne had already decided she would pick a girl—she had enough male gangsters in her life. But the girls she passed were unbathed and ungroomed, slouching, stinking, with a ferocious look in their eyes. Enne had been naïve to think Lola had ever seemed frightening. She merely collected knives. These girls were knives.

Everyone looked up as they passed. Some whispered. Enne heard Séance’s name murmured behind her.

She’d seen her own wanted posters across the city, but here, she felt the effects of her reputation. And, seeing the skepticism on their faces, she already knew she wasn’t living up to it.

Lola held out her arm for Enne to stop walking. She nodded toward their right.

A young man sat in a cell, just like the rest of them.

But he was not like the rest of them.

His clothing—a white undershirt and black trousers—hung on him, an extra notch cut several inches into his belt to hold the ensemble together. His bones jutted out at unusual angles, all broad shoulders and crooked elbows and protruding hips. The way he stood, with one arm bracing him as he leaned against the wall, his head down, his other arm limp at his side, accentuated the harsh curve of his vertebrae and protrusion of his adam’s apple.

He looked starved enough to slip through the cell’s iron bars—ghostly enough to haunt the prison, not to own it.

He made no gesture to show he’d noticed them, and Lola called no greeting.

Beside him, a show played from a radio. “No,” a female actor murmured. “No, I couldn’t. What would my family think? It wouldn’t be right.”

“George knew this was the last time he’d ever see her again,” the narrator voiced. “And he knew nothing he could say would change her mind. She was meant for that six o’clock train to somewhere, just as he was meant for his father’s twelve acres of nowhere.”

“‘Dorothy,’ George said, in spite of it all, ‘Don’t leave like that. Without even saying goodbye.’”

The narrator returned. “The look Dorothy gave him was not what he expected. It was full of reluctance. The sun was rising, the train was whistling, and Dorothy had one hand on her ticket and the other fiddling with her parents’ ring on the chain around her neck. Just as the train’s whistle sounded across the tracks, he pulled her in for a kiss to make her forget all those dreams of New Reynes, to make her forget about saying goodbye.”

The Guildmaster reached over and turned the radio’s volume down. “The world isn’t like that anymore,” he mourned.

Lola rolled her eyes. “It never was.”

He looked up for the first time, giving Enne a view of his features. His eyes were black; his smile was taut. His lips were full and swollen red, matching the marks trailing across his neck and collarbone.

“No,” he said. “Dorothy stays with him, in the story. And they marry and have a child and die—tragically—of the fever. And their only child takes that six o’clock train to New Reynes, where he either becomes a victim...or he crawls to me.”

Enne flinched at the statement. The hall was silent, everyone clearly eavesdropping on their conversation, and the Guildmaster had described the workers here as little more than strays. She supposed that must truly be how he felt, for how else could he suffer a brutal attack from the whiteboots, see several of his associates murdered, and still be open for business in a new location the next day?

Looking at the Guildmaster, panic rose like bile in her throat. She’d come in the wrong clothes. She’d come without a plan. She was silly and naïve for thinking she was anything other than silly and naïve.

“I was hoping you’d come,” Bryce Balfour said to Enne. “I didn’t realize until this morning that you knew our little Lola, here.”

Anyone who described Lola as “little” or in the possessive, Enne suspected, was eager to lose several teeth. But Lola made no sign she’d heard. Although she was over eight inches taller than Enne, she seemed smaller than she ever had, her gaze fixed on the cement floor.

“She’s my second,” Enne explained. Even to herself, she sounded timid and quiet.

Bryce gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Abandoning me, blood gazer? We’ve been through so much together.”

Lola took the smallest, almost imperceptible step back. “It was time for a change.”

“You hate change.”

Lola didn’t reply.

Enne didn’t like the way Lola had gone silent, or the implication that Bryce knew her second better than she did. She cleared her throat. “Is there somewhere private we could speak?” The air here was thick with tension and stares.

“Of course.”

Bryce unplugged his radio and led them through the hallway, to the warden’s office.

A girl sat in the desk chair. She was beautiful, someone who belonged on the front page of the Guillory Street Gossip, sporting the latest designs of Regalliere or taking tea at the South Side’s trendiest salons. Instead, she was in a ruined prison, wearing a dozen strands of fake gems the color of blood and drinking murky coffee out of a tin beggar’s cup. Her hair was golden blond and hung down to her hips. Her eyes were wide-set and her face soft, like a model from an oil painting. At first, she looked like someone lost, but the keenness in her expression as she watched them enter told Enne otherwise. She was exactly where she belonged.

When Bryce arrived, she got up and kissed him so passionately that Enne flushed a shade as deep as the girl’s necklaces. The display—groping hands and labored breaths—looked more unappealing than erotic, clearly meant to make Enne and Lola uncomfortable rather than show intimacy. Now Enne knew where the numerous marks across Bryce’s neck and chest had come from.

In a corner of the room, Harvey Gabbiano scowled. Enne recognized his corkscrew curls from the night she’d met him at the Sauterelle, when he’d used his Chainer blood talent to try to coax Enne into joining the Guild. He referred to himself as a salesperson, but Reymond had called him a poacher.

When the couple finally broke apart, Bryce said, “This is Rebecca.”

Rebecca looked Enne up and down. “I’m his partner.”

Harvey scowled a second time.

Enne watched Harvey with unease. When they’d met, she hadn’t been wearing this mask. But unlike the other members of the Guild, he showed no interest in her or any hint that he recognized her. His gaze only followed Bryce as the Guildmaster sat on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms.

“Can we call you something other than Séance?” Bryce asked.

“Séance is fine,” she answered, not wanting to compromise her identity. “Um, please,” she added.

Bryce gave her an odd look and scratched at the marks on his neck. “And what business have you come for?”

“I’m looking to hire a girl.”

“What sort of girl?”

“I don’t have anyone particular in mind,” she answered blandly.

“How...unusual. For a permanent position?”

“Yes.” Though, after paying Bryce his cut, she’d only have enough volts to compensate this person for two more weeks. Maybe whoever she hired could find a solution for their income predicament.

“Whatever you need, we can assist.” Bryce snapped his fingers. “Lola, the files.”

Lola immediately responded to the order. She hurried to the file cabinet, pulled out a handful of folders, and laid them neatly across the desk. Bryce licked his fingers and perused the papers. Occasionally, he’d show one to Rebecca or Harvey, who would shake their heads or shrug. Rebecca often leaned over to stroke Bryce’s hand or play with the edges of his shirt.

Finally, he handed Lola several files. “Go fetch these girls.”

Lola took them, shot Enne a warning glance, and left the room.

Enne took the seat beside Harvey—not because she particularly liked him, but because it was the farthest position from Bryce and Rebecca. Harvey hummed a ragtime under his breath and fiddled with a Creed necklace, one that matched Jac’s, except for the set of gold keys that shared its chain.

“You called Lola your second,” Bryce said. “Do you call yourself a lord?”

If you’d like, I’m sure you can make them call you a lady.

Enne’s cheeks reddened. “Yes.”

“Do you know how many lords there have been, since the Great Street War?” Bryce rolled up his sleeves, revealing a bandage and gauze peeking beneath one. Judging from the fresh scratches below it, Enne guessed he’d sustained some sort of injury from the attack last night. When he caught her looking at it, he quickly tucked it away again.

“No,” Enne replied.

“Take a guess,” he pushed. Enne had heard enough condescension in her life to recognize it in his voice.

Harvey cleared his throat, saving her from answering. “Don’t mind us. We’re only anxious, as I’m sure you can imagine—plus it’s thanks to you that this war was called. And it’s thanks to this war that eight of our associates are dead.”

Harvey rested a hand on Enne’s shoulder. Even when his words were harsh, his tone was still warm. She had no reason to trust him, yet suddenly, she wanted to.

“Not that you’re the one to blame, of course,” he said, flashing her a gap-toothed grin.

Enne was about to respond with apologies, or explanations, or whatever else Harvey wanted to hear, but even as transfixed as she was, she didn’t miss the dark look exchanged between Harvey and the Guildmaster. Harvey immediately wrenched his hand off her and leaned away, and the spell was broken.

Enne’s skin prickled, remembering just how dangerous Harvey’s talent was. With only a touch, he could probably convince her to spill her deepest secrets. And if she ever accepted a favor from him, Enne would be forever trapped where he pleased.

Every time she thought she’d decided which of the three intimidated her the most, one of them introduced some new kind of threat.

“Courtesy,” Rebecca snapped at Harvey, clicking her tongue.

“You know he can’t help it,” Bryce told her, as though Harvey weren’t even there.

Rebecca narrowed her eyes at Harvey, then she slid her arm around Bryce possessively. Enne leaned back into her seat to avoid their mutual glares. She realized that their attempts to challenge her weren’t what made her so uncomfortable—rather, she felt trapped in the intimate squabbles of someone else’s dysfunctional home.

She sighed with relief when Lola returned. Four girls followed behind her, most old enough to be called women. Enne examined their yellowed teeth and knotted hair with uncertainty.

“All of them are looking for full-time work,” Bryce said. “A variety of talents. A runner, a wordsmith, a truthseer, and a singer.”

Lola rifled through the papers with confusion. “Why didn’t you include Talia? I thought she wanted something full-time.”

Bryce faltered, and a haunted expression crossed his face. “Talia was injured last night. She’s here.” He looked suddenly young as he spoke. There was something darker than grief in his eyes, something that Enne recognized as guilt. “But she won’t be working.”

“Well?” Rebecca asked Enne sharply. “What do you think?”

Enne snapped her gaze away from the Guildmaster. “Is this really all you have?” Enne might’ve been playing at being a real street lord, but she would’ve preferred someone a little...cleaner, at least.

“You haven’t been very specific in your request,” Harvey said flatly.

“I’ll know her when I see her,” Enne said, which she realized sounded absurd. What sort of decision-making was that? Lola scowled in the corner.

“Fine,” Rebecca sniped. She grabbed a heap of files off the desk and thrust them into Lola’s arms. For the first time since coming here, Enne’s annoyance piqued. Lola wasn’t their servant. “Let’s go find this mystery person, then.”

As the others left the warden’s office, Lola and Enne lingered behind.

“You’ve irritated them,” Lola whispered.

“I’m not sure I could’ve helped that,” Enne said. “I’ve never seen you so...submissive. Are you afraid of them?”

“Aren’t you?” Lola responded pointedly.

Enne was, and it probably showed. But now she was also irritated.

In the courtyard were close to sixty people, soaking in the warm June sunshine, playing games of backgammon or Tropps. Many of them stopped what they were doing to stare at Enne. Shoulders straightened, chests puffed out, knives danced between fingers. They were showing off, she realized. The thought bolstered her confidence.

Enne’s gaze wandered until it settled on a book. It was a romance novel by one of her favorite authors, Sadie Knightley.

The girl holding it, however, made Enne pause. Despite the summer heat, she wore black from head to toe. She had dark hair, dark eyeliner, and dark fishnet gloves. A collection of necklaces hung from her, chains and rusted nails and the largest Creed Enne had ever seen, the bottom of its knot sharpened into a blade. Her skirt was obscenely short, making her stockings more suggestive than functional—she was clearly trying to cover nothing. Unlike the other members of the Orphan Guild, she didn’t bother to vie for Enne’s attention, as her gaze was focused on the book.

“Who is that?” Enne asked.

“That’s Grace Watson,” Lola answered. “Her blood talent is counting.”

Enne considered this. A counter was exactly the sort of person who could unravel their financial problem.

“You should know,” Rebecca said, her voice smug, “Grace never does jobs as a counter, even if that’s her talent. She’s one of our most skilled blades. And her price is steep.”

Enne withered. Slumber parties with would-be assassins, indeed.

“And I’m not sure she’d want...” Rebecca’s eyes wandered to the ruffles slipping out of Enne’s trench coat, and she pursed her lips.

Enne’s caution and restraint snapped like brittle cords. The North Side had a host of unspoken rules: how criminals looked, how they talked, how they behaved. If Enne was about to become a street lord, then she could make her own rules. The City of Sin would learn that a pistol painted pink was just as lethal.

Without a word, she marched herself toward Grace. What did Enne care if Grace Watson dressed like a harlot at a funeral? If she was a killer? Enne had killed, too, and if Grace was reading a three-time award-winning romance author, she could hardly be that bad.

“That’s one of my favorites,” she told Grace, nodding at the book. “I’ve read it four times.”

Grace ripped her gaze away from the page with an annoyed expression. She squinted at Enne’s mask. “I’m not interested.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”

“I don’t know who you are, but I’m not interested in killing your ex-boyfriend.” She glanced around the courtyard. “Are you famous or something? Why is everyone looking over?”

“I killed the Chancellor and Sedric Torren two days ago.” Unlike earlier, she now spoke clearly, confidently. Speak up, her instructors at finishing school had often snapped at her. Ladies do not mumble. Not even about murder.

Grace snorted and looked over Enne’s clothes. “Right.” She returned to her book.

Enne mustered up every bit of frustration she’d felt over the past few days and pressed the assassin further. “I’m going to sit here.” She wedged herself between Grace’s leather boots and the bench’s railing.

Grace held the book up to her face and said nothing.

“The love interest dies at the end,” Enne told her.

“Nice try,” Grace said, sounding bored. “But I’ve read this book five times.”

“Have you read the author’s other work?”

“I’m not looking for a job right now, so you might as well stop trying.”

“I want to hire a counter.”

“How boring.” Grace licked her finger and turned the page. “Hire one of the other counters. They come much cheaper than me.”

That was undoubtedly true, but at this point, Enne was determined. Hiring Grace didn’t need to make sense anymore. She’d pay top voltage if it meant wiping the sneers off Bryce’s and Rebecca’s faces. If it meant proving to herself that she could earn the respect of anyone in the North Side.

“Tell me what it would take.”

“Hmm.” Grace smirked and drummed black-painted nails on the glossy cover of the paperback. “You can find me a licentiously rich South Side man to dote over me and cater to my every expensive whim.”

Of all the requests she could’ve made, that had been the one Enne had least expected.

Without thinking, Enne reached into her purse and removed one of Vianca’s salon invitations. She tossed it to Grace.

“Deal,” Enne said.

Grace looked over the invitation with interest. “You said the job would be boring.”

“You said that. The job will be permanent, it will involve counting, but it won’t be boring.”

Grace handed her back the invitation and returned to her book.

Enne’s stomach dropped with disappointment. She’d thought she’d managed it.

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Grace muttered.

Enne jumped to her feet and shot the others a victorious, smug smile. While Grace slowly got up and squinted into the light, as though intimidating the sun into disappearing, Enne was already at Bryce’s side. She held out her hand to shake. “It’s a deal,” she told him.

Harvey bit his lip to suppress a grin, even as Rebecca and Bryce frowned. But Enne was no longer intimidated by them. She’d passed their tests. And she’d done it wearing pearls.

“It’s done, then,” Bryce said, and he grabbed her hand.

When their skin touched, the air around her instantly turned cold. The ghost of a thread appeared in the corner of her vision, and with it, a thousand more, much like she’d seen during the Shadow Game. Every movement and sound plucked them like eerie violin strings—all tied to Bryce’s hand.

Enne gasped and jolted away. The world, once again, grew still. She briefly wondered if she’d imagined it. Or maybe there were still reasons to fear the Guildmaster.

Bryce’s eyes widened, then the corners of his lips twitched into a smile. He raised her hand and kissed it. “It’s been a pleasure...Séance.”

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