LEVI
Levi was on dangerous ground with Enne Salta.
He’d known it since the beginning. Her connection to monarchists, Alfero’s Shadow Card, whatever had happened at the blood gazer’s... Enne’s secrets followed her like a shadow, and Levi was shatz to mix himself up with her. If he had any sense left to him, he’d call it quits. Never mind that he’d given his word; he hadn’t known what he was getting himself into, and he was already in enough trouble.
But maybe he didn’t have any sense about him. Every time Enne surprised him, he craved a little more trouble.
He poured himself a cup of coffee and tried to decide exactly what he should do about himself. About Enne Salta. About Enne Salta and himself.
Someone pounded on the door. Levi scowled. It might’ve been Enne, and he hadn’t come to a decision yet about their...working relationship. And he knew that if she barged into his apartment, all hands on her hips and flushed cheeks, he’d be incapable of anything but “yes.”
It was Jac. He crossed his heart and brushed past Levi, his blond hair dripping with sweat.
Levi’s brows furrowed. “Didn’t you just leave?”
“I did. And I ran all the way back here,” he said, panting.
“What happened?”
Jac leaned against the doorframe, gathering his breath, and snatched Levi’s coffee from his hands. “There’s a huge fight—” he took a swig “—in Scrap Market. Scarhands and Torren’s men.”
“Torren’s men?” Levi echoed. Why would they care about the Scarhands? They might’ve shared some territory, but the Families and the gangs had agreed long ago not to interfere with each other, in an effort to maintain order in the North Side. The only other connection the Torren Family had to the Scarhands was the investment scheme, but they couldn’t have uncovered his partnership with Reymond. Both of them had covered their tracks too well.
Still, dread knotted in Levi’s throat. This couldn’t be his fault.
“I didn’t see it happen,” Jac explained. “I ran into Chez—he was really running, you know? Trying to warn the other Irons away from Scrap Market.”
“Where is the Market today?” Levi asked.
“Chez said near the clock tower on the border of Dove and Scar Lands.”
Levi grabbed his jacket and hat off the coatrack. “Let’s go.”
Jac leaned over, his hands on his knees, and gave Levi a thumbs-up. He set the empty mug on the counter. “Yep. Yep, all good. Ready to go.”
Ten minutes later, they were racing down Tropps Street toward Scrap Market. The morning was cool and damp from dew, and a wind blew east, carrying the smell of the sea.
“We could’ve taken the Mole,” Jac huffed.
“No one takes the Mole.” The subway system that sprawled across the city was infamously unreliable.
“No, gangsters don’t take the Mole,” Jac retorted. “You’d just rather skulk around everywhere so you look with it.”
“I am with it.” Levi charged ahead of him. “You’re just getting soft.”
They passed the Luckluster Mole stop. Jac groaned longingly in between pants.
“Do you know what this fight is about?” Levi asked.
“No idea.”
They turned the corner into Scrap Market. It was early—too early for the Market to close—but already people were in a rush to pack up their stalls. Levi and Jac ran against the crowd, knocking vendors and customers out of their way. Down the street, the bottom floor of an old tenement—the Scarhands’ residence for the day—was engulfed in flames. Smoke streamed out of the cracks in its shutters, and the closer they got, the more the air reeked of it.
They shoved their way to the front of the spectators watching the fire. A man stormed out the front door, clutching a girl over his shoulder. She kicked and pounded at his back with hands covered in scars. The Scarhands outside watched the burning building in horror. Although several had guns raised, no shots were fired. Most people seemed confused about what was happening.
A Scarhand beside Levi pointed at the balcony on the second floor, where Jonas Maccabees was fighting three men at once. Blood ran down Jonas’s split lip and nose. He dodged a swing toward his stomach and collided with the balcony railing.
“What’s going on?” Levi yelled to the Scarhand beside him, but he couldn’t hear his response over the noise of the crowd.
Someone screamed from inside the building. A moment later, the flames exploded through the third story. The building would fall within a few minutes, and whoever had screamed was still in there. But no one dared approach. Not the Scarhands. Not the whiteboots. Not Sedric’s men.
“Hold my hat,” Levi told Jac, who took it before realizing what Levi intended to do.
Levi lurched forward. Within three steps, a man grabbed his shoulder. He was more than a head taller than Levi. “You can’t go near there!” he hollered.
“Someone’s still inside!” Levi ripped out of his grasp and sprinted to the entrance. The man tried to follow, but Levi slammed the door closed behind him and locked it.
“Who’s in here?” he yelled. Fire reached for him from the walls, but it couldn’t hurt an orb-maker. The collapsing building, however, could. He didn’t have much time.
The man pounded on the door. Levi ignored him and ran upstairs, where there were two closed doors. He tried the first one and, finding it locked, he pulled out his pistol, shot at the hinges and kicked it open. The apartment was filled with smoke, but empty of occupants. On the balcony outside, Jonas and the men were gone—climbed down, or perhaps fallen.
Someone shouted for help from the other apartment. It sounded like Reymond.
“Reymond!” Levi screamed. He coughed from the smoke, but it wasn’t enough to slow him down. He charged back into the hallway, toward the other door. “Reymond!”
There was no second yell. Levi’s heart raced. No no no. This wasn’t how Reymond Kitamura was supposed to die.
Levi aimed his gun. “If you’re in there, get away from the door,” he called. Still, no one answered. His stomach lurched. He had to save his friend.
Three shots. His ears rang.
“I’m coming!” He kicked open the door. “Reymond?”
But before Levi could step over the threshold, strong arms grabbed him from behind. It was the man from outside. He pressed something against Levi’s hand, and his vision blackened. He glimpsed a flash of silver and struggled to hold on to consciousness.
It slipped away, and he fell into darkness.
* * *
He woke in the hallway with black and white doors.
Levi got to his feet. His clothes smelled of smoke, for some reason, and dirt was caked into the skin between his fingers. He wiped them on his pants and peered down the hallway. It stretched on endlessly in both directions. Everything was quiet.
Remembering that the black doors were locked, he opened the first white one he came to.
Suddenly, Levi was eleven years old again, and he stood by his mother’s bedside, rubbing her hand to generate the warmth she was quickly losing. The covers no longer moved as she breathed. She was cold. But he was still holding her hand, still rubbing, still hoping.
This was his fault, the vision told him. All his fault.
He ran downstairs to his father, who was bent over his oven, twisting a rod into the fire. The glass orb on the end sparked white with volts, and, dimly, Levi heard screaming from inside the forming sphere, heard the auras of those who had made the volts and the anguish of their murders. It made Levi’s skin crawl, made him want to throw up.
His father was muttering something about “his king,” the Mizer he’d mourned all these years. It was very like him. Some days, it seemed as if he couldn’t remember what had happened, where his family lived now, and he obsessed over the past like it was a lock whose combination he’d forgotten. Levi had learned by now not to ask about it.
Noticing Levi behind him, his father handed him the rod. “You do it.”
“No.” This was their eternal argument. Levi had tried to explain to his father before that his blood and split talents simply didn’t mix, that he’d gladly accept his family’s disappointment over enduring the screams he heard when sealing volts within glass.
His father growled and shoved the rod toward his son. Levi ran through the door that led to their backyard, led to his escape, but when he crossed the threshold, he was in the hallway again, panting from the aftereffects of the memory.
Voices shouted from the black door in front of him. He pressed his ear against the wood.
“You can’t go in there! You know that!” Something slammed.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” The voices were female. Levi didn’t recognize either of them. The second one sounded young—a girl.
“I can’t do my job if you don’t do yours.” The first voice was softer now. “We need to keep each other safe.”
Levi pulled his head back. He shouldn’t have listened. The black doors didn’t belong to him, but he wondered who else had seen this place.
* * *
“Levi!” Jac shook his shoulders.
Levi’s eyes flew open. He rolled onto his side and coughed.
Jac smacked Levi on the back. “What were you thinking?”
“Get off me.” Levi rubbed his eyes and looked at the building—or what remained of it. The top floor had collapsed, so wooden beams jutted out of the structure like fiery stakes. His mouth went dry. “Reymond was in there.”
“I know,” Jac said quietly. “The Scarhands’ oaths were broken.”
Around them, the Scarhands sat in the center of the cobblestoned street, pressing their hands to their chests as if they couldn’t breathe.
It hurt when your oath broke. Reymond had once described it like a blow to the chest, and you could only sit there and wait to catch your breath. Reymond had lost his when he was a Dove, fighting back after Ivory’s second cut off one of his fingers. His oath snapped. Then her second cut off another.
Reymond had always acted like nothing could touch him, but in a few hours, a coroner would identify him by his teeth.
Levi felt a surge of emotions all at once. Anger, grief, fear. If he’d been faster, he might’ve saved him. Stronger. Better.
“Jonas will be the new Scar Lord,” Jac said warily.
Jonas hated Levi, so any semblance of friendship they’d had with the Scarhands was gone.
Something was crumpled in Levi’s fist. He opened it and stared at the gleaming silver back of a Shadow Card, smeared with black ink. The man must’ve left it in Levi’s hand once he’d used it to knock him out.
Six more days. Don’t forget.—S.T.
“This is my fault,” Levi whispered, echoing his vision. Sedric had said something about reminders; Levi hadn’t fully considered what that that could mean.
“‘S.T.’? As in Sedric Torren?” Jac asked, his voice cracking. “Why would he go after Reymond?”
“He’s playing with me,” Levi choked. It was fitting, for Sedric’s reputation. Sedric was proving he knew how to hurt him in more ways than one, and he’d succeeded.
Levi turned the card over and studied the picture of a man dangling from the gallows. The Hanged Man. It meant sacrifice, a new point of view and waiting.
“I don’t like this,” Jac said. “This is some serious muck.”
Once again, Levi was eleven years old, and he was at his mother’s bedside. Just another person he couldn’t save. “He was like my brother,” he murmured. “And he’s dead because of me.”
“Sedric killed Reymond, not you.”
“But it’s still my fault.”
Reymond’s murder was a reminder. A reminder. They weren’t kidding around with the Shadow Cards. If Levi didn’t make the deadline, he was dead. He’d get the invitation card, and no one survived the Shadow Game. No one.
Worse, this might not have been Sedric’s only reminder—anyone could be next. Any of the Irons, including Jac.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Levi said. He lay on his side, his cheek in the dirt, and took deep, slow breaths. The wooden beams cracked in between the roars of the fire. In the distance, sirens wailed, far too late.
“I thought you said the cards didn’t give you visions,” Jac said. “But an orb-maker wouldn’t pass out from the smoke.”
“I lied.”
“What did you see?” He spoke so quietly that Levi barely heard him over the snaps of breaking wood. The hallway was a whole other level of shatz that Levi couldn’t handle right now. In the vision, he’d thought that the black doors belonged to someone else—but the visions were just dreams. If Levi thought about them too much, he’d lose it, and he was running out of things to lose.
“What did you see?” Jac repeated.
Several yards away, Levi caught an Iron watching the scene. He didn’t know her name—she was probably a low-ranking runner—nor did he think she recognized him. She smiled. An enemy lord was dead.
What she didn’t know was that Reymond had saved Levi from starvation when he was twelve years old. That Reymond had taught Levi everything about being a lord. That, without Reymond, the Irons would’ve fallen apart years ago.
The second floor of the building collapsed, tearing the rest of the structure down with it. A wave of dirt and pebbles crashed over the street, and Levi covered his eyes. Dust coated his lips. He spit, then he grabbed his hat off the ground, shook it clean and whispered a goodbye.
* * *
Vianca’s secretary looked up from her files. “Mr. Glaisyer! Madame Augustine—”
Levi threw open the door before she could finish.
He’d been working for Vianca for four years, and still her office made him nervous. Decorated in velvet and swathed in darkness, a luxurious cave with a dragon lurking within. Her menacing eyes peered at him in the dim lamplight.
“Levi,” she purred. “It is always a pleasure.”
Her aura smelled like emerald green, pines and vinegar. It wafted about the room, curling into corners, kissing the skin on Levi’s neck. He shook off his revulsion and leaned against the bookcases, his arms crossed.
“Reymond Kitamura is dead,” he spat. He was too furious for the words to register, even though it was he who spoke them. It felt as though he’d been shot, but was in too much shock to feel the pain.
Although Vianca didn’t smile, she had a way of making her frowns look like pleasure. “Is that why you’re covered in dirt?” She preferred Levi to wear suits, especially the crisp ones she bought him. Every time he stepped outside of St. Morse, she wanted the city to know he was hers. He never obliged, and the omerta never forced him. Still, he knew her wishes. He knew how she liked him.
Like a puppet, dangling on her strings.
“I was there,” he fumed. “He was murdered. And it was your fault.”
She pursed her lips and poured herself a cup of tea from the black pot with the jagged handle. Levi could tell it was her favorite blend—the tea smelled bitter, even from across the room.
“How exactly am I responsible for the death of your business partner?” she asked. Her gaze roamed up his body and his clothes, searching for tears and bruises and weak spots like a miner searching for gold.
“Sedric’s thugs locked him in a building and burned the place down.” Levi shuddered—he could still see the flames when he closed his eyes.
“You think killing Reymond—who was a perfectly successful criminal in his own right—was a message for you? How...” She sipped her tea. “Narcissistic.”
His nostrils flared. “I know it was a message for me.” He took the two Shadow Cards out of his pocket and tossed them on her desk.
She paled. The silver backs of the cards glinted like blades in the lamplight. Shakily, she reached for them. “How did you get these?” she rasped. She traced a long manicured nail over one of the edges, as though searching for a trick.
“They were gifts from Sedric Torren. One three nights ago. One today.”
“The House of Shadows has been empty since the Great Street War.” The House of Shadows was the mysterious mansion where the Phoenix Club had once played the Shadow Game. Legend claimed it was haunted.
“Not anymore,” Levi said. He didn’t add what he knew about Lourdes Alfero, that he might not have been the Phoenix Club’s first victim since their grand reopening.
“Six more days,” she read. “Until what?”
“Until my deadline. Until I’m dead.” He slammed his hands on her desk. “Ten thousand volts. Are you happy now? Your scam is going to get me killed.” He took the clock off her desk and chucked it against the wall. It shattered. Vianca didn’t even wince, which only enraged him further. Nothing touched her, yet every attack pierced him. “And where were you? Away! Away campaigning for a hopeless election that’s already rigged against you.”
She said nothing, which was fine with Levi. He wasn’t finished yet.
“And Enne! I bring her here because she needed help. Thick of me to trust that you, just once, would actually help someone. Help me.” He panted, out of breath from shouting. The secretary outside had probably heard everything he said, but he didn’t care. He was furious enough to kill Vianca...if only he could.
Slowly, Vianca stood up, and Levi instantly felt smaller. Younger. Weaker.
“I don’t know how you managed to find out about Miss Salta, but we can talk about that in a moment. Let’s talk about you first.” She flicked her hand, and Levi’s body crumpled automatically into a chair. As if by invisible restraints, his wrists tethered themselves to the armrests, and his head leaned back, exposing his neck. Even as he writhed, he was powerless to get up. “Let’s talk about us.” She dragged her jagged fingernail across his throat. Levi swallowed, hating the fear flooding into his chest.
“You walk around here like you’re some kind of prince, but even you’re disposable.”
“Am I?” he challenged. He didn’t know much about Vianca’s other associates—she kept him decidedly separate from most aspects of her business—but he knew he was her favorite. She’d been attached to him from the moment she met him. Otherwise, why waste one of her precious three omertas on just a boy? She’d spotted a stray puppy and had wanted to keep him. Even if he was her most successful card dealer, the city was full of card dealers. That wasn’t why he mattered. He was indispensable because he was the only person Vianca Augustine cared about—and that was why she tormented him.
“Of course you are,” she seethed. Her nails dug into his shoulder, and he winced. “Really, Levi, I never would’ve expected this sort of fear from you. It’s unbecoming.”
“Only a fool wouldn’t fear the Phoenix Club,” he said. Vianca wouldn’t challenge that. She feared them, too, just like everyone else who’d heard the legends of New Reynes and knew them to be true.
“I know you, dear,” Vianca murmured. “You love power. You love to hold all the cards in your hand and make a good show. But your poker face needs work. I can read you like the tea leaves in the bottom of this cup.” She poured the steaming tea on his shirt, staining it. The heat didn’t bother him due to his blood talent, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Vianca could do whatever she liked, and Levi was helpless to stop her. “You’re supposed to be great, Levi. You’re the Iron Lord. Yet you let the city decide your fate for you.”
“None of this was my choice,” he growled.
“Really? You take none of the responsibility?” She turned away and released him from his restraints. He snapped forward and rubbed his neck where she had grazed him, as though her touch alone had left behind a scar. “Maybe you could be better. All this time, I’ve been trying to make you better.”
“For what?”
She smiled and sat back down behind her desk. “Use your imagination.”
He held back a roll of his eyes. She was always so mucking dramatic. Maybe she had time for her games, but his was running out.
“Why did you choose Enne?” he asked.
“You might wear a suit, but you’re not exactly someone I can send to the South Side. She’ll have her uses.” Vianca didn’t know the half of it. If she discovered Enne was the daughter of Lourdes Alfero, she’d utterly exploit her to the monarchists. And it would be Enne who was killed, in the end—not Vianca. Never Vianca.
“Like with Sedric Torren?” he asked, his voice quiet and steady and laced with hate.
“That was a fortunate coincidence. She looks very his type.”
Levi clenched his fists. All of the North Side was aware of Sedric’s reputation. “That’s repulsive.”
“Oh, I agree. Who better to strike such a man where it hurts?”
“Don’t pretend that anything motivated you besides your own sick mind.”
She tsked. “Watch what you say. I thought you were here asking for my help, Levi.”
“It’s not just help. You owe me.”
“I owe you?”
“Sedric is going to kill me over your investment scheme, and you made Enne one of your twisted playthings. Yeah. I’d say you owe me.”
She leaned forward and clicked her fingernails together. “Because I bestowed my omerta on Miss Salta, you are the one who deserves the recompense?”
He stumbled over his words. She made him sound like a brat. “You’re dangling me as bait in front of your enemies.”
“I’ve provided you with a place to live and steady income.”
“You do that for all your employees.”
“Ah, yes. You’re special.”
She was trying to make him feel like an egotistical child, and he wanted to strangle her. He wanted to summon a fire that left burn marks around her neck.
“Yes, I’m special,” he growled. “I helped bankrupt all your competitors. I’ve made you plenty of volts dealing, not to mention thousands through the investment scheme. Thousands you managed to lose overnight. Your empire is falling.”
Her lips played at a smile. She poured herself a new cup of tea. “And your empire? How are the Irons faring lately? How is their lord treating them?”
Oh, she was keeping tabs on his gang now? “Stop comparing us. We’re not the same.”
“You’re the spitting image of me.” Somehow her voice was proud and ruthless all at once.
“Then it’s no wonder the Irons are crumbling,” he snapped. “Must’ve gotten that from you.”
He inhaled sharply as what felt like a knife twisted into his gut. He couldn’t exhale. The pressure in his chest tightened, and he was sure it would crush him. He grabbed the edge of the desk in front of him. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t gasp. He couldn’t coax a shred of air out of his lungs.
Vianca didn’t release him until he was on the floor, his back digging into the leg of his chair. Then the air burst out, and he coughed and rested his head against the ground as the ceiling slowed its spinning. He’d experienced her torture dozens of times, but he’d never get used to the feeling of suffocating.
“Enough,” she commanded, her lips pursed. “What puppet is allowed to say such things to its master?”
She bent over him as he weakly got to his knees. “I’ve given you everything, and I will give you half the volts you need to pay Torren. But don’t assume I care so much about you that you’re invincible. I could kill you at any moment I wish.”
Five thousand volts.
Five thousand.
He could survive this. A burst of hope filled his chest, sweeter and more relieving than the air.
“Does this cover the recompense for Miss Salta and Mr. Kitamura?” she asked.
He wasn’t thick enough to answer. Everything in this city had a price, and telling Vianca off wouldn’t have done him any good. What he was feeling right now, it wasn’t even close to gratitude, but he knew better than to act anything less than beholden.
“I can give you the volts next week,” she said.
“I only have six days left,” he croaked.
“Then a few days from now. I won’t forget.”