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.
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