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.