“Why did you help me?” Levi asked breathlessly.
“Who doesn’t want Pup to owe them a favor?”
“I...” To understate it, the idea of owing Scavenger a favor sounded less than appealing. “Thank you.”
Jonas snatched the black feather from behind his ear and set it on the referee’s empty chair, like a calling card. “You tried to save Reymond. I didn’t forget.”
Jonas headed for the stairs and left Levi in the burning building with Jac. Levi gritted his teeth. This time, he wouldn’t try to save anyone. He would save Jac.
Levi slapped Jac lightly on the cheek. The hideous black stitches on his eyebrow had unlaced, and the cut oozed with blood. “Wake up. Time to leave.”
Jac’s eyes didn’t open.
Levi threw him over his shoulder—which was no small feat, given Jac’s broad frame and Levi’s broken rib—and hauled him up the stairs and through the gambling room.
Outside, it was still night, though it felt like hours had passed. Jac groaned, stirring slightly in Levi’s hold.
“You should’ve forfeited, you thickhead,” Levi said. He wasn’t even sure if Jac had heard him. He stood his friend upright and slapped his cheek lightly again. “Walk with me. You’re killing me, here.” His leg, his rib, his everything screamed out in pain. Jac muttered something unintelligible and stumbled forward, the bulk of his weight still leaning against Levi’s shoulder.
When they finally made it to St. Morse, Jac was mostly lucid. Levi laid him on the couch, then handed him a glass of whiskey for the pain. He hurriedly rummaged around his drawers for first aid supplies—Jac was covered in scrapes.
Levi bent down to open the kit and winced—muck, his rib hurt.
Jac reached forward, and his fingers twisted around the buttons in Levi’s shirt. “You’re hurt. Let me help.”
Levi pushed his hand away. Jac’s split talent for taking away pain was inviting, but he knew better than agree. When Jac took away pain, it didn’t disappear—Jac carried it himself. No matter how many times his friend offered, no matter the circumstance, Levi always declined. His pain was his own, and Jac always took on more than he could manage.
“I’m stronger than you think,” Jac grumbled.
“But not as strong as you think.” Levi grabbed Jac by the jaw and opened his mouth. “That’s a nice missing tooth.” He stuffed a wet tea bag into the empty spot. “This will help the bleeding.” The scene reminded him of the Jac from three years ago, the one who’d depended on Lullaby to lull him and his pain to sleep, no matter the acts of rage and recklessness it triggered during the day. This wasn’t the first time Levi had played nurse, caught between worry and anger.
“I’m sorry,” Jac said, as if he knew what Levi was thinking. Jac hardly remembered anything from that year.
Levi slapped him on the shoulder. “I know. Just try to get some sleep.”
He headed to the kitchen and lit the oven. He’d had this idea a while ago—a bad idea, of course. He’d just left Dead at Dawn empty-handed, and he had one more day to win back the volts for Sedric. Even if he spent all of tomorrow gambling, there was nothing to win during the day. If he was going to pay Sedric as soon as the tenth day arrived, then he had only one more night. One more chance. And he needed to win big.
Luckluster was the only other casino in New Reynes that could shell out that sort of voltage in one night.
It was a completely shatz idea, gambling in Sedric’s own casino. Levi knew that.
But not if he was guaranteed to win.
He didn’t remember the last time he’d made glass. The special oven he kept in his apartment was the result of a half-hearted decision from years ago to fiddle with glass cores in false dice. The con had fallen through, and he hadn’t used the oven since, but he’d never bothered to get rid of it.
After nearly an hour spent kindling the oven, Levi reached inside and removed the pot of the glass mixture, which glowed a fluorescent orange. Fluorescence—he’d gotten that idea thinking about Luckluster and its famous neon lights. If he did this correctly, he’d be able to count cards alone—and quickly. Sleights of hand were near impossible to conceal from Luckluster’s dealers, so with the stakes high, Levi needed a different assurance that he would win.
He needed a miracle.
He needed a con.
After melding and slicing the mixture into the proper shape, he added a solution of blue dye and tonic water to the glass. He finished it with a clear galvanizer, then set the contacts on his counter to cool.
As Levi poured the rest of the tonic water into a flask, Jac’s snores echoed through the kitchen. He’d passed out, his mouth wide-open. His empty whiskey glass sat on the coffee table, and his hand was clutched around his Creed.
Levi retreated to his bedroom and lay down on his bed, still fully clothed. He fell asleep with the flask on the nightstand, a gun under his pillow and the sunrise shining in his eyes, reminding him that only one more midnight loomed before Sedric’s deadline.
DAY NINE
“The City of Sin is painted white so that the filth can stain.”
—The City of Sin, a Guidebook: Where To Go and Where Not To
ENNE
“My dear,” Vianca said when she noticed Enne standing at her door. “Do come in. I’d usually ask you to sit, but I’m afraid we don’t have time for that. I have a task for you—though not of a pretty sort this time.”
Enne crept into the room carefully, the memories from her previous experience in Vianca’s office making her tremble. The carpet where Vianca had strangled her without even a touch. The chair where Enne had sat when she learned she would poison Sedric Torren. The sweet, sinister smell of Vianca’s perfume that Enne could still nearly taste as she inhaled.
But that last encounter was over a week ago, she reminded herself. Enne was different now. Stronger, weaker...she wasn’t sure. But what mattered was that that was then, and this was now. She closed the door behind her and approached the donna’s desk.
“What sort of task?” Enne asked. After returning to St. Morse from Scrap Market, Enne had collapsed and slept through the afternoon and most of the following day, but hadn’t found it restful. When Vianca’s woman had pounded on her door only minutes before, Enne had suspected a scolding for skipping today’s acrobatics rehearsal. She had braced herself for anger, not for another assignment, and she didn’t know which scenario was worse.
Vianca clutched the armrests of her seat, her knuckles whitening, her veins bulging. “There’s going to be a midnight party at the House of Shadows that mustn’t occur.”
More than anything, stay away from the House of Shadows.
But it wasn’t Zula’s warning that made Enne’s breath hitch. The House of Shadows was where the Phoenix Club played the Shadow Game. It was where Lourdes had died.
“Are you familiar with the House of Shadows?” Vianca asked.
“I am, Madame,” she said flatly.
“Then you should be afraid.”
Enne felt a coldness wrap itself around her heart, but it wasn’t fear.
It was anger.
Enne straightened her posture. Lifted her head up. Looked Vianca square in the eyes. Regardless of what Zula had told her, Enne had submitted herself to enough warnings and rules for her lifetime. If the donna was going to send Enne to the site of her mother’s death, then she would be ready—and, if given the chance, she would burn the place down.
“What do I need to do?”
The corners of Vianca’s lips curled into a smile. “Sedric Torren is becoming a threat. I need him gone.”
By “gone,” Enne knew she meant “dead.” The thought weighed less on her conscience than it should have, but she had hoped to never encounter that man again.
“Why me? You have dozens of others at your disposal,” Enne said. Vianca had once boasted to her about the dangerous empire under her command, yet she was assigning a mere schoolgirl to perform an assassin’s work.