King Of Fools. Amanda Foody

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,