Levi’s skin went clammy. This was no celebration—this was a threat.
“Cheers, Pup.” Sedric clinked Levi’s glass before taking a swig. “So where are my promised returns?”
Levi swallowed. “They’re coming.”
Sedric leaned closer. He had a sickly sweet smell to him, like toffee. “I’m not a thickhead, you know,” Sedric said. “Just tell me what you’vereallybeen doing this whole time.”
He suspects, Levi thought with panic.Or he knows. And he’s forcing me to lie.
The truth meant death.
“You’ll get the volts soon,” Levi rasped, shifting away from him.
Sedric laughed, then adjusted his suit jacket. A silver knife gleamed from an inside pocket, a ruby winking at Levi from its hilt. Only a Torren would carry a weapon that flashy.
Levi reminded himself that he couldn’t look vulnerable. He searched around the Tropps Room for some of Sedric’s cronies, and sure enough, he spotted several men lurking near the door in crisp suits with black-and-red-striped ties—Luckluster colors. He fought to maintain his poker face. He was surrounded.
“You gonna kill me in St. Morse?” Levi dared, mustering up the appearance of confidence. “Doesn’t seem you’d get your volts back, then. And Vianca would never forgive you.”
“I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to warn you.” But despite his words, Sedric removed the knife from his jacket. With only an arm’s length of space between them, it would take Sedric only a heartbeat to stab the knife through Levi’s neck.
Any rational man would run, but Levi was frozen. Maybe that was a good thing. It made him appear bold, even when he was terrified.
Sedric ran his finger along the blade, then inspected the red droplet on his fingertip, as if assuring Levi the knife was sharp. He licked away the blood. The sight of it made Levi shudder.
“Whatever scheme you’ve been running,” Sedric murmured, “it’s over. Maybe you will be, too.”
Sedric flipped over the top card on the deck.
“Ten of hearts. You got lucky, Pup. We’ll give you ten days. With reminders.” He stood, slid his knife back into its sheath and drained the rest of his glass. “A present from my family.” He tossed a silver card face down in front of Levi. Sedric whistled and walked to a different table.
Levi’s heart hammered, both from Sedric’s threat and the gift he left behind. He recognized the card instantly—its metallic back was signature to the Shadow Game, the rumored execution game of the Phoenix Club. It was a North Side legend, as notorious as the Great Street War or the original lords. To Levi, it was an object plucked out from a story, from a nightmare.
It can’t be real, Levi thought, hoped. But even his cynicism couldn’t rationalize away the card’s plain existence right in front of him.
The tales claimed the cards had magical properties once you touched them. Even though Levi didn’t believe in those shatz superstitions like Jac did, he flipped it over with a morbid curiosity, seeking some assurance that the legends weren’t true.
The moment he touched it, the lights of the Tropps Room faded, and silence pierced through the music.
* * *
Levi stared down a long hallway that stretched endlessly in both directions. The impressively tall doors alternated black and white, each parallel to the other. The walls and ceiling were marble, clean enough to glint off the hallway’s collection of mirrors and crystal. The floor was tiled in black and white, as well. Like a chessboard.
Vaguely, he got the sense he was dreaming. But if he was, he couldn’t seem to wake up.
He reached for a black door, but it was locked. He tried the white one next to it, and it clicked open. The air that rushed past felt like a sigh against his skin.
Once he crossed the threshold, he found himself dressed in a smart suit, far nicer than his St. Morse uniform. The mud squished beneath his oxfords, and it smelled of earth. He was in a graveyard. The sky was gray, as the sky in New Reynes tended to be. The City of Sin followed him wherever he went, even in his dreams.
Levi moved to return to the hallway—graveyards unnerved him, as cliché as that was—and tripped over one of the headstones. It was painted metallic silver.
Levi Canes Glaisyer, it read.
Levi scampered to his feet and backed around it. On its other side was a face: the Fool, one of the Shadow Cards, the invitation to the Shadow Game. The bells on the Fool’s hat chimed, high-pitched and eerie in the silent graveyard. The diamonds and triangles painted on his face spun like pinwheels, and he strutted toward the cliff in front of him. Levi reflexively took a step back, as though he could also fall.
The Fool laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed.
It’s not real, Levi assured himself.It’s only a nightmare.
