“I don’t do hugs,” she said flatly. “Just don’t die.”
“Words I’ll cherish forever.”
After Enne let him go, he grabbed the bags, exchanged goodbyes, and left. He found his driver waiting for him in the alley out back. Before climbing in the car, Jac took a deep gulp of air—his first full breath since he’d entered St. Morse Casino the night before. It didn’t matter how many gifts he received or how much protection he was given; he could never bring himself to think of Vianca Augustine as anything less than despicable.
“I’d like to make a detour,” Jac told the driver, and he gave him the address to his apartment.
Olde Town, much like the Casino District, was quiet and still. Jac peeked from behind his window screen at the streets they passed, at the barred windows and chipped paint. The sunlight came and went as they drove, disappearing behind spires and church towers and reappearing for fleeting moments in the too-narrow alleys.
Jac lived on a large residential street. His building was too old to have central heating or electricity, and on a day like this, he would shove his bed close to the window, drenched in sweat, and listen to his neighbors fighting down the hall while he waited for his shift to start. It wasn’t a great place, but it was far better than his last. There were no bad memories there.
Now, his entire block was cut off with bright yellow signs, informing Olde Town residents that Genever Street was a crime scene. The car came to a slow halt, and Jac stared at the whiteboots standing outside his front steps, speaking to a neighbor of his whom he only dimly recognized. They held wanted posters in their hands.
Have you seen this man before?they probably asked.
Jac fiddled with his necklace. It was a Creed, a symbol of the old Faith. Jac was more superstitious than he was reverent, but it was nice, now and again, to pray for something.
When a priest had first taught Jac to pray, he told him the prayers of a sinful conscience would go unanswered. Jac thought of the volts he’d helped Levi scam—both from the rich and from the Irons. He thought of the wounds he’d left on Chez Phillips to save Levi’s life. He thought of his own anger and resentment and desires, and the ashes left in the bottom of Enne’s teacup.
He tried very hard to feel sorry.
But as he stared at those yellow signs, at what all of this had led up to, he knew he wouldn’t pray for forgiveness. They could all pray for forgiveness when they escaped to a place far, far away from here, where there were no bounties on their heads, where no one knew their faces at all. A place he doubted Levi would ever willingly go.
Or they could pray for forgiveness when they all hanged. That seemed a more likely scenario.
But because Jac Mardlin was an unrepentant sinner who didn’t want to die, all he had left to pray for was mercy.
LEVI
Levi hadn’t forgiven Zula Slyk. Three days ago, he and Enne had arrived atHer Forgotten Histories, Zula’s monarchist newspaper, grasping at their last threads of hope and searching for answers about Lourdes Alfero. Bad news hurt no matter how gently you dealt it, but Zula had crafted knives out of her words, designed to bleed and infect and scar.
And all for what? For Enne to flee to the safety of her old life in Bellamy? She bore Vianca’s omerta. She was a prisoner of the City of Sin, just like him.
As he stepped intoHer Forgotten Historiesand found Zula sitting at her desk, he glared at the journalist’s serious, unfriendly face and decided he hated her.
“Your shades are darker since you were last here,” Zula said as a form of greeting—though Levi still had no idea what that meant. She had short, curly hair, fair skin, and wore far too much jewelry—most notably a large wooden Creed that hung down past her navel. The black tattoos of eyes over her eyelids sent a shiver down Levi’s spine. “You’ve killed.”
He felt no guilt over killing Chancellor Semper, just as Semper had undoubtedly felt no guilt over almost killing him.
“I’ve survived,” Levi said darkly.
She glanced over him. “Barely, by the looks of you.”
Her Forgotten Historiesresembled a typical office, filled with unoccupied desks, an old printing press, and a gnarled gray carpet. It looked like it belonged on the South Side, where middle-aged men carrying briefcases and toiling over paperwork could earn the wages they’d later gamble away on Tropps Street. But unlike those places, bits of Faith merchandise were tucked discreetly around the room—ancient etchings in wind chimes, paintings with Creeds hidden in their background, prayer tokens scattered on countertops. Those would never be spotted below the Brint River; the Faith reminded the wigheads too much of the Mizer kings, who had used the Faith’s lore to gain more political power for themselves. It was technically banned after the Revolution.
“Vianca didn’t give me much of a choice in letting you stay here,” Zula huffed. “I don’t want any trouble. Not from the whiteboots. Not from that gang of yours.”
“There won’t be trouble. I’m an excellent houseguest.”
Zulahmphed like she didn’t believe him, then stood up and slid aside the carpet to reveal a trapdoor. “You’ll be down there.”
As she pulled it open and ushered Levi down the wooden steps, excitement stirred in his stomach. He was a person of interest now. Living a life of whispers and mystery, raising empires out of shadows. Now that he wasn’t bemoaning his future, he could see the glamor in his situation.
Until he smelled the sewage.
Zula pulled the string on a dangling light bulb, illuminating an unfinished cellar filled with dusty, forbidden books; a cot; and, in the corner, a sink and a toilet. The stench wafted from behind a door that Levi guessed led to the sewers—probably to serve as a less conspicuous exit.
It took all Levi had not to retch. Even hooch kept down here would sour.
