But the war would continue on, and with Bryce and Ivory now their enemies, the North Side would turn bloodier than ever before.
“I mucked up,” Levi choked out. “This was all my plan.” He took a shaky breath and held his fist to his mouth. He knew Tock too well to be ashamed, but still, he looked away as his chest heaved. “I can’t believe...”
“This isn’t on you,” Tock told him. “We all agreed. You couldn’t have known—”
“I should’ve known!” There was so much that Levi had ignored. The legends of New Reynes weren’t dreams to aspire to—they were nightmares. He’d adopted what he wanted from those stories and abandoned the pieces that didn’t suit his own ambitions. All this time, he’d tried to convince himself that he was different from the other lords—different means, different ends. But the past few months had proven him to be just as cruel, just as selfish.
He had chosen this story for himself, knowing all of these stories ended the same way.
Lola stepped away from Enne. “Where’s Jac? I thought he’d be with you. He went inside St. Morse right before the doors locked.” She fiddled with her watch.
Levi’s gaze flickered to Enne’s. He didn’t recognize his own voice as he snapped, “Why don’t you tell them?”
Something passed over Enne’s face, something Levi suspected to be hurt. But as Enne danced around her story, from Vianca’s orders to every moment that led to the hallway, to the puddle of blood, Levi couldn’t listen anymore. It all sounded like an excuse.
“He’s dead,” he interrupted. “He’s dead. And it’s Vianca’s fault.”
But it was also his.
A horrified silence fell over the group—Lola, Levi noticed, looked particularly stricken. But as he turned away and walked back to the museum alone, an insidious thought crept into his mind.
If Vianca hadn’t explicitly told Enne to kill Jac, then where, exactly, did Enne get the idea?
* * *
A few hours later, with many still to pass until sunrise, seven people gathered around a radio. A bottle of whiskey rested on the table, half drunk and abandoned. It was one of the museum’s common rooms, but everyone else had gone to bed, leaving it quiet and empty.
“What happened tonight was a tragedy unlike anything this city has seen in a generation,” Chancellor Fenice spoke through the radio. She had an eerily flat voice, just as Levi remembered from the House of Shadows. “With over one hundred confirmed casualties, it’s become starkly clear that this wasn’t only an attack on the event at St. Morse Casino, but on our entire democracy. The monarchist agenda has spread like a disease throughout the North Side. Our chief concern has always been the safety of our citizens, but the displays of talents tonight prove the threat that unregistered Talents of Mysteries pose. And the gangs of the North Side provide refuge for the most dangerous who hide among us.”
Levi leaned back in his seat and rubbed his temples. He struggled to keep his eyes open, but all night the radio had released statements regarding what had happened tonight at St. Morse. This had been his plan, and so he needed to hear the consequences.
“Bryce is exactly the excuse they’ve always needed,” Lola said from beside him. She’d been flipping expertly between the radio stations all night. “By next week, not a single church in New Reynes will be left standing.”
Grace groaned from the couch, where she was spread out with her feet shoved awkwardly into the side of some young man Levi didn’t recognize, someone the Spirits called Roy. These past few hours, he’d said very little, but he sat rigidly beside her, watching everyone with narrowed eyes.
“They won’t make any decisions tonight,” Grace said. “It’s too soon. There’s no point waiting up for—”
Lola ignored her and turned the radio up louder. Tock, who’d been sleeping on her shoulder, startled awake for a moment, looked wearily around the room, and fell back asleep.
“The eyewitness accounts have been erratic and unreliable,” the Chancellor continued. “But it is our understanding that the death of Worner Prescott can be attributed to Jonas Maccabees, also known as Scavenger. He is a twenty-nine-year-old male running the largest gang of the North Side, called the Scarhands. He has been taken into custody and awaits execution in the morning. Until—”
“We have to save him,” Enne said seriously. She sat at the last seat at the table, her hands knotted together, her eyes bloodshot from crying and from wearing her contacts for so long. Every so often, she reached forward to touch him, but then she wrenched back—wise enough to think better of it.
“We can’t save him,” Levi told her coolly. “He’s going to be killed in less than six hours.” And Levi was done coming up with plans. Saving Jonas wouldn’t save the rest of them.
“He’s our ally,” she pushed.
“Our allies are limited to the people in this room,” he said. He’d made the mistake of trusting the wrong people before, and he wouldn’t do it again.
“But we need him if Bryce and Ivory—”
“You don’t even know if Ivory is still alive,” Tock pointed out groggily, her eyes still closed. “Levi did shoot her.”
Grace let out a muffled snort from the couch. “As if Pup could’ve killed her.”
Lola scowled and turned the radio up louder. At this volume, they would wake half the museum.
“—Captain Hector believes that all of the other deaths within St. Morse Casino, including Vianca Augustine, can be attributed to Bryce Balfour. The suspect is a twenty-three-year-old male—”
