“Your silver jewelry, your ridiculous palace... You’re trying to write yourself a legend, but you forget—all stories from the North Side are penned in blood.”
“Not mine,” Levi ground out.
She tilted her head to the side and gave him a pitiful look. “Maybe you’re just too good for all of this.”
Levi grew up in a family whose power had been forcibly removed from them. He’d listened, enraptured, to the stories of the North Side gangsters, people who’d come from nothing but seized power all the same. When he thought of those legends, of the Phoenix Club, of the sort of people who held power in this world, it sickened him to realize that the only path to it was a wicked conscience. He didn’t pretend to be a saint, but he’d foolishly hoped that he could change the repeated theme of all the stories. He’d thought his story could be different.
Maybe it wasn’t that the wicked always gained power—maybe power itself corrupted. Maybe Levi had spent so long calling himself a victim that he hadn’t noticed that he’d become a villain.
Maybe you’re too good for all this, Tock had said. So had Narinder, and Reymond before him.
Levi spat out what remained of the vomit in his mouth. “Not anymore.”
ENNE
Three girls walked down Guillory Street wearing pearls, frocked jackets, and impeccable plumberry lipstick. Their hair was tucked into dainty feathered hats, showing off slender necks and feminine collarbones. They clutched pastries and ruffled purses in delicate, white-gloved hands. Nearly everyone tipped their hats or smiled at them as they passed. They looked like a photo shoot fromThe Guillory Street Gossipwaiting to happen, an exclusive clique the South Side didn’t know, but felt they ought to.
Never might they have expected the ladies to be gangsters.
According to Enne’s guidebook, Guillory Street was the social center of the South Side. Like the buildings, the cobblestoned streets were white, barely besmirched by the wheels of motorcars or the soles of brogued oxfords and kitten heels. Twinkling string lights crisscrossed overhead, illuminating shopfronts selling such luxuries as imported chocolate, fine jewelry, and overpriced real estate. The gardens were blooming and well-manicured. The street performers on clarinets and violins were Von Ballard–trained. The passersby carried colorful shopping parcels and smelled of high-end cologne.
“What a muckhole,” Lola muttered under her breath. An elderly woman who passed shot Lola a horrified look.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Enne told her. This was easily the nicest place in New Reynes she’d ever visited, one that came with glowing recommendations from her guidebook. She itched to tour some of the sights—the famous Kipling’s department store, the boutique cupcake shop, the opera hall. But they had come for one reason today: an afternoon salon that Worner Prescott was attending.
It had been two weeks since she’d last seen Levi. Their plans for the stock market were entirely stalled until Levi fulfilled his reckless promise to the other lords. She was depending on him, had no idea what was going on, and he hadn’t even bothered to contact her.
That stung worse than she cared to admit.
With their volts nearly gone, all three of the girls were irritated and hungry. And their clothes, though beautiful, were stolen from expensive Tropps Street boutiques and the laundry at St. Morse Casino.
Enne took a deep breath of the sweet-smelling South Side air, as though it could cleanse her bitterness from the inside out. She might’ve felt betrayed, petty, and mildly faint from a lack of sugar, but that was nothing a box of rose macarons and the scream of a whizzing bullet couldn’t fix.
“This is it,” Lola said, looking up from the guidebook.
The condominium complex was painted peony pink, and a flower box of lilies perched on every windowsill. The girls stepped through the revolving doors and into a pristine lobby, and Enne slid her invitation to a nearby attendant.
“My friends and I are here for the salon,” she told him. He looked at her lace and pearls and smiled pleasantly.
“Right this way.”
After a short elevator ride, the three girls stepped into a cheerful common room, crowded with people in seersucker and satin. Pastries were stacked into towers, teacups rested on end tables, and crowds gathered to discuss the recent editorials and columns inThe Gossip.
“Oh, sweet muck,” Lola muttered, her expression growing ever more horrified.
Across the room, Enne locked eyes with Vianca Augustine. Vianca beckoned with her bony finger, and Enne felt the terrible, familiar squeeze of the omerta around her throat.
“I’ll be right back,” Enne told the other girls hoarsely. “Introduce yourselves.” The two of them shot her alarmed looks as she pushed through the party to Vianca’s side.
“Get up,” Vianca snapped at the scrawny man beside her. He paled and jumped to his feet, gesturing for Enne to sit.
Once Enne did, Vianca clamped a hand around her arm and leaned toward her. Enne cringed. “I see you’ve brought your associates with you,” she whispered. “You dressed them up well. They both look like little dolls.”
Vianca was probably the only person in New Reynes who would ever feel comfortable describing Lola and Grace like that. “I can’t be everywhere at once,” Enne answered. “And I trust them.” That was the truth. Even if Enne hadn’t yet won Grace’s oath, she’d earned her respect. And while Enne might’ve softened the edges of her friends, she’d also sharpened her own.
“Is Worner Prescott here?” Enne asked.
Vianca nodded to a man across the room. He was short and fair, with shoulders made broader by thick pads and balding hair half-concealed beneath a top hat. He had the sort of face you could pass in the street unnoticed, even if you knew him.
