Ace of Shades_The Shadow Game Series Read online

  Welcome to the City of Sin, where casino families reign, gangs infest the streets...and secrets hide in every shadow

  Enne Salta was raised as a proper young lady, and no lady would willingly visit New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin. But when her mother goes missing, Enne must leave her finishing school—and her reputation—behind to follow her mother’s trail to the city where no one survives uncorrupted.

  Frightened and alone, Enne has only one lead: the name Levi Glaisyer. Unfortunately, Levi is not the gentleman she expected—he’s a street lord and con man. Levi is also only one payment away from cleaning up a rapidly unraveling investment scam, so he doesn’t have time to investigate a woman leading a dangerous double life. Enne’s offer of compensation, however, could be the solution to all his problems.

  Their search for clues leads them through glamorous casinos, illicit cabarets and into the clutches of a ruthless Mafia donna. As Enne unearths an impossible secret about her past, Levi’s enemies catch up to them, ensnaring him in a vicious execution game where the players always lose. To save him, Enne will need to surrender herself to the city...

  And she’ll need to play.

  Praise for Amanda Foody

  and Daughter of the Burning City

  “Wow! A dark and dangerous tale, a world like no other, and heroism of the weirdest kind!”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Tamora Pierce

  “Gomorrah makes for a fantastic, magical setting, a seedy mix of titillation and sin... Readers who enjoyed their whirl in Garber’s Caraval will want to get in line for entry to Gomorrah.”

  —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

  “Amanda Foody’s stunning debut is full of velvety language, intricate worldbuilding, and a story that treads the fine line of horror and fantasy. This is the kind of read that makes your spine shiver, and your heart beat faster.”

  —Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Star-Touched Queen

  “The world...is astoundingly vivid and complex, the smells, sounds and sights of the smoldering city/traveling carnival near tangible. Amanda Foody’s deliciously dark and magical whodunit has world-building so rich, the reader (like visitors to Gomorrah) is likely to leave with a hangover.”

  —Shelf Awareness

  “Utterly original. Amanda Foody has a wicked imagination. If you enjoy your fantasy on the darker side, then you will love Gomorrah!”

  —Stephanie Garber, New York Times bestselling author of Caraval

  “Foody’s colorful setting is vast—filled with magic, political intrigue, and the potential to grow.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “I love the vivid, sumptuous world Amanda Foody has created: Sorina’s magic, her illusionary family and the Gomorrah Festival make for a wildly inventive mystery I won’t soon forget.”

  —Virginia Boecker, author of The Witch Hunter series

  Books by Amanda Foody

  available from Harlequin TEEN

  Daughter of the Burning City

  Amanda Foody

  Ace of Shades

  To Mom-Mom.

  Contents

  DAY ONE

  ENNE

  LEVI

  LEVI

  ENNE

  ENNE

  LEVI

  ENNE

  ENNE

  DAY TWO

  LEVI

  ENNE

  LEVI

  ENNE

  DAY THREE

  LEVI

  ENNE

  DAY FOUR

  LEVI

  ENNE

  DAY FIVE

  ENNE

  DAY SIX

  LEVI

  ENNE

  LEVI

  DAY SEVEN

  ENNE

  DAY EIGHT

  ENNE

  LEVI

  DAY NINE

  ENNE

  LEVI

  LEVI

  ENNE

  LEVI

  ENNE

  DAY TEN

  ENNE

  LEVI

  ENNE

  LEVI

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  EXCERPT FROM DAUGHTER OF THE BURNING CITY BY AMANDA FOODY

  DAY ONE

  “To be frank, reader, you’d be better off not visiting the city at all.”

  —The City of Sin, a Guidebook: Where To Go and Where Not To

  ENNE

  If I’m not home in two months, I’m dead.

  Her mother’s warning haunted her as Enne Salta lugged her leather trunk down the bridge leading off the ship, filling her with an inescapable sense of dread.

  If I’m not home in two months, I’m dead.

  It’d been four.

  For the first time in fifteen days, Enne stepped onto dry land. Her balance veered from side to side as if she expected the gray cobblestones to tilt like the sea, and she white-knuckled the pier’s railing to compose herself. If the ground weren’t so littered with cigar butts and grime, she might’ve kissed it. Two weeks battling seasickness on a floating monstrosity could do that to a lady.

  A woman shoved past her, not noticing Enne’s petite frame. The force of it nearly knocked Enne over. She glared at the woman’s ostentatiously feathered hat as it disappeared into the crowds.

  Hmph, she thought. A lady shouldn’t rush. Barely five seconds in the so-called City of Sin and already people were rude.

  As more passengers disembarked from the ship, the crowds around the customs tables swelled with hundreds of people, hollering and waving passports and jostling each other in an effort to reach the front of the lines. Most were young men, probably visiting New Reynes to sample its famous casinos and nightlife—but the number of families present surprised her. This city was no place for children.

  And, she reminded herself, staring up at the sinister, smog-stained sky, it was no place for her, either.

  As Enne joined the queues, she dug through her belongings for her tourist documents. Her purse was stuffed: her passport, a handful of gingersnap cookies leftover from last night’s dinner and a copy of The City of Sin, a Guidebook: Where To Go and Where Not To. As she fished out her papers, something fell and clinked when it hit the ground. Her token.

  She scooped it up and clutched it to her chest. Her mother, Lourdes, had given her this token. It was two inches long and gilded, with an old Faith symbol of an eye etched on one side and a cameo of a past queen on the other. The Mizer kings had used these tokens as party invitations. It was probably illegal to own it—any remnants from before the Revolution twenty-five years ago had been destroyed, just like the Mizers themselves. But Enne couldn’t bring herself to throw away something so rare and precious. She tucked it safely back into her pocket.

  With nothing to do but wait, Enne pulled out her guidebook and compared its cover to the city in front of her. The photograph of Luckluster Casino matched the stories of New Reynes: red lights that flashed without flame, women of loose morals dancing on street corners in sparkling, skin-tight corsets, gambling den owners beckoning passersby with seedy smiles and the allure of fast fortune.

  But neither the stories nor the cover bore any resemblance to the city before her. From what she could see, New Reynes was a wasteland of metal and white stone. The factories in the distance glinted as if coated in liquid steel, and the clouds were so black she swore the rain would fall dark as coal.

  Panic
seized her as she examined the skyline—white and jagged as teeth.

  All you know are stories, Enne told herself. And not all stories are true.

  “Next!” called the man at the customs table, and Enne hurried to his desk. He snatched the papers from her hands. “Erienne Abacus Salta.”

  She cringed at the sound of her full name. No one called her that but her teachers.

  The man wore round spectacles rimmed in faux gold, making his eyes appear magnified as they traveled from her face and slithered down her body. “A Salta, eh? Then you’re a dancer.” By the way he said “dancer,” drawing out the s sound and licking his lips, Enne knew he wasn’t picturing her ballet at finishing school.

  Her cheeks reddened. City of Sin, indeed. She was not that kind of dancer. She. Was. A. Lady.

  He glanced back at her paperwork. “From Bellamy. Seventeen years old. You know, you hardly look seventeen.”

  She flushed deeper and counted backward from ten, lest she say something indecent and break one of Lourdes’s sacred rules.

  Ladies should never reveal their emotions. That was the first rule.

  The man checked the birth date on her passport, shrugged and returned to her travel documents. “Blood talent is dancing, of course. What is the Abacus family talent?”

  “Arithmetic,” she answered. Every person possessed two talents, one inherited from each parent. The stronger one was known as the blood talent, and the weaker was called the split talent. Enne’s Abacus split talent was so weak it might as well have been nonexistent, as if all her ability had gone to pliés and pirouettes rather than to simple math.

  The man scribbled her talents and family names into a grease-stained booklet. “How long is your stay?”

  “The summer,” Enne said, trying to make her voice sound strong. School began again in September, and this was Enne’s final year before graduation, before her debut into society. All her life she had perfected her fouettés, memorized her table settings and obsessed over every salon invitation...all to graduate and earn the title of lady. She wanted it more than she wanted anything. It was all she’d cared about...

  Until Lourdes went missing.

  No matter how scared or how alone she felt, Enne swore to remain in this disgusting city until she found her mother. For however long it took. But secretly, selfishly, she hoped she’d find Lourdes before September. Without her debut, she wasn’t sure who she was supposed to become.

  The man tapped his ballpoint pen at the bottom of the document. “Sign your name here. If you can’t write, just put an X. And if you can read, go ’head and verify everything.”

  The document was a horror of fine print. At the top of the page was a check box for those with Talents of Mysteries. During the reigns of the Mizers, the various kingdoms had required every citizen to be classified into one of two categories based on their talents: Talents of Aptitude and Talents of Mysteries. Both Enne’s blood and split talent were considered Talents of Aptitude; anyone could develop a skill in dancing or arithmetic, even if they would never compare to those born with a family talent.

  Talents of Mysteries, however, couldn’t be learned. Crudely put, they were magic—and even the Mizer kings, who’d had powerful Talents of Mysteries of their own, had considered them to be a threat. Before the Revolution, there had been harsh restrictions on where people could live and who they could marry based on their talents. It was one of the many reasons the Mizers were overthrown. And so Enne was shocked to find such a classification in an official document in New Reynes, the Republic’s capital, the home of the Revolution. It was archaic. Distasteful.

  She signed her name in her best calligraphic script, ready to move on.

  With a dreadful thud, the man pounded her passport with a wooden stamp bearing the Republic’s insignia, a circle with a bolt of lightning inside, meant to resemble an orb full of volts. The signature of Chancellor Malcolm Semper—the “Father of the Revolution,” and still the Republic’s leader twenty-five years later—was engraved over it.

  Handing her the papers, the customs man said, “Enjoy New Reynes.”

  As if she could enjoy herself when her mother was lost in this rotten city.

  Enne shoved her way out of the crowd and stared blankly at the vast New Reynes skyline. At the unfamiliar fashions of the people around her. At the bleakness of the city’s polluted sky. She had no idea where to begin. As she crossed the street, the people waiting to be reunited with their families looked straight through her, as though she didn’t exist.

  On her tiptoes, Enne scanned the crowd for Lourdes, for her pale blond hair or signature crimson scarf. She was nowhere.

  With the passing of each day beyond Lourdes’s deadline, Enne had begun to crack. As weeks lapsed, then months, the cracks had deepened and spread. Now, as she held her breath and desperately searched the faces of the strangers around her, she felt that she was more broken than not. One exhale, one sob, and all her pieces would shatter.

  Lourdes is alive, she assured herself, just as she had done every day for months. The repetition of the words steadied her more than the words themselves.

  Lourdes was alive. She was in this city. And Enne would find her.

  She repeated the mantra several times, like twisting the key in a porcelain doll, winding herself back together.

  Never allow yourself to be lost, Enne recited in her head. That was Lourdes’s second rule.

  But she wasn’t lost. She was terrified, and that was worse to admit.

  She was terrified that—no matter how many times she recited Lourdes’s rules, or how many times she wound herself back together—she’d made a dangerous mistake in thinking she could brave the City of Sin. If the stories were true, she was a schoolgirl who had just wandered into the city of the wolves.

  She was terrified that Lourdes was dead, just as she had warned.

  Lastly, she was terrified of finding her. For all of Enne’s life, it had been only her and Lourdes and no one else. Lourdes was her home, but that home had many locked doors. Her mother had rooms full of secrets Enne had been forbidden to see, secrets Enne had pretended didn’t exist.

  Once she found Lourdes, it was past time Enne opened those doors.

  Hands shaking, Enne pulled Where To Go and Where Not To from her pocket and turned the pages to the city map. The Brint River split New Reynes into two halves: the North and the South. She was currently in the harbor, the smallest district of the notorious North Side.

  If a storm were to further delay my return or another unforeseen circumstance occurs, you can speak to Mr. Levi Glaisyer, a friend of mine who lives in New Reynes. He will be glad to help you.

  That was from the mysterious letter Lourdes had sent Enne a month after she had left home. Enne had never heard of this Mr. Levi Glaisyer, nor had she the least idea how to find him. On the map, she scanned the various neighborhoods of the much more refined South Side: the Senate District, the Park District, the Student District...he could live anywhere.

  Two police officers slumped against the wall of a warehouse, talking to a boy roughly Enne’s age. The officers wore tarnished white boots and jackets buttoned from hips to throat, the threads frayed, the pits stained, the collars scuffed.

  The boy speaking to them had a harsh face, like someone had carved his features with a razor so that they sharpened as he scowled. His shoulder bones, hip bones and wrist bones all jutted out uncomfortably, stretching his skin taut, and he wore an oversize collared shirt that only extenuated his gaunt frame. His brown hair was wildly disheveled.

  While the officers’ uncleanliness was off-putting, the authorities were probably a good place to start her search. Enne pocketed her guidebook and approached.

  “Show us your hands,” the first officer ordered the boy. He was tall with teeth like a shark—one of them gold.

  The boy held up his palms. “Happy? No scars.”
<
br />   “How about rolling up your sleeves, then?” Shark asked slyly. The second officer nodded, a cigar dangling from his mouth. Enne fought the urge to cover her nose. The stench of it.

  The boy reached for his sleeves, then stopped. Although Enne had little notion what they were discussing, she could sense the tension in their words. The boy seemed to be in some kind of trouble.

  “What?” Shark said, an ugly smile playing at his lips. “Got tattoos you don’t want us to see?”

  Enne jumped forward at the boy’s hesitation, both to save him from whatever unpleasant conversation was unfolding, and because she didn’t have the time to wait. Who knew how long it would take her to find Lourdes?

  “Excuse me,” Enne interrupted. She flashed her best, practiced smile. All three of them ran their eyes over her plainly tailored suit and high-necked blouse. Amid the flashier haute couture of the women around her, she knew she stuck out as a tourist.

  Enne cleared her throat nervously. “I’m looking for someone. I was hoping you’d be kind enough to assist me.”

  “Sure, missy,” Shark said as he elbowed Cigar suggestively. “We’d be glad to help ya. But we have to deal with him, first.”

  “You can’t arrest me,” the boy growled. “I ain’t done anything.”

  “Then show us your arms and prove you’re not an Iron.”

  The boy didn’t move, only glared at the officers.

  “Please,” Enne interrupted again. “I’m looking for a woman named Lourdes Alfero. She’s been missing since February.” Enne drew the letter from Lourdes out of her pocket and unfolded it. “She gave me the name of a Mr. Levi Glais—”

  “Alfero?” Shark repeated. “Why you lookin’ for her?” He shoved the boy aside and advanced on Enne. He was two heads taller than her, and twice as wide. Enne was swallowed beneath his shadow.

  “Um...” Enne stammered, the words dying on her tongue.

  The other man dropped his cigar and ground it into the dirt with his heel. “There’s probably a mistake. Ain’t that right, missy?” Enne glanced toward the boy, but he’d taken advantage of the distraction she’d provided and fled.