“If he can’t take care of himself, what use would the Queen have for him?” Moran gave me a low sweeping bow, stepped backward into the revolving door, and was lost to sight.
Levi had to prove himself.
There was nothing I could do to help Levi with his immediate situation. Losing the armor and the dagger, I stepped through the revolving door, bracing myself to be overwhelmed by a deafening, nauseating magic.
But I wasn’t.
Still eternal night, the sticky quality of the air was gone. The magic was a cool mist. I started, double checking I was in the correct place, but as always with this entrance, I’d come through to the tiny plaza with the weed-choked fountain. I’d always found Hedon’s magic repulsive, yet the foundational magic that had been a blaring dissonance making my skin crawl had changed into a vanilla bean–scented kiss.
Hedon had been broken, but its last remaining Architect had fixed it beautifully. It could no longer be expanded, but it was also no longer in danger of blowing apart at the seams.
Following one of the crooked cobblestone streets into the business district, I stopped at the kiosk with the electric blue ramen bowl floating above it. A bald man whistling a jaunty tune rolled out handmade noodles on a large board. I asked for directions to the cocktail bar with the Queen of Hearts’ logo and he sent me to a street three blocks over where the Green Olive was located.
This area was a trippy cross between Blade Runner and a renaissance fair, all bathed in the glow of dozens of magic signs that hung in the sky brighter than any neon. Women in velvet gowns sung choral harmonies to entice buyers to their stall, which sold deadly-looking wind-up toys made of metal and spite.
Another stall was shrouded in smoke, with only a steampunk cat mask visible through the swirl of fog. A paw extended wearing an intricate ring made up of dozens of tiny gold and silver gears.
“Poison to settle your debts?” a voice purred. “It’s thought-activated.”
The gears lifted off the band and flew together, transforming into a black pointed barb.
“Handy, but not what I’m in the market for,” I said.
“Another time.” The barb fell back into the gold and silver gears adorning the ring and the paw retreated into the mist.
I hurried around a corner into an outdoor covered market. There were no walls, but fluted columns soared up to a glass ceiling. One stall showcased pyramids of spices in jewel tones that promised both enhanced flavor and useful benefits like paralysis and death. Another featured rows and rows of eyeballs. The proprietor lifted her eye patch to pop an eyeball in. With each blink, she enthusiastically described all the various modes: night vision, X-ray vision, and—she glared at a rat scurrying by, which dropped dead on the spot—looks that killed.
I declined her promotional offer of twenty percent off my first eyeball.
The rows grew narrower as I made my way to the back. This area was mostly given over to restaurants, a cacophony of smells from garlic, seafood, and baked goods to something acrid that made my eyes water. Clanging cookware assaulted my senses.
There was only one non-food stall here. Liquids in a rainbow of colors were housed in glass bottles, some delicately wrought, others heavy enough to bash someone’s skull in without any damage to the glass. Alongside them were unguents in cracked clay pots and shining tins, their lids open to display the goods.
For a perfume stall, there should have been a riot of scents but I could smell nothing over the food.
A woman with pale gold eyes stepped out of the stall, offering to sell me a rose-red perfume that she promised would induce love. Refusing, I tried to zigzag sideways to the exit, but I was blocked by a kiosk rolled directly into my path.
“How about this?” She followed me, holding up a gorgeous bottle with art deco flourishes and a fat, tasseled perfume pump. Inside, a midnight-blue liquid swirled.
“No, thanks.” To avoid her, I jogged diagonally to my left, accidentally knocking aside a plump man whose arms overflowed with prickly scarlet plants that looked otherworldly.
“It’s an experience like no other.” The woman with the bottle followed me.
I tried to speed up but my passage through the press of shoppers and chaos of deliveries was impossibly slow and I stopped in frustration.
There was a furtive waving from my right. Adam, or the fake Hedon version I kept encountering, stood wedged between a raw foods bar—the food in question being eerily unidentifiable—and a place with rows of chicken feet hanging by the entrance. Wearing the battered black trench coat he’d been so fond of, Fake Adam motioned me over, but I shook my head.
The Green Olive and its answers about Mayan awaited. I had no time for gameplaying with Reasonable Facsimile Dad.
Unfortunately, my hesitation allowed the woman to catch up to me. She sprayed a plume of perfume in my face. “Very good, yes?”
It smelled cold and sharp, like being outside at 2AM and hearing a creak from behind. You know it’s nothing. It’s nothing. But it’s not nothing.
I plucked at my clothing, my eyes darting around the market. “What scent was that?”
She was gone.
Everyone was staring at me. Cold sweat beaded the back of my neck. I sought out Adam, because even the illusion of my father was better than the sneers of derision and voices pitched low.
I couldn’t find him. Sound and color spun distortedly. I clapped my hands over my ears, paralyzed. There was no way out.
A phalanx of the Queen’s Guard, in black tactical gear with mesh obscuring their faces, marched into the market. The Queen’s logo of a heart with a crown and specter was stitched on their upper arms. They stopped, their gazes homing in on me.
The Queen had sent them. Bringing Levi had forced her decision into whether I was her enemy or not.
My heart kicked against
