༊*·˚ ━━━
❪ ACT ONE: SEVEN DEVILS ❫

chapter one:
THE ROUGH WORK

          WEDGED BETWEEN pleasure houses and would-be gambling houses that had long since fallen into disrepair, the Crow Club cut an imposing, albeit garish, figure.

          The black-and-red paint job that made it so easy to miss in the dark hours where smog from the factories drifts into East Stave would be damning if not for the shiny metallic crow hanging above the door, drawing pigeons and legitimate buyers alike inside. A few stragglers, out of money and drunk off their minds, swayed outside the doors, where a man as tall as the archway shooed them off grumpily.

          It wasn't a comforting place by nature or design, but Lev had always felt at home here. Unlike the Slat, which was more boarding house and base of operations than well-maintained façade, the Crow Club didn't try to hide the people who made their living inside of it, and it had only ever added to the intrigue. Lev preferred the wallpapered interior and whiskey-spotted bar to any of the other pleasure houses that made their homes on this street by far, if only because it was one of the only places here that didn't have half-bad acoustics.

          Lev straightened her floor-length dress again and finished pinning her hair up in a low bun at the nape of her neck. Fake jewels (she'd been told to say they came from Shu Han, but it was far more likely they were cheap plastic) adorned her hair and neck, and the too-tight dress the color of the pearls the Queen used to wear to state affairs made her feel as if she was suffocating. She'd managed to keep it from showing since she stepped through the side door this morning, but the strain of singing the same set of songs for eight straight hours was beginning to wear on her.

          She didn't usually take such large shifts, but this one had seemed easy. She'd needed to be at the Crow Club anyway for a separate job, and it was always nice to pick up some extra coin while she was at it.

          But she hadn't expected the singer for the next two shifts to bail, leaving her to pick up her slack. At the time, she hadn't thought it would be too difficult, but she cursed herself now for bringing her performing outfit with her in the first place. She should have known Per Haskell would put her to work the moment she walked inside.

          Pushing the final pin into place, Lev sat back and surveyed her work. Not as pretty as Zoya, but she'd make it work. Most of the men still waiting outside for the intermission to end wouldn't care either way — Ravka might be walking a thin line with its surrounding countries, but this was Kerch, and the men here had no such reservations.

          How lucky for her, then, that that particular group had come here tonight specifically for her.

          If she'd only had Jessika here to do her makeup, it might have looked cleaner, but as it was, she was short on time. If she could run over next door and ask her . . .

          "Quit sulking. You look fine," Anika said from her place at the door.

          Lev's eyes flicked up from the pallet in her hand to the girl at her shoulder. Anika's hair, a matted combination of mousy brown roots and bleached ends, clung to her forehead. Her usually bright ice-colored eyes were fraught with annoyance, betraying her true mood. Between her tall, stocky build, the black button-down vest and white undershirt most of the workers wore stretched tight over muscle, crossed arms, she looked a little like the Fjerdans whose country she'd left behind to come to Ketterdam years ago.

          "I am not sulking," Lev replied, irritated. "And I look better than fine. You can at least give me that."

          A few years ago, when Lev first took the job of singing at the club, no one had helped her organize things, and it had been her running the stage on her own.

          When one of the pigeons — too drunk to remember his own name and too trigger happy to care — burst into the makeup room during a break, yelling for an encore, security tightened up considerably. That night, as she was closing up, Anika had barged into the back room, demanding she let her do it, lest Kaz dock half of the pay she was getting from such a boring job.

          "You can go, you know. I didn't ask for you to be here," Lev had growled when Anika dropped the crate she was holding for the second time.

          For someone who looked so strong, her arms were disgustingly weak. The crate clattered to the floor, and for a moment they just looked at each other, eyes narrowed.

          Then Anika had grinned. "Maybe not, but the extra kruge did."

          Kruge was a language everyone understood, in Ketterdam. So that was that.

          These days, either Anika or Rotty stood guard by the door in case someone tried anything like that again. The irony of them protecting her, when Lev was the one who left the man with half his face burned off and a one-way ticket to an asylum, never ceased to make her smile.

          It wasn't so bad — Anika was companionable most days, and even if Rotty talked her ear off at least she wouldn't get bored. Over the years, she'd come to expect one or the other following her around the club the way the merchants expect profit to come. It was just there, day after day.

          Today, Anika's company was decidedly not pleasant. Though, to be fair, that could be attributed to the boy in the corner that neither of them had yet managed to crack. If Anika was annoyed with her, it was probably for a reason.

          Anika watched as Lev fastened one of the heavy jeweled earrings on without moving. "Sure you're not."

          Lev tucked one of the strands back from her face, distracted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

          Clearly fed up, Anika rolled her eyes. "Just because Jessika's not here doesn't mean you're not going to look good."

          This time Lev looked over her shoulder with a frown. "I know that. She just does a better job than I do."

          Anika leaned back against the wall, shutting her eyes. "Hm."

          "Anyway, we have a job to do. The makeup is the least of my problems."

          At that, she cracked an eye open. "We don't need him alive, you know. You'd save yourself a lot of trouble if you killed him instead."

          "I'd rather not. I have a reputation to uphold," Lev explained, picking up the other earring and dangling it in front of the mirror for her to see.

          Anika snorted. "I'm sure Ketterdam's Princess or whatever they're calling you these days can afford to let one guy go dark."

          "It's the principle of the thing. I miss this one, who's next? And Beauty of the Barrel is my personal favorite, just so you know."

          "Good to know you haven't let the attention go to your head," Anika muttered.

          "I heard that," Lev said darkly. "At any rate, this is my last set, so it won't matter soon. Ghezen, I need a drink."

          Anika sighed, looking up at the ceiling and then back at her. "You know I'm not allowed to leave until you do, right?" she needled as Lev tugged on the ridiculous heels Per Haskell enjoyed seeing her wear. Peacock blue and impossible to run in. Figures.

          "Yes, I know that," Lev countered, checking to make sure the knives strapped to her thighs were still in place. In the corner of the room, the 'he' in question audibly moaned, head lolling to the side. Blood seeped from his nose where Lev punched him an hour earlier. "He'll have plenty to say when I get back, don't worry. Then you can blabber about Kaz to Jessika all you want."

          "He better," Anika warned, ignoring that last part. "I don't need the Black Tips showing up here when they notice their knockoff Wraith got caught. Brekker would gut me and string my entrails over the door as holiday decorations."

          "I'm sure he would," Lev said coolly, relishing the way Anika's face went slack with unease before she pushed the door open and stepped out into the grimy yellow light.

          At the sight of her return to stage, the Crow Club erupted in cheers, a few of the men clambering against the tiny stage she'd been given like fish lapping at bread in the harbor, and Lev gave them a beatific smile.

          She wasn't sure when the singing began. Kaz had said she was good muscle at first, back when he was still gangly and cautious and had a bit of whatever the boys his age in Ravka had. He'd offered Lev a place in his gang that night — Per Haskell's, she corrected herself — and she'd never looked back.

          Per Haskell was content to let her hang around when he didn't know the extent of her powers, but once he found out, suddenly her staying in the Slat and helping Kaz with the odd job wasn't quite sufficient anymore. If she wants what we have, then she'd better be ready to be one of us, he'd told Kaz. That includes the pay.

          Once the debt started to rack up, Lev opened her mouth one night, drunk and dressed in nothing but a too-loose tunic and pants, and sang, and the entire Crow Club had turned to listen.

          That was the last miracle she'd been granted before the saints had abandoned her.

          Ketterdam, people failed to realize, was less the blooming scholarly tourist destination it fronted as and more of a weed-filled garden, digging deep into the coarse dirt and swallowing up the remaining plants. It had always been a den of worms, a murder of crows — not that anyone who hadn't spent more than a year here knew that.

          The pigeons that came from across the world's shores didn't seem to realize this, though, and every year, more and more of them arrived — seated on the steps of the University's grand library, wedged into the window seats at the waffle shops and fawning over the keychains and tokens (Fabrikator made, the signs all boasted) that Ketterdam's finest had created solely for the sake of continuing the ruse.

          When Kerch held its biannual inter-country meetings there, that was the Ketterdam that the ambassadors would see: college couples meandering around campus, quaint if not tacky gift shops, rolling fields and farms barely five miles outside the city. They'd preen under the Merchant Council's attention and if they exchanged secret words and illicit bargains behind closed doors, who would know? They'd all be gone in a week anyway.

          The true Ketterdam was the one that lay underneath — the one that Lev had spent the past five years trying to navigate. The greedy, beady-eyed beast that swallowed up the person she was before and spat out whoever she was now. The hole where anything good or kind went to die.

          But that was West Stave for you. In more ways than one, it was better than the Geldstraat.

          For the most part, Lev didn't mind being here; the Dregs, while a group of murderers and thieves, mostly left her alone, and in truth, Anika's constant presence was a nice change from the first few weeks she spent on her own, wandering the docks while she tried to figure out where to go from there.

          If anything, Lev preferred it — preferred the openly terrible way of life that most in Kerch lead, preferred the straightforward corruption of the Merchant Council, preferred the dark uniforms of the stadwatch to the darkness back home. Ketterdam might not boast the luxury and opulence of Os Alta, but at least it would never lie to her face about what went on there; it was no secret that the Crow Club was run by a gang or the waffle house a few roads down was being invested in by notoriously bloodthirsty mob boss Pekka Rollins.

          But on days like today — days where the grubby hands hoping to find purchase got to be too much, when the sound of the crowd clawing for her attention was overwhelming — Lev was reminded why it was she wanted to leave in the first place.

          One day.

          But first, she had a job to do.

          So, like she had for the past five years, and likely would for five more — before she escaped or the Barrel killed her, whichever came first — Lev leaned forward, adopting the smirk she'd stolen from someone else, and started to sing.

༊*·˚

          THE BACK ROOM had been a glorified storage closet when Lev first came to the Crow Club. Beyond the heavy, padded door, the ceiling-high piles of boxes and ridiculous costumes had covered every inch of the room, leaving just enough space for her to step inside and stare straight into cardboard. It had taken a month just to clear out the room, and beyond that, another two to transport her belongings and furniture inside.

          But it had proved worth it. Now, aside from the mirrors lining the door wall, there were patterned rugs and a large sofa she'd had upholstered with the same peacock blue velvet as her shoes. There was a floor-to-ceiling shelf filled to the brim with books in different languages — Ravkan, mostly, but some Kerch she'd nicked from the University library, and a handful of Fjerdan that Anika had been trying to teach her.

          Below the books lay a set of jewel-handled knives that Lev had never touched and the pair of fans she'd taken with her after leaving Ravka. They had been her graduating gift from Zoya, and were inlaid with expensive lace that she knew had cost Zoya a fortune. Unlike the sofa and shoes, they were pearly white, embroidered with an intricate design of flames that curled around the handles and tips. She hadn't used them in a fight in years, but it was comforting to know they were still there, like Zoya was still watching over her.

          A few of the costumes not hung on the rack were folded next to the weapons, but the rest of the shelf was bare. Lev didn't own much beyond that, and she wasn't stupid enough to hide her money here. She trusted the locks Kaz installed, just not the people she let in.

          The lamps on the table burned steadily, bathing the room in warmth. After five years, the room looked lived-in and comfortable, safe from the smell of smoke and alcohol wafting around outside.

          Except, of course, the boy currently bleeding out on her carpet. Lev's jaw ticked as another glob landed on the fabric and began to soak in.

          Lev watched another drop fall and silently began planning Anika's murder.

          "You didn't even think to wipe his face after he started leaking all over my floors?" she snarled, yanking a cloth from the desk and smearing it across his nose. It came away bright red.

          "Sorry," Anika said, wincing. "I got impatient."

          "Custom. Carpet, Anika," Lev reminded her. "Custom carpet. Do those words mean nothing to you?"

          Anika turned up her nose. "Saints, Princess, I get it already. I'll wash them for you."

          Lev didn't look up. "Damn right you will, or my lovely little friend Sem here won't be the only one bleeding all over Brekker's nice wood-washing job."

          Anika, thankfully, went silent.

          Lev dropped the cloth at her feet and leaned forward, looking the boy in the eyes. Sem Brouwer, 17. Born in Kerch, Fjerdan ancestry. Joined the Dregs four months ago. Had recorded meetings with one of the Black Tips' higher-ups, Elzinger, a month ago, right before he'd been promoted to bartending at the Crow Club.

          "Sem," Lev started, tipping up his chin, "can I call you Sem? Sem, you're probably wondering how we figured out that you're not quite who you've said you are. Would I be correct in making that assumption?"

          His head tilted forward, more blood leaking from his lips. After a moment, he nodded shakily.

          "Of course. You're a smart boy. Smart enough to know that the Black Tips are desperate to get inside information on the Dregs, and that Geels is willing to pay a hefty sum to send his low-pole scum over here to spy, ja?"

          "No-o," Sem whimpered.

          Lev nudged him. "Sem, denial isn't a good look on you. I need a real answer." When he clenched his jaw Lev sighed, cupped his cheek with one hand, and heard the symphony begin.

          For a moment, his eyes slid shut, body loosening a little. The warmth always felt good at first.

          Then his eyes widened and he started to struggle against his bindings, head swinging wildly. Lev held firm, hand locked in what could have been a lover's embrace, and allowed the strings to rise to a roar, tiny flames wreathing her hand. They danced across the reflection in his eyes.

          "Just tell me the truth," she cooed, and the heat quieted a little. The music in her head dwindled to a single set of strings. "This could all be a lot easier, don't you think?"

          "He — he'll kill me if I do," Sem gasped out, breath ragged.

          Lev flashed an enigmatic smile. "And you think I won't?"

          Fear finally flickered over his face, and Lev let the crescendo hit home.

          Sem screamed as skin began to blister and pop under her touch, face melting underneath the intensity of her power. The chair shook with the weight of his struggling, wooden ends battering the rug, and in a few sure strides Anika was across the room and holding him in place.

          Lev hummed the tune absently while she waited for him to stop begging and give in — it was a score she'd heard last month during a visit to Ketterdam's concert hall, featuring Ravkan horns and Shu strings. Beautiful, really. She'd had it stuck in her head ever since.

          "Okay, okay, I'll tell you!" he shrieked. "Please, just make it stop!"

          Lev removed her hand and the music died.

          Sem's head dropped, exhaustion rendering his neck useless, and Lev sank onto her haunches to get a better look at her handiwork: a swath of swelling red skin in the murky shape of a hand across his cheek, wavy with the effects of the flames, drooping down over his jaw like a curtain. Not bad, all things considered.

          "See, that wasn't so hard, now, was it?" she asked him.

          He probably would have answered had it not been for the still-cooling burn she'd left on his mouth — the steaming imprint of her thumb, making a slash all the way across. Lev thought of how he'd be unable to whine anymore and sighed happily.

          Lev lifted his chin with her manicured thumb. "You'd better get it out quick before those burns become infected. If you want to be able to talk after this you'll need someone to look at that."

          Tears streamed down Sem's cheeks. "He wanted — he wanted me to skim the tables," he managed. "Just enough to make sure he could. He wants to send in more of us to do it after — if he gets enough inside—"

          Sem cut off, crying out as Lev suddenly dropped his chin, standing up. "So he wants to get inside," she mused. "Idiot. One day Geels is going to bite off more than he can chew and the big fish will come calling."

          "Who says they haven't already?" Anika muttered.

          Lev ignored her, patting Sem's shoulder. "Good boy. Now, I've got some more questions for you—"

          She looked up as the door opened and Jesper poked his head in, knuckles rapping against the frame in greeting. His brown skin looked slightly jaundiced in the light, and Lev could tell he was in a good mood from the way his handsome face split into a wide grin, all teeth and bravado.

          "The boss wants you in his office," Jesper told her. "Said it's important."

          Lev frowned, gesturing to Sem, who had all but gone boneless below her. "Now? I'm in the middle of something."

          He waggled his eyebrows. "You really wanna keep him waiting?"

          Lev huffed. "Fine. Anika, get the rest out of him. I don't want anything left out. The knives are on the bottom shelf if you need them. Once you're done, throw him out on the streets, kill him, I don't care." Behind her, Sem coughed out a sob at that last part.

          "Sure," Anika said gleefully, already reaching for the knife as the door swung shut.

          "You're sadistic," Jesper told her. "Poor kid is gonna have to deal with Anika when she's happy."

          Lev batted away a stray hand as they made their way towards the spiralling stairs in the far corner of the room. The Crow Club was a maze of cards tables and Makker's Wheel sets, and the lack of windows made it hard to tell what was going on outside. It felt like stepping into an alternate world where time didn't pass correctly. Lev hated not knowing what might have happened. But it brought the pigeons, and the pigeons brought kruge.

          Kaz's office was above all of them, a benevolent god ruling from his palace in the sky. Lev suspected that had been the intended effect, and it had worked. No one went up there without his explicit permission.

          "Just doing my job," she replied. "He talked, didn't he?"

          Jesper shuddered, stopping short as they finally reached the stairs. "Saints help me if I ever get on your bad side," he muttered, and Lev smiled to herself as she climbed the metal steps to Kaz's room.

          Lev eased the door open and let herself inside. Kaz's office, like the back room, was safe from the rowdy noises of the gathered crowd outside. Everything was neatly placed, and Lev noted the way things were slightly messed up, as if he'd lost his composure far from prying eyes.

          She was just about to knock when he called, "Lev, get in here."

          Lev frowned but complied. Kaz was sitting in one of the side rooms, where his desk faced the opposite wall. She noted the new painting that hung there as she passed, its oil surface depicting what could only be the Fold. A shudder ran through her.

          "I was busy, you know," she said. "You can't just summon me whenever the mood hits you." Actually, he could, but she decided not to think about that.

          "What would you do for ten million kruge?" Kaz asked, eyes trailing over the maps on his desk absently. Lev looked down and saw that they were all of the Fold.

          Her brows furrowed in confusion. The Fold had been part of her life ever since she could remember. Members of the Second Army were nearly all orphans; before Lev had found a family, she'd known the Fold. The smoking black wall that had killed her best friend and swallowed a slice of the country. Lev had grown up on stories, but no amount of description from historians and scholars could accurately describe it. It didn't look deadly until it had already encompassed everything in its path.

          "I'd do a lot," she replied, hesitant. She had a terrible feeling she knew where he was going with this. "Pay the old man off and high-tail it to Novyi Zem, probably . . . Why?"

          He was silent, but his eyes twitched, met hers. His eyes told the truth where his mouth didn't.

          Realization hit.

          Lev groaned. "Kaz. You didn't."

          "Not yet," Kaz said. "The money is good. From a merch named Dreesen, you know him?"

          Lev did. There were many rich men in Ketterdam, but Dreesen had made a point of being one people knew. "I do," she conceded. "But, Kaz — this isn't a good idea. No one crosses the Fold. At least, no one who wants to keep all of their limbs intact and live to tell the tale."

          "You did," Kaz pointed out.

          "That's different."

          "Enlighten me."

          Lev felt anger swell in her chest and drowned the music out before it could press play. "Kaz, I say this as someone who has been inside that thing, this is a terrible idea. Worse than your usual ones."

          His expression didn't change. "I like a challenge."

          "A challenge, not a death wish."

          "Afraid, are you?"

          "Yes, I am," Lev snapped. "And you should be, too. What's so important you'll risk your life to do this job?"

          Kaz's eyes narrowed. "We risk our lives every day. This risk just pays the most."

          "You're really going to do this?"

          "Why shouldn't I?"

          Lev pursed her lips. "This isn't a joke. Ravka is broken for a reason, Kaz."

          She could see the wheels turning in his eyes now, the greed waking there. Kruge was a language everyone understood, in Ketterdam. "I don't need to fix the country, Lev, just cross it."

          "I quite like being alive," Lev snipped.

          "Then live rich and die well with two million kruge to your name."

          "I don't have a death wish."

          "No, jut crippling debt to Per Haskell."

          He had her there.

          "If I do this," Lev said carefully, "I'm out. I want everything settled for good."

          Something flickered behind Kaz's eyes. He nodded. "The deal is the deal."

          "The deal is the deal," Lev echoed, and when he held out his gloved hand for her to shake, she took it.

&& AUTHOR'S NOTE.

HELLO AND WELCOME TO THE FIRST CHAPTER OF FROM EDEN!!!! i have LOTS of plans for this book (because i actually plan on writing it lol) n i am SO STOKED to introduce you guys to lev and her dynamic with everyone! the chapters for this fic are going to be fairly short as i really want to update as often as i can and keep up with the inspiration i have for this, so expect more to come soon. i'm actually pretty proud of how this turned out for once, so please make sure to lmk your thoughts in the comments!! what does everyone think of lev/her relationship with everyone? there isn't much known about anika in canon so i basically went ahead and gave her a personality ..... and a backstory .... aha oops. AT ANY RATE, i always love to hear feedback from people so feel free to do that. this fic is going to pretty much follow the show, but i am changing the amount they're getting for the job because there is no way in HELL that kaz brekker agreed to cross the fold for just one million kruge. i refuse. anways, SHUTTING UP NOW but be ready for more chapters soon ++ an introduction to my other oc jessika n her relationship w lev 👀