Page 1 of Terror at the Gates

Chapter One

Ritual was teeming. Glossy tables and velvet couches were already overcrowded, leaving people standing shoulder to shoulder beneath pulsing blue and purple light as they waited for the entertainment to begin.

They would come from above, the aerialists, their red silks unfurling in the dark like ribbons of flame, hypnotizing the audience with their strength and grace as they soared, suspended in the smoky air. It was a popular attraction in Nineveh. Those who came down from the other four districts would have the church believe it was this tame performance they’d come to see, but we all knew otherwise.

Their descent began like clockwork. On Friday at three, Procession Street, the only road in Eden that connected all five districts, would fill with bumper-to-bumper traffic. The onslaught started with the financiers from Hiram, then the industrialists from Temple City, the merchants from Galant, and the artists from Akkadia. Though once they crossed the border into Nineveh, where they were from didn’t matter. They were all just hypocrites.

Crits, the locals called them.

Most spent the weekend roaming from club to club on Sinners’ Row, returning to their respective districts to worship at temple early Sunday morning. By Monday, they would be cleansed and forgiven, ready to live piously until the weekend.

Forgiveness is an invitation to sin. It will be our ruin.

I ground my teeth as my mother’s words came unbidden, roaring to life in my mind. Her doctrine was etched into my memory, conditioned to surface anytime I came into contact with anything that contradicted her teachings, though this was one of few I actually agreed with.

Forgivenesswasan invitation to sin. I witnessed it every week, which was why I’d decided a long time ago that I did not care to be forgiven.

I’d rather be a sinner than a hypocrite.

I wove my way through the flock dressed in red, as vibrant as the aerialists’ silks, but unlike them, I went unnoticed. It was a choice. I could draw attention if I wished, but among those present, I had yet to spy anything of worth.

And tonight, I needed something expensive.

Rent was due, and my landlord had just hiked the price again.

My roommate, Coco, short for Colette, had gone into work down the street where she danced at Praise. She’d asked me to stay home, but only because she didn’t like the way I managed to make ends meet.

I was a procurer of goods, usually of the religious variety, but I wasn’t picky. I’d sell anything if I could get a good price. The issue was, my job was technically illegal since the church prohibited the sale of holy items.

Coco called my methods stealing, but I called it using my resources, which just so happened to bemagic.

Honestly, I wouldn’t need to if Zahariev, the head of the Zareth family and the district of Nineveh, would let me dance at one of his many clubs, but he refused.

You would start a war, Lilith, he had said.

I rolled my eyes.You are dramatic, Zahariev. No one has to know who I am.

You are the daughter of House Leviathan, he said, as if that explained everything.Besides, I like my balls, and your father would cut them off and feed them to me if he found out I let you dance.

Let me.

Zahariev.

Zahariev.

Zahariev.

He was a beautiful, frustrating man. I had known him my entire life. He was eight years older than me and had ascended to the head of his family after his father died five years ago. He had always been quiet and controlled, mostly unemotional, as were all Elohai. That was the name of the bloodline that gave each family magic and, with it, the right to rule.

Except that was all really bullshit, because the blood of the Elohai—the blood of God—only gave magic towomen. It madeuspowerful, a power we could not even utilize because we were subservient to men.

It is what we deserve for tempting the First Man, my mother would say.

She liked to quote theBook of Splendor. It was the religious doctrine that ruled our society, that said men should be wary of women.

It also meant that unlike Zahariev, who had been trained to ascend to the head of his family, I had been trained to be a wife, and since I was the only child of my house, my father would choose my husband, the next head of House Leviathan.

I fucking hated it, but that was why I’d run away.