There is a palpable sense of grief throughout the golden city of Cartona. The pedestrians walk as if wandering aimlessly, rather than traveling to a destination. The vendors don’t bother to greet any passersby. Even the apricot in my hand tastes unripe and sour.
The most unsettling sight in Cartona is the colors. Black shrouds cover every door, every window, blocking the sunlight from each home, church and shop. The Cartonians wear all white, which reminds me too much of Blister’s funeral. Strange how Ovren’s disciples associate white with purity and we associate it with death.
Naturally, I am wearing dark clothes and black-and-pink-striped tights, so I stick out like a raven among a flock of doves.
I hurry through the streets, searching for a bazaar where I can find an apothecary. Cartona is a city of gothic architecture and merchants. In what’s considered to be Ovren’s holy city, churches with flying buttresses tower over the skyline. The air smells of humidity, the spices they obtain from Down-Mountain traders and the reek of city dwellers. Everyone here has an exotic item from somewhere far away; everyone has something to sell.
As I pass a vendor showing off mosaic pottery and jewelry, each shard stained a different color and glimmering, the vendor shouts at me, “A necklace for your girl?” It startles me, as everyone else is so quiet. He holds up a massive strand of iridescent glass beads. At first I’m confused, since I’m alone, and I glance over my shoulder to find Luca standing behind me, dressed all in white and carrying a separate white tunic, which he throws at me.
I’m so shocked by the sudden projectile, Luca’s appearance and the vendor calling me Luca’s “girl” that I shriek and fail to catch the tunic. It falls onto the dirty, golden street.
“The idea is to blend in,” Luca says.
With his fair features and white clothing, Luca fits in with the Up-Mountainers in Cartona, but not as much as I would have expected. His hair is much too long. His nose piercing glints in the sunlight. And the smirk on his face hardly matches the somber expressions of those around me. Despite his past and his looks, there’s definitely more Gomorrah in him than I’d noticed before.
The vendor continues to berate us and show off the necklace. I redden and wonder if Luca will say something, but he just ignores him. Did he not hear him? Or is he avoiding giving a reaction to my being “his girl”? It’s useless to overthink something like this, but I like the idea of being somebody’s girl. It makes me sound desirable. Not like a freak with no eyes. And Luca, though irritating, is hardly terrible to look at.
“You’ve been following me,” I say.
“Are you angry?”
“Yes.” I hold up the white tunic. It should cover most of my clothes, judging by its length. It looks to be one of Luca’s shirts. “And also no. Thank you for this.”
“I’m glad I came. Cartona’s archbishops have a reputation for cleansing mania. The white clothes are meant to refer to a person’s purity.” He nods his head to the right, where black smoke billows into the sky. “Vanity burning.”
“What’s that?”
“It means the city is doing one of its cleanses, burning everything from secular books to makeup.” I glance at the women around me and notice for the first time that none of them wear rouge, lipstick or even a hint of glitter. How dull. “I’ve never seen so many in white, though, as if it’s a law now. Something must’ve happened here.”
“I don’t intend to stay long.”
“Good.”
Jiafu’s coin purse jingles in the breast pocket of my cloak. I cross my arms as I walk, in case of pickpockets. I’ve been in enough Up-Mountain cities to know the poor and the homeless perch on every corner, waiting to seize an opportunity in the form of an unwary shopper. Though Gomorrah has its share of petty crime, our thieves are less desperate, and no one would risk mugging and injuring a patron.
“There’s an apothecary symbol on that building over there,” Luca says, pointing to our left. A green cross hangs over the door.
The shutters on the top two floors are bolted closed, but the door is ajar, and an Open sign dangles from a rusted nail on the pane. The vendors outside the building sell produce and seeds, normal-looking stands run by normal-looking people. But the apothecary shop looms and casts a shadow onto the street, jagged like teeth from the broken thatches on its roof. Like a monster waiting to snatch you from behind.
“That looks like a good place to get murdered,” I say.
“It’s the only place we’ve found,” Luca says.
“Easy for you to say. You can’t die.”
“How about this? You wait out here. I’ll check it out and give it the all clear.”
While Luca slips inside, I inspect the apples at a nearby vendor. From far away, I didn’t notice their bruises and discoloration. I wouldn’t be surprised to find each of their cores eaten out by worms.
“You, Down-Mountain girl,” someone hisses to my left. An elderly woman crouches underneath the vendor’s stand, her skin sagged and hanging off her face, as if she’s shedding one layer at a time. “How dare you come to Cartona? We don’t need whores or thieves like you in our holy city. A disgrace.” Her voice trails on the s sound. “After the death of the baby prince, the poor baby prince—”
“Excuse me,” I say to the vendor, “there’s a woman hiding beneath your stand.”
The man frowns and lifts the cloth over the table. “Bitch! What do you think you’re doing?” He kicks her, and she groans and crawls out from underneath. “I could call the officials and have you thrown into the Pit!” I take several steps back to get out of the way as the woman flees around the corner, reeking of sweat and piss.
The vendor turns his attention to me. “Would you like an apple? They are the freshest in the city. So juicy...” He lifts up a browned slice from a sample and holds it to my lips. “Take a bite. You will want to buy more.”
“No, thank you,” I say. “What did the woman mean? About the prince?”
“The crown prince died of pneumonia earlier this week. Ovren can be cruel even to the most innocent.” He looks over my clothes, which, though simple and unassuming, do not entirely match the white attire of everyone around me. My tights peek out from underneath. “You are not from here.” His eyes light up. “You’re a Gomorrah girl. I hear the Gomorrah girls will lay with a man for next to nothing.”
He grabs my hand and tightens his grip, even as I try to squirm away. “And you’re blind. You shouldn’t care. You aren’t worth as much as other girls.”
A scream rises in my throat, but that would only cause a scene. All that matters is buying Kahina’s medicine and leaving.
“I can see the blistering sunburn on your nose,” I say instead. “And your fat gut. And each of your nose hairs.” With one hand braced against the table, I push myself away from him and walk toward the apothecary, despite how decrepit it appears from the outside. The repugnant man continues to call after me, but I ignore him and duck into the shop.
Luca stands near one of the shelves. “It smells good in here. Like mint.”
I hug my arms to my chest. The homeless woman’s words about the prince echo in my head, and in an instant, I’ve switched from Sorina-with-Luca to regular Sorina, the one whose baby brother and uncle just died. The Sorina who knows her face makes her worth less than other girls.
“Are you all right?” Luca asks.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“How can you tell? It’s not like my half face gives anything away.”
“Because your whole body is rigid and tense, and you usually walk as if you’re floating.”
I uncross my arms. I like the idea of floating high above everyone else, where no one can touch me. Does Luca really think I look like that? “I’d rather not talk about it,” I say truthfully. Venera can best remind me that I’m beautiful and worth ten times more than that man could ever dream of. Luca doesn’t need to hear about all my problems. Besides, I’d rather forget about it.
Luca doesn’t ask any more questions, but I can tell he wants to by the way he keeps glancing at me and frowning. He points to one of the shelves full of vials. “They have an impressive collection of poisons. I’m thinking of buying a few for my show.”
“Don’t you think it’s dangerous to play so many games with death?” I say.
“Not if I never lose.”
“What do you think that means for you? Will you just go on living...forever?”
He picks up a vial full of gray powder and holds it up to the light of the crooked candelabra. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t really think I’m immortal.” He returns the vial to the shelf and inspects a new one. “I have a theory about a way to kill me.”
“Chop you into pieces and bury your body parts in different locations?”
He opens his mouth to say something and then pauses. “You’ve given this thought?”
I laugh. “I guess so.”
“Hellfire,” he says. “That’s my theory.”
There’s some sense to that. Hellfire is an everlasting fire created by skilled fire-workers, which glows a brilliant gold. Since his immortality is jynx-work, it seems logical that a different sort of jynx-work could counteract it and prevent him from rapidly healing or resurrecting.
He reaches into the pocket of his pants and drops several tiny trinkets into my hand. “I keep charms sewn into my clothes—usually my vest—to protect from Hellfire, in case a fire-worker were to take a chance at my show.”
There are three charms. One looks like an animal fang wrapped in wine-soaked thread. The middle one is fabric with an embroidered image of the sun, and the last is some kind of dried herb inside a glass bead.
“The sun protects from Hellfire. The other two protect from harm,” he says. “Made by the charm-worker who lives behind me.”
“I’m glad to see you take a bit of precaution in your work.”
“I’m perfectly safe.”
“I’m just worried that one of these days your head will roll and your body won’t get up to retrieve it.”
He laughs without any mirth. “Doubtful.”
The medicines are displayed on the opposite end of the shop, next to the body creams and ointments. The elixir for snaking sickness is the same deep purple as the disease itself and thicker than molasses. Kahina claims it tastes like crushed-up centipedes.
I find the vial on the shelf and hand it to the shopkeeper, who, like most others in this city, wears white. “Three spoonfuls a day. With food. Should last about three months,” he says. I pay him fifteen of Jiafu’s gold coins, enough to buy my entire family food for two weeks. The elixir doesn’t come cheap, but it’s a small price to pay for Kahina’s health and comfort.
Luca narrows his eyes at our transaction. Once the apothecary’s back is turned, he whispers, “This medicine isn’t proven to do anything.”
“It slows the progression of the disease.”
“That’s conjecture. The snaking sickness takes who it will.”
“It’s helping Kahina,” I grit through my teeth. “Do you think I would go to such extremes for something I didn’t believe would work?”
“I believe you would go to any extreme to help your family.”
I seethe for a moment, deciding whether or not to snap at him again. Luca isn’t the first person to tell me that the elixir is merely a gimmick. The snaking sickness takes thousands of people every year, Up-Mountainers and Down-Mountainers, rich and poor, elixir or no elixir. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try. I can’t just do nothing.
After we exit the shop, Luca says, “Let’s leave sooner rather than later. The sound of church bells, in my experience, is a warning to people like us.”
It’s not as if people can tell we’re jynx-workers just by looking at us. The only one who sticks out is me, in my eyeless violet-sequined mask. I’m the freak.
“I’ll be happy to leave this city behind,” I say.
In less than a week, Gomorrah will pack up and move to the next city-state, Gentoa, farther up the Up-Mountain’s western coast. It will take six days of travel through the valleys between the sea and the mountains. In Gentoa, we’ll start performing the Freak Show again, and we’ll be a hundred miles away from the place where Blister died. His small grave will remain here, in a place that meant nothing to him or to his family, just as Gill’s remains in Frice. I hate to think of both of them alone, where no one will visit them until Gomorrah’s smoke passes over the horizon once again.
As we leave the bazaar, a group of Cartonian officials approach from down the street in white coats with black mourning bands around their arms. They each brandish a sword. Passersby duck out of their way as they run toward the bazaar, almost in a stampede. Several voices cry out. Doors slam all around us.
“What’s going on?” Luca asks.
“I can’t tell.”
The crowd runs in three directions: behind us, to the left and to the right—everywhere except the direction where the officials were headed. Luca grabs my hand, and we race toward an alleyway. We slump against the stone wall of a church.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Luca says. “You in particular. Ovren’s disciples believe He marks the impure with physical ailments and abnormalities.”
“Thank you for telling me what I already know,” I snap, my chest tightening in that awful, all-too-familiar way. That’s the reason Villiam originally thought a religious fanatic murdered Gill. “Freaks” are easy targets for those hunting the impure. “As if I’m not anxious enough already.”
The officials walk in a shoulder-to-shoulder line, forming a wall from one end of the street to the other. There’s no way to get past them without running through side streets. Their strides each fall at the same moment, so it sounds like a giant stomping down the street, rather than twenty men.
“What do you think this is all about?” I ask.
Screams ring out from the bazaar as the crowd stampedes through.
“I don’t intend for us linger long enough to find out,” Luca says.
The church bells above us toll a deep and hollow sound, and it warns all those not welcome here. Get out, Get out. With our fingers still intertwined, Luca and I slip through the alley, following several others who do the same. There are eight of us in total, and we crowd together in front of a gate at a dead end. Luca’s shoulders press against mine, and his touch is a small comfort when my pulse throbs in my chest and gut.
“They won’t turn down this way,” a woman says.
Someone shushes her. “You don’t know that.”
The footsteps of the officials approach.
I focus on the gate behind us, on its iron spires twelve feet high and on the royal crests engraved on its locks. Then, as usual, I return to my most trusted illusion—the moth. There are eight moths, hovering around the mud at the corner of the alley. Eight moths, no people, I tell myself. Eight moths, no people. I shove the illusion out of my mind and suspend it in front of us.
“You aren’t from here,” a man says to my right, nearly breaking my concentration. “You’re jynx-workers. You’re deformed.” I flinch. “You mustn’t let the officials see you.”
“What are they looking for?” Luca asks.
“Sin. They are looking to purge sin from this city.” The man’s teeth are rotted, and several are missing, so he whistles when he speaks.
“It’s why the baby prince was killed,” the first woman says. “Punishment for the city.”
“Or, if you believe the rumors, the royal family of Frice killed him. They’re looking to start a war.”
Why would Fricians kill him? Frice and Cartona are allies.
The officials in their white coats glance down the alley, and all of us hold our breath. I focus on the illusion of the moths and the iron gates, and the officials pass without suspicion. I relax and release Luca’s hand.
“A miracle,” a woman gasps. I roll my eyes. If she knew the truth, she’d just as quickly call it devil-work.
Once the officials are out of sight, Luca and I sprint down the alley back to the main street, my heart thundering worse than a summer storm, and then turn and make straight for the gates outside the city. The impressive wooden drawbridge is wide open, stretching over a stagnant pool covered in algae below.
“That was smart,” he says. “The illusion. I saw you concentrating.”
“Just because I’m not immortal doesn’t mean I’m entirely helpless.”
He shakes his head. “Shit. That was actually terrifying.”
Because my chest is so tight there is actual pain, pain like I could have a heart attack, I snap, “It’s not like you had anything to worry about.”
“Of course not.” He grimaces. “I only stayed up late to follow your sorry ass into Cartona to keep an eye on you and give you the white clothes I knew you’d need. But I can’t die, so what could I possibly have been worried about?”
His sarcastic remark startles me. I didn’t realize he cared so much about my safety. All of this time, I haven’t known whether Luca was merely a partner or more my friend. I know I should apologize, but I don’t. I’m too focused on escaping this place, which makes me feel disgusting and unclean. I need to bathe and wash everything about this city off of me.
I make up my mind to apologize later.
A crowd forms around Cartona’s gate. We mustn’t be the only ones trying to flee the city. Concealed by my illusion, Luca and I push forward.
Until we see the actual reason for the crowd.
In the center, a priest in white robes clutches a sun and sword medallion in his hands. He blesses a man in front of him, who, rather than accepting Ovren’s grace, cowers. “You cannot expect Ovren’s forgiveness if you do not accept His punishment,” the priest tells him.
All I can think about is the Beheaded Dame, potentially executed in this same public square hundreds of years ago. The fate of Gomorrah’s proprietors. Fear gnaws at my stomach as I study the priest’s robes, the crowd and Cartona’s golden walls.
“Look away, Sorina,” Luca whispers.
The priest’s assistant hands him a knife. The priest dunks it in a basin of water.
“Sorina, you don’t want to see this.”
I turn away just as the priest raises the knife, but I don’t have time to cover my ears to block out the noise of the man screaming. The crowd around me winces, but no one looks away, as if they are forcing themselves to watch.
The man falls to the ground, his face sliced open and covered in blood. The tip of his nose dangles by a small strip of skin.
A cold sweat breaks out over my forehead. “What was his sin?” I ask.
“Withheld vanities, I think. I don’t know what kind. That’s why there is a crowd. He’s an example.”
Luca tugs me away by my arm. My illusion keeps us from the notice of the guards who stand watch around the crowd. If that is the punishment for vanity, what is their punishment for stealing? Blasphemy? Jynx-work?
After leaving the city behind, we have a mile-long trek back to Skull Gate. It stands at the edge of the road, twenty feet tall, its mouth gaping open as an archway. It beckons us home.
We enter the black tunnel of its mouth, lit by white lantern light. The ticket booth stands at the end, blocking off the entrance to the Festival. Several Gomorrah guards gather around it. They don’t wear uniforms like the Up-Mountain officials, but they wear black sashes tied across their shoulders to their waist and around their hips, and their faces are always concealed.
“You’re not the first people we’ve seen running back from Cartona,” one tells us. “You should get back to your caravans. We’re leaving early, by dusk.”
“That’s the second time in a row we’re just packing up and leaving a city,” I say. “How much money is that losing us? We’re leaving because of a little commotion?”
The guard shrugs. “This time we’re choosing to do it. The proprietor was just attacked.”