Villiam embraces me, and I allow myself to relax, inhaling the warm scent of his cologne. I’m in Gomorrah. Safe in my father’s office. Back in my regular clothes. The tower of the Cathedral of Saints Dominik and Zdena is behind me, and it cannot see me through Gomorrah’s smoke.
“I’m so proud of you,” he says. “And so, so relieved.”
“I felt like such a...” I search for the word, but that feeling of helplessness and ugliness I felt in the church is difficult to articulate. “A bug. An ant.” Like, if they saw me, they could squash me at any moment, without the slightest bit of thought.
Villiam smile softens. “Who has carried more than her fair share of weight, as I understand.” He brushes my hair behind my ear. “You have never looked more beautiful.”
I don’t feel beautiful. I don’t even feel victorious. Only tired.
In the corner of the office, a healer braces Nicoleta’s sprained ankle. She doesn’t wince as he pulls the fabric tighter. Her gaze is fixed on the floor, and I can tell she’s troubled. She wears the sort of expression she usually has before snapping at Hawk that she has a headache.
“When will you and Chimal speak to Dalimil?” Nicoleta asks.
“This evening. But I don’t wish to concern you two with that. Your roles in this matter are very much completed, and you deserve a rest.”
Part of me wants to insist on being there, however gruesome Chimal’s interrogation methods become. That man potentially orchestrated the murder of two members of my family. But even though the fury over their deaths remains, I struggle to connect it to his face. Dalimil may not be a good man. He may even be an evil one. But when I looked into his eyes, even if he didn’t see me perched on the marble steps of the church, I didn’t sense I was before Gill’s and Blister’s killer. And I would know, wouldn’t I? The soul should recognize those who have wounded it.
Once the healer finishes treating Nicoleta, we say our goodbyes and head to our tent.
“I’m sorry,” Nicoleta says. “I nearly got both of us killed.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does. I was useless.”
“Had you not been there, I wouldn’t have been able to carry Dalimil out on his own,” I say, trying to ease her mind. “It’s over. We did it. That’s all that matters.”
Outside our tent, Luca is bent over a table, playing a game of lucky coins with Hawk and Unu and Du. His face sags with relief as we approach, and he abandons the game to come to my side.
He wraps his arms around me. “Did we win?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” I press my forehead against his. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Of course.”
* * *
That evening, after a much-needed rest, I don my best mask and some bright red lipstick. Luca has promised me a night of fun.
I don’t know what to expect. Luca’s idea of fun is tea-partying with prettyworkers and telling morbid jokes. But, regardless, I could use some fun. I could use a distraction from my thoughts, which keep drifting to Dalimil and what Villiam might have learned from him by now. If he really is the leader of the Alliance, anyway.
In my excitement, I race to Luca’s tent. The Downhill is abnormally quiet for this time of night, and the weather has grown chillier over the past few days. I had to dig my thicker cloaks out of storage. The guests have also changed their clothes, shifting from pastel oranges and salmons to rich sapphires and emeralds. I don’t know why anyone would wear their best clothes to Gomorrah, but our audience members, without fail, are always gussied up in pearls and satin gloves and sweeping up-dos. Begging to be pickpocketed.
I find Luca waiting outside his tent, leaning against the silver-tipped cane that does nothing but make him look pretentious. He smiles when he sees me, that smile with the dimples that makes my insides flutter.
“Where are we going?” I ask. I try to hide the giddiness from my voice, because I’ve never been on a date and I’m starting to think that’s what this is. A real date. He’s probably going to make it a surprise. Somewhere enchanting or exhilarating, a part of the Festival only he knows.
“I’m taking you to Skull Market,” he says. “I know you’ve barely explored the Downhill.”
“You weren’t supposed to tell me,” I say.
“What?”
“It was supposed to be a surprise.”
He furrows his eyebrows. “I hate surprises.”
“That’s because you’re serious. And bor—because you’re so deliberate.”
He flicks my forehead, on my mask.
“What was that for?” I ask.
“You were going to say boring.”
He pulls me forward by my hand and leads me down a diagonal path, deeper into the Downhill, where I’ve never ventured before. Within a minute, we reach one of the two obelisks that mark Gomorrah’s end. They are twelve feet tall, black and identical. Their stone is so solid that no one has been able to carve into them, and, despite constant exposure to the elements, their surface remains forever smooth and matte.
“The other obelisk is...maybe a mile away,” Luca says. He points his cane to the left, toward the twin obelisk. “Legend says that to walk between them brings misfortune.”
“Everyone knows that.”
“Well, excuse me. I didn’t mean to bore you.”
I smirk and let him take me farther down the paths. We turn to the left and, nearly immediately, are struck by the noise and heat of hundreds of people together in a small space. The paper-lantern lights that usually dangle above tents and caravans are decorated with various expressions of sorrow, terror and fury in black paint. Skull Market is a maze of hundreds of vendors, thousands of smells. It sounds of coins jingling, the bells of auctions, the squabbles of haggling. There’s something to see around every corner. I can hardly believe the size of the place. It must be two or three square miles, made up entirely of stalls. They aren’t set up in a grid pattern to make it easy for the customers. Instead, vendors have constructed their tables and stalls wherever they please. In the middle of paths, adjacent to each other, in clusters that you practically need to crawl into in order to view the merchandise. The market is a mess of hiding places, and I have the itch to explore.
“The fabric seller here can spin thread out of nearly anything and turn it into something worthwhile,” Luca says. He points to another stall. “That red sign means it’s a trading booth. You barter. I’ve seen the owner take one man’s trash and sell it to another as a treasure.”
He has spiels prepared for nearly every stall, putting on a show for me.
“As huge as this place is,” Luca says, “I doubt anyone is selling rare and exotic bugs. Unless they’re covered in chocolate.”
“I don’t know...this place seems to have anything you could want.”
“The Market covers a huge area of the Downhill, and it’s got quite a few landmarks. There’s a haunted caravan, apparently full of spirits. A cursing well. The famous pillar of salt in the heart of the Downhill.”
The smells of the spiced wine and candied cashews from a nearby stall make my stomach rumble, and my coin purse is growing warm and eager in my pocket. Before Luca can object, I buy us two mugs of the wine.
“What is this?” an Up-Mountain girl asks me, pointing at the mugs in my hands. She wears a brown cloak covering all but her pale face. She doesn’t seem like the type to visit the Downhill. She’s too...delicate.
She also looks rather familiar.
“Wine,” I say. “It’s warm. They put spices in it.”
Her eyes twinkle and she mutters something to the man next to her, who nearly jumps at her touch. He doesn’t seem the type to be in the Downhill, either. After some eye rolling, he fishes in his pockets for coins and hands them to the girl.
“Your mask is beautiful,” the girl tells me. “The colors are so vibrant.”
“Thank you,” I say hesitantly. I’m not used to being complimented by a visitor. It also bothers me that I cannot figure out why I recognize her.
“And that boy there. He’s beautiful, too, no?” She giggles and takes a sip of her wine. At the taste of it, she squeals with delight and turns back to the man with her.
Then I recognize her. The bride from yesterday. I’m certain of it. She’s less recognizable without her trailing pink gown and the flowers in her hair, but it’s definitely her.
I return to Luca’s side. “That girl over there. She’s the bride from the wedding this morning,” I say. I point her out to him. “What do you think she’s doing in Gomorrah?”
“Can’t have been much of a honeymoon, if she’s here without her husband,” he says jokingly.
I watch her pass with the man beside her—probably a bodyguard. As jarring as it may be to see her here, I won’t stop her. She deserves some fun.
“I can’t believe I’ve never come here before,” I say to Luca, turning my back on the princess. “This place is so alive.” I sip my wine, and it warms me all the way down. “Where should we go first?”
The wine turns Luca’s lips a deep burgundy. “I thought I had to make that a surprise,” he said.
“See? You’re catching on.”
He wraps his arm around my waist, and I’m surprised by our closeness and the firmness of his grip. We haven’t been this close since almost two weeks ago, when he stayed the night to help keep me awake and the illusions locked away in their Trunks.
We walk through the paths, and within a few minutes, I realize Luca has no idea where he’s going. Not that I blame him; Skull Market has clearly been constructed for visitors to lose their way—and their money—within it.
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and for a few moments, I forget to breathe. “Come on. I want to show you the pillar.”
“Do you even know where you’re going?”
“Of course I do. It’s just this way.” He points to a mere crevice in between a few tents. We squeeze through it, the tent material brushing against us on all sides. Soon the Market vanishes behind us, and we are in a tunnel of pink, purple and red. Luca stops walking, and he turns around so suddenly that his blond hair falls out of place and into his eyes.
“Why are you stopping?” I ask.
“There’s no one around,” he says. His eyes travel from the silver tip of his cane to me, and he watches me as if I should have expected this comment, as if I should know what’s coming, as if I should keep up.
And then he kisses me.
Since we have only kissed a few times, it still shocks me when it happens. It only lasts for a few moments, but it’s tender, and I’m breathless when he pulls away. He slides his hand around my waist and holds me there, our faces only inches apart. The material of the tent beside us presses against my hair.
“I know I haven’t told you, but I like having you around. I like what we have,” he says.
I laugh breathlessly. “Did you bring me here just to kiss me?”
“Did I surprise you?”
“Yes.”
He smiles a wide, boyish smile that makes my heart melt. But it disappears, replaced by hesitation. “I know I’m not impulsive or spontaneous, but I like what we are. I’ve never had this. And I want you to like what we are, too.”
I kiss his cheek. “I promise I like...what we are. As long as you do.”
“What I said before was true—this is very new to me. I’ve rarely had close friends, let alone anything close to a romantic relationship. And I still doubt I’ll ever be a person who looks twice as I pass the House of Delights. But I’m not breakable—you can touch me. I’m a big boy. I can tell you what I want and what I don’t, if I want to stop, if I want to keep going. You have my consent to...touch my neck.” He brushes my fingers against his neck. “Or step close enough that we’re touching.” I inch a step closer, until there is no space between us. “Or kiss me, whenever you want.”
I know this is an invitation to kiss him exactly the way I’ve wanted to for so long, but I’m so amused by his use of big boy that I giggle.
“What?” His face reddens. I’ve probably embarrassed him. That was a very serious speech.
Once I have my laugh at his expense, I kiss him the way I want to, the way he wants me to. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull him so close that the buttons of his vest press into my stomach. I slide my tongue over his bottom lip, and he runs his fingers through my hair. And after at least a minute of this—maybe two, maybe five—I kiss my way along his jaw, my lips only brushing his skin.
I want to move. The tents are so close that it’s growing claustrophobic and almost uncomfortable, so I say, “Maybe this isn’t the best place for this.”
“I was going to suggest relocating, as well.”
We slide our way out of the tunnel to the other side, free at last. “I’d like to show you the salt pillar,” he says. “Unless you’d rather we go back somewhere else.”
I interpret this as going somewhere private. “What, to your tent?”
“If you’d like.” The words are loaded. Not with the promise of sex—at least, I don’t think so—but of taking this further.
“I feel like you have this idea of me as someone who is walking around in a permanent state of lust,” I say.
“I envision that of most people, actually. It’s not only you. And this is based purely on observation.”
“You observe prettyworkers, Luca,” I say, snorting. “Believe it or not, I’m not a walking mess of urges. And a lot of this is new to me, as well, even if it’s in a different way.” I blush a little to admit this. “Do you mind postponing your offer for another time? I’d like to see that pillar of salt.”
It’s more than that. I’d still like to have my date. I’d still like to hold his hand and walk in public as an item. Me, the girl without eyes, and him, beautiful in a way that makes me feel beautiful just to stand beside him. I still want that private night, even if it’s just lying on his chest. But I want this first.
“Not at all,” he says. He links his arm with mine and walks us down the path. “And I don’t actually think of everyone as if they’re in a permanent state of lust.” He laughs. “But you know what they say about Gomorrah girls.”
“Careful, that’s your girl you’re talking about.”
As we turn down the path, we bump shoulders with the princess. She clutches at her bodyguard’s arm but never looks at him, as she’s too preoccupied with the sights around her. She glances at me and then recognizes my face. “Oh! It’s you again.” Without hesitating, she links her second arm with me, and I’m so taken aback that I tense. Luca shrugs beside me. “We’re looking for the pillar of salt. It’s supposedly famous.”
“It’s cursed, Your... Reia,” the man says.
Luca raises his eyebrows but says nothing.
Reia ignores him. “I heard it was once a woman,” she says to me. “Is that true?”
“So the story goes,” Luca says.
She smiles at him, and I grip his hand tighter, a bit possessively. “Do you live here, too? You don’t look like you do.”
“My tent is only a short walk from here.”
“That’s marvelous.” She sighs as we approach a clearing with a statue in its center. “I’d love to travel more.” She pauses when she sees the statue. “Well, this must be it!”
The white statue appears to be of a woman, but her salt features are so weathered down that her form is barely recognizable as human. Her head is turned, as if she’s glancing over her shoulder. When Luca mentioned the statue to me, I expected it to be taller. Instead, it’s about my height. Life-size.
I let go of the girl’s arm and creep closer to it, to see if there’s an expression on the woman’s face. There isn’t. If there ever was, the years have worn it away. I run my hand along the woman’s nonexistent facial features.
Someone chokes behind me.
I turn around just as Reia raises both of her hands to her throat, which is spurting out blood. Her eyes widen in terror, and she crumbles to the grass, facedown.
I scream and grasp for Luca, several feet away from me. The man with the princess lunges toward her body and swiftly turns her over. He tears off a piece of his shirt and ties it around her neck to stop the bleeding, but it’s clear she’s already gone.
“Who did this?” the man shouts. The people around us begin to notice what has happened, and they shriek and step back.
“I didn’t see...” Luca says. “I’m not sure what I saw.”
“But there’s no one around,” I say. “It was only us.”
“It looked like...” Luca hesitates before continuing. “It looked like her throat sliced open on its own.”
The man stands over her, ushering the crowd back. “No one move. If anyone saw anything, anything at all, you’ll be questioned. In the name of Ovren, come forward.” His voice sounds more frightened than authoritative.
The people around us whisper.
“The princess,” one says.
“I saw it. Her throat just slit open. There was no one near her. Like she was attacked by a spirit.”
“Maybe a Frician assailant we didn’t see.”
Luca squeezes me against him. “We were just talking to her,” I stutter. “How did this happen? And how did anyone else recognize her?”
Luca shakes his head. “I don’t know.” I can’t blot her panicked face from my mind. She was young. Barely twenty. With the sort of beauty befitting a princess. Yesterday, she was married. Isn’t she supposed to be living a fairy tale?
“We should get out of here. There will be trouble later.” He pulls me away from the gathering crowd. “I’ll take you home.”
He squeezes my hand comfortingly, and I try to pretend that seeing the princess so gruesomely killed hasn’t shaken me, only moments after speaking with her. I’ve spent the last month talking myself out of panic attacks. I can’t let this death of a random Up-Mountain princess cause me to utterly break down, no matter how kind she’d been. I have to be stronger than that.
But it’s hard to convince myself of this when I can’t help but think that my family isn’t okay, even if everyone is safe and under the protection of Gomorrah’s guards. Two people I loved were murdered, and we still don’t know who did it, or how, or why. Nothing about that is okay.
Luca said her throat slit open on its own. It just doesn’t make sense.
“I want to go back to my tent,” I say. There’s a lump of dread in my gut.
We don’t speak on the way there, where members of Gomorrah’s guard stand outside speaking with Nicoleta, whose back faces us. Since it’s only a little past midnight, it doesn’t seem like anyone else is home yet. Unu and Du aren’t running around the yard outside. Hawk must be on her usual hunt for a midnight snack. And Crown on one of his walks. All of them are accompanied by their guards, but, still, I cannot help but worry.
Luca hugs me and presses my face lightly into his chest. “I’m sorry. You’ve seen too much death lately.”
“I can’t get her face out of my mind.”
“I imagine. I... Do you want me to stay with you tonight? You don’t have to stay here. Or I could stay here. If you—”
“Sorina,” Nicoleta shouts. She whips around, and her eyes are bloodshot and puffy. Unlike the last time I saw her this way, I don’t make a move toward her. I’m frozen. Last time she cried, we learned Blister was dead. Rather than my heart pounding and urging me forward, I feel as if it’s stopped.
As Nicoleta runs for us, Luca squeezes my arms, as if bracing me for what I might hear.
Nicoleta throws her arms around me. “You’re back. We’re waiting on the others. The guard and I have already sent some men to find—”
“What happened?” Luca asks for me. My voice is gone. I’m petrified, shaking.
“You need to sit down. Sorina, look at me. You’re trembling. Sorina—no! Don’t go in there!”
But I’m already running to our tent. I don’t want to hear Nicoleta tell me that another member of our family is dead. I need to see it myself. I need to make sure this isn’t some terrible dream repeating itself over and over until everyone I care about has been taken from me.
I halt as soon as I cross the threshold.
The throat of the body on our living room floor is slit, blood staining her black-and-white-striped clothes and pooling around her on the floor. She appears untouched, except for her neck. There’s no evidence of her backing away or of a fight. It seems the killer attacked her from behind, and she crumpled to the floor, the shock rigid on her face.
I wail at the sight of her and grasp Luca’s forearm for support once he and Nicoleta enter. “Sorina,” he says, trying to pull me toward him, away from Venera’s body, out of the tent, but I squirm away and rush to her side.
There’s no point checking her pulse. No person could survive that amount of blood loss. But I do it anyway. I check on her neck. On her wrists. I press my ear to her chest and listen to nothing within it.
Unlike with Gill’s or Blister’s death, there is no shock. Maybe because I’ve been afraid this would happen for weeks now, bracing myself for another loved one to be ripped away. The pain of it seems to tear me in two.
My best friend. My sister.
The anger, the grief and the suddenness feel as if a screwdriver is jutting out of my chest and turning, twisting my insides together.
“I found her like this,” Nicoleta says, sobbing. Even though she’s standing, her posture makes it seem like she’s trying to be as small as possible, to sink into herself. “The guard outside didn’t see anything, but someone could’ve snuck in when his back was turned. He wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t realize Venera was here.” She hugs her arms to her chest. “Why would someone do this?”
I don’t have an answer for her. After a month of working with Luca to protect my family, we’ve come up with nothing, and I’ve failed them again.
“Luca, can you stand outside the tent and make sure no one comes in?” Nicoleta asks. “Let me know if someone comes. Sorina and I are going to clean her up. I... I couldn’t do it on my own.”
Luca opens his mouth as if to speak but says nothing. I doubt he is used to obeying someone else’s commands. He nods and moves to go outside.
Venera. And the Up-Mountain princess. Their two beautiful faces blur together in my mind, and I’m overwhelmed with the horror of it all. Two identical deaths.
Suddenly, it all clicks together in my mind.
Venera and the princess.
Blister and the baby prince.
Gill and the duke.
“We need to talk to Villiam,” I breathe. I grab Luca’s hand and pull him toward the tent’s exit.
“Where are you going? How can you leave right now?” Nicoleta asks, her voice high and squeaky. She tears a strip of fabric off of her tunic and ties it around Venera’s neck, just below the cut. This is not the first body she has cleaned.
“I’ve thought of something,” I say.
“The guard has already gone to notify Villiam.” She grabs a handful of white towels and lays them on the puddle of blood, sobbing silently as they stain red.
“They’re connected,” I say, and my voice speeds up in panic. “The princess from the wedding was in the Downhill today. She died the same way as Venera and around the same time. Then there was Blister and the baby prince in Cartona. Gill and the duke in Frice.”
“That doesn’t make sense. How could they have been linked to those people?” Nicoleta says. Beside me, Luca keeps a straight face, thinking.
I remember my visit to Agatha’s tent a few days ago. “Have you ever heard of a charm doll?” I ask.
“Yes,” Luca says, just as Nicoleta says, “No.”
“It’s a doll that is linked to a person,” Luca says. “Through charm-work. Whatever happens to the doll, happens to the real person.”
“But you’re not a charm-worker,” Nicoleta says. “Or...do you mean the killer is?”
“Either is possible.” It’s just like I guessed before. I must have two types of jynx-work: illusion-work and charm-work. Because I’m missing my eyes the same way Tuyet is missing a heart and that man is missing an arm. Never mind that I don’t know the first thing about charm-work. It fits.
But I never knew the princess existed until three weeks ago. I’d never heard of the Cartonian baby or the Frician duke. How could I have linked them? It doesn’t make sense.
There is the possibility, like Nicoleta said, that the killer is a charm-worker. There are at least a thousand of them in Gomorrah. But the similarity in the “phantom” body parts is too difficult to ignore.
The tent flaps open, and Unu and Du poke their heads inside. Their four eyes wildly scan the room, hopping from Nicoleta to me, to Luca, and then, lastly, to Venera on the floor. “W-what happened?” Unu asks.
“Outside, outside,” Nicoleta says. She lunges toward them, rests her hand on Unu’s shoulder and leads them away. It’s quiet except for the sound of them wailing.
“I’m so sorry, Sorina,” Luca says. He stands three feet away, the way someone would from a stranger. His face, as always, remains expressionless. I wish he would show emotion. I wish he would scream or cry or, at the very least, frown. To make it seem like he cares about the world and about me.
Then he turns around and kicks the leg of our table so hard that coins and kettle corn spill off of it.
When he faces me again, I see the failure in his eyes. The anger. Moments ago, I didn’t want to be touched, but now I run to him and bury my face in his chest. I squeeze my nails into his shoulder.
“She was my best friend,” I choke out.
“I know,” he whispers. He rubs his hand down my hair.
“She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I lift my gaze to his, suddenly determined. “We need to find out why.”
* * *
Villiam arrives as we all huddle outside around a fire, where Crown cooks lamb kebabs that no one is going to eat. Villiam wears a pin-striped suit and a brown turtleneck, as if dressed to meet someone important, and Agni appears wearing his pink-and-red-striped uniform from his job at the Menagerie. The people who live in the tents nearby watch Villiam as he passes and stray over to see the commotion.
My strength seems to return to me the moment I see him, but only in a single form: fury. Nicoleta and I underwent the entire trial of this morning to protect our family, and for what? I hop off my seat and march toward him. “Venera is dead,” I say. “Someone slit her throat.”
The people nearby inch closer until a small crowd is gathered to see the drama of Gomorrah’s freaky princess.
“That’s three deaths in a month,” I say, which gets people whispering. “What has he said?” He meaning Dalimil, of course.
“We know he is not the leader, as we’d hoped.”
“Then who is?” I snap.
“He won’t say.”
“My sister is dead.”
Villiam holds out his arms for me to embrace him, but I don’t. Not at first. I pound my fist against his chest, not hard enough to hurt but enough to make me feel better. Then I let him wrap his arms around me and hold me. I feel three years old again, exhausted and scared. It is awkward, him trying to support me while his crutches support him.
“I think I understand now,” I say. “I understand how this is happening.”
I search behind me for Luca, who nods. Villiam’s eyes fall on him, as well, and then narrow as Luca approaches.
“This is Luca von Raske,” I say. “He’s been helping me look into Gill’s and Blister’s deaths. I was going to tell you, but...it’s complicated.”
It’s dead quiet, except for the sizzling of Crown’s lamb and Agni telling the spectators to return to their caravans, though with little success.
“I know who he is,” Villiam says quietly. He and Luca perform a staring contest of sorts. “Sorina, I think we should talk.”
“I think so, too. We all should. I understand why—”
“No, just you and me.” He turns away, and I’m too stunned to reply. Luca gives my hand a comforting squeeze, but his face is rigid. Villiam raises his voice so anyone around us can listen. “Everyone in this neighborhood will be questioned tomorrow about what they saw, so I advise you all to think clearly about the faces that passed you today. One of them belonged to a murderer.”