The performance of the Gomorrah Festival Freak Show our first night in Cartona was less than spectacular. Nicoleta forgot her lines halfway through the show, accidentally snapped her metal performance cane in two and had to apologize to the audience for her stuttering. Tree tore out one of his branches and sprayed red, bloody sap all over the floor, which Unu and Du slipped on during their dancing routine. And my illusion of giant red-horned beetles scared the audience out of their seats and out of the tent, but it was the only thing that popped into my head.
To make it worse, Villiam was there, as he’d promised. And by the end of it, he was the only person remaining, once I accidentally chased the others out. He sighed and shook his head the entire time.
It’s obvious we’re all a wreck.
I enter the dressing room and am immediately greeted by Blister, who gives everyone his usual round of high fives. I smile as much as I can manage. He scampers back to Crown on the other side of the divider, who beams at him and runs his hand through Blister’s tight curls. Despite originally being hesitant almost two years ago when I told everyone I intended to create an illusion of a baby, Crown adores Blister, and Blister certainly loves him.
I change out of my show robes into plain black ones. No fancy shoulder pads or glittery fasteners. And I fish out my purple-striped mask, which is sequinless and the least fun—though it does have a few feathers. I’m not really in the mood to make a statement.
“Why are you dressed more somber than a nun?” Venera asks. She’s applying some of her most festive makeup—red lipstick and fake eyelashes as long as her fingers. She prefers to party away her problems. It seems like she disappears to a different event every night, only to stumble in exhausted and still tipsy at eight in the morning, well after sunrise.
I worry about her.
“Just not feeling particularly fabulous.” Not entirely false. No, I’m not feeling fabulous. “And I don’t think nuns wear feathered masks.”
The real reason for my attire is my planned trip to the Downhill tonight. I need to find someone to help me uncover Gill’s killer. I don’t know who I’m going to find, or how I’ll find them, but I’m going to try. And the Downhill seems like the place to go. I don’t know anyone in the Uphill who would know how to track down a murderer.
It’s been four days since I dined with Villiam. Four days, and all I’ve wanted was to find the killer, but I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed at any point before our performance tonight. I ate only the butterscotch cashews Nicoleta grabbed from a vendor. I’d often wake to find Venera at my side, her makeup smeared from her nightly activities, her long black hair tangled and damp with sweat. We’d barely speak, and if we did, it was about frivolities: romantic interests, the bleak city of Cartona, the knots growing in our hair.
All I want is answers, but somehow that wasn’t enough to get me out of bed. If I let myself sit down again, I probably won’t go out at all. I hate myself for it.
“Here.” Venera tosses me a tube of blood-red lipstick. “To keep your strength up.”
I smile and then apply some in the mirror. It doesn’t look as good on me as it does Venera—does anything?—but I still look pretty, nonetheless. I haven’t bothered with lipstick in a while, and I rub my lips together, feeling its smoothness, and almost smile. Feels familiar. Like my life before Gill died.
I examine my dismal reflection more closely. I actually look terrible. The weather is terrible. Today was terrible. And tomorrow will be terrible, too.
I muster up my strength to force on a smile. “You’re the best.” I kiss Venera on the cheek, careful not to leave a smudge of red. “Don’t go too wild tonight.”
She grabs at her corset and hoists it up, boosting her cleavage about five inches. “Do I ever?”
I laugh but quickly stop myself. Even if it’s a genuine response, it still feels wrong to laugh.
Blister reappears at my side, no longer in his performance clothes. “Boom,” he says seriously.
“You’re leaving to see the fireworks?” I ask him. Crown takes Blister to see them every night.
He nods. “Boom.”
Crown grabs Blister’s hand. “Do you want some cotton candy?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we better hurry. We don’t want to miss the booms.”
I smile as I watch them leave, hand in hand. At least some things still feel normal.
Several minutes later, with my fresh coat of lipstick and a handful of butterscotch cashews, I head toward the Downhill. It’s safer at night, mostly due to the large crowds. But I rarely venture there, even at times like this. I’m not into partying. And I’m definitely not into prettyworkers. I never have much of a reason to pay this part of Gomorrah a visit, other than to see Jiafu.
The dirt here outside Cartona is golden, same as the bricks used to construct the great wall that encircles the city and, even from here, towers in the distance. Because of the dense forests around Cartona, Gomorrah was forced to set up among trees, so the Festival feels twice as dark as usual. The leaves above are half-hidden among the smoke.
The torches in the Downhill do not burn red like regular fire. There’s some kind of charm-work on them so they burn green, making everyone look a little sickly. I pass a massive tent of prettymen on my right—two stories high, created by a mess of platforms, beams and rapid reconstruction at each new destination—and a hookah and pipe vendor on my left. The air here smells sweet, almost inviting, from all the opium.
Who is going to help me? I don’t have much to pay, and I doubt anyone here is willing to help me out of the goodness of their hearts. So I’ll have to find something to offer. Maybe my status as Gomorrah’s princess will hold some sway.
Doubtful, but maybe.
I wander around for half an hour. Past gambling dens, vendors smuggling rare animals, bars, feasts, pawnshops and fighting cages. I have no idea what I’m looking for. The Downhill is even more of a maze than the rest of Gomorrah. As I walk, my sandals crunch on broken bones from whatever meat the food stands are selling roasted on sticks, as well as syrup from coated apples and their leftover cores. The patrons in this section do not wear the usual apricot- and peach-colored dresses, arms linked with their lovers with matching bow ties. They are not here to laugh and have their palms read and buy candied pineapple. Whether the patrons in the Downhill are wealthy or not, they have a hungry look in their eyes, like animals deciding whether to attack or flee. Each one walks with a sharpness to their step, looks over their shoulders with a glimmer of fear and excitement. They’re interested in the darkest of desires Gomorrah has to offer, and they’ve come to the right place.
What was I thinking? No one is going to help me here.
It’s not as if I can do this on my own. I barely rolled myself out of bed to come here. I need someone to be objective when I—clearly—cannot. And I’m not smart, not like Gill was smart or Nicoleta is smart. Altogether proven by thinking I’d ever find someone to help me in the Downhill, or anywhere.
I stop at a strange tent on a side path, striped with vibrant Gomorrah red and purple. The fabric of the tent looks new, not yet faded from years of rain and travels. A wooden sign sticks out of the dirt by the entrance:
Gossip-worker.
Tell me your secrets and your troubles.
I’ve certainly got troubles. Lots of them. But I’ve never heard of a gossip-worker. I don’t think there is such a thing. I look around to see if anyone else is venturing inside. To the right stands a small, empty outdoor stage, and to the left, a vendor selling apples soaked in bourbon or peaches soaked in sake. Somewhere ahead, in a massive tent of reds, purples and pinks, music plays—the kind meant for dancing, certainly not for telling someone your secrets and troubles.
But I’m curious, I have nothing better to go on and I also think I’m lost, so I duck inside the gossip-worker’s tent.
The inside is stark, empty of nearly all decoration. A table with porcelain teacups takes up most of the room, along with a bookshelf to its right. The floor is made of bamboo shoots woven together, similar to the one in our tent, which we roll up for travel and unroll at each new city.
There is a flap in the back corner that I assume leads to another tent, probably a sleeping area.
This doesn’t feel like a place for visitors. It feels like someone’s home. Someone with very few belongings but, still, a home.
At the table with the empty teacups sits Luca, the boy who almost got himself killed by Frician officials in Villiam’s tent. He looks up, and I know he recognizes me. Beside him is a prettywoman, with deep brown skin and black hair braided down to her knees. All she wears on top is a shawl tied into some sort of covering. They appear to be—other than the fact that she is half-clothed—simply having tea.
“You’re Sorina Gomorrah,” he says.
“You’re the gossip-worker?”
“Among other things.”
He stands up, adjusts his clothes and walks over. He wears the same hideous velvet vest with clockwork stitching and the same belt full of vials. He also has that black, silver-tipped walking stick leaning against the table, as if his rich-boy getup needed a finishing touch.
He holds out his hand for me to shake.
“I don’t remember giving you my name when we first met,” I say.
He smiles. He has dimples. I realize, in that moment, that I really like dimples. I also realize that I’ve been holding his hand for too long, and I’m acting like a complete fool.
I wrench my hand away. This is business. Not the time for flings. Besides, he has a beautiful prettywoman sitting right beside him, so beautiful that I try not to gape at her slender neck, gorgeously full lips and the curves of her chest. Between her perfect complexion and my lack of eyes, it’s not difficult to determine who would be Luca’s choice. And with Luca’s dimples, it’s easy to see who hers would be, as well.
Their loss, I try to tell myself.
Luca has very nice brown eyes. Bedroom brown eyes, an embarrassing voice in my head giggles. A voice that sounds an awful lot like Venera. I tell that voice to shut it.
“You’re that boy whose life I saved, right?” I ask. Playing it smooth. Pretending I barely remember him—not that I did, until this moment. I’ve actively tried to forget most of the details of that night.
“I hardly think I’d say that. I had it handled.”
“You were about to watch your guts spill into your hands.”
“Nothing I can’t manage.” He cocks an eyebrow and laughs. “I’m pretty durable. Quick to heal.”
Luca’s strange healing ability was amazing to watch, but I find it difficult to believe that he would fully heal if someone stabbed him through the stomach with a sword.
“Yelema, if you don’t mind, I’d love to discuss that customer more with you at a later date,” Luca tells the prettywoman. “I hope you enjoyed the tea. It’s a mountain-herb blend.”
“Delicious, as always,” she says. She extends her hand, and he kisses it.
“I don’t mean to interrupt your...” I say.
“It’s fine. I know to leave when he has clients,” Yelema says. “Besides, I have a client of my own in an hour.” She waves as she leaves, and I ponder over her words. Perhaps Luca is more than just a client to her?
Luca points to the chair opposite him. “Go ahead,” he says.
I slide into the seat. “I’ve never heard of that kind of jynx-work before.”
“Which one? The one on the sign outside? Or the one you witnessed the other day at the proprietor’s tent?”
“The healing one. But I’ve never heard of a gossip-worker, either.”
“Gossip-worker is simply a title,” he says.
“Bestowed by who?”
“By whom,” he corrects, and I grit my teeth in indignation. I already don’t like him. “And bestowed by myself. I make it my business to collect information on everyone in Gomorrah.”
“Why?”
“Because the people here interest me. Because I know a fortune-worker here who claims to use the same coins his ancestors did in Gomorrah over one thousand years ago. Because you’d never believe the intricacies involved in supplying constantly fresh food for an entire city that travels across the world. Because nobody dull runs away to join this place.”
Judging by his expensive clothes, he’s probably some rich Up-Mountainer who decided to run away to Gomorrah, and he thinks himself interesting and cultured because of it. He’s not going to be much help if he was consorting with a prettywoman during business hours. Clearly he has other things on his mind.
“Why are you here?” he asks, not impolitely. “Doesn’t Gomorrah’s princess have more important places to visit than my tent?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I say. I’m still curious about his healing ability, about the strange belt full of vials he wears and, if he has information on everyone in Gomorrah, whether that information could help lead me to the killer.
As if sensing my thoughts, he unclips his belt full of vials and lays it on the table. He points to each one. “Cyanide. Arsenic. Hemlock. Nightshade. Black Maiden. Belladonna. You’re welcome to test one out.”
“I’m not drinking hemlock.”
He smiles the most insincere smile imaginable. His face makes the motions—his lips curl up, his eyes squint and his teeth show—but nothing about it appears genuine. Perhaps it is the performer in me, but it looks as if he has slipped on a mask that only I notice. “I meant pick one for me. I’ll drink it. Go ahead.”
“Why would I want to poison you?” I ask, both alarmed and curious.
“Most people seem to enjoy it. Or stabbing me through with their swords. Strangling me.” He tips the scarlet vial from side to side with his index finger. “They pay excellent money for it, attempting to kill someone who cannot die.” The vial slips off the table, and with perfect reflexes, Luca catches it inches off the floor. “I call it poison-work. Another name I’ve dubbed myself with, since I am, to my knowledge, the only poison-worker in the world.”
“How do people know that red stuff isn’t just cranberry juice?” I ask.
“Because I keep a collection of cockroaches on which to test out my poisons. Cockroaches are almost indestructible. Just not nearly as much as me.”
“It’s cruel to kill cockroaches for your show,” I say. Then, to my dismay, the words keep spilling out of my mouth. “Cockroaches are actually really fascinating insects, you know. They can make decisions collectively in groups. Females can carry forty eggs at one time. And they can survive over a month without food.”
“It’s a cruel line of work, people paying to kill you. And—” he laughs “—you are clearly more informed on cockroaches than I am.”
So maybe Luca is good-looking, but I’m not into people that kill innocent creatures. Isn’t that something serial killers do?
Maybe I shouldn’t have come in here by myself. Maybe those dimples of his just hide terrifying intentions.
“Most people say they don’t believe me. Most people say my jynx-work is impossible,” he says. “You don’t seem so questioning.”
“I’m a trusting person, I guess,” I say.
“A dangerous thing. Is that why you’re here? To entrust me with something? It’s unusual, as I don’t get many clients from the Uphill.”
“How can you tell I’m from the Uphill?” My clothes don’t look any different than the ones people here are wearing. Other than my mask, of course.
“As if Villiam would allow his adopted daughter to live in the Downhill,” he says.
I sigh inwardly. I’m not convinced he’s going to be of any help. He seems like an ass. He’s clearly an Up-Mountainer. And my gut—plus that smile of his that doesn’t look like a smile at all—tells me he’s hiding something.
“You’re still contemplating whether or not to trust me,” he says.
“You know too much about me. You sound like a creep.”
“I told you—knowing about the people here is my business, the one I call gossip-work. It’s a hobby of mine when I’m not being stabbed to death for sport. A hobby I’m quite skilled at.” He smiles genuinely now, with the dimples, a lighthearted look in his eyes. “So, tell me, what’s troubling you?”
I don’t know of anywhere else I could find help, and despite Luca’s strange demeanor and his Up-Mountain background, he does seem to know a lot about me. Maybe he knows just as much about the other people of Gomorrah. If he’s as good at his so-called gossip-work as he says he is, then he might not only be my sole option but a good one.
And it’s not as if I have anything to lose.
So I tell him every detail, starting from the show the other night, though I leave out the bit about working with Jiafu. Luca listens without interrupting. It feels different telling this story to a stranger than it did to Villiam or Kahina. I need to explain everything—what the illusions are, that Gill always sleeps in his separate tent, the layout of the stage. It’s exhausting.
“I just don’t think it makes sense that it was an Ovren fanatic,” I finish. It occurs to me that Luca, being from the Up-Mountains, might also follow their religion. But I doubt it. He’s a jynx-worker who ran away to Gomorrah. It doesn’t matter where he’s from—they would scorn him as much as me.
After a few moments of silence, Luca only says, “No.”
“No, what?” I ask.
“I’m not interested.”
It takes me a moment to process that he means he’s not interested in helping me.
“What? Why not? I can pay you. It may take time to gather up some money, but—”
“I don’t take payment. I only work if the story interests me, and, to be honest, this does sound like the work of a purity-crazed Ovren disciple. You haven’t provided reasonable doubt, so that’s my answer for you. Sorry, princess.” He pulls out a golden pocket watch to check the time, as if he has better places to be.
“But I have no idea how Gill was killed at all. He’s an illusion.”
“Was. He was an illusion,” Luca corrects. I lean over the table to slap him across the face, but he catches my hand and holds it there. “And I know all about your illusions. Nicoleta, for instance, had a drawn-out, tumultuous affair with a prettywoman I happen to be acquainted with. So if your illusions can be touched, smelled, heard, and they can act on their own, what exactly is your definition of not real? What makes you so certain they can’t be killed?”
“By definition, an illusion isn’t real,” I snap.
“Illusion-worker is just a title. Like gossip-worker. Like poison-worker.”
I stand up. “Thanks for nothing,” I snap and storm out. Who exactly does he think he is? Giving himself a fake title. Acting smarter than everyone else. He’s so...so...infuriating. I kick down the wooden sign outside his tent. Then I kick it again after it’s fallen.
My walk home from the Downhill passes in a blur. I’m so focused on my thoughts and figuring out who else would want to help me that I pay no attention to where I’m going. One moment, I’m at Luca’s, and the next, I realize I’m already back at my own tent.
What makes you so certain they can’t be killed?
Is there more to my illusion-work, like Villiam thought? But I create illusions. There’s no debate about that. So what more could it be?
As I approach our tents, a figure runs toward me. Nicoleta. Her face is pink and puffy—our signature look, lately. But not usually for her. She’s managed to stay collected while everyone else has fallen apart, at least while we’ve been looking. Has something happened? Or did she not mean for me to see her cry?
“Sorina!” she calls.
Nicoleta crying. Nicoleta running. Something is wrong. Something is even more wrong than before. I run toward her, my heart pounding. I push more than one Cartonian patron out of the way to reach her.
“What is it?” I ask. She nearly collides with me, and I wrap my arms around her, stiff while she’s shaking.
“It’s Blister. Crown found him in the dunk tank near the games area. He drowned.”