“You’re right,” Kahina says quickly. “I shouldn’t say things like that. Are you all right, Sorina?”
“Y-yes,” I say. But talking makes my breathing stagger, and then I can’t hold it back anymore. I cough out a sob, which turns into another and then another. There are no tears, of course, but my face reddens and my nose runs. I feel as though my entire heart has shattered.
“What has made this come on?” she asks, crawling to my side.
I bury my face into her shoulder and mumble something unintelligible.
“You’re really worrying me—”
“Gill’s dead. Someone killed him. Last night.”
I feel her whole body go rigid with shock. “What do you mean, someone killed him?”
I tell her the entire story, just like I told Villiam last night, and it’s no easier to share a second time. As I near the end, Kahina gets up to pour me a stone-cold mug of chamomile tea. “We were arguing when I last talked to him,” I choke. “I... I wasn’t kind.”
“Arguing about what?” Kahina asks.
“Nothing important,” I lie. She wouldn’t like to hear that I’ve been working with a Downhill thief to supply her medicine. I’ve been telling her that the Freak Show has been booming lately. I’m not certain if she buys this, but Kahina always said I don’t have to tell her anything I don’t want to. Before this, I’ve never had anything to conceal from her.
She presses me closer to her and hands me the tea. Then she runs her fingers through my hair, the way she used to when I was a child. “I’m so sorry, sweetbug. I wish I could’ve seen this coming.”
Kahina is unable to see the fortunes of my illusions because they aren’t entirely real.
But apparently they’re real enough to die.
I wish I could tell her about how worried I am about her, too. About how I feel the same anxiety, as if, even though my lungs are expanding, I’m not getting any air. And the feeling won’t go away. But Kahina hates it when I bring up her health. She hates to see how it affects me.
“It’s not fair,” I say. “It’s not fair that the Up-Mountainers get to storm our Festival and then call us the criminals. They get drunk, and they buy drugs, and they pay for all sorts of sins and call us the sinners for giving them the business they want.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand.
“I don’t like to hear you talking like that,” Kahina says gently.
“What do you mean? It’s the truth. What they do isn’t right.”
“No, it isn’t right. But that doesn’t mean I like to hear my sweetbug saying ugly, angry things. Not my beautiful sweetbug. You’re allowed to be sad. Of course you can grieve. And anger is a stage of grief. But some never move beyond that, and I worry about you when you say such things.” She tugs at the ribbon of my mask until it slips off. “There. That feel better?”
Kahina always treats me like a child. She treats everyone like children, even people with more wrinkles and body aches than her. Her only child died at only two months old many, many years ago, yet she always said it was her destiny to be a mother, that every fortune-worker in Gomorrah told her that. So Kahina became a sort of mother to everyone in the Festival, quilting blankets, sending baskets of tea and keeping lucky coins for everyone she cares about.
But I’m her sweetbug.
When Villiam first adopted me, I was only three years old. He may have been my father, but, in truth, he was more of a teacher. He needed someone else to look after me while he managed the Festival, but no one was too keen to babysit me, with my freakish face, my unsettling jynx-work and Tree following me wherever I went. Only Kahina volunteered. And though Villiam and Kahina may have different views on parenting, Villiam has always appreciated the maternal role she plays in my life.
“What is Villiam doing to find the perpetrator?” she asks.
“I don’t know yet. He was too overwhelmed with moving the Festival to do anything last night. He sent some guards. But they only asked us a few questions and left.”
“That doesn’t surprise me—last night was chaotic. I hope he doesn’t involve you further in the investigation.”
I pull away. “Why not?”
“Because I know Villiam. I’ve known him since he was a boy. And as much as he loves to involve you in all of his work, he doesn’t know you like I do. He’s clever and calculating—able to detach himself from a situation to view it objectively. You are not like that.”
“I could be. If that’s what it took,” I insist. I’m going to be proprietor one day, so I’ll need to be.
“Now, sweetbug,” she says, continuing to run her fingers through my hair, “no one wants you to go through that. What happened to Gill is a wretched thing. But you need to promise me that you won’t let the anger get to you. You have too beautiful a soul for that. You focus on love, because you still have a whole family who loves you. Don’t you forget that. And drink your tea.”
“A whole family I made up.”
“I was made on a cold January night by a fisherman and a fortune-worker, not by you,” she says wryly.
I snort. A very clogged, snotty snort.
“Yes, Venera and Hawk and all of your family may be illusions, but they still love you. And love is real. Love is a choice.” She squeezes my hand, and I stare at her black veins with a mess of dread pinching at my gut. I don’t know what I’d do without Kahina. “Now, you’re going to take it easy right now. You’re going to sleep and cry and eat or not eat as much as you want until we get to Cartona. And then you’re going to perform your show and see your friends and do things again. And it won’t feel better right away, but it will eventually.”
Would it get better? I don’t have any friends to see—the only people I spend time with are my illusions, Kahina and Villiam. Most people in Gomorrah avoid me because my face makes them uneasy. Even with my mask on, people have complained because they can’t see my expression or tell if I’m looking at them. Around me, they cannot trust their own senses. I make everyone uncomfortable. It’s easier to be among other misfits.
“I promised Villiam I’d go see him tonight,” I say.
She purses her lips, and I prepare myself for another speech about not getting involved in the investigation.
She must know I won’t take her advice. Not on this.
“Then, after tonight,” she says. “You take time to yourself, okay?”
“Okay. But can you do a reading for me before I go?” Kahina often does fortune-work for me. I may have given up on aspirations of beauty, but my fantasies of romance have been kindling since Kahina told me fairy tales as a child. So I usually ask if she sees anything remotely romantic in my future. She never does.
“Of course,” Kahina says. “Maybe there’s a mystery man.”
“Or lady,” I add. When I imagine myself in Kahina’s fairy tales, I tend to prefer princes and princesses equally. “I was hoping you could read for anyone connected to what happened to Gill. Through me.” I sit up, my hair brushing against the leaves of a palm potted behind me.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sorina.” She only uses my name when aggravated.
“I just want to make sure that everyone else is safe,” I say. “Please. It would make me feel better.”
“Fine. But only this once.”
She grabs a black clay jug from her table. Inside are hundreds of coins, each with a different symbol. I take the jug and shake it until one coin falls out from the opening underneath. It’s a gold piece with a menace on it—a type of demon believed to live in the Great Mountains, the region between the two continents. Not a good sign.
She turns it over in her hand. “You are surrounded by confusion,” she says. “It’s strange. Difficult to see through. As if you’re surrounded by the same smoke as Gomorrah.”
I’m not sure what to make of that, but I’ve grown used to Kahina’s vagueness after hundreds of readings.
“You can’t see anything?” I ask.
“There’s only the negative energy in your aura.”