The guard leaves to give us privacy.
“What are you doing here?” I snap. “You made it quite clear yesterday that I wasn’t worth helping.”
“I was wrong,” he says. “I heard about Blister. I’m so sorry, Sorina.”
I cross my arms and turn away. Now he decides that my case is interesting to him? I shouldn’t have sought him out in the first place. Had I been home, maybe I would have noticed Blister wandering off. Instead, I’d been wasting my time.
“You should leave,” I say.
“Please. I want to help you. How are you doing?”
“Are you only being nice because you’re interested now?” Luca reddens. Last night he was all wit and calm and I-have-better-things-to-do, but now he fidgets and avoids my gaze. I’m making him uncomfortable. Oh, well. It’s not my job to keep him at ease.
“No. I’m being nice because you look like you need it,” he says. “I have thoughts about what happened. Just hear me out.”
I can tell he won’t leave until he’s had his say, so I let him speak.
“So it could still be a disciple of Ovren, I suppose,” he says, his gaze focused on the grass. “But whoever they are, they do seem to be targeting your...family.”
I shiver at the thought that someone out there, for whatever reason, wants more of my family dead. I’m not sure I can protect them.
“The big question is why,” Luca says. “You’re the proprietor’s daughter, which could be the reason. But how well does Villiam know your family?”
“Well enough.” That sort of thing is private. I’m not about to share our family business with him.
“They don’t seem close.”
I purse my lips in annoyance. “They do not spend as much time with Villiam as I do, but they are still family. Not that it’s your business.”
“So if the killer did this to get to Villiam, they’re not doing a very good job, are they? Villiam hardly seems affected. So the killer must have a different motivation.”
I squeeze my fists until my knuckles whiten. There are kinder ways to say something like that. My father isn’t as dismissive as Luca seems to believe. No, he doesn’t always invite my family to dinner, but he helps provide for them. He buys presents for all of their birthdays. He asks about them whenever he sees me. He’s devastated for me.
Luca looks over his shoulder in case anyone is eavesdropping, but it is still early enough in the afternoon for the paths to be quiet. Even the nosy fortune-worker who lives beside us is still asleep—the best gossip is witnessed late in the night, when drunk patrons stumble back to Skull Gate or when her friends flock to her door to share the latest news.
“And there is still the question of how the killer is doing this,” Luca says. “You’re convinced the illusions are simply illusions. And since you’re the only illusion-worker I’ve heard of in the past few centuries, I’m not inclined to question your judgment on the matter. I’m thinking the killer might have an unusual sort of jynx-work. The kind that might be able to kill someone who isn’t real.”
“You didn’t say anything like this yesterday,” I say.
“I was thinking it. But it seemed unlikely. I thought Gill was probably killed by an Up-Mountainer—however, most Up-Mountainers suppress their jynx-work, so the perpetrator is statistically less likely to be from there. But now we have a proper killer on our hands. Someone with jynx-work who does know how to use it. Where is there a large collection of jynx-workers nearby? Here, in the Festival. Which also makes sense, as it seems odd that someone outside the Festival would target you so specifically. You’re not that important.” He speaks so quickly I almost grow dizzy.
“You’re wrong,” I say.
He furrows his eyebrows as if he didn’t understand my words. “What?”
“I am important. I’m the proprietor’s daughter, destined to be the next proprietor.”
“Is that what Villiam thinks the killer’s motive might be?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what you think?”
I hesitate. Like Luca said, no, my illusions aren’t particularly close to Villiam. He grieves for them more because he grieves for my own pain. Plus, Luca repeated my thoughts earlier about the killer having an unusual form of jynx-work. Maybe the answer is not in my blueprints but in the killer’s abilities. At least someone is validating my opinions, even if he has less tact than a swarm of desert hornets.
“We can work together,” he says. “I’ll start profiling the type of jynx-work that might be able to kill an illusion. We could find them together in Gomorrah.”
“I’m already working on an investigation with my father.”
“Do you or do you not believe the killer is targeting Villiam through your illusions?” He digs his walking stick into the dirt.
“I... I suppose I can’t be certain,” I admit.
“Good. We’ll meet tomorrow night. At ten.”
“To what?”
“To begin,” he says. “You can continue your investigation with Villiam—” his tone seems to indicate that his own is more important “—but we can investigate everything you and Villiam aren’t. It will cover every aspect of what happened to Gill and Blister. Between all of us, we’ll find who did this to your family.”
“And you’re doing this why? Out of the kindness of your heart?” I don’t trust that he’d just show up here and change his mind. He’s an Up-Mountainer, not Gomorrah-born. He probably wants something. A favor from the proprietor’s daughter, perhaps.
“I was rude to you yesterday. I feel like I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“All right, then, yes, out of the kindness of my heart.” He watches me seriously with his brown eyes, and for a moment, he reminds me of Villiam. Like he can see right through me. He knows I’m going to say yes. If it’s an opportunity to protect my family, I’m going to take it. Even if it means swallowing my pride.
“Fine. Tomorrow. At ten.” I turn around and head back to my tent.
Neither of us bothers to say goodbye.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nicoleta doesn’t look up from her washboard as I approach. She dunks one of Hawk’s shirts into the suds and scrubs the dirt out of it so hard the material tears. She hardly seems to notice the damage as she wrings the water out onto the muddy grass at her feet.
“I need to talk to you,” I say.
“You shouldn’t be working with Jiafu. I think so. Gill thought so. Crown thinks so.”
The fortune-worker across the path looks up from her knitting to eavesdrop. I am tired of her nosiness. But she did bring us a box of roasted goat legs, for our loss. I think Unu and Du already managed to eat them all.
“I don’t want to talk about Jiafu,” I say.
“All right, then who was the boy who visited you last night?”
“Could you lower your voice?” I ask. Even though it’s late and most of Gomorrah’s visitors are leaving, there are still people wandering. The fortune-worker may be harmless, but I don’t want word to break out that we’re concerned a killer is after us. There would be panic in all the tents in this neighborhood.
She raises her eyebrows and then reaches for one of Unu and Du’s shirts—with two holes for their heads—soaking in the bucket. “What were you talking about?”
I step closer to avoid being overheard. “We were talking about Gill’s and Blister’s deaths. He thinks that someone is targeting us.”
“Sorina, do you hear yourself? Why would anyone target us?” She tucks an oily strand of brown hair back inside her favorite hairpin and crosses her arms. Despite being only twenty-two, her face appears older. She looks old and frazzled and tired.
“I’m not sure yet—”
“Blister’s death was an accident. And there’s nothing we could do about Gill’s.”
I almost don’t know what to say. Is she willfully trying to remain ignorant? That’s dangerous for everyone involved.