“Jiafu adores me,” I say. “And he’s terrified of me.”
“The way every man should see you,” Venera chimes in from beside me as she applies her signature black lipstick. I covertly hold up a hand, and she high-fives me behind my back. At least Venera is always on my side.
“Jiafu knows I’m not one of his cronies,” I tell Nicoleta.
Nicoleta purses her lips. “What if Jiafu gets caught by Up-Mountain officials?” Nicoleta is an ardent supporter of what-ifs. “He could take you down with him.”
“Could you stop? You’re giving me anxiety,” Venera and I say together.
Of all my illusions, Venera and I are the most alike. I made her to be the perfect best friend for me—fashion-savvy, fun and stop-and-stare gorgeous. The younger-looking illusions—Hawk, Unu and Du and Blister—are like my younger siblings. Crown: my grandfather. Gill: the voice of authority. Nicoleta: the bossy older sister. And Tree is...Tree.
I hunt through my various masks—all small, covering only the eye area—and select a simple one with matte sequins, a satin interior and a spider design on the top right corner. I never venture into public without a mask, where Up-Mountain children can gape while their parents call me monstrous, or an abomination, or any other colorful choice of word. I have no eyebrows, no eyes, not even indents where eyes should be. When I was younger, I tried to cast an illusion of these features, but something about the cold emptiness in my fake eyes looked even more unsettling than my normal appearance—nor could I maintain the image for more than a few minutes. Though I made peace with my face years ago, I don’t have the thickest skin—it only takes a single whisper or sickened stare to reopen old wounds.
But I have nice lips, I remind myself. I line them in blood-red lipstick, which pairs devilishly with my dark mask. My skin is fair, my straight hair so black it’s almost blue, like the people who live in the Eastern Kingdoms of the Down-Mountains. I don’t remember my home before Gomorrah, but Villiam has told me stories about how he adopted me in one of those kingdoms, and Kahina has made a point to introduce me to foods from my homeland, like sugar-coated tanghulu that a vendor sells near Skull Gate. But none of us discuss my past often; otherwise we might dwell on what my fate could have been, had Villiam not found me, an eyeless slave girl. Sometimes I wish I remembered. But when I speak to others in Gomorrah with stories like mine, I feel relieved that I don’t.
“Tonight is meant for fun,” Venera says. “Save your bickering for another time.”
She’s right. Tonight we’re all attending a show at the Menagerie, a rare, expensive treat we indulge in whenever we save enough for the tickets. The Menagerie is Gomorrah’s gaudiest, most exciting and most overpriced attraction.
Blister darts out from behind me and holds up his hand. I give him a high five. Afterward, he moves on to Venera. He does this after every show.
“Are you ready to see some tigers and dragons?” Venera asks him.
He roars in affirmation, and Venera laughs and pinches his cheek.
Crown appears in the doorway with Unu, Du and Gill—who looks rather sour—behind him. They are changed out of their costumes.
Unu and Du rub their hands together. “The cherries are on you, Sorina,” Unu says.
I lost the last game of lucky coins. “Only one bag for you guys, though.”
“But there are two of us,” Du complains.
“You’ve only got one stomach.”
“You’d hardly know that from the way they eat,” Gill mutters. He jokingly flicks Unu on his ear. Flicking is his way of showing affection.
“We should leave now, or we’ll be late,” Nicoleta says. As if anything in Gomorrah starts on schedule, or our family is ever on time.
We march out of our tent into the dense smoke of Gomorrah and head north, toward the games neighborhood. It’s a bit of a detour, but the food in that neighborhood is better than anywhere else—sticky buns that melt on your tongue, nuts dipped in honey like beetles preserved within amber, saltwater taffy you can buy by the yard. Plus, most of us can’t resist wasting a few of our coins on a game or two. Unu and Du get a kick out of having people guess their weight with their two heads. Crown has a special gift for ring toss. Nicoleta, when she’s feeling up to it, can make the bell chime when she smashes the airbag with the hammer.
My family does not go anywhere quietly. Tree’s steps thunder as if we’re walking with a crowd of one hundred rather than nine. Hawk squabbles with Unu and Du, who keep rubbing her feathers against the grain. Venera and I walk, arms linked and chatting about the yogurt face masks we might try tonight. The paths of Gomorrah are narrow and winding, sometimes only wide enough between tents for a single person to slip through. But we don’t care about stopping traffic. The residents let me pass because I’m the proprietor’s daughter, an association that brings me an uncomfortable amount of notoriety and weighty expectations. The visitors nearly lunge out of our way after one look at Unu and Du’s heads, Crown’s curling yellow scalp of nails or Tree.
We approach our favorite vendor of licorice-dipped cherries—Gomorrah’s signature treat—and Unu and Du steer us aside.
“How many bags am I buying?” I ask.
Each of them shouts how many they want.
“I’m not buying fourteen bags.” I hold up my flimsy coin purse. “You guys are milking me dry.”
Crown fishes in his pocket for change before Du stops him. “You can’t help her. She lost. Rules are rules.”
Lucky coins is a sacred game in my family.
I curse under my breath and thrust my entire savings—one week’s worth, since I can’t save anything more than a few days—into the vendor’s hands. His eyes light up as he hands us a full quarter of his stock.
Afterward, with our teeth sticky from black licorice and our lips stained red from cherry juice, we head toward the Menagerie singing one of Gomorrah’s folk songs.
Wicked, wicked to the core. The city will burn forevermore.
Or mostly singing. Unu and Du shriek to drown out Hawk, who, as always, is trying to show off her vocal range and make everyone else sound bad.
The Menagerie’s spires tower into the smoke that covers the Festival like an endless expanse of storm clouds. Its tent is so black it appears like a hole, seeping the color away from its surroundings. Pink, red and violet streamers—Gomorrah’s colors—ripple in the breeze at its peak.
The line outside snakes around the tent, and we grab a place at the end. Because the Menagerie is such a popular attraction, stands for kettle corn, palm readers and charms salesmen clutter its perimeter.
“Care for some coins?” a man asks Hawk. He bites the coin, and his teeth clack against the bronze. She turns her back to him, a pro at dealing with persistent vendors, but he continues, “Solid. Good quality. I have the Handmaiden, the Red Jester, the Harbinger—”
“We have enough coins,” Nicoleta tells him. We all know the coins sold in this part of the Festival attract more tourists than actual players. The gambling neighborhood sells the characters of real and rare value.
Perhaps it is the stern edge in Nicoleta’s voice, or perhaps the vendor knows a lost cause when he sees one, but he doesn’t pester us again, even though we remain next to his stand for several more minutes. He moves on to the Up-Mountain patrons behind us, who marvel at the thin coins and ask the vendor how to play.
“It’s your face,” Hawk tells Nicoleta. “He can see the lack of fun and warmth in your eyes.”
“I resent that,” she says.
Unu and Du tug on the sleeve of my night cloak. “Will you buy us some spiced wine?” Du whispers eagerly, his hazel eyes sparkling in the white torchlight. Unu, on the other hand, stares at their feet.
“You’re eleven,” I say.
“That’s an arbitrary number you made up.”
“Arbitrary is a big word for you.”
Du gives me one of his classic Du expressions. He leans his head back and scrunches his entire face together like he’s eaten a whole mouthful of sour-cherry drops. He uses this to feign being insulted.
Normally, I might say yes, but the spiced wine in this area of Gomorrah is highly potent—meant to get guests drunk and happy to spend. “Sorry, kiddo.” I pinch his cheek. “I’m too responsible a sister for that.”