The Menagerie tent opens three minutes later, and the queue of guests shuffles inside at an excruciatingly slow pace past the ticket booth. The entrance is a hallway lit by iron lampposts on either side so that our shadows stripe across the grass floor. In between the lamps stand taxidermied animals from the Down-Mountains. We pass an Eberian snow tiger, its pelt winter-white and its stripes hooked and curled at the points. A chimera hunches to our left, its goat and lion heads frozen in midhowl.
“You’re the goat for sure,” Du whispers to Unu.
There’s a leopard dragon, a few falcons and exotic birds, and one panda—all previous performers at the Menagerie. As a child, Villiam took me to the shows to watch the panda, who now watches us with vacant eyes.
The Up-Mountain guests point and gawk at the creatures we’ve seen a hundred times. They chatter incessantly and fan themselves, occasionally turning around to sneak peeks at us. I hear a woman say we must be in some kind of costumes. Hawk hugs her arms and her wings close to herself. Gill flicks her on the shoulder, and she manages a smile.
We have all learned—or tried to learn—to ignore the comments that follow us.
We enter the main part of the Menagerie, a huge open room with a circus ring, several trapezes and a collection of balls and hoops. My family slides into benches toward the back—we can never afford front row. The air smells of stale manure and kettle corn.
“Happy family night,” Venera says, and we raise our bags of licorice cherries in a sort of cheers.
For the next few minutes, I am caught up in the excitement of the Menagerie. I live for the anticipation of a good show. My legs twitch. I constantly change my sitting position. I eat too many of my snacks before the show even begins, and my stomach cramps from all the sugar. The others chatter to themselves about the last time we visited the Menagerie, when an acrobat broke his leg. Gill murmurs to Nicoleta—the only one who really listens to him—about the boring novel he’s reading.
Then I notice the noise outside. Shouts. Running. It grows louder, loud enough that many in the audience turn around, as if to see the commotion through the red-, pink- and purple-striped tent walls.
“Does that sound rather panicked to you?” Gill asks to my right. “Like something’s wrong?”
“I’m sure nothing’s wrong,” I say. Shouts and strange noises are business as usual in Gomorrah. Probably some drunkards passing through.
“But doesn’t it sound like something is?”
I listen closer. There are shouts. Feet running. Maybe...maybe the sound of horses, as well. I can’t be certain, but it does seem like more than a few drunkards. As the proprietor’s daughter, destined to one day become proprietor myself, I should inspect the commotion. But it’s family night. At the Menagerie. I don’t want to give up my seat. I’m sure it’s nothing important, and if it is, Villiam will take care of it anyway.
A man in a black tuxedo with a red undershirt strides into the center of the circus ring. He clears his throat, and the audience quiets. “I apologize, but the ten o’clock Menagerie show has been canceled. Tickets can be fully refunded at the booths at the north and south entrances. Please exit in an orderly fashion through the way you entered. We hope you enjoy the rest of your time at the Gomorrah Festival.”
The noise of the crowd immediately grows into an uproar. Among the shouts and complaints, Unu and Du’s and Hawk’s are some of the loudest.
“That’s rubbish,” Du sulks. “Our show is never canceled.”
“It’s probably from whatever is happening outside,” Gill says. “It mustn’t be anything good.”
“You’re right,” Nicoleta says. She stands. “We should leave now. Before the rush.”
Most of the audience remains in their seats, as if sitting around long enough will bring the manager back and force him to start the show. But the manager nearly sprinted out of the circus ring, so I doubt anyone will return. Clearly whatever is happening is important.
I grab my bag of licorice cherries and try not to let the true extent of my disappointment show. This is the Menagerie. What sort of pandemonium does it take to shut down Gomorrah’s biggest attraction?
“We better hurry if we don’t want to stand in line for the rest of the night waiting for our money back,” Nicoleta tells us.
We gather our few belongings and file out of the stands. The audience crowds in the hallway, and the eight of us link arms—Nicoleta carries Blister—to avoid losing each other. Once we approach the exit, the commotion grows louder.
Screams.
“What’s going on?” Hawk asks. “Tree, can you see anything?”
Tree doesn’t answer. He swats at a fly buzzing around his leaves.
“It’s officials,” the man in front of us says.
“Officials? Like Frician city officials?” I ask, confused. “What are they doing at the Festival?” They allowed us to come to Frice. Have they changed their minds? Will they force us to leave? It wouldn’t be the first time a city-state has rescinded an invitation after gazing at Gomorrah’s intimidating burning skyline up close. It looks like Hell itself has shown up on their doorsteps.
“Causing trouble,” Gill says, always stating the obvious. Anything involving Up-Mountain officials means trouble.
We’ll have to cut our plans short—the Menagerie, the fireworks show, all of it. Officials love to target jynx-workers, and even if I’m the only true one among us, our appearances will make us stand out. I could joke about how it has something to do with us being abominations to their god. But the joke is less funny here, considering all the blood that has been spilled for thousands of years in the name of that same god in this city alone, not to mention in the rest of the world.
No, it isn’t much of a joke at all.
“Straight home,” Nicoleta says. “Does everyone hear?”
“Yes,” we chorus. No one argues with Nicoleta when there’s a crisis.
We step into the smoky night air, right in the middle of the clearing that was once filled with vendors, fortune-workers and laughing guests. Now, everyone is running. White-coated Frician officials on horseback charge dangerously close to the Gomorrah merchants packing up their stands. The officials brandish clubs and holler at passersby. Several brandish swords and crossbows.
Gomorrah is chaos.
CHAPTER TWO
The coin merchant’s table crashes to the ground, and lucky coins cascade onto the grass in a rushing clatter. The official whose horse overturned the stand stops and dismounts. I hold my breath and squirm closer to Gill as the merchant drops to his knees and collects his fallen merchandise.
“We need to hurry,” Nicoleta says. She points in the direction of a nearby path for us to flee.
The official picks up a coin and examines it. “The Harbinger? He looks like a demon.” He throws the coin into the merchant’s lap. “Are you a jynx-worker?”
“No,” the merchant says, his voice strong. He stands to meet the official’s eyes.
“Then what are these for, if not divining?”
“It’s a game. Collector’s items.”
“A game,” he mocks. “A festival. Pretty words for a city of rot and smoke. Nothing about this place is play.”
Gill tugs on my arm. The others have broken apart and are running for Nicoleta’s path. “It’s time to go,” he says.
I eye the ticket booth behind us, loath to lose all the money we spent. We saved for this night. I won’t let a few Up-Mountain officials force us to throw our money away and terrorize us in our own home.
I disentangle myself from Gill’s grip. “I’m getting our money back.”
Gill’s eyes widen in alarm. “There are more important things.”
“No. Family night is a whole month of saving, and we didn’t get to have it. I’m getting. Our money. Back.” I say this sternly enough so that Gill won’t argue with me. And he doesn’t.
“Be careful,” he says.
“Always am.”
I whip around toward the ticket booth. A crowd surrounds it, shouting at the girl inside, who’s shouting right back. There are twenty yards between them and me, plus a few officials in their white coats on whiter stallions beneath the Menagerie’s banners, admiring the chaos around them and tormenting those in costume, searching for jynx-workers.