My head hurts from spinning around so many theories, all of which make sense. If Luca is right, my family is still in danger.
I fill him in on the details of my conversation with Chimal and Villiam today, particularly the bit that involves Hawk. “They’ve given me a day to speak with her, but I don’t want her involved in this.”
“Then don’t work with Chimal. You said Chimal gave you an ultimatum.”
“I... I have to be a part of this. There is still a chance that the Alliance could have killed my family. And Villiam wants me to take on more responsibility as a proprietor.” And I don’t want to let him down.
“If you have to be a part of it, then you don’t have a choice. You’ll have to speak to Hawk. But Hawk can still decline, can’t she?”
“She won’t. I know her. She’ll want to help.”
“If you consider this a family matter, I would discuss it with your whole family. Maybe Hawk will listen if more people than you tell her no.”
I didn’t think of that. Nicoleta has a talent for persuasion. We could have a family meeting tonight. Villiam and Chimal cannot be disappointed in me if Hawk refuses.
“What sort of party are we going to?” I ask, my spirits now considerably lighter.
“The sort with classic Gomorrah debauchery. There’s a tent behind mine that often hosts them.”
So he means the kind of parties Venera attends wearing her black lipstick and skintight, striped dresses.
“Why are we going to this party?” I ask.
“There’s someone I need to speak with there. Another client. You don’t have to come, but I thought you might like to.”
“I’ve never been to a party.”
“I don’t know how your father could possibly give you a working knowledge of Gomorrah without sending you to one.”
He leads me to the tent behind his packed-up caravan, a tent which is a massive expanse of various tarps sewn together, nearly the height of the Menagerie in the Uphill, all rolling on a platform charmed to move on its own. The air smells like a summer night and rum and fever, and just breathing it in makes my steps feel lighter. We each pay two copper pieces to enter.
Inside are at least one hundred people, maybe two hundred. Wearing the most outrageous clothes I’ve ever seen in one place. Suit jackets made of taffeta. Dresses with more layers than a wedding cake. Hats with brims full of ragweed. Shoes with platforms six inches high.
A fire-worker stands in the center of the dance floor surrounded by a fence, juggling three balls of flames that burn purple, red and pink. The musicians play a Vurundi dance with a beat that pulses throughout the tent, beckoning dancers closer with its hypnotic rhythm. The bar is opposite the musicians and quite crowded.
I notice Yelema, the prettywoman who was having tea with Luca when I first found his tent. She’s dancing and is as mesmerizing as always. She waves at me, and I wave back. Then she waves at someone else in the room, and another. As if she knows everyone here. The only two people I know well in the Downhill, which makes up more than half of the city, are Luca and Jiafu. If I’m going to be proprietor, that needs to change.
Luca sits on a stool and speaks to the bartender, their heads so low it looks like they’re talking into their glasses. I slide in beside him, but they keep their voices almost too low for me to hear.
“...yesterday morning,” Luca says. “Nearly certain he’s a shadow-worker.”
“Who is?” I ask.
The bartender eyes me cautiously. “She’s with you, von Raske?”
“Do you mean do I care if she overhears, or is she with me?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“I’d rather she not overhear. She’s a client for a different matter,” he says.
Before I can ask what’s going on, the bartender says, “I thought you weren’t the physical type?”
It takes me a moment to process what the bartender means—that he thinks I’m here with Luca as a date. As a possible lover. I force myself not to look too pleased, not to hope too much, as I hold my breath, waiting for Luca’s response.
“Everyone seems to have opinions on my type, don’t they?” Luca rolls his eyes and then turns to me. “Give us a moment.”
I feel a shrivel of disappointment.
“Fine,” I say and then creep my way to the other side of the bar, hoping for someone to talk to. I search for Venera in the crowd but don’t find her. Instead, I bump into a woman with a five o’clock shadow and hands twice the size of my face.
“I like your mask, dear,” she says to me.
“Thank you. I like your shoes.” She wears glittery purple heels that pair perfectly with the frills of her dress. “Is it always this crowded?” I ask.
“They’re all celebrating the Up-Mountain war that hasn’t happened yet,” she says. “But everyone thinks there will be one because some fortune-worker said there’d be. The fortune-worker’s name changes with each story. They think a war here will bring the Down-Mountains more freedom.” She raises her eyebrows. “Wishful thinking.”
“War in the Up-Mountains? Why?”
“People keep dying, I think. Important Up-Mountain people.”
I think back to the young prince in Cartona, the one who died of pneumonia, but people really believe he was murdered by Frice. Then there was the Frician duke. Villiam didn’t mention anything to me about a possible war, and I’d believe him over any fortune-worker.
Luca reappears at my side. “Sorry,” he says. “I only needed to speak to him for a moment.”
“About what?” I ask.
“A private matter.” His face is serious and cold, and, for a moment, I have the urge to take a step back. He’s definitely hiding something important. This isn’t some meeting with the Leather Viper.
Or maybe I’m just on edge, with all this talk of war and the Alliance.
There’s a pause. I can feel the thrum of the music in my fingertips. Luca shifts almost awkwardly next to me.
“Do you want to dance?” he asks suddenly.
“With you?”
“I mean, I invited you here. Unless you have someone else with whom you’d prefer to dance.”
I look him over and try to keep myself from flushing once more. His dark eyes that deeply contrast with his pale hair and skin. His angular features, his broad shoulders, his slender frame. If Venera was here, she would tell me he’s attractive and that I should definitely dance with him. That I should seize the opportunity, even at the risk of making a fool of myself.
He’s probably just being nice. We’re friends, after all.
I take his hand anyway.
Luca is a marvelous dancer. His feet seem to guide him more than his head, as if his body remembers a song his mind doesn’t. It’s the sort of skill that comes from teaching, and I wonder about his life before Gomorrah, his wealthy family who all passed away. Did one of them teach him to dance?
He grabs my hands and twirls me around quicker than Blister’s top, and I’m spinning too fast to remember to be sad. At one point, he dips me so low that my hair brushes the floor. He makes quite the show of waltzing me around the dance floor. I should’ve known he had a flair for the dramatic—he’s a performer, after all.
After several songs we stumble outside, dizzy with exhilaration. The night air feels like a sigh against my skin, though the atmosphere here isn’t peaceful. The Downhill paths are trafficked with wanderers, some drunk, some just looking for trouble.
We take a few steps behind the tent, halfway to Luca’s caravan. And I think about how close this tent is to where Luca sleeps, which I’m suddenly very aware of. Luca takes a deep breath of the night air and stretches. He laughs, a sound I realize I’ve rarely heard before. “You’re a terrible dancer,” he says.
“Am not.”
“Yes,” he says, grinning his dimpled smile, “you are.” He runs his fingers through his hair so it’s pushed out of his face. “That was fun.”
“More fun than spying and gossiping?” I say.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me what you were talking to that bartender about?”