“He always gives me gifts,” she says. “He won’t let me refuse. I’d go elsewhere, but he’s the closest vendor in the neighborhood...” She shakes her head. “Petty problems. We need to figure out what to tell Villiam. I don’t want Hawk learning of this. She would jump at the opportunity for a little thrill.”
“We could find someone else.” I think of Narayan, the so-called ghost-worker. But even if his abilities would be extremely valuable to Chimal, he’s a drunk. We couldn’t possibly trust him with the importance of this mission. Luca wouldn’t be much use, either. Faking his death won’t help us sneak in and out of the event.
“What about me?” Nicoleta asks.
I pause. Is she serious? “Chimal might be interested. But your abilities aren’t that reliable.”
“It’s worth a shot,” she says strongly.
“It’s going to be dangerous. That’s an awful lot to gamble on.”
“I don’t know whether the Alliance is responsible for what happened to Gill and Blister—I don’t have any idea what happened. But I want to help you. We’ll tell Chimal that this is your best offer.” She holds her head higher, as if readying herself for a battle, even if she has never been in one. I don’t know what Chimal will think of commanding our show manager, but I, like Nicoleta, figure it is worth a shot.
“We’ll talk to them tonight.”
* * *
“The medicine is working, sweetbug,” Kahina says, resting her purple-veined hand against mine.
“You don’t seem better,” I say, swatting one of her plants out of my face.
“I’m not worse.”
I avoid looking at the sickness crawling across her skin. Not worsening isn’t progress. I try not to think about how we might be only stalling the inevitable, but the thought remains, whispering at the edges of my mind.
“Nicoleta tells me that you’ve been going out at night, that you sometimes return later than Venera,” Kahina says. “Now, I love Venera dearly, but I don’t like the idea—”
“I’m not partying,” I say, though I don’t tell her the truth, that I’ve been sneaking out to question suspects with Luca.
My memories of last night send flutters through my stomach. I have the urge to squeal like a child, and an equal urge to bury myself in a mountain of blankets and hide from the world. And to smack Hawk and Unu and Du silly. I humiliated myself. How am I going to face Luca in a few hours?
“Is the investigation with Villiam too pressing for you? I didn’t want you involving yourself with his work until you were eighteen.”
“Villiam and you decided that?” I say.
“When you were young. Villiam wanted to start you earlier, but I didn’t think it was the best idea. He eventually relented.”
When I was younger, I remember Kahina and Villiam consulting each other, but now they speak so rarely. It isn’t so much that they had a falling out, but they no longer need to discuss me like they did when I was a child. I’m really the only thing they have in common, after all.
“If you’re not partying, may I ask what you are doing?” Kahina says.
“I’ve made a friend.”
“A nice friend?”
“Yes. A nice friend,” I say, smirking. I begin the story with the truth, that I met Luca in Villiam’s tent that night in Frice. The story quickly transforms into a jumble of lies about how I sought out Luca’s show, how we spend our time learning the secrets people tell him. The words taste oddly sweet on my tongue. It’s a pleasant story. Much more pleasant than the truth, that we spend our time searching for a murderer within Gomorrah. That I spend all my time finding justice for my family.
“You say Luca is an Up-Mountainer?” Kahina asks, a bit warily. “Sorina, you cannot trust new Up-Mountainers in Gomorrah. They come to take advantage of people here and then they leave.”
“I don’t think he has any intentions of returning home.”
“They always say that, in the beginning. Until they grow tired from moving city to city. Until they travel below the Mountains and are confronted with the evil of their people face-to-face.”
It’s true that Luca has not traveled with Gomorrah long enough for him to reach the Down-Mountains. It’s difficult to picture him wearing anything but his structured, crisp Up-Mountain clothes. I smile at the image of him roaming the Forty Deserts in his velvet vest.
Nevertheless, I also cannot picture him leaving, and I don’t feel like continuing this discussion with Kahina. “I was wondering if you’d do a reading for me,” I say.
“About your new friend, perhaps?”
“Yes.” It was only a week and a half ago that Kahina saw nothing in my romantic future, but that seems to have changed. Would she see Luca’s name written in my tea leaves now?
“I’ll grab the coin pot,” she says, though it’s across the room on one of her shelves.
“No tea leaves?”
“I have a good feeling about the coins.”
“I’ll get it.” I stand and pluck it off the shelf. It’s covered in glossy black paint and red symbols that match those on the coins inside. It rattles as I hand it to her. I love the sound of the coins, of the anticipation of what might fall out.
Kahina rubs the bottom of the jar in circles. “Your friend Luca? It’s hard for me to picture him. Perhaps because I’ve never met him...” she says and then gives it to me hesitantly. “Picture him and give it a go. But I can’t promise the reading will be detailed. He seems quite cloudy, in my mind.”
I shake it a few times before turning it over. A single dark coin falls out, barely the size of my fingernail. On one side is a wolf’s claw and on the other, the three streaks made from a claw tearing through earth or flesh. I don’t have the gift of fortune-work, but, even to me, the coin feels cold and dead.
Kahina takes the coin hesitantly, as if not wanting to touch it. “You were thinking of Luca when you shook the jar?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no hint of him on this coin. I cannot see him in your fortune at all.” Her face softens as she watches mine. “I’m sorry. Were you hoping I would?”
“I’m confused, I guess,” I say. The kiss aside, I’ve been with Luca the past several nights, and I’ll be with him again for many more. How could his fortune be so distant from my own?
“This coin means impending doom,” she says. “The Were’s Claw.”
My heart stutters for a moment. “You don’t think...another illusion—”
“It’s difficult to say when everything is so cloudy. You know I cannot tell fortunes for your illusions. Perhaps the Were’s Claw references the wars brewing around us. Or perhaps it does refer to Luca, and I’m having trouble seeing it.”
I frown. If Luca is about to encounter trouble, the chances of it being associated with me are low. He spends his free time befriending assassins and the like, and I can hardly be the only person his personality has—at some point—rubbed the wrong way.
“Do you see anything more?” I ask her.
“It’s unclear. Perhaps the vision is clouding because Luca is an Up-Mountainer, and the entire fate of this area balances on the edge of a knife. It feels as though Gomorrah cannot move fast enough to outrun what will happen if the Up-Mountain city-states are no longer united. It could mean a war here.”
“Luca isn’t mixed up in any of that.”
“I’m not certain,” she says. “But you should be concerned about his safety. The fortune in this coin feels very imminent. Tell him to be wary. The Were’s Claw does not simply warn of danger. It promises it.”
* * *
When Nicoleta and I visit Villiam that evening, Chimal and Agni also await my arrival inside his office. The atmosphere, even just upon entering the room, is tense, as though they were in the middle of an argument before we arrived. Cups sit in front of each of them, filled with red tea that has long gone cold.
“Sorina,” Villiam says, his gaze shifting to Nicoleta questioningly, “we’re hoping you have reconsidered your decision about Hawk. The more I’ve spoken to Chimal, the more it seems that Hawk would prove invaluable—”