“I’m not changing my mind about that.” I pull up the fourth chair at the table and take a seat. They all watch me with apprehension. “But I have a compromise. You say you need someone with abilities the Up-Mountainers won’t expect. I propose Nicoleta.”
“The stage manager?” Chimal furrows his thick eyebrows and inspects her skinny frame. “Forgive me, Nicoleta, but I didn’t realize you had any jynx-work.”
“She’s stronger than ten of your men combined,” I say for her.
“But not reliably so,” Villiam adds.
“True, I’ve been known to get stage fright,” she says. “But, from what I understand, this is hardly the sort of job that would elicit an audience. Besides, you wouldn’t be sending a child into battle.” She lifts her chin higher in self-righteousness.
“I think that is a very viable idea,” Agni says.
Villiam drums his fingers on the table. “With no disrespect, Nicoleta, how can we depend on you?”
“I will show you what I can do.” Nicoleta bends at the knees and picks up Villiam’s chair in her right hand and lifts him with ease. He grips the edges of his seat so as not to slide off. With her left hand, she lifts Chimal, who raises his eyebrows in interest.
“I look Up-Mountainer,” she says. “We may have to enter through the front door, but you could easily make me look the part. Only Sorina would need to remain hidden.”
“Can you replicate the accent? Walk like a dignitary?”
“I’m a performer. Of course I can.” She sets Chimal and Villiam down. The teacups rattle.
He crosses his arms. “It will be dangerous.”
“I imagine so,” Nicoleta says.
Their words remind me that by making this compromise to ensure Hawk remains out of the conflict, I have lost my opportunity to escape myself. I wish I was braver, but the thought of walking directly into an Up-Mountain crowd terrifies me. As much as I want to please Villiam, I’m scared. So much is depending upon me—my survival most of all.
What if the doom referenced by the Were’s Claw is my own?
“It’ll require preparations every day until we reach Sapris,” Chimal says.
“I’ll make arrangements.” She leans over the table. “I know that you were more interested in what Hawk had to offer, but I believe you’ll be making an altogether safer decision if I accompany Sorina. If you are dissatisfied in the future, you can change your mind. But you won’t get Hawk. It’s me or nothing.”
Chimal purses his lips like a child who’s lost his toy. “Fine. We start tomorrow.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
An hour before Gomorrah reaches Gentoa, I slip away to the Downhill to pay Luca a visit. His caravan is empty, though nothing appears out of the ordinary. As I walk back to the Uphill, I tell myself over and over again not to worry. All of Gomorrah is about to unpack, which means people are scrambling about, preparing to set up their tents and belongings. He’s probably on errands. Or at one of his tea parties with his assassin and prettyworker friends. Not in danger, like Kahina predicted.
Still, falling asleep that night poses a challenge.
When I do drift off, I dream of Luca. I dream of him in such detail that it even embarrasses my dream self. The pout in his lips. The angular shadow cast by his brow bone. The slopes where his neck blends into chest, then shoulder. My imagination roams to other places, and I am more than a little humiliated at the level of intimacy. In the dream, I know every line of his body. I know every memory behind his brown eyes.
It all feels familiar.
I wake with Venera’s knee jutting into my back, her drool staining my pillow, the details of the dream already becoming distant and hazy. I shake Venera awake.
“Hmm?” she says, her eyes closed.
“I want to talk to you about something. A boy.”
“’Rina, you know I’m always ready to talk about romance,” she mumbles, “but did you have to choose ten in the morning to ask?”
“Never mind. Go back to sleep.”
She rubs her eyes and sits up. “No, it’s fine. I’m all ears.”
“According to Kahina’s fortune-work, there isn’t any romance in my future.”
“Fortune-workers don’t know everything. Tell me about him. Why are you thinking romance?”
“Because I kissed him,” I whisper.
Venera squeals and squirms closer to me. “How forward. I’m so proud.”
I hush her, not wanting to wake the others. “No, you don’t understand. I kissed him, but he didn’t kiss me back. And now I’m worried. He wasn’t in his caravan earlier. Maybe he’s avoiding me. Or he got himself into trouble—”
“One concern at a time,” she says. “How about you just tell me about him first?”
I squeeze my pillow to my chest. “Last week, I ran into him during one of his acts. He calls himself a poison-worker. People pay to kill him, and he always comes back alive. I watched him get beheaded.”
“How romantic. Your special someone sounds like some kind of demon.”
“I think he’d take that as a compliment,” I say.
“You should tell him you think he has nice eyes.”
“How do you know I like his eyes?”
She snorts. “Because you have a thing for eyes.”
I flush slightly but can’t help being a little amused at the irony. “His name is Luca. He calls himself a gossip-worker. And—”
“Wait, that Luca?” she says. “Luca von Raske? The Up-Mountainer? Sorina...I heard he isn’t interested in...romance.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, half his friends are prettymen and prettywomen, yet he never shows interest in them. He’s totally apathetic to that stuff.”
“To what stuff? My stuff? Or any stuff?”
“Any stuff. Apparently.”
I think back to last night, to how he tensed, to how he claimed that he needed to “think.” That makes much more sense now. Maybe he’s just inexperienced. Maybe he really does have to think.
But think about what? Our relationship? My face?
“Well...that isn’t what I was expecting,” I finally say.
“What did you think it was? Your appearance?”
“Of course I thought it was my appearance!”
“Has he ever commented on it? Has it come up before? You’ve spent a lot of time together, haven’t you?”
“Yes. He’s seen me without my mask on, if that’s what you mean, and he didn’t even flinch.” I roll over, press my face into a pillow and groan.
Venera rubs my back in circles. I feel childish, but her touch is very comforting. “Well,” she says at last, “you know my advice is always to go after what you want, with all the confidence you may or may not have. Because you’re so powerful that you can make grown men run in fear. And you’re imaginative enough to have thought up me—and I’m, I mean, perfection.” She tosses her hair at this, smiling at me, and I can’t help but laugh a little.
“And you’re helping to hold this family together even after...everything. If he’s half as intelligent as I’ve heard, then he recognizes all of these qualities in you.”
I sink deeper into my pillow, dreading seeing him tomorrow. Even with Venera’s kind words, I cannot help thinking I’ve ruined whatever friendship Luca and I have managed to create.
* * *
Our first night in Gentoa, we open the Freak Show after what seems to be years of nothing. It’s strange to see each other in our usual costumes—all pink glitter and black stripes and fake smiles. Without Gill’s and Blister’s acts, we had to lengthen each of our own to keep the show forty minutes long. I haven’t thought about what I’ll add to my performance—I usually improvise, anyway.
All I think about is that Luca might be in the audience. He promised he’d come see one of our shows once we reopened. Though he probably didn’t mean the first night, the thought of him watching gives me the jitters of stage fright. And I’m never nervous about performing.
“You’re awfully jumpy,” Venera says. Her white-painted face appears spooky in our candlelit dressing area. The effect is even more dramatic on stage.