“I found her like this,” Nicoleta says, sobbing. Even though she’s standing, her posture makes it seem like she’s trying to be as small as possible, to sink into herself. “The guard outside didn’t see anything, but someone could’ve snuck in when his back was turned. He wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t realize Venera was here.” She hugs her arms to her chest. “Why would someone do this?”
I don’t have an answer for her. After a month of working with Luca to protect my family, we’ve come up with nothing, and I’ve failed them again.
“Luca, can you stand outside the tent and make sure no one comes in?” Nicoleta asks. “Let me know if someone comes. Sorina and I are going to clean her up. I... I couldn’t do it on my own.”
Luca opens his mouth as if to speak but says nothing. I doubt he is used to obeying someone else’s commands. He nods and moves to go outside.
Venera. And the Up-Mountain princess. Their two beautiful faces blur together in my mind, and I’m overwhelmed with the horror of it all. Two identical deaths.
Suddenly, it all clicks together in my mind.
Venera and the princess.
Blister and the baby prince.
Gill and the duke.
“We need to talk to Villiam,” I breathe. I grab Luca’s hand and pull him toward the tent’s exit.
“Where are you going? How can you leave right now?” Nicoleta asks, her voice high and squeaky. She tears a strip of fabric off of her tunic and ties it around Venera’s neck, just below the cut. This is not the first body she has cleaned.
“I’ve thought of something,” I say.
“The guard has already gone to notify Villiam.” She grabs a handful of white towels and lays them on the puddle of blood, sobbing silently as they stain red.
“They’re connected,” I say, and my voice speeds up in panic. “The princess from the wedding was in the Downhill today. She died the same way as Venera and around the same time. Then there was Blister and the baby prince in Cartona. Gill and the duke in Frice.”
“That doesn’t make sense. How could they have been linked to those people?” Nicoleta says. Beside me, Luca keeps a straight face, thinking.
I remember my visit to Agatha’s tent a few days ago. “Have you ever heard of a charm doll?” I ask.
“Yes,” Luca says, just as Nicoleta says, “No.”
“It’s a doll that is linked to a person,” Luca says. “Through charm-work. Whatever happens to the doll, happens to the real person.”
“But you’re not a charm-worker,” Nicoleta says. “Or...do you mean the killer is?”
“Either is possible.” It’s just like I guessed before. I must have two types of jynx-work: illusion-work and charm-work. Because I’m missing my eyes the same way Tuyet is missing a heart and that man is missing an arm. Never mind that I don’t know the first thing about charm-work. It fits.
But I never knew the princess existed until three weeks ago. I’d never heard of the Cartonian baby or the Frician duke. How could I have linked them? It doesn’t make sense.
There is the possibility, like Nicoleta said, that the killer is a charm-worker. There are at least a thousand of them in Gomorrah. But the similarity in the “phantom” body parts is too difficult to ignore.
The tent flaps open, and Unu and Du poke their heads inside. Their four eyes wildly scan the room, hopping from Nicoleta to me, to Luca, and then, lastly, to Venera on the floor. “W-what happened?” Unu asks.
“Outside, outside,” Nicoleta says. She lunges toward them, rests her hand on Unu’s shoulder and leads them away. It’s quiet except for the sound of them wailing.
“I’m so sorry, Sorina,” Luca says. He stands three feet away, the way someone would from a stranger. His face, as always, remains expressionless. I wish he would show emotion. I wish he would scream or cry or, at the very least, frown. To make it seem like he cares about the world and about me.
Then he turns around and kicks the leg of our table so hard that coins and kettle corn spill off of it.
When he faces me again, I see the failure in his eyes. The anger. Moments ago, I didn’t want to be touched, but now I run to him and bury my face in his chest. I squeeze my nails into his shoulder.
“She was my best friend,” I choke out.
“I know,” he whispers. He rubs his hand down my hair.
“She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I lift my gaze to his, suddenly determined. “We need to find out why.”
* * *
Villiam arrives as we all huddle outside around a fire, where Crown cooks lamb kebabs that no one is going to eat. Villiam wears a pin-striped suit and a brown turtleneck, as if dressed to meet someone important, and Agni appears wearing his pink-and-red-striped uniform from his job at the Menagerie. The people who live in the tents nearby watch Villiam as he passes and stray over to see the commotion.
My strength seems to return to me the moment I see him, but only in a single form: fury. Nicoleta and I underwent the entire trial of this morning to protect our family, and for what? I hop off my seat and march toward him. “Venera is dead,” I say. “Someone slit her throat.”
The people nearby inch closer until a small crowd is gathered to see the drama of Gomorrah’s freaky princess.
“That’s three deaths in a month,” I say, which gets people whispering. “What has he said?” He meaning Dalimil, of course.
“We know he is not the leader, as we’d hoped.”
“Then who is?” I snap.
“He won’t say.”
“My sister is dead.”
Villiam holds out his arms for me to embrace him, but I don’t. Not at first. I pound my fist against his chest, not hard enough to hurt but enough to make me feel better. Then I let him wrap his arms around me and hold me. I feel three years old again, exhausted and scared. It is awkward, him trying to support me while his crutches support him.
“I think I understand now,” I say. “I understand how this is happening.”
I search behind me for Luca, who nods. Villiam’s eyes fall on him, as well, and then narrow as Luca approaches.
“This is Luca von Raske,” I say. “He’s been helping me look into Gill’s and Blister’s deaths. I was going to tell you, but...it’s complicated.”
It’s dead quiet, except for the sizzling of Crown’s lamb and Agni telling the spectators to return to their caravans, though with little success.
“I know who he is,” Villiam says quietly. He and Luca perform a staring contest of sorts. “Sorina, I think we should talk.”
“I think so, too. We all should. I understand why—”
“No, just you and me.” He turns away, and I’m too stunned to reply. Luca gives my hand a comforting squeeze, but his face is rigid. Villiam raises his voice so anyone around us can listen. “Everyone in this neighborhood will be questioned tomorrow about what they saw, so I advise you all to think clearly about the faces that passed you today. One of them belonged to a murderer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Villiam and Gomorrah’s guards escort me to his caravan. I do my best to hold my head up, but I’m only moments away from tears. Venera is dead, and only now am I beginning to understand how. My family has always been inherently different than my other illusions. They’re more than a mirage, more than a trick. They live. And that’s because they’re connected to other living people.
They’re dead because of what I can do, because I don’t fully understand my own jynx-work. I never question what I don’t need answers to. I never stop to think. And my willful ignorance is the reason my family members have been murdered.
As we pass the Menagerie, even the vendors seem to understand something is wrong. Normally they would call out to us to admire their collection of lucky coins or sample a piece of kettle corn. But they don’t bother the guards, in their intimidating, all-black uniforms with swords at their hips. They don’t bother the proprietor and his daughter. Instead, they duck away and whisper words like murder and freak, and I squeeze Villiam’s hand for support.