I try to think about the idea of Luca being an illusion logically, to remove my emotional perspective, the way Villiam or Luca would want me to. But I can’t. Luca can’t be an illusion. Every illusion I’ve created has taken months of work, sketches and blueprints. How could I forget all of that? How could I forget creating him?
A painful stitch develops in my side, so I half walk, half jog the rest of the way to the Menagerie. The slow pace grates on me, only adding to my sense of anxiety and urgency.
My heel crunches on something in the grass. I bend down and pick up the pieces of three charms, which look as if they were broken even before I stepped on them. Someone ground them into the dirt.
Suddenly, I recognize them. They’re the charms Luca had made to protect him from Hellfire. He had them sewn into that atrocious vest he always wears. Maybe Agni found them in his shirt, brought them out to show Villiam and then smashed them beyond repair.
Fear boils in my stomach. What if Luca really is an illusion? What if he’s the next target, linked to another political figure? What if someone has discovered the secret to killing him?
I run around the Menagerie to the main entrance, toward the clearing that leads directly to the Festival’s entrance. The Menagerie, being at the dead center of Gomorrah, is also the dead center of trouble.
I run directly toward the chaos.
Up-Mountain officials swarm around the clearing, iron masks concealing their faces. In front of them, members of Gomorrah protest. A few of them have swords of their own, but they don’t have them brandished. They seem to be in a standoff with the officials, not willing to attack in case it causes a full-out brawl. The officials would not hesitate to kill them if that happened.
Skull Gate is burning in the distance. A crowd points at the Leonitian officials who stand behind it, their torches raised as they push into the Festival. They carry short swords pointing out, daring anyone to approach them. A few people turn and run. The others are more defiant. Members of the guard untie their jackets and reveal their black uniforms beneath. They pull on masks that cover all but their eyes.
“We’re looking for the proprietor,” one of the officials says.
Well, they’re certainly going to get his attention by burning down Skull Gate.
I wonder if I should step forward. I could take over as the proprietor here, try to bring the situation under control. If Villiam were here, that’s what he would tell me to do. Gomorrah comes before anything else, even family.
But suddenly I realize that I can’t do that. I never could. As much as I love the Festival, I would abandon this life in a heartbeat if it meant keeping my family safe. And maybe that means I’ll never be the sort of proprietor Gomorrah needs.
That’s what Villiam would say.
Or maybe it means I’m simply kind of heart. That’s what Kahina would tell me.
One of Gomorrah’s guards approaches the official. “We’ve already sent someone for the proprietor. In the meantime, we ask you to wait outside. You’re distressing our residents.”
“We have orders from our new lord to make this Festival of Sin leave,” the official says. “Thanks to the sin and impurity your Festival has brought to our land, our previous lord has been consumed by his snaking sickness, may he rest in peace.”
“We don’t give a shit about your lords,” the guard says.
The official makes a move to smack him across the head with the handle of his sword, but the guard catches it and yanks the official off his horse.
The old lord is dead? That means that the new lord is Exander, the leader of the Alliance. A shiver of dread trickles down my spine as I realize that the most powerful man in the Up-Mountains now leads its most formidable city-state.
Someone bumps into my shoulder as they run past, knocking me to the side. Others follow, fleeing from the officials. They haven’t come here with peace on their minds. Who knows what devastation they could cause before Villiam gets here?
With my moth illusion to conceal me, I slip around the crowds to the Menagerie’s entrance. The taxidermied animals, many of them knocked over, stare at me as I enter. I cannot shake the image of a dead Luca out of my mind. Dead like these old Gomorrah performers. Even if he can’t really die.
In more ways than one, it makes sense that Luca could be an illusion. His poison-working is an anomaly, maybe just as bizarre as Crown’s nails or Hawk’s wings. And Kahina cannot see anything in his fortune. Tuyet struggled to hear his thoughts.
But what does that say about me? That I may have fallen in love with one of my own illusions, someone I created?
No wonder Luca, with his handsome face and strange abilities, fell for someone like me. The only person who could love a freak is another freak.
I step inside the empty main show room, lit by five torches near the center ring. The Menagerie tent is massive. There are dozens of tunnels, hundreds of hiding places. I search around the room for one of those tunnels and choose a small, concealed one, probably meant for the performers to enter the backstage area. This is where they were keeping Dalimil, but he’s no longer here.
The inside is barely lit, and it reeks of animal droppings. There don’t seem to be any actual animals here right now, thank goodness. The last thing I need is to run into a chimera.
I peek through the next few rooms and make my way back to the main area of the tent, full of stands, the trapeze and the circle where the circus master reigns. Entirely empty. My memory from my night with Dalimil is cloudy. Purposely so. That isn’t something I wish to remember.
I turn down another hallway, bracing myself to encounter a loose animal. All it contains is a cage. But instead of a chimera, or a dragon, or a unicorn, I find Luca.
Luca.
He’s unconscious. I kneel beside the cage where he lies. “Luca,” I hiss. “Luca, please wake up.”
He doesn’t.
But it doesn’t matter. If he’s an illusion, I can make him disappear now that I know where he is. I find that place in my mind with the Trunks, the place where all my illusions are locked away, safe. I pass Venera’s empty Trunk, and Blister’s, and Gill’s. And I keep walking, past the other Trunks, until I’m entirely in the dark. The air here is thick, almost like sludge, and my pace slows as I fight against the heaviness of it. It’s exhausting. As if something is trying to stop me from going here.
But I keep pushing. It feels like I’m a magnet walking toward another one, repelled with each step. I place my hands on the wall to feel my way forward. And at last I reach a Trunk and then a handle.
When I touch the handle, my mind fills with Luca. I see his brown eyes. I see the vest he always wears. I see everything. The images flash before me, too fast and blurry to properly make out. But they are there. The memories, though muddled, are there.
This is his Trunk. He is an illusion.
And he must be innocent.
I swing it open.
Luca, however, doesn’t disappear. He remains in the cage, though the Trunk stands waiting for him, sucking the air out of me like a vacuum. Why doesn’t Luca disappear? After a few more moments of waiting, I shut the Trunk and take three deep breaths.
Then I notice the charms hanging inside the cage. Maybe they’re preventing Luca from leaving.
But the only person who would think to put those in the cage would have to know that Luca is an illusion. And there are only three people who have access to Luca: my father, Chimal and Agni. The only person capable of creating Hellfire—a fire-worker—is Agni. He would’ve recognized Luca’s charms for what they were.
My stomach fills with dread. Has it been Agni all along? He could’ve lied about the informant. He could’ve fed lies directly into my father’s ear. Villiam trusts him more than anyone.
I need to get Luca out of here, and fast. If Agni is behind all of this, then even Villiam could be in danger. Then I think back to the incident with the horses and realize that he might have been in danger since the beginning.
Desperate for a solution, I open the other Trunks. First, Unu and Du and Nicoleta. Unu and Du appear beside me, and they stumble as their legs hit the ground.
“Where are we?” Unu asks.
“Smells like shit,” Du says.
“Language,” Nicoleta hisses. She materializes behind me. “We’re in the Menagerie tent.” Her eyes fall on Luca. “What’s going on? Why are we here with him, Sorina?”