“I’m not in any hurry,” the boy says. His voice is calm in comparison to the panic among the others in the tent. From his blond hair and his accent, he’s clearly an Up-Mountainer. But he’s not dressed like the patrons, all in frilly costumes the color of candy. He doesn’t dress like he’s here for a show; he dresses like he is a show himself. He must live in Gomorrah.
“Then maybe you should let the people behind you move ahead of you,” I mutter.
He startles and looks over his shoulder. I didn’t realize I had spoken loudly enough to be heard. To my surprise, he allows the woman behind him to take his place in line. He walks to the side of the tent and pulls out a journal and a pen, which he amuses himself with for the next half hour we stand waiting.
Nicoleta has probably told Venera and Crown about the murder by now. I picture her scrubbing and sweeping up the stage floor while rehearsing the words she will say to the others. I imagine Crown carrying Gill’s body back to his tent and Venera cleaning it. She’ll wash away the blood and change his clothes. Crown will tear up but insist over and over that he’s okay, and he’ll pace the tent wondering why something so dreadful could’ve happened to our family.
Visualizing these things doesn’t make me feel better, but I can’t stop. Part of me thinks that I should be there helping them. All I’m doing is waiting in line, wasting time, avoiding my family when we should be together. But talking to Villiam is more important. He’ll be able to help us find the killer. And that’s worth waiting for.
Behind me, several more Frician officials parade into the tent, shoving aside those in line to make room for themselves. They all have squished faces, pale brown hair and light eyes. One of them knocks shoulders with the boy, who is too enraptured with his notebook to notice them, like he comes from this region. Even his accent matches theirs.
“I’m already tired of this place,” the official says to his friends. “I’ll never wash the smell of these people out of my clothes.”
“Three fucking pieces for a bag of cherries?” another complains.
“You could spend the three pieces on sweeter cherries deeper in Gomorrah, I hear.”
“Three pieces? I wouldn’t pay over half a copper for a single girl here—”
“Cheap and vile,” the boy says, his gaze fixed on his notebook. “It’s no wonder you have to pay to find company for the night.”
The first official whips around. “What did you say to me?” He examines the Up-Mountain boy with a mixture of shock and confusion. He looks like one of them.
“I said...” The boy glances up from his notebook. “Ah, now that I see your face properly, I understand it’s more than just your charming personality that repels women.”
With incredible reaction time, the official punches the boy in the face, slicing open his cheek with the numerous rings on his hand. As the boy falls, the others in the tent back away to remain out of the line of fire. There are several people pressed against me, though none of them seem to notice that they are pushing against what they perceive as a moth and then empty space. This is a good way to get accidentally trampled, so I nudge my way to the front of the crowd, where I have more breathing room and a better view of the show. I could use a distraction.
The boy stands up, grinning. He snaps his leather-bound notebook closed and returns it and his pen to an inside pocket of his vest.
Perhaps he has a death wish, or finds thrill in the danger—not an unusual trait in Gomorrah. But I don’t recognize his face, and I study him, now that he has grown the slightest bit more interesting.
He has layers and layers of blond hair pushed back and hanging past his collarbone. He wears a jacket the color of rubies—a dye you’d usually only find in performance clothes in Gomorrah because of its price. The patterns stitched over it resemble clockwork in a variety of colors. This is paired with a white button-up, a black silk top hat, freshly polished boots and a belt lined with vials—each filled with a different liquid, some bright yellow or green, others clear—and a black walking stick. His face is young and defined by thick eyebrows, full lips and a silver stud piercing on the side of his nose.
As he glares at the official, the cut that was gushing blood down his cheek only moments ago fades. He licks his fingers and rubs away the blood. Several people in the tent gasp, even take a few more steps back. I, however, am more intrigued and tiptoe closer.
The official’s eyes widen. He grabs a fistful of the boy’s shirt and yanks him forward so that they’re chest to chest. Though the boy is taller by a couple inches, the official is wider by several more.
“So you’re a jynx-worker?” The official spits on the boy’s face. Clearly, the official doesn’t care that the boy is from the Up-Mountains. A jynx-worker of any origin is equated to scum. Impure, as Ovren decrees. Dirtied by magic.
“Where are your papers?” the official asks him, clearly interested to know which city-state the boy comes from.
“I lost them. It’s a rather long story involving an altercation between two prettymen known as the Ebony Tower and Maximilian ‘The Whip’ Tarla. I found myself unfortunately caught in the middle,” the boy explains.
“It’s a crime for an Up-Mountain devil-worker to travel without papers.”
“Not in Gomorrah, it isn’t.”
Another punch. Another cut. The official is holding him up so the boy can’t fall over this time, and we can clearly see his wound stitch itself back together.
“What kind of jynx-work is this?” one of the other officials murmurs.
“The devil kind,” the boy says. “I’m the son of a snow demon. The bastard son. And my mother is a prettywoman. I’m not allowed in twelve kingdoms, including the Kingdom of Ovren and the Kingdom of Hell.”
Though he’s clearly joking, the official pulls away from him the way a person jolts back from touching a hot charcoal. He rips out his sword and holds it to the boy’s throat. A Frician lady beside me screams.
“It’s no sin to Ovren to kill one such as you,” the official tells the boy.
The boy very much brought this on himself, but that official probably would kill him if not stopped, and I don’t like the idea of anyone else dying tonight.
Thinking up an illusion isn’t difficult, since the boy provided me with such useful inspiration. In the eyes of the officials, he grows several heads larger, as tall as the tent’s ceiling. His jaw unhinges, his mouth drops open and bits of ice pour out of it, onto their fair hair. Crimson horns sprout from his head and the sides of his arms, some as long as the official’s sword.
The official shrieks and swings his blade at the illusion’s head, but, of course, there’s nothing there. The boy, bemused at the officials’ sudden loss of sanity, backs away.
The illusion swings its arm down at the officials, but it misses—they’re already running outside.
The people around me whisper in a combination of uncertainty and amusement.
The boy’s sight falls on me. I was too focused on the details of my snow-demon illusion to maintain the moth one. He strolls toward me as if, moments ago, there wasn’t a sword pointed at his throat. He brushes dust off his jacket.
“You’re welcome,” I say.
“You weren’t there before,” he says matter-of-factly.
“I’ve been here the whole time. You just didn’t see me. You’re rather reckless, you know.”
“I wasn’t about to let them really hurt me.”
“No, but you’re causing problems for the whole Festival.” I cringe. Isn’t that what Gill told me earlier?
The crowd around us has finally noticed me. “You’re the freak girl,” someone says. “Villiam’s daughter.”
Cringing, I try to ignore them and head to the front of the line. Nobody stops me from cutting in.
The boy follows me. “I’m Luca,” he says. When I don’t give him my own name, he adds, “That’s a clever mask you’re sporting. One without slits or holes. How does it work?”
“I don’t have eyes,” I say.
If that catches him off guard, he doesn’t show it. “I’ve only lived in Gomorrah for a year, and I don’t know many people. Perhaps you’d be willing to show me around. I’m certain I’d enjoy your perspective on this place.”