I slept in my regular clothes last night, so I crawl past Hawk and creak open the door. Then I jump out of the moving caravan into the knee-high grass of the Winding Pass.
Gomorrah can be more difficult to navigate while it’s moving, but I’ve explored the Downhill once before during the day, when the nicest people of the Downhill—which is not saying very much—are asleep and the rest of the crooks are awake. In the Downhill, no one cares that I’m Villiam’s adopted daughter. Actually, they’d probably love to skin me because of it. No one there is a star performer, a great attraction or seemingly special at all. In Gomorrah, everyone might be treated equally, but, in the end, money divides the affluent from the rest. If Villiam wasn’t paying for my family’s space, we’d barely be affording the Uphill ourselves.
It takes me ten minutes to walk to where the Uphill intersects with the Downhill. There’s a fifty-meter gap between those two sections of caravans, and as I trudge across the small, open field, I feel eyes peering at me from ahead. People are watching me, wondering why an Uphill girl would visit them at this hour.
The wood of the caravans here rots from years of rain, with holes along the walls just large enough to toss out the contents of an ashtray or for someone to covertly slip a delivery in the gap beneath a windowsill. The ribs of horses, mules and the occasional more exotic elephants who pull the caravans are more pronounced. Their eyes burn red, and their dirty coats swarm with clouds of fleas. I worry that if I get too close, they might mistake me for the meal their owners forgot to feed them.
Thankfully, Jiafu doesn’t live deep within the Downhill, and I make it there without becoming a horse’s breakfast. The cramped caravan he calls home is striped purple and black, with no sign or indication of what a visitor might find inside. All of his clients already know who he is and where to find him—he doesn’t need advertisements.
I knock on the dull black door and walk to keep up with it. No response. After thirty seconds of more knocking—and a man poking his head out of a nearby caravan, telling me to piss off—Jiafu answers. He grimaces when he sees me and rubs his temples, one of which has a deep scar that snakes down to his chin.
“What do you want?” he asks. His shadow dances on the grass below him, twisting into almost gruesome positions, as if trying to tear itself away from the body casting it.
“You weren’t waiting for me last night,” I say. “After the show.”
“There were officials about. I needed to head back home and protect my merchandise.”
“I want the money now. I want my cut.”
“Too bad. I haven’t sold it yet. I don’t got your cut. Now run away, princess.”
“Sold what yet?” I say, loudly and dramatically. “Oh, you mean the priceless ring of Count...Pomp-di-something from Frice? That’s worth a fortune?”
The man who told me to piss off earlier pokes his head outside again. As do a few others. I have their attention.
Jiafu narrows his eyes and then he yanks me by my tunic and hoists me into his caravan. Inside, there are five times as many crates as in my own, with just enough floor space for a mattress in the corner. Everything reeks of burnt coffee and feet.
“You think I had a chance to sell the ring?” he hisses. “We just left Frice.”
“I didn’t expect Kahina to have to travel again so soon. I want the money to get her medicine as soon as we get to Cartona.” Packing and traveling isn’t easy on her, especially in this part of the Up-Mountains, where the roads are unpaved and hard on her bones. And now that Gill is...now that Gill is gone, ensuring Kahina stays healthy is more important to me than ever. I can’t lose anyone else.
He pauses. “There is another job. One of my men noticed this guy carrying a big purse of change. He’s at a bar now getting piss-drunk. If you could make an illusion, someone to mug him—”
“That’s not how it works,” I say, annoyed. I’ve had this conversation with Jiafu before.
“You said it takes a while to make an illusion, but I’ve been to several of your shows, and your act is different each time. You make it up on the spot.”
I rub my temples. “Yes, that type of illusion is improv. But you’re asking for a person. You’re asking for someone you can touch, hear and smell, someone real like Nicoleta and the others. They take me months.”
“Then get started making one. Big, preferably good with a sword—”
“The answer is no.”
Even though I’ve technically made all of my illusions, I don’t really think of them that way. They’re their own persons. They’re my family. I created them to be the friends I never had.
I’m not exactly the most popular person in the Festival. Who would trust someone who has the power to deceive you in every manner?
He jabs his finger in my face. “Look, freak, that job wasn’t easy last night when you had the Count sitting in the front, and—”
I hold back my wince. “If you call me freak again, you’ll think maggots are eating out your insides.” I take three steps forward. Jiafu is several inches taller than me, but that doesn’t matter. I can make him look like an ant. I can make myself look like a giant.
He leans back. “Hey now, ’Rina, don’t be like that. We’re cousins, eh?”
Jiafu plays this card a lot. He comes from the Eastern Kingdoms of the Down-Mountains, like me, so he thinks we’re family. We’re not even friends.
“Don’t bother. I want my cut. I want my thirty percent. And I want it as soon as possible.”
He collapses onto the floor mattress and kicks his legs up on a crate. “There’s nothing I can tell you. I want to give you the money. Really, I want to. I want to reward all my friends.” I narrow my eyes. We’re. Not. Friends. “But I don’t have anything. I’ll sell it in Cartona. Then you get your cut.”
I sigh. This is about what I expected. Sure, Jiafu probably has some money hidden inside these crates that he could give me, but that would take a bit of coercion on my part. It would take an impressive illusion to make him cooperate. What would scare Jiafu? An enraged ex-mistress? A debt collector? I didn’t get enough sleep for my imagination to be at its best.
“Sorry, cousin,” Jiafu says.
“You’re not my family.”
“Would you prefer princess?” He lifts his left leg and points his calloused toe toward the door. “Come back after we’re settled in Cartona, and I have time for some business.”
“I will.” I try to make my voice sound forceful, intimidating, but I only sound broken. I plaster a smile on my face and push aside the thoughts of Kahina’s snaking sickness and of Gill. Then I mutter a goodbye and jump out of his caravan.
I’m not on my game.
Outside is the sound of millions of caravans moving and horses trotting. I walk past the smell of opium teas and a sign for what I’m sure is questionable goat curry.