Tell me your secrets and your troubles.
I’ve certainly got troubles. Lots of them. But I’ve never heard of a gossip-worker. I don’t think there is such a thing. I look around to see if anyone else is venturing inside. To the right stands a small, empty outdoor stage, and to the left, a vendor selling apples soaked in bourbon or peaches soaked in sake. Somewhere ahead, in a massive tent of reds, purples and pinks, music plays—the kind meant for dancing, certainly not for telling someone your secrets and troubles.
But I’m curious, I have nothing better to go on and I also think I’m lost, so I duck inside the gossip-worker’s tent.
The inside is stark, empty of nearly all decoration. A table with porcelain teacups takes up most of the room, along with a bookshelf to its right. The floor is made of bamboo shoots woven together, similar to the one in our tent, which we roll up for travel and unroll at each new city.
There is a flap in the back corner that I assume leads to another tent, probably a sleeping area.
This doesn’t feel like a place for visitors. It feels like someone’s home. Someone with very few belongings but, still, a home.
At the table with the empty teacups sits Luca, the boy who almost got himself killed by Frician officials in Villiam’s tent. He looks up, and I know he recognizes me. Beside him is a prettywoman, with deep brown skin and black hair braided down to her knees. All she wears on top is a shawl tied into some sort of covering. They appear to be—other than the fact that she is half-clothed—simply having tea.
“You’re Sorina Gomorrah,” he says.
“You’re the gossip-worker?”
“Among other things.”
He stands up, adjusts his clothes and walks over. He wears the same hideous velvet vest with clockwork stitching and the same belt full of vials. He also has that black, silver-tipped walking stick leaning against the table, as if his rich-boy getup needed a finishing touch.
He holds out his hand for me to shake.
“I don’t remember giving you my name when we first met,” I say.
He smiles. He has dimples. I realize, in that moment, that I really like dimples. I also realize that I’ve been holding his hand for too long, and I’m acting like a complete fool.
I wrench my hand away. This is business. Not the time for flings. Besides, he has a beautiful prettywoman sitting right beside him, so beautiful that I try not to gape at her slender neck, gorgeously full lips and the curves of her chest. Between her perfect complexion and my lack of eyes, it’s not difficult to determine who would be Luca’s choice. And with Luca’s dimples, it’s easy to see who hers would be, as well.
Their loss, I try to tell myself.
Luca has very nice brown eyes. Bedroom brown eyes, an embarrassing voice in my head giggles. A voice that sounds an awful lot like Venera. I tell that voice to shut it.
“You’re that boy whose life I saved, right?” I ask. Playing it smooth. Pretending I barely remember him—not that I did, until this moment. I’ve actively tried to forget most of the details of that night.
“I hardly think I’d say that. I had it handled.”
“You were about to watch your guts spill into your hands.”
“Nothing I can’t manage.” He cocks an eyebrow and laughs. “I’m pretty durable. Quick to heal.”
Luca’s strange healing ability was amazing to watch, but I find it difficult to believe that he would fully heal if someone stabbed him through the stomach with a sword.
“Yelema, if you don’t mind, I’d love to discuss that customer more with you at a later date,” Luca tells the prettywoman. “I hope you enjoyed the tea. It’s a mountain-herb blend.”
“Delicious, as always,” she says. She extends her hand, and he kisses it.
“I don’t mean to interrupt your...” I say.
“It’s fine. I know to leave when he has clients,” Yelema says. “Besides, I have a client of my own in an hour.” She waves as she leaves, and I ponder over her words. Perhaps Luca is more than just a client to her?
Luca points to the chair opposite him. “Go ahead,” he says.
I slide into the seat. “I’ve never heard of that kind of jynx-work before.”
“Which one? The one on the sign outside? Or the one you witnessed the other day at the proprietor’s tent?”
“The healing one. But I’ve never heard of a gossip-worker, either.”
“Gossip-worker is simply a title,” he says.
“Bestowed by who?”
“By whom,” he corrects, and I grit my teeth in indignation. I already don’t like him. “And bestowed by myself. I make it my business to collect information on everyone in Gomorrah.”
“Why?”
“Because the people here interest me. Because I know a fortune-worker here who claims to use the same coins his ancestors did in Gomorrah over one thousand years ago. Because you’d never believe the intricacies involved in supplying constantly fresh food for an entire city that travels across the world. Because nobody dull runs away to join this place.”
Judging by his expensive clothes, he’s probably some rich Up-Mountainer who decided to run away to Gomorrah, and he thinks himself interesting and cultured because of it. He’s not going to be much help if he was consorting with a prettywoman during business hours. Clearly he has other things on his mind.
“Why are you here?” he asks, not impolitely. “Doesn’t Gomorrah’s princess have more important places to visit than my tent?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I say. I’m still curious about his healing ability, about the strange belt full of vials he wears and, if he has information on everyone in Gomorrah, whether that information could help lead me to the killer.
As if sensing my thoughts, he unclips his belt full of vials and lays it on the table. He points to each one. “Cyanide. Arsenic. Hemlock. Nightshade. Black Maiden. Belladonna. You’re welcome to test one out.”
“I’m not drinking hemlock.”
He smiles the most insincere smile imaginable. His face makes the motions—his lips curl up, his eyes squint and his teeth show—but nothing about it appears genuine. Perhaps it is the performer in me, but it looks as if he has slipped on a mask that only I notice. “I meant pick one for me. I’ll drink it. Go ahead.”
“Why would I want to poison you?” I ask, both alarmed and curious.
“Most people seem to enjoy it. Or stabbing me through with their swords. Strangling me.” He tips the scarlet vial from side to side with his index finger. “They pay excellent money for it, attempting to kill someone who cannot die.” The vial slips off the table, and with perfect reflexes, Luca catches it inches off the floor. “I call it poison-work. Another name I’ve dubbed myself with, since I am, to my knowledge, the only poison-worker in the world.”
“How do people know that red stuff isn’t just cranberry juice?” I ask.