“Because I keep a collection of cockroaches on which to test out my poisons. Cockroaches are almost indestructible. Just not nearly as much as me.”
“It’s cruel to kill cockroaches for your show,” I say. Then, to my dismay, the words keep spilling out of my mouth. “Cockroaches are actually really fascinating insects, you know. They can make decisions collectively in groups. Females can carry forty eggs at one time. And they can survive over a month without food.”
“It’s a cruel line of work, people paying to kill you. And—” he laughs “—you are clearly more informed on cockroaches than I am.”
So maybe Luca is good-looking, but I’m not into people that kill innocent creatures. Isn’t that something serial killers do?
Maybe I shouldn’t have come in here by myself. Maybe those dimples of his just hide terrifying intentions.
“Most people say they don’t believe me. Most people say my jynx-work is impossible,” he says. “You don’t seem so questioning.”
“I’m a trusting person, I guess,” I say.
“A dangerous thing. Is that why you’re here? To entrust me with something? It’s unusual, as I don’t get many clients from the Uphill.”
“How can you tell I’m from the Uphill?” My clothes don’t look any different than the ones people here are wearing. Other than my mask, of course.
“As if Villiam would allow his adopted daughter to live in the Downhill,” he says.
I sigh inwardly. I’m not convinced he’s going to be of any help. He seems like an ass. He’s clearly an Up-Mountainer. And my gut—plus that smile of his that doesn’t look like a smile at all—tells me he’s hiding something.
“You’re still contemplating whether or not to trust me,” he says.
“You know too much about me. You sound like a creep.”
“I told you—knowing about the people here is my business, the one I call gossip-work. It’s a hobby of mine when I’m not being stabbed to death for sport. A hobby I’m quite skilled at.” He smiles genuinely now, with the dimples, a lighthearted look in his eyes. “So, tell me, what’s troubling you?”
I don’t know of anywhere else I could find help, and despite Luca’s strange demeanor and his Up-Mountain background, he does seem to know a lot about me. Maybe he knows just as much about the other people of Gomorrah. If he’s as good at his so-called gossip-work as he says he is, then he might not only be my sole option but a good one.
And it’s not as if I have anything to lose.
So I tell him every detail, starting from the show the other night, though I leave out the bit about working with Jiafu. Luca listens without interrupting. It feels different telling this story to a stranger than it did to Villiam or Kahina. I need to explain everything—what the illusions are, that Gill always sleeps in his separate tent, the layout of the stage. It’s exhausting.
“I just don’t think it makes sense that it was an Ovren fanatic,” I finish. It occurs to me that Luca, being from the Up-Mountains, might also follow their religion. But I doubt it. He’s a jynx-worker who ran away to Gomorrah. It doesn’t matter where he’s from—they would scorn him as much as me.
After a few moments of silence, Luca only says, “No.”
“No, what?” I ask.
“I’m not interested.”
It takes me a moment to process that he means he’s not interested in helping me.
“What? Why not? I can pay you. It may take time to gather up some money, but—”
“I don’t take payment. I only work if the story interests me, and, to be honest, this does sound like the work of a purity-crazed Ovren disciple. You haven’t provided reasonable doubt, so that’s my answer for you. Sorry, princess.” He pulls out a golden pocket watch to check the time, as if he has better places to be.
“But I have no idea how Gill was killed at all. He’s an illusion.”
“Was. He was an illusion,” Luca corrects. I lean over the table to slap him across the face, but he catches my hand and holds it there. “And I know all about your illusions. Nicoleta, for instance, had a drawn-out, tumultuous affair with a prettywoman I happen to be acquainted with. So if your illusions can be touched, smelled, heard, and they can act on their own, what exactly is your definition of not real? What makes you so certain they can’t be killed?”
“By definition, an illusion isn’t real,” I snap.
“Illusion-worker is just a title. Like gossip-worker. Like poison-worker.”
I stand up. “Thanks for nothing,” I snap and storm out. Who exactly does he think he is? Giving himself a fake title. Acting smarter than everyone else. He’s so...so...infuriating. I kick down the wooden sign outside his tent. Then I kick it again after it’s fallen.
My walk home from the Downhill passes in a blur. I’m so focused on my thoughts and figuring out who else would want to help me that I pay no attention to where I’m going. One moment, I’m at Luca’s, and the next, I realize I’m already back at my own tent.
What makes you so certain they can’t be killed?
Is there more to my illusion-work, like Villiam thought? But I create illusions. There’s no debate about that. So what more could it be?
As I approach our tents, a figure runs toward me. Nicoleta. Her face is pink and puffy—our signature look, lately. But not usually for her. She’s managed to stay collected while everyone else has fallen apart, at least while we’ve been looking. Has something happened? Or did she not mean for me to see her cry?
“Sorina!” she calls.
Nicoleta crying. Nicoleta running. Something is wrong. Something is even more wrong than before. I run toward her, my heart pounding. I push more than one Cartonian patron out of the way to reach her.
“What is it?” I ask. She nearly collides with me, and I wrap my arms around her, stiff while she’s shaking.
“It’s Blister. Crown found him in the dunk tank near the games area. He drowned.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Down-Mountainers wear white to funerals. I borrowed a dress from Kahina, which hangs down to my skinny ankles and is already staining with mud along the hem. Villiam stands on my left in elegant, almost priestly robes, with a starched collar and bare feet. On my right, Venera wears a simple white tunic, no makeup, no strands of beads, no flowers in her hair. She is almost unrecognizable.
All of us—my family, Villiam and Kahina—gather around the small hole that Tree dug this morning. Blister’s casket, not even three feet long, lies at the bottom, wrapped in the red quilt Kahina made him a year and a half ago. There are no patches on it for significant life moments. It’s blank.
I imagine the patches full. I imagine his first day of school. I imagine how dazzling his unique fire abilities could have been once he grew older. I imagine him lighting the fireworks of the show he loves so much.