“Hellfire,” he says. “That’s my theory.”
There’s some sense to that. Hellfire is an everlasting fire created by skilled fire-workers, which glows a brilliant gold. Since his immortality is jynx-work, it seems logical that a different sort of jynx-work could counteract it and prevent him from rapidly healing or resurrecting.
He reaches into the pocket of his pants and drops several tiny trinkets into my hand. “I keep charms sewn into my clothes—usually my vest—to protect from Hellfire, in case a fire-worker were to take a chance at my show.”
There are three charms. One looks like an animal fang wrapped in wine-soaked thread. The middle one is fabric with an embroidered image of the sun, and the last is some kind of dried herb inside a glass bead.
“The sun protects from Hellfire. The other two protect from harm,” he says. “Made by the charm-worker who lives behind me.”
“I’m glad to see you take a bit of precaution in your work.”
“I’m perfectly safe.”
“I’m just worried that one of these days your head will roll and your body won’t get up to retrieve it.”
He laughs without any mirth. “Doubtful.”
The medicines are displayed on the opposite end of the shop, next to the body creams and ointments. The elixir for snaking sickness is the same deep purple as the disease itself and thicker than molasses. Kahina claims it tastes like crushed-up centipedes.
I find the vial on the shelf and hand it to the shopkeeper, who, like most others in this city, wears white. “Three spoonfuls a day. With food. Should last about three months,” he says. I pay him fifteen of Jiafu’s gold coins, enough to buy my entire family food for two weeks. The elixir doesn’t come cheap, but it’s a small price to pay for Kahina’s health and comfort.
Luca narrows his eyes at our transaction. Once the apothecary’s back is turned, he whispers, “This medicine isn’t proven to do anything.”
“It slows the progression of the disease.”
“That’s conjecture. The snaking sickness takes who it will.”
“It’s helping Kahina,” I grit through my teeth. “Do you think I would go to such extremes for something I didn’t believe would work?”
“I believe you would go to any extreme to help your family.”
I seethe for a moment, deciding whether or not to snap at him again. Luca isn’t the first person to tell me that the elixir is merely a gimmick. The snaking sickness takes thousands of people every year, Up-Mountainers and Down-Mountainers, rich and poor, elixir or no elixir. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try. I can’t just do nothing.
After we exit the shop, Luca says, “Let’s leave sooner rather than later. The sound of church bells, in my experience, is a warning to people like us.”
It’s not as if people can tell we’re jynx-workers just by looking at us. The only one who sticks out is me, in my eyeless violet-sequined mask. I’m the freak.
“I’ll be happy to leave this city behind,” I say.
In less than a week, Gomorrah will pack up and move to the next city-state, Gentoa, farther up the Up-Mountain’s western coast. It will take six days of travel through the valleys between the sea and the mountains. In Gentoa, we’ll start performing the Freak Show again, and we’ll be a hundred miles away from the place where Blister died. His small grave will remain here, in a place that meant nothing to him or to his family, just as Gill’s remains in Frice. I hate to think of both of them alone, where no one will visit them until Gomorrah’s smoke passes over the horizon once again.
As we leave the bazaar, a group of Cartonian officials approach from down the street in white coats with black mourning bands around their arms. They each brandish a sword. Passersby duck out of their way as they run toward the bazaar, almost in a stampede. Several voices cry out. Doors slam all around us.
“What’s going on?” Luca asks.
“I can’t tell.”
The crowd runs in three directions: behind us, to the left and to the right—everywhere except the direction where the officials were headed. Luca grabs my hand, and we race toward an alleyway. We slump against the stone wall of a church.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Luca says. “You in particular. Ovren’s disciples believe He marks the impure with physical ailments and abnormalities.”
“Thank you for telling me what I already know,” I snap, my chest tightening in that awful, all-too-familiar way. That’s the reason Villiam originally thought a religious fanatic murdered Gill. “Freaks” are easy targets for those hunting the impure. “As if I’m not anxious enough already.”
The officials walk in a shoulder-to-shoulder line, forming a wall from one end of the street to the other. There’s no way to get past them without running through side streets. Their strides each fall at the same moment, so it sounds like a giant stomping down the street, rather than twenty men.
“What do you think this is all about?” I ask.
Screams ring out from the bazaar as the crowd stampedes through.
“I don’t intend for us linger long enough to find out,” Luca says.
The church bells above us toll a deep and hollow sound, and it warns all those not welcome here. Get out, Get out. With our fingers still intertwined, Luca and I slip through the alley, following several others who do the same. There are eight of us in total, and we crowd together in front of a gate at a dead end. Luca’s shoulders press against mine, and his touch is a small comfort when my pulse throbs in my chest and gut.
“They won’t turn down this way,” a woman says.
Someone shushes her. “You don’t know that.”
The footsteps of the officials approach.
I focus on the gate behind us, on its iron spires twelve feet high and on the royal crests engraved on its locks. Then, as usual, I return to my most trusted illusion—the moth. There are eight moths, hovering around the mud at the corner of the alley. Eight moths, no people, I tell myself. Eight moths, no people. I shove the illusion out of my mind and suspend it in front of us.
“You aren’t from here,” a man says to my right, nearly breaking my concentration. “You’re jynx-workers. You’re deformed.” I flinch. “You mustn’t let the officials see you.”
“What are they looking for?” Luca asks.
“Sin. They are looking to purge sin from this city.” The man’s teeth are rotted, and several are missing, so he whistles when he speaks.
“It’s why the baby prince was killed,” the first woman says. “Punishment for the city.”
“Or, if you believe the rumors, the royal family of Frice killed him. They’re looking to start a war.”
Why would Fricians kill him? Frice and Cartona are allies.
The officials in their white coats glance down the alley, and all of us hold our breath. I focus on the illusion of the moths and the iron gates, and the officials pass without suspicion. I relax and release Luca’s hand.