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.”
“I can’t.”
Villiam’s assistant, Agni, squeezes past the kind-faced Frician official at the door. Agni is a lanky man in his forties who’s always squinting, even in the nighttime. He squints around the tent for a few moments before realizing I’m there.
“Sorina,” he whispers. In addition to the squinting, Agni always whispers. Someone once told me it’s because he’s such a powerful fire-worker—his voice is hoarse from breathing in all that smoke. When Agni isn’t serving as Villiam’s assistant, he works at the Menagerie, training rare animals to jump through flaming hoops, or participates in Gomorrah’s nightly fireworks show. Everyone knows him...and everyone knows his family’s tragic story.
“I need to speak to Villiam,” I tell him. “It’s urgent.”
“He’ll see you—” he raises his voice “—but everyone else should come back in another hour.”
There’s an uproar of protest as I climb the steps out of the tent and into Villiam’s enormous caravan, muttering a quiet goodbye to Luca. Inside, the caravan is set up like a proper parlor, with two men sitting there, Villiam and the Frician captain—or general, or colonel, or whatever his title may be. The walls are layered with cabinets of books collected from all over the world. It’s clear upon first entering the room what interests Villiam—knowledge. A telescope rests on a table by the window, surrounded by papers and trinkets. Villiam even commissioned an artist to paint the ceiling to resemble the night sky on the day he was born, which he claims speaks wonders about his destiny. The carpet is fur, the seats leather and the tablecloth silk.
The Frician captain tenses as I approach. His light eyes scan me, as if trying to determine who exactly I am—a young girl wearing a sparkling, beaded tunic and a sequined party mask—and what I could possibly be doing interrupting their meeting. Even though he’s sitting down, it’s obvious he’s tall, but his height seems to be the only characteristic that gives him any authority. His face is gaunt and unintelligent, and he wheezes as he inhales the soothing incense of Villiam’s