I enter the dressing room and am immediately greeted by Blister, who gives everyone his usual round of high fives. I smile as much as I can manage. He scampers back to Crown on the other side of the divider, who beams at him and runs his hand through Blister’s tight curls. Despite originally being hesitant almost two years ago when I told everyone I intended to create an illusion of a baby, Crown adores Blister, and Blister certainly loves him.
I change out of my show robes into plain black ones. No fancy shoulder pads or glittery fasteners. And I fish out my purple-striped mask, which is sequinless and the least fun—though it does have a few feathers. I’m not really in the mood to make a statement.
“Why are you dressed more somber than a nun?” Venera asks. She’s applying some of her most festive makeup—red lipstick and fake eyelashes as long as her fingers. She prefers to party away her problems. It seems like she disappears to a different event every night, only to stumble in exhausted and still tipsy at eight in the morning, well after sunrise.
I worry about her.
“Just not feeling particularly fabulous.” Not entirely false. No, I’m not feeling fabulous. “And I don’t think nuns wear feathered masks.”
The real reason for my attire is my planned trip to the Downhill tonight. I need to find someone to help me uncover Gill’s killer. I don’t know who I’m going to find, or how I’ll find them, but I’m going to try. And the Downhill seems like the place to go. I don’t know anyone in the Uphill who would know how to track down a murderer.
It’s been four days since I dined with Villiam. Four days, and all I’ve wanted was to find the killer, but I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed at any point before our performance tonight. I ate only the butterscotch cashews Nicoleta grabbed from a vendor. I’d often wake to find Venera at my side, her makeup smeared from her nightly activities, her long black hair tangled and damp with sweat. We’d barely speak, and if we did, it was about frivolities: romantic interests, the bleak city of Cartona, the knots growing in our hair.
All I want is answers, but somehow that wasn’t enough to get me out of bed. If I let myself sit down again, I probably won’t go out at all. I hate myself for it.
“Here.” Venera tosses me a tube of blood-red lipstick. “To keep your strength up.”
I smile and then apply some in the mirror. It doesn’t look as good on me as it does Venera—does anything?—but I still look pretty, nonetheless. I haven’t bothered with lipstick in a while, and I rub my lips together, feeling its smoothness, and almost smile. Feels familiar. Like my life before Gill died.
I examine my dismal reflection more closely. I actually look terrible. The weather is terrible. Today was terrible. And tomorrow will be terrible, too.
I muster up my strength to force on a smile. “You’re the best.” I kiss Venera on the cheek, careful not to leave a smudge of red. “Don’t go too wild tonight.”
She grabs at her corset and hoists it up, boosting her cleavage about five inches. “Do I ever?”
I laugh but quickly stop myself. Even if it’s a genuine response, it still feels wrong to laugh.
Blister reappears at my side, no longer in his performance clothes. “Boom,” he says seriously.
“You’re leaving to see the fireworks?” I ask him. Crown takes Blister to see them every night.
He nods. “Boom.”
Crown grabs Blister’s hand. “Do you want some cotton candy?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we better hurry. We don’t want to miss the booms.”
I smile as I watch them leave, hand in hand. At least some things still feel normal.
Several minutes later, with my fresh coat of lipstick and a handful of butterscotch cashews, I head toward the Downhill. It’s safer at night, mostly due to the large crowds. But I rarely venture there, even at times like this. I’m not into partying. And I’m definitely not into prettyworkers. I never have much of a reason to pay this part of Gomorrah a visit, other than to see Jiafu.
The dirt here outside Cartona is golden, same as the bricks used to construct the great wall that encircles the city and, even from here, towers in the distance. Because of the dense forests around Cartona, Gomorrah was forced to set up among trees, so the Festival feels twice as dark as usual. The leaves above are half-hidden among the smoke.
The torches in the Downhill do not burn red like regular fire. There’s some kind of charm-work on them so they burn green, making everyone look a little sickly. I pass a massive tent of prettymen on my right—two stories high, created by a mess of platforms, beams and rapid reconstruction at each new destination—and a hookah and pipe vendor on my left. The air here smells sweet, almost inviting, from all the opium.
Who is going to help me? I don’t have much to pay, and I doubt anyone here is willing to help me out of the goodness of their hearts. So I’ll have to find something to offer. Maybe my status as Gomorrah’s princess will hold some sway.
Doubtful, but maybe.
I wander around for half an hour. Past gambling dens, vendors smuggling rare animals, bars, feasts, pawnshops and fighting cages. I have no idea what I’m looking for. The Downhill is even more of a maze than the rest of Gomorrah. As I walk, my sandals crunch on broken bones from whatever meat the food stands are selling roasted on sticks, as well as syrup from coated apples and their leftover cores. The patrons in this section do not wear the usual apricot- and peach-colored dresses, arms linked with their lovers with matching bow ties. They are not here to laugh and have their palms read and buy candied pineapple. Whether the patrons in the Downhill are wealthy or not, they have a hungry look in their eyes, like animals deciding whether to attack or flee. Each one walks with a sharpness to their step, looks over their shoulders with a glimmer of fear and excitement. They’re interested in the darkest of desires Gomorrah has to offer, and they’ve come to the right place.
What was I thinking? No one is going to help me here.
It’s not as if I can do this on my own. I barely rolled myself out of bed to come here. I need someone to be objective when I—clearly—cannot. And I’m not smart, not like Gill was smart or Nicoleta is smart. Altogether proven by thinking I’d ever find someone to help me in the Downhill, or anywhere.
I stop at a strange tent on a side path, striped with vibrant Gomorrah red and purple. The fabric of the tent looks new, not yet faded from years of rain and travels. A wooden sign sticks out of the dirt by the entrance:
Gossip-worker.
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