Daughter Of The Burning City

And Gill would still be dead.

I skirt around the crowd to a smaller path that leads, within three minutes, to Villiam’s tent. I pass a number of storefronts, one selling licorice-dipped cherries, another hawking charmed lamps from the Forty Deserts, but none of them are open. Their torches are blown out, the flaps on their tents closed to visitors.

Villiam’s tent is modest in appearance, a vibrant but unpatterned red, with a wooden sign hanging by the door reading Proprietor. You would hardly know it’s his as you pass by it, with the aromas of licorice and the beckoning of vendors to distract you. Nevertheless, a crowd of people has managed to find it well and good. Most of them look like members of Gomorrah whose belongings were probably damaged by Frician officials. A few Frician guests linger, as well, no doubt planning to demand their money back.

Still working my moth illusion, I slip inside the tent and make my way toward the front of the line. One of the Frician officials stands guard at the door leading to Villiam’s office. As if it’s his to guard. He swats at the moth, narrowly missing my nose.

“Villiam will see you all in a few minutes,” he says to the person in front, a boy maybe a year or two older than me. Unlike the other guards, this official has a softer face. But I don’t trust appearances much. “My captain is currently speaking with him.”

“I’m not in any hurry,” the boy says. His voice is calm in comparison to the panic among the others in the tent. From his blond hair and his accent, he’s clearly an Up-Mountainer. But he’s not dressed like the patrons, all in frilly costumes the color of candy. He doesn’t dress like he’s here for a show; he dresses like he is a show himself. He must live in Gomorrah.

“Then maybe you should let the people behind you move ahead of you,” I mutter.

He startles and looks over his shoulder. I didn’t realize I had spoken loudly enough to be heard. To my surprise, he allows the woman behind him to take his place in line. He walks to the side of the tent and pulls out a journal and a pen, which he amuses himself with for the next half hour we stand waiting.

Nicoleta has probably told Venera and Crown about the murder by now. I picture her scrubbing and sweeping up the stage floor while rehearsing the words she will say to the others. I imagine Crown carrying Gill’s body back to his tent and Venera cleaning it. She’ll wash away the blood and change his clothes. Crown will tear up but insist over and over that he’s okay, and he’ll pace the tent wondering why something so dreadful could’ve happened to our family.

Visualizing these things doesn’t make me feel better, but I can’t stop. Part of me thinks that I should be there helping them. All I’m doing is waiting in line, wasting time, avoiding my family when we should be together. But talking to Villiam is more important. He’ll be able to help us find the killer. And that’s worth waiting for.

Behind me, several more Frician officials parade into the tent, shoving aside those in line to make room for themselves. They all have squished faces, pale brown hair and light eyes. One of them knocks shoulders with the boy, who is too enraptured with his notebook to notice them, like he comes from this region. Even his accent matches theirs.

“I’m already tired of this place,” the official says to his friends. “I’ll never wash the smell of these people out of my clothes.”

“Three fucking pieces for a bag of cherries?” another complains.

“You could spend the three pieces on sweeter cherries deeper in Gomorrah, I hear.”

“Three pieces? I wouldn’t pay over half a copper for a single girl here—”

“Cheap and vile,” the boy says, his gaze fixed on his notebook. “It’s no wonder you have to pay to find company for the night.”

The first official whips around. “What did you say to me?” He examines the Up-Mountain boy with a mixture of shock and confusion. He looks like one of them.

“I said...” The boy glances up from his notebook. “Ah, now that I see your face properly, I understand it’s more than just your charming personality that repels women.”

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 office. He does not frighten me.

Villiam smiles at me the way he always does, as if he were expecting me. No matter the situation, he makes a great effort to appear at ease and prepared. Some in Gomorrah believe that Villiam is a fortune-worker with fewer cards and crystal balls, but he isn’t a jynx-worker at all—he only looks like one. The quick shifts in his dark eyes give the impression that he can read all the lies you’ve ever told, as though they’re etched on your forehead. He has a habit of muttering to himself under his breath—usually reminders about paperwork, occasionally a sarcastic comment spoken only, apparently, to amuse himself. Even his manner of speech is unnerving. He has a skill for putting words into your mouth, steering the conversation in any direction he chooses and escorting you out of his office with a smile on your face, yet with more problems than when you arrived.

“Ah, Sorina,” Villiam says. Just the sound of his voice is comforting, and I want to run forward and embrace him, but I hold myself back in the presence of the captain. “I’m just tickled you were able to join us.” He thinks I’m here to help him with proprietor duties. The thought never even crossed my mind until now, with how distraught I’ve been since I found Gill’s body.

I force a smile and inch my way closer to their table. “I was hoping to speak to you in private,” I say.

“Of course,” Villiam says. “The captain was just leaving. But first, Captain Mayhern, I’m pleased to introduce you to my daughter, Sorina. She’s a captivating performer here at Gomorrah.”

“Is that so?” Captain Mayhern asks. He seems unsure that I could be Villiam’s daughter. Villiam has mixed Down-Mountain features from the many generations of Gomorrah proprietors in his blood. He wears his dark, curly hair long, sometimes tied at the nape of his neck, sometimes simply down. His skin is a dusty gold, with freckles along his forearms and nose. By contrast, my looks are definitely Eastern—I’m clearly not his daughter.

I am in no mood to be introduced to an Up-Mountain captain and play the charming young lady, but I try to keep the smile on my face for Villiam’s sake.

“A pleasure,” I say. “What brings a Frician captain to Gomorrah?” I already know the answer. To cause trouble.

“Pleasantries,” he says, holding out his hand.

“Funny.” I don’t take his hand. “On my way here, I witnessed one of your soldiers pleasantly slice my friend’s fingers off.” I didn’t know the man, but he was of Gomorrah. In every aspect that matters, he is a friend.

He reddens, as all Up-Mountainers seem to do whenever they are uncomfortable. I rarely see an Up-Mountainer whose cheeks aren’t wearing some shade of red. “We’re here to keep Lord Ovren’s peace.”

His god has a very different version of peace than mine.

Villiam ushers the captain out. He compliments his conversation, assures the man that Gomorrah will be out of Frice’s borders by morning and other such pleasantries. I bite my tongue until the soft-faced official has led the captain out of the room.

“They’re making us leave Frice by tomorrow morning?” I ask Villiam.

“They aren’t pleased with the conduct of their citizens here. The religious officials had hoped their citizens would behave more...well, behave.” He frowns. “But it is more than that. An extremely influential Frician duke has gone missing. They were here searching for him.”

A thousand insults, a thousand sarcastic comments cross my mind. But I don’t say them in front of Villiam. He can be quick to scold if I say something he deems out of line. Which includes most things I wish to say.

“Are you all right, Sorina? You look troubled,” Villiam says. He always knows when something is bothering me before I say so. “Would you like tea? Some honey biscuits?” Villiam views food as a cure-for-all.

I run to him and press my face into his chest. In practically one, drawn-out breath, I relay him the details of Gill’s murder. I talk quickly because if I slow down, I will start crying again. And I have to be strong. I need to be able to present the facts, so Villiam can work out the answers for me. Villiam always knows how to handle a difficult situation and solve even the trickiest problem.

Throughout the story, Villiam keeps a stoic expression, as if contemplating a puzzle from one of his books. I don’t know how he can keep himself so contained. He knew Gill. He knows all my illusions. He examined my sketches of them before I finished them; he interviewed them soon after their creation to make sure they were suitable for performance. He knows them as people. Even though they are illusions, they are considered to be members of Gomorrah like anyone else.

He must be upset, but I’m grateful that he’s remaining calm for my sake.

“Are you all right?” he asks. “You haven’t been hurt? And the others? You didn’t see—”

“I’m fine. The rest of us are all fine.”

His eyes scan over me, as if searching for invisible bruises. Then his shoulders relax. He unties my mask and hands me a tissue, so that it’s easier to blow my nose.

“I’m so sorry, Sorina. I’m so, so sorry.” He rubs my back and then sits me down in a chair at his table. I grab a throw blanket to wrap around myself for comfort.

“I just don’t understand how it’s possible,” I say. “Gill is an illusion.”

“It shouldn’t be possible,” he says. “I don’t understand it. I’m at a loss. None of your illusions should be able to die.” He squeezes his hand into a fist until his knuckles whiten, releases his grip and then repeats, over and over. He does this whenever he is in a tizzy, as he would call it.

“We need to find out who did this immediately,” I say. “I wish I could’ve seen more. That I’d been paying attention—”

A sharp knock sounds, and Agni pokes his head through Villiam’s door. “Sir, there’s a fire in Skull Market.”

Villiam grimaces. “None of this is your fault, Sorina. And it destroys me that I cannot give you all the help and support you need right now. But with the problems with Frice, Gomorrah leaving at sunrise and apparently a part of the Downhill on fire, there is too much I must do. I need you to promise me something, my dear.”

“What?”

“You must hurry and bury him—I’ll send a few of Gomorrah’s guards to help you and to search your neighborhood for anything to help us find the killer. You must act quickly. If the Frician officials see him with their duke missing, they will grow suspicious. The entire Festival could face trouble.”

Packing up all of our belongings and the stage equipment usually takes several hours. If we’re leaving at sunrise, we would need to get started now. This doesn’t give us a lot of time to bury Gill’s body, let alone to say a proper farewell.

All because one Up-Mountain politician got himself lost. He’s probably somewhere in the Downhill, drunk and falling off his bar stool, and we need to pack up, forgo our grieving and move out, just to give the Frician officials peace of mind. Where is our peace of mind? I tear a loose thread out of the blanket and squeeze it in my hand.

“Sir,” Agni says from outside, “the fire.”

“Another minute,” Villiam grunts. He kisses my forehead, where he always kisses me. Then he kneels down in front of me. “I’m so sorry, but there are ten thousand people to pack up and move in a few hours. I must focus on them first, but I promise you, tomorrow—once Gomorrah is moving—we will discuss what happened to Gill.”

“But the killer could be gone by then,” I protest.

“There is nothing I can do right now.” Villiam’s voice cracks. I’ve never heard him so frazzled. “I’d give anything to help you, but Gomorrah is in a crisis.” He hesitates. “Do you want me to send Agni with you?” Agni is always at Villiam’s side. Villiam considers his advice and presence to be invaluable.

“No. I don’t know what he would find in the tent that the rest of us wouldn’t,” I say. “But do we really need to bury him tonight? That’s...that isn’t enough—” I’m crying. Villiam hugs me and shushes me but still allows me to finish. I feel a hundred things at once. Grateful for the comfort. Embarrassed that I’m keeping him here when thousands of people are depending upon him. Angry at Frice. Angrier at the killer. Lost. Confused. Horrified.

Because I’ve been training with Villiam and learning about how Gomorrah works for years, I also know that moving the entire city is no easy feat to accomplish in several days, let alone a few hours. He genuinely does not have time for me.

“Send my apologies to our family. Tell them I’m thinking of them. I wish I could be there to help them in person. This is...such a tragedy,” he says, tears glistening in his eyes. “And promise me you’ll return when the commotion has died down.”

The commotion won’t disappear for several days, not until we reach the next city. It’s hard to think that far into the future. It’s hard to picture anything except the night ahead of me, of packing up the stage where Gill died, of burying him without a coffin, without a ceremony. It’s impossible to think beyond saying goodbye.

Nevertheless, I mutter, “I promise.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The Gomorrah Festival does not travel like other circuses, groups of wanderers, bands of musicians, thieves or markets, because it is all of those at the same time. If someone stood at the peak of the Winding Pass—the stony, barren mountains we are crossing to reach the city of Cartona—it would appear as if an entire burning city were on the move beneath them. Due to the suddenness of our departure, tents are still raised and wheeled on platforms, parties continue in the Downhill as the sun begins to rise and the white torches glimmer within the haze of smoke. It goes on for miles, with a population of over ten thousand inhabitants. Our nickname is “The Wandering City.”

If that same person had watched the Gomorrah Festival travel before, they would also realize that its atmosphere feels different this morning. More subdued and downcast. There’s less music, laughing and cheering since the Fricians kicked us out.

Or maybe the morning wind is cooler than usual, and it’s just a chill. Gomorrah is older than anyone can remember and unlikely to be intimidated by the actions of a single Up-Mountain city-state.

Perhaps I am the only one in Gomorrah feeling the chill. Perhaps, after Gill’s death, the music, laughing and cheering is quieter only to me.

Apart from Tree, who prefers to walk on his own, my family sleeps in two separate caravans when we travel—one for Crown, Gill, Unu and Du and Blister, and one for the rest of us. I sleep between Nicoleta and Venera. Hawk’s feet are across from mine and sometimes kick me during the day while we rest. The caravan is packed full of trunks, the floor covered in blankets and the ground in between littered with popcorn kernels and peanut shells.

I sit up and stare out the window at the Winding Pass peaks jutting into the sky, mere silhouettes through Gomorrah’s smoke. The sun has risen, barely. Gomorrah is beginning to go to bed, and I have yet to fall asleep. The memories of Gill’s corpse and his brief burial a few hours ago continue to haunt me. Even though I’ve washed my hands over and over, removing every last trace of blood, I wipe them on my bedsheets once, twice, three times.

I replay my last conversation with Gill over in my mind. I was a jerk. Not only yesterday, the day he died, but the day before, and before, and before. I could’ve listened to his advice more often. Read the books he suggested. Made an effort to spend time with him, instead of avoiding his lectures.

I want to sleep until reality feels more like a dream. I want to never wake up.

But I have business to attend to and others to look after. Jiafu will still be awake in the Downhill. Even though it’s dawn and no longer safe to venture outside, I’ll have to take my chances for now. At least this errand will keep me distracted.

I slept in my regular clothes last night, so I crawl past Hawk and creak open the door. Then I jump out of the moving caravan into the knee-high grass of the Winding Pass.

Gomorrah can be more difficult to navigate while it’s moving, but I’ve explored the Downhill once before during the day, when the nicest people of the Downhill—which is not saying very much—are asleep and the rest of the crooks are awake. In the Downhill, no one cares that I’m Villiam’s adopted daughter. Actually, they’d probably love to skin me because of it. No one there is a star performer, a great attraction or seemingly special at all. In Gomorrah, everyone might be treated equally, but, in the end, money divides the affluent from the rest. If Villiam wasn’t paying for my family’s space, we’d barely be affording the Uphill ourselves.