Daughter of the Burning City

by Amanda Foody

  “They’re for my brothers, actually. That’s very kind of you.”

  Nicoleta fishes in her pocket for some extra coins, but when she hands them to the man, he shakes his head. “They are a gift.” He smiles a second time, and Nicoleta does her best to appear gracious. He must not know that she has never been inclined toward men.

  She takes them, looking more than a little uncomfortable. I wonder if she still misses Adenneya. Their relationship ended nearly a year ago, and, unlike Venera, Nicoleta avoids all discussion of her private life. I should ask Luca how well he knows Adenneya. And if she misses Nicoleta, as well.

  As we leave, I realize with mild annoyance that the man never paid me a moment of attention, not even to inquire who I am. I suddenly feel very much like the ugly sister.

  “He always gives me gifts,” she says. “He won’t let me refuse. I’d go elsewhere, but he’s the closest vendor in the neighborhood...” She shakes her head. “Petty problems. We need to figure out what to tell Villiam. I don’t want Hawk learning of this. She would jump at the opportunity for a little thrill.”

  “We could find someone else.” I think of Narayan, the so-called ghost-worker. But even if his abilities would be extremely valuable to Chimal, he’s a drunk. We couldn’t possibly trust him with the importance of this mission. Luca wouldn’t be much use, either. Faking his death won’t help us sneak in and out of the event.

  “What about me?” Nicoleta asks.

  I pause. Is she serious? “Chimal might be interested. But your abilities aren’t that reliable.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” she says strongly.

  “It’s going to be dangerous. That’s an awful lot to gamble on.”

  “I don’t know whether the Alliance is responsible for what happened to Gill and Blister—I don’t have any idea what happened. But I want to help you. We’ll tell Chimal that this is your best offer.” She holds her head higher, as if readying herself for a battle, even if she has never been in one. I don’t know what Chimal will think of commanding our show manager, but I, like Nicoleta, figure it is worth a shot.

  “We’ll talk to them tonight.”

  * * *

  “The medicine is working, sweetbug,” Kahina says, resting her purple-veined hand against mine.

  “You don’t seem better,” I say, swatting one of her plants out of my face.

  “I’m not worse.”

  I avoid looking at the sickness crawling across her skin. Not worsening isn’t progress. I try not to think about how we might be only stalling the inevitable, but the thought remains, whispering at the edges of my mind.

  “Nicoleta tells me that you’ve been going out at night, that you sometimes return later than Venera,” Kahina says. “Now, I love Venera dearly, but I don’t like the idea—”

  “I’m not partying,” I say, though I don’t tell her the truth, that I’ve been sneaking out to question suspects with Luca.

  My memories of last night send flutters through my stomach. I have the urge to squeal like a child, and an equal urge to bury myself in a mountain of blankets and hide from the world. And to smack Hawk and Unu and Du silly. I humiliated myself. How am I going to face Luca in a few hours?

  “Is the investigation with Villiam too pressing for you? I didn’t want you involving yourself with his work until you were eighteen.”

  “Villiam and you decided that?” I say.

  “When you were young. Villiam wanted to start you earlier, but I didn’t think it was the best idea. He eventually relented.”

  When I was younger, I remember Kahina and Villiam consulting each other, but now they speak so rarely. It isn’t so much that they had a falling out, but they no longer need to discuss me like they did when I was a child. I’m really the only thing they have in common, after all.

  “If you’re not partying, may I ask what you are doing?” Kahina says.

  “I’ve made a friend.”

  “A nice friend?”

  “Yes. A nice friend,” I say, smirking. I begin the story with the truth, that I met Luca in Villiam’s tent that night in Frice. The story quickly transforms into a jumble of lies about how I sought out Luca’s show, how we spend our time learning the secrets people tell him. The words taste oddly sweet on my tongue. It’s a pleasant story. Much more pleasant than the truth, that we spend our time searching for a murderer within Gomorrah. That I spend all my time finding justice for my family.

  “You say Luca is an Up-Mountainer?” Kahina asks, a bit warily. “Sorina, you cannot trust new Up-Mountainers in Gomorrah. They come to take advantage of people here and then they leave.”

  “I don’t think he has any intentions of returning home.”

  “They always say that, in the beginning. Until they grow tired from moving city to city. Until they travel below the Mountains and are confronted with the evil of their people face-to-face.”

  It’s true that Luca has not traveled with Gomorrah long enough for him to reach the Down-Mountains. It’s difficult to picture him wearing anything but his structured, crisp Up-Mountain clothes. I smile at the image of him roaming the Forty Deserts in his velvet vest.

  Nevertheless, I also cannot picture him leaving, and I don’t feel like continuing this discussion with Kahina. “I was wondering if you’d do a reading for me,” I say.

  “About your new friend, perhaps?”

  “Yes.” It was only a week and a half ago that Kahina saw nothing in my romantic future, but that seems to have changed. Would she see Luca’s name written in my tea leaves now?

  “I’ll grab the coin pot,” she says, though it’s across the room on one of her shelves.

  “No tea leaves?”

  “I have a good feeling about the coins.”

  “I’ll get it.” I stand and pluck it off the shelf. It’s covered in glossy black paint and red symbols that match those on the coins inside. It rattles as I hand it to her. I love the sound of the coins, of the anticipation of what might fall out.

  Kahina rubs the bottom of the jar in circles. “Your friend Luca? It’s hard for me to picture him. Perhaps because I’ve never met him...” she says and then gives it to me hesitantly. “Picture him and give it a go. But I can’t promise the reading will be detailed. He seems quite cloudy, in my mind.”

  I shake it a few times before turning it over. A single dark coin falls out, barely the size of my fingernail. On one side is a wolf’s claw and on the other, the three streaks made from a claw tearing through earth or flesh. I don’t have the gift of fortune-work, but, even to me, the coin feels cold and dead.

  Kahina takes the coin hesitantly, as if not wanting to touch it. “You were thinking of Luca when you shook the jar?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s no hint of him on this coin. I cannot see him in your fortune at all.” Her face softens as she watches mine. “I’m sorry. Were you hoping I would?”

  “I’m confused, I guess,” I say. The kiss aside, I’ve been with Luca the past several nights, and I’ll be with him again for many more. How could his fortune be so distant from my own?

  “This coin means impending doom,” she says. “The Were’s Claw.”

  My heart stutters for a moment. “You don’t think...another illusion—”

  “It’s difficult to say when everything is so cloudy. You know I cannot tell fortunes for your illusions. Perhaps the Were’s Claw references the wars brewing around us. Or perhaps it does refer to Luca, and I’m having trouble seeing it.”

  I frown. If Luca is about to encounter trouble, the chances of it being associated with me are low. He spends his free time befriending assassins and the like, and I can hardly be the only person his personality has—at some point—rubbed the wrong way.

  “Do you see anything more?” I ask her.

  “It’s unclear. Perhaps
the vision is clouding because Luca is an Up-Mountainer, and the entire fate of this area balances on the edge of a knife. It feels as though Gomorrah cannot move fast enough to outrun what will happen if the Up-Mountain city-states are no longer united. It could mean a war here.”

  “Luca isn’t mixed up in any of that.”

  “I’m not certain,” she says. “But you should be concerned about his safety. The fortune in this coin feels very imminent. Tell him to be wary. The Were’s Claw does not simply warn of danger. It promises it.”

  * * *

  When Nicoleta and I visit Villiam that evening, Chimal and Agni also await my arrival inside his office. The atmosphere, even just upon entering the room, is tense, as though they were in the middle of an argument before we arrived. Cups sit in front of each of them, filled with red tea that has long gone cold.

  “Sorina,” Villiam says, his gaze shifting to Nicoleta questioningly, “we’re hoping you have reconsidered your decision about Hawk. The more I’ve spoken to Chimal, the more it seems that Hawk would prove invaluable—”

  “I’m not changing my mind about that.” I pull up the fourth chair at the table and take a seat. They all watch me with apprehension. “But I have a compromise. You say you need someone with abilities the Up-Mountainers won’t expect. I propose Nicoleta.”

  “The stage manager?” Chimal furrows his thick eyebrows and inspects her skinny frame. “Forgive me, Nicoleta, but I didn’t realize you had any jynx-work.”

  “She’s stronger than ten of your men combined,” I say for her.

  “But not reliably so,” Villiam adds.

  “True, I’ve been known to get stage fright,” she says. “But, from what I understand, this is hardly the sort of job that would elicit an audience. Besides, you wouldn’t be sending a child into battle.” She lifts her chin higher in self-righteousness.

  “I think that is a very viable idea,” Agni says.

  Villiam drums his fingers on the table. “With no disrespect, Nicoleta, how can we depend on you?”

  “I will show you what I can do.” Nicoleta bends at the knees and picks up Villiam’s chair in her right hand and lifts him with ease. He grips the edges of his seat so as not to slide off. With her left hand, she lifts Chimal, who raises his eyebrows in interest.

  “I look Up-Mountainer,” she says. “We may have to enter through the front door, but you could easily make me look the part. Only Sorina would need to remain hidden.”

  “Can you replicate the accent? Walk like a dignitary?”

  “I’m a performer. Of course I can.” She sets Chimal and Villiam down. The teacups rattle.

  He crosses his arms. “It will be dangerous.”

  “I imagine so,” Nicoleta says.

  Their words remind me that by making this compromise to ensure Hawk remains out of the conflict, I have lost my opportunity to escape myself. I wish I was braver, but the thought of walking directly into an Up-Mountain crowd terrifies me. As much as I want to please Villiam, I’m scared. So much is depending upon me—my survival most of all.

  What if the doom referenced by the Were’s Claw is my own?

  “It’ll require preparations every day until we reach Sapris,” Chimal says.

  “I’ll make arrangements.” She leans over the table. “I know that you were more interested in what Hawk had to offer, but I believe you’ll be making an altogether safer decision if I accompany Sorina. If you are dissatisfied in the future, you can change your mind. But you won’t get Hawk. It’s me or nothing.”

  Chimal purses his lips like a child who’s lost his toy. “Fine. We start tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  An hour before Gomorrah reaches Gentoa, I slip away to the Downhill to pay Luca a visit. His caravan is empty, though nothing appears out of the ordinary. As I walk back to the Uphill, I tell myself over and over again not to worry. All of Gomorrah is about to unpack, which means people are scrambling about, preparing to set up their tents and belongings. He’s probably on errands. Or at one of his tea parties with his assassin and prettyworker friends. Not in danger, like Kahina predicted.

  Still, falling asleep that night poses a challenge.

  When I do drift off, I dream of Luca. I dream of him in such detail that it even embarrasses my dream self. The pout in his lips. The angular shadow cast by his brow bone. The slopes where his neck blends into chest, then shoulder. My imagination roams to other places, and I am more than a little humiliated at the level of intimacy. In the dream, I know every line of his body. I know every memory behind his brown eyes.

  It all feels familiar.

  I wake with Venera’s knee jutting into my back, her drool staining my pillow, the details of the dream already becoming distant and hazy. I shake Venera awake.

  “Hmm?” she says, her eyes closed.

  “I want to talk to you about something. A boy.”

  “’Rina, you know I’m always ready to talk about romance,” she mumbles, “but did you have to choose ten in the morning to ask?”

  “Never mind. Go back to sleep.”

  She rubs her eyes and sits up. “No, it’s fine. I’m all ears.”

  “According to Kahina’s fortune-work, there isn’t any romance in my future.”

  “Fortune-workers don’t know everything. Tell me about him. Why are you thinking romance?”

  “Because I kissed him,” I whisper.

  Venera squeals and squirms closer to me. “How forward. I’m so proud.”

  I hush her, not wanting to wake the others. “No, you don’t understand. I kissed him, but he didn’t kiss me back. And now I’m worried. He wasn’t in his caravan earlier. Maybe he’s avoiding me. Or he got himself into trouble—”

  “One concern at a time,” she says. “How about you just tell me about him first?”

  I squeeze my pillow to my chest. “Last week, I ran into him during one of his acts. He calls himself a poison-worker. People pay to kill him, and he always comes back alive. I watched him get beheaded.”

  “How romantic. Your special someone sounds like some kind of demon.”

  “I think he’d take that as a compliment,” I say.

  “You should tell him you think he has nice eyes.”

  “How do you know I like his eyes?”

  She snorts. “Because you have a thing for eyes.”

  I flush slightly but can’t help being a little amused at the irony. “His name is Luca. He calls himself a gossip-worker. And—”

  “Wait, that Luca?” she says. “Luca von Raske? The Up-Mountainer? Sorina...I heard he isn’t interested in...romance.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, half his friends are prettymen and prettywomen, yet he never shows interest in them. He’s totally apathetic to that stuff.”

  “To what stuff? My stuff? Or any stuff?”

  “Any stuff. Apparently.”

  I think back to last night, to how he tensed, to how he claimed that he needed to “think.” That makes much more sense now. Maybe he’s just inexperienced. Maybe he really does have to think.

  But think about what? Our relationship? My face?

  “Well...that isn’t what I was expecting,” I finally say.

  “What did you think it was? Your appearance?”

  “Of course I thought it was my appearance!”

  “Has he ever commented on it? Has it come up before? You’ve spent a lot of time together, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. He’s seen me without my mask on, if that’s what you mean, and he didn’t even flinch.” I roll over, press my face into a pillow and groan.

  Venera rubs my back in circles. I feel childish, but her touch is very comforting. “Well,” she says at last, “you know my advice is always to go after what you want, with all the confid
ence you may or may not have. Because you’re so powerful that you can make grown men run in fear. And you’re imaginative enough to have thought up me—and I’m, I mean, perfection.” She tosses her hair at this, smiling at me, and I can’t help but laugh a little.

  “And you’re helping to hold this family together even after...everything. If he’s half as intelligent as I’ve heard, then he recognizes all of these qualities in you.”

  I sink deeper into my pillow, dreading seeing him tomorrow. Even with Venera’s kind words, I cannot help thinking I’ve ruined whatever friendship Luca and I have managed to create.

  * * *

  Our first night in Gentoa, we open the Freak Show after what seems to be years of nothing. It’s strange to see each other in our usual costumes—all pink glitter and black stripes and fake smiles. Without Gill’s and Blister’s acts, we had to lengthen each of our own to keep the show forty minutes long. I haven’t thought about what I’ll add to my performance—I usually improvise, anyway.

  All I think about is that Luca might be in the audience. He promised he’d come see one of our shows once we reopened. Though he probably didn’t mean the first night, the thought of him watching gives me the jitters of stage fright. And I’m never nervous about performing.

  “You’re awfully jumpy,” Venera says. Her white-painted face appears spooky in our candlelit dressing area. The effect is even more dramatic on stage.

  “Luca might be here,” I say.

  “You have black lipstick on your teeth,” Venera says, and I scramble to fix it before pulling up the curtain.

  The performance does not begin well. Tree goes into a tantrum during his act, forcing me to take control before he starts tearing out his branches, which Venera works so hard to keep trim. Crown never smiles once through his entire performance. Unu and Du hiss at each other during their dance routine loud enough that the people in the first row definitely heard Unu call Du a “growth worse than toe fungus,” which will earn him one of Nicoleta’s tirades after the show.

  During my act, I scan the rows for Luca but don’t find him anywhere. My stage smile falters a bit, but I regain my composure enough to produce the illusion of a giant bird, the size of the tent and more. Every person in the room rides on its back through thunderclouds that light the sky in blinding flashes of violet. It all runs smoothly until I trip on my Strings and fall, tearing a sizable rip down the side of my cloak.