Nausea falls over me, and I cup a hand over my stomach. I should’ve seen the truth. I should’ve seen this side of my father. All those years, I thought he wouldn’t share the responsibility of Gomorrah’s proprietorship with me because I was too young, too stupid. But really, he didn’t want me close to the truth. Had I simply stepped outside the Freak Show tent, ventured more than a few times to the Downhill, I could have learned the truth on my own.
This is my fault.
“You’ve been plotting to kill them from the beginning,” I say. “I’ve just been a tool for you. Not a daughter, not your heir. Just a tool you could use to start a war.”
“No. Never,” he says, almost like he means it.
But I don’t believe him. Not anymore.
“Let mego.”
“Don’t leave. We’re so close.” He squeezes me tighter until my arm hurts. “It would’ve been easier to make you forget them altogether, to save you the pain.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because, as I’ve found out, I cannot use mind-work on your illusions, just as Kahina cannot see them in her fortune-work. It ends up messy, imprecise.”
Then it’s over. Nicoleta knows the truth. He won’t be able to make her forget.
Unless he kills her.
He reaches toward me and unties my mask. It drifts to the floor.
“The pain of losing a loved one... Wouldn’t you rather forget? I could do that...simply wipe them all from your mind, the way I first did when you created Luca. You could start over. Start fresh—”
“I’m not going to forget them,” I hiss. I try to squirm out of his grip. “I don’t want to.”
“Why waste the opportunity for relief? I would’ve been grateful for such relief after my mother died or when my uncle was killed where he stood by a religious zealot. If only I could ease my own mind the way I can ease yours.”
Villiam leans down to my forehead, as if to kiss me, and I instantly cover it with my hands.
“I don’t want to force you, my dear,” he says, through gritted teeth. He grabs my other arm, as well, and yanks both away. In the process, he drops his crutches and, wincing, puts pressure on his broken leg. He presses his thumb against my brow bone.
When he touches my skin, a pain stabs through my head, as if Villiam has clawed his way into my brain. I shake. I should run. I should get out of here. But my legs won’t move, as if the pain is rooting me to where I stand. He lets go of me, now that I can no longer flee. I raise one shaking hand to cover my forehead where he touched me, where the pain still lingers.
“Exander is evil,” he says. “You know what he thinks of us? That we’re scum. He’d burn all of Gomorrah and our people’s homes in a heartbeat. With him alive, the deaths of your other illusions will be meaningless. The Alliance will survive. Yet you’d let him live.”
“I’d letLucalive,” I say.
“Luca isn’t a real person. He’s a figment of your imagination, one you and I brought to life.”
“I won’t let you hurt him,” I say again.
I press past the pain in my mind to search for some kind of illusion, anything, even the moth. Something I can use to escape. But it’s hard to concentrate beyond the pain, beyond the shrieking outside, beyond the smell of Villiam’s cologne. It’s hard to delve deep enough in my mind to escape the reality in front of me.
He lifts my chin up, forcing me to look at him. “I can make you forget this whole conversation. I can make you forget anything. You only need to move your hands.”
Agatha told me that there is magic in a kiss. That must be what Villiam needs to dig into my mind properly—a kiss, on my forehead. I’d always thought it was meant for comfort. For love.
He rips my hands away from my forehead and kisses me. The pain in my head increases tenfold, and I scream as he splits my mind in two. I see flashes of my memories, as if I’m caught in a dream. I see the night of Gill’s death and my argument with him about working with Jiafu. I see Jiafu’s blood spill to the ground when the official stabbed him in the throat. I see Luca’s head rolling at my feet. I see the apothecary where Luca told me he suspected Hellfire could kill him. I see the charms he kept in his vest, the charms crushed on the ground outside the Menagerie.
The pain squirms around my thoughts like a worm. It reaches my row of Trunks, then it slithers to the farthest one: Luca’s. It yanks the Trunk open.
Luca appears beside me. He groans as he fights to move, but, like me, Villiam has him frozen. He presses his thumb to Luca’s forehead. “It does not take precision to break someone,” Villiam murmurs.
“Get. Out. Of. My. Mind,” he snarls at Villiam, his dark eyes almost black with rage.
“It won’t last long.”
