Neither of us bothers to say goodbye.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nicoleta doesn’t look up from her washboard as I approach. She dunks one of Hawk’s shirts into the suds and scrubs the dirt out of it so hard the material tears. She hardly seems to notice the damage as she wrings the water out onto the muddy grass at her feet.
“I need to talk to you,” I say.
“You shouldn’t be working with Jiafu.Ithink so.Gillthought so.Crownthinks so.”
The fortune-worker across the path looks up from her knitting to eavesdrop. I am tired of her nosiness. But she did bring us a box of roasted goat legs, for our loss. I think Unu and Du already managed to eat them all.
“I don’t want to talk about Jiafu,” I say.
“All right, then who was the boy who visited you last night?”
“Could you lower your voice?” I ask. Even though it’s late and most of Gomorrah’s visitors are leaving, there are still people wandering. The fortune-worker may be harmless, but I don’t want word to break out that we’re concerned a killer is after us. There would be panic in all the tents in this neighborhood.
She raises her eyebrows and then reaches for one of Unu and Du’s shirts—with two holes for their heads—soaking in the bucket. “What were you talking about?”
I step closer to avoid being overheard. “We were talking about Gill’s and Blister’s deaths. He thinks that someone is targeting us.”
“Sorina, do you hear yourself? Why would anyone target us?” She tucks an oily strand of brown hair back inside her favorite hairpin and crosses her arms. Despite being only twenty-two, her face appears older. She looks old and frazzled and tired.
“I’m not sure yet—”
“Blister’s death was an accident. And there’s nothing we could do about Gill’s.”
I almost don’t know what to say. Is she willfully trying to remain ignorant? That’s dangerous for everyone involved.
“You know as well as I do that Blister would never go near the dunk tank,” I say. “Someone took him.”
Her face reddens. “No one was here. I would’ve seen. Because...because I was the person watching him when he wandered off. I would’ve seen or heard if someone came near.”
I wince. I didn’t know that. No one had told me Nicoleta was responsible for him when he disappeared.
“Maybe he wandered off and they took him—”
“Why are you saying these things? Sometimes bad things happen. And there’s nothing we can do about them, and no one we can blame.”
“But what if this is someone targeting us?” I grab her shoulders. “How would you feel if we’re burying someone else in the next city? Or if we’re burying you? Or if someone else gets into anaccidenton your watch?” Her eyes widen, and I know I shouldn’t have said that. But a small part of me feels better blaming someone else for Blister’s death, since it’s so easy for me to blame myself. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. All I’m saying is that we need to be careful. I want us to start sleeping in the same tent and not to go out alone.”
“Who is this person who said these things to you?”
“His name is Luca. He’s smart. And he knows—”
“Luca von Raske? You shouldn’t be talking to him.”
I fume. I am not a child or someone she can just order around. “Why not?”
“He’s dangerous. He’s friends with a lot of seedy people in the Downhill. And he’s an Up-Mountainer.”
My mind jumps to Luca’s unnerving, insincere smile, but he doesn’t seemdangerous. He just seems like an asshole.
“Well, how do you know him, then?” I ask.
“Adenneya knows of him,” she says. Adenneya is a prettywoman who works in the Downhill. She and Nicoleta broke up about a year ago, back when Nicoleta still knew the meaning of the wordsfunandrelaxation. Mentioning her name around Nicoleta has become taboo. “He hires prettywomen and prettymen, but he never touches them. They say he’s...strange. That he isn’t interested inthat.”
For a moment, I don’t understand what she means. Then her words sink in, and I blush.
