However, Chimal doesn’t seem eager to rush things. “I am told you can create a man using merely your imagination.”
“That’s right.”
“An act worthy of a god, don’t you think?”
“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t raised with much faith.”
“I thought you followed the stars, Villiam?” Chimal asks.
“My mother did.”
“Well, as it turns out, I’m not a believer myself. The only god I worship is the god of death.”
He smiles, and the gap in his teeth seems more sinister to me than before.
“The man we seek,” he says, “he is not a man easily identified. In the letters we have intercepted from the Alliance, he has written under pseudonyms, and several. Nor are we certain where the letters are originating from.”
He means the leader of the Alliance. The man Villiam intends to kidnap. The man who has orchestrated so much suffering.
“It will be heavily guarded. Even with your illusion-work, Sorina, slipping past the entrance won’t be easy. But I do have ideas regarding my men.” He leans forward, close enough that I can smell his breath. Sweet, like corn. “Your illusions have powers unlike anyone else in Gomorrah. These could prove an asset to us. I’m particularly interested in the girl who can fly.”
“Hawk? She’s only thirteen,” I say with dismay.
“And you’re sixteen. There isn’t much of a difference.”
I watch Villiam, who doesn’t seem perturbed by these comments. Perhaps Chimal has discussed this notion with him before, when I was not included. “I won’t put Hawk in danger,” I say.
“Would she be able to carry both you and a man during flight?”
“I doubt it—”
“It wouldn’t be far—”
“I don’t think—”
“It would be the surest method of slipping you safely inside the wedding. From there, it would be simple to lure the man away using your illusion-work.”
“I’m not comfortable asking her,” I say, with more strength in my voice. “Too many of my family members have already been murdered by the Alliance. I don’t want to risk another.”
“Surely she would be more than willing to help the cause, considering the tragedies that have befallen your...family.”
Of course Hawk wouldn’t object. But that’s what I’m afraid of.
“Her willingness is beside the point. I don’t want her involved,” I say.
Villiam clears his throat. “Chimal, my daughter has all of the weapons of Gomorrah at her disposal. Surely there’s another way of executing this without endangering anyone beyond those in this cart and those who already serve the Festival.”
Only now do Chimal’s words dawn on me. I’d been so concerned with Hawk’s involvement that I hadn’t paid attention to my own. He wantsmeto be the one to lure the leader away from the wedding? I don’t perform well under pressure. I could be killed and jeopardize all of Gomorrah in the process. Is my father truly at ease with that?
“What are our other options?” I ask, fear obvious in my tone.
“You sneaking into the wedding from ground-level,” Chimal says.
“I hardly look like an Up-Mountainer.” Chimal, with such Yucatoan features, looks more Up-Mountainer than me.
“You would need to disguise yourself the whole time, with illusion-work.”
Chimal has no idea what level of concentration that requires. I can maintain my moth illusion for a few minutes, at best, but something more complex than that? Something to disguise me and then later lure the leader of the Alliance away from his guards? My routine in the Freak Show is ten minutes long, but it requires a different skill set, as the illusion is always moving. Fixed illusions are more challenging, like holding a weight with an outstretched arm.
