The overcast sky obscures the few stars visible through Gomorrah’s smoke, so the only light in the Downhill comes from the green-fire torches, flickering from the heavy coastal winds. Several of the torches have blown out. Everything is green and dark and hushed, and, despite becoming accustomed to the Downhill after visiting it so much with Luca, I’m acutely aware of how little I know about these neighborhoods of Gomorrah, which are not nearly as nice as Chimal’s. The person who lives in the tent beside me could be a killer. Or a shadow-worker could be skulking about between caravans, waiting for an opportunity to grasp my shadow in the green light, like I’m a rabbit walking into a snare. Villiam said that I would have nothing to worry about, as the future proprietor, but I don’t believe him. I don’t feel like a proprietor. I feel very much like a girl, far too young to make the decisions ahead of me.
Jiafu isn’t in his caravan, even though it’s only five o’clock and he rarely rises before eight. I wait for him, my right hand in my pocket, gripping a concealed knife. My illusion-work prevents me from being noticed, but, today, even being invisible doesn’t seem like enough to keep me calm.
Jiafu returns forty minutes later, whistling, and I lessen my illusion-work as he reaches his cart. “Holy shit,” he curses, when I appear out of nowhere. “’Rina, what the hell were you thinking? You look like a monster in that mask.”
I lift a hand to my violet mask, which doesn’t pair well with the green lighting. I’m going to assume that’s what he meant and not thatIappear to be a monster.
I throw him his coin purse with the fifteen gold coins from the other one added to it. “I don’t know if you were lying, but I’d still like to work with you, if you don’t mind.”
“You have a lot of balls calling me a liar,” he says. “And you have even more balls to be coming back here after the other day.”
“I thought we were cousins.”
“Fuck you, princess.” He spits on my shoes. “You’re lucky I haven’t sent someone to beat your freak ass.”
“Don’t be like that. We work well together.”
“Yeah, like a lion and a gazelle. And you keep forgetting that I’m the lion. And that you need to watch your back.”
I smirk. “You didn’t seem much like a lion the other day. Bet they heard you screaming all across the Downhill.”
“You want to say that again, freak?” He pulls a knife out of his pocket. I’m fairly certain that Jiafu is an empty threat. He wouldn’t hurt Gomorrah’s princess. He’s not that reckless.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stick around to find out if I’m wrong. So much for repairing our business relationship.
“Careful,” I whisper. “How do you know I’m actually standing here? This could be an illusion. I could be behind you right now, and I could gut you through your back.”
And I do just that—without the gutting part. The image of me stays put in front of him, while the actual me, unnoticeable, tiptoes away into the darkness.
“This isn’t you, bitch. You’re not breathing or moving,” I hear Jiafu say from behind me.
“Go to hell,” I say. It’s a sound illusion. Jiafu hears it to his right, and he whips around, his knife out. But there’s no one there. I’m gone, running through the moving Downhill to Luca’s caravan.
* * *
Luca sits at the edge of his caravan, his feet dangling. He taps his walking stick against his door with one hand and checks his golden pocket watch with the other. He doesn’t look up as I approach, so I get to study him for a moment. His blond hair rustled from the wind. His pristinely white shirt. His angular features.
He looks up and smiles with his dimples. My heart does a little twirl.
I’ve never had a crush on someone. I may have admired from afar but not like this. When the fairy tales spoke of butterflies, I didn’t anticipate it feeling more like hornets.
“How are you?” he asks.
“Good.” My cheeks are warm and flushed, and I might just die of embarrassment.
“I hear Villiam is well enough.”
“He is.”
“You’re not usually so quiet.” He hops off the caravan. “Do you have news? I heard his attacker killed himself. Cyanide. Not particularly elegant.”
I have a million things I wish to say. That, though not certain, it’s seeming more and more likely that the Alliance is behind my family’s murders. That training to be proprietor means potentially putting myself in danger. That I’m scared. I’m scared of what Villiam is asking of me. I’m scared of the Alliance, of what they have and may have done. I’m more scared that Luca is right, and the killer is from Gomorrah working on a separate agenda. How many enemies do I have? Who might be lurking in Gomorrah’s smoke?
Luca’s contemplative expression appears all the more serious in the green torch light. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“Are you still certain that the killer is in Gomorrah? That we’re not wasting our time?”
He raises his eyebrows. “As certain as ever.”
