“It’s dangerous,” she says.
“I know. But I’ll be back. I’ll come back with him, and you can read him again. You’ll see he isn’t an illusion. And if he’s not...” He would still be guilty. “I don’t know. I don’t want him to die.”
If they figured out how to kill him, he could already be dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I sprint as fast as I can to the Menagerie, my mind in knots. Usually on our first night in a new city, the Festival bustles with activity. But Gomorrah is strangely empty, smelling of kettle corn and roasted cashews, waiting for patrons. An uneasiness hangs in the air that I can’t simply be imagining. The fortune-workers and other attractions of the Uphill don’t have their signs out, either because they aren’t expecting any visitors or because they don’t want any. I turn around toward the smoke Kahina mentioned, billowing black and ugly into Gomorrah’s dark sky. It’s coming from Skull Gate.
Everywhere, people close the windows and doors of their caravans. They pack up, as if preparing to leave. Did Villiam give the warning to flee? I haven’t heard a horn.
The commotion near the entrance to the Festival only makes me more anxious. I can’t help but picture Luca the way we found Venera, his throat slit. Or his back and chest riddled with stab wounds, like Gill.
But Luca can’t die. If someone tries to kill him, he’ll just come back.
Villiam said he murdered my family. So doesn’t he deserve to die?
I don’t know what to believe. I haven’t known what to believe, what to do or anything since I held Gill’s lifeless body in my arms a month ago.
I try to think about the idea of Luca being an illusion logically, to remove my emotional perspective, the way Villiam or Luca would want me to. But I can’t. Lucacan’tbe an illusion. Every illusion I’ve created has taken months of work, sketches and blueprints. How could I forget all of that? How could I forget creating him?
A painful stitch develops in my side, so I half walk, half jog the rest of the way to the Menagerie. The slow pace grates on me, only adding to my sense of anxiety and urgency.
My heel crunches on something in the grass. I bend down and pick up the pieces of three charms, which look as if they were broken even before I stepped on them. Someone ground them into the dirt.
Suddenly, I recognize them. They’re the charms Luca had made to protect him from Hellfire. He had them sewn into that atrocious vest he always wears. Maybe Agni found them in his shirt, brought them out to show Villiam and then smashed them beyond repair.
Fear boils in my stomach. What if Luca really is an illusion? What if he’s the next target, linked to another political figure? What if someone has discovered the secret to killing him?
I run around the Menagerie to the main entrance, toward the clearing that leads directly to the Festival’s entrance. The Menagerie, being at the dead center of Gomorrah, is also the dead center of trouble.
I run directly toward the chaos.
Up-Mountain officials swarm around the clearing, iron masks concealing their faces. In front of them, members of Gomorrah protest. A few of them have swords of their own, but they don’t have them brandished. They seem to be in a standoff with the officials, not willing to attack in case it causes a full-out brawl. The officials would not hesitate to kill them if that happened.
Skull Gate is burning in the distance. A crowd points at the Leonitian officials who stand behind it, their torches raised as they push into the Festival. They carry short swords pointing out, daring anyone to approach them. A few people turn and run. The others are more defiant. Members of the guard untie their jackets and reveal their black uniforms beneath. They pull on masks that cover all but their eyes.
“We’re looking for the proprietor,” one of the officials says.
Well, they’re certainly going to get his attention by burning down Skull Gate.
I wonder if I should step forward. I could take over as the proprietor here, try to bring the situation under control. If Villiam were here, that’s what he would tell me to do. Gomorrah comes before anything else, even family.
But suddenly I realize that I can’t do that. I never could. As much as I love the Festival, I would abandon this life in a heartbeat if it meant keeping my family safe. And maybe that means I’ll never be the sort of proprietor Gomorrah needs.
That’s what Villiam would say.
Or maybe it means I’m simply kind of heart. That’s what Kahina would tell me.
One of Gomorrah’s guards approaches the official. “We’ve already sent someone for the proprietor. In the meantime, we ask you to wait outside. You’re distressing our residents.”
“We have orders from our new lord to make this Festival of Sin leave,” the official says. “Thanks to the sin and impurity your Festival has brought to our land, our previous lord has been consumed by his snaking sickness, may he rest in peace.”
“We don’t give a shit about your lords,” the guard says.
The official makes a move to smack him across the head with the handle of his sword, but the guard catches it and yanks the official off his horse.
The old lord is dead? That means that the new lord is Exander, the leader of the Alliance. A shiver of dread trickles down my spine as I realize that the most powerful man in the Up-Mountains now leads its most formidable city-state.
