Fifteen
Days later, Juliette could think of little else but the madness. She hardly reacted anymore when people called her name. She had ears only for the sound of screaming, and each time screams rang through the streets, she winced, wishing—aching to do something about it.
A monster, Juliette thought, her thoughts persistent in its cyclic loop as she leaned against the staircase in wait. There’s a monster spreading madness on the streets of Shanghai.
“Ready to go?” Lord Cai called down to her, pausing at the top to straighten the collar of his coat.
Juliette forced herself back into the present. Sighing, she twirled the little
clutch bag in her hands.
“Ready as ever.”
Lord Cai descended the rest of the stairs, then stopped in front of his daughter, his expression set in a frown. Juliette looked down at herself, trying to determine what had drawn his disapproval. She was wearing her American dresses again, this one slightly fancier to t the occasion, with bundles of tulle at her shoulders that fell into sleeves. Was the neckline too low-cut? Was this—for once—normal fatherly concern that wasn’t about whether she could kill a man
without inching?
“Where’s your mask?”
Close enough. I’ll take it.
“Why bother?” Juliette sighed. “You’re not wearing one.”
Lord Cai scrubbed at his eyes. Juliette couldn’t tell if it was his general tiredness in preparing to deal with the Frenchmen, or if he was exasperated with her childish behavior.
“Yes, because I am a fty-year-old man,” her father replied. “It would look ridiculous.”
Juliette shrugged, then started for the front door. “You said it, not me.”
The night was brisk when they stepped out into the driveway, and Juliette shivered slightly, rubbing her hands against her bare arms. No matter. It was too late to go back for a coat now. She climbed into the car with the chaueur’s help and slid down the seat to make room for her father. Most of their other family members who were attending the masquerade had already left. Juliette hadn’t wanted to go anyway, so she had waited while Lord Cai took his time nishing up his work. He had only declared that it was time to get going when the sky turned pink and the burning orange sun started to brush the horizon.
Lord Cai got into the car. Once he settled himself into his seat, he rested his hands in his lap and glanced over at Juliette. His expression set into another frown. This time he was eyeing the necklace laced tightly across her throat.
“That’s not a necklace, is it?”
“It is not, Bàba.”
“That’s garrote wire, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is, Bàba.”
“How many other weapons have you concealed on yourself?”
“Five, Bàba.”
Lord Cai pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, “Wǒde māyā, have mercy on my soul.”
Juliette smiled like she had been complimented.
Their car started forward and rumbled along smoothly, driving through the calmer, rural roads and into the city, honking every three seconds for the laborers and the men dragging rickshaws to get out of the way. Juliette usually made a habit not to look out the window, lest she make eye contact and a beggar approached. But for some inexplicable reason, she looked up tonight.
Right in time to see a woman bawling on the sidewalk, cradling a body in her lap.
The body was a bloody mess, hands stained red and throat so messy that its head was barely hanging on by the force of the neck bone. The crying woman cradled the head, pressed her cheek to its deathly white face.
The car started to move again. Juliette turned her gaze to the front, to the passing blur of the windshield in the front seat, and swallowed hard.
Why is this happening? she thought desperately. Has this city committed such awful sins that we have come to deserve this?
The answer was: yes. But it wasn’t entirely their fault. The Chinese had built the pit, gathered the wood, and lit the match, but it was the foreigners who had come in and poured gasoline upon every surface, letting Shanghai rage into an untamable forest re of debauchery.
“Here we are,” the chaueur said, braking.
Juliette, her jaw tight, got out of the car. In the French Concession, everything was a little bit shiny, even the grass beneath her feet. These gardens were usually gated, but they had been pulled wide open tonight specically for this function. When Juliette walked through the gates, it was as if she had entered another world—one far from the dirty streets and tightly cramped alleyways that they had just driven through. Here it was greenery and climbing vines and slick intentions, little gazebos sitting patiently in quaint nooks and the darkness pulling in, pulling the shadows of the tall, wrought-iron gates that bordered this garden long into the grass, growing longer with every second of the violet sunset.
Despite the chill, Juliette was sweating a little as she browsed the crowds of people dispersed across these delicately kept gardens. Her rst order of business was identifying where every relative had situated themselves. She found most of them easily, scattered about and socializing. Perhaps she had taken it a bit too far to bring so many weapons. Because of the knife strapped to the small of her back, her dress was too tight at her waist, and the white fabric at her knees was bunching up with every step. But Juliette couldn’t help herself. By bringing weapons, she could fool herself into thinking she could act if disaster struck.
She tried not to acknowledge that there were some disasters she couldn’t ght o with her knives. The foreigners here certainly did not care. As Juliette walked, she overheard more than one giggle about the rumors of madness, British men
and Frenchwomen alike clinking their glasses in celebration regarding how intelligent it was to stay out of the local hysteria. They acted like it was a choice.
“Come, Juliette,” Lord Cai prompted from ahead, straightening his sleeves.
Juliette followed obediently, but her eyes remained elsewhere. Under a delicate marble pavilion, a quartet was playing soft music, the sound oating toward a clearing where some foreign merchants and their wives were dancing.
There was an even ratio of Scarlet gangsters and foreigners in attendance— merchants and ocials alike—and a few were going so far as to be conversing in the fading twilight. She spotted Tyler within those groups, chatting with a Frenchwoman. When he saw her looking, he waved pleasantly. Juliette’s mouth soured into a line.
Nearby, the strings of lights looped across the gazebo awnings ared to life with a sudden whoosh. The gardens became illuminated with gold, pushing out the darkness that would have otherwise crept in when the sun settled completely into the sea.
“Juliette,” Lord Cai prompted again. Juliette had slowed her walk to a snail’s crawl without noticing. Begrudgingly, she picked up her pace. She had noted that most of the attendants remained in groups with those to whom they were alike. British women who had moved here with their diplomat husbands laughed with one another, their laced gloves swirling their pastel parasols. French ocers clapped one another on the back, howling over whatever unfunny joke one of their superiors just told. Yet dispersed in dierent sections of the garden, three loners stood unassociated despite their best eorts to look as if they were occupied in proper business.
Juliette stopped again. She cocked her head at one of them—the one who was intensely examining the plate in his hands.
“Bàba, doesn’t that boy look Korean to you?”
Lord Cai didn’t even follow the direction of her gaze. He put his hands around her shoulders and nudged her in the direction they were going. “Focus, Juliette.”
It was a moot command. Juliette didn’t require any focus when they approached the Consul-General of France because when the men spoke, she simply faded into the background. She was barely more than an ornament
decorating the place. She tuned in and out of the main conversation, not even catching the Consul-General’s name. Her focus was on the two men standing at attention behind him.
“Do you want to get a sandwich afterward?” the rst man whispered to the second in French. “I hate this catering. They’re trying too hard to appeal to that bland country across the ditch.”
“You spoke my mind,” the second responded quietly. “Would you look at them? A bunch of unrened peasants.”
Juliette had tensed, but with the remark about the ditch, it was clear that they were referring to the British, not the Scarlet Gang.
“They sip away on their tea and claim they invented it,” the second man continued. “Think again, fool. The Chinese were brewing tea before you even had a king.”
Juliette snorted suddenly—the irrelevant pettiness of the conversation completely taking her by surprise—then coughed to mask the sound. Lord Cai had nothing to worry about; bringing her here had been an unnecessary precaution. She turned her attention back to her father’s conversation.
“They are wary, my lord,” the Consul-General was saying. He spoke of his French businessmen, Juliette guessed. “The garde municipale keeps the French Concession safe for now, but if there is any trouble brewing, I need to know that I have the support of the Scarlet Gang.”
If there was a revolt from the common Chinese people, from the unpaid workers who decided Communism was the prime solution, the French needed a way to maintain their hold on Shanghai. They thought they could obtain it with the weaponry and resources of the Scarlet Gang. They didn’t quite realize that if there was a revolution, there would be no one left in Shanghai for them to do their business with.
But Lord Cai voiced none of that. He agreed easily, under the condition that the Scarlet Gang still had the jurisdiction to run their errands in the French Concession. The Consul-General of France exclaimed, in an attempt to mold his English with Americanisms, “Why, old friend, of course! That is not even in question,” and when the two men shook hands, it seemed all was settled.
Juliette thought the whole thing theatrical and ridiculous. She thought it preposterous that her father had to ask permission to run business on land their ancestors had lived and died on from men who had simply docked their boat here and decided they would like to be in charge now.
The Consul-General of France, as if he could detect the hostility of Juliette’s thoughts, at last turned his gaze to her.
“And how are you, Miss Juliette?”
Juliette smiled widely.
“You shouldn’t get a say here.” She was speaking before her father could stop her, her words dripping so sweetly that they sounded like admiration. “However awed we are, however much we ght each other, this country is still not for people like you to dictate.”
The Consul-General’s bright expression faltered, but only slightly, unable to determine if Juliette was taking a dig or making an innocent remark. Her words were sharp but her eyes were friendly, her hands clasped together like she was making small talk.
“Have a good day,” Lord Cai cut in before any of the French could formulate a response. He steered Juliette away rmly, marching her by her shoulders.
“Juliette,” Lord Cai hissed the moment they were out of earshot. “I didn’t think I had to teach you this, but you cannot say things like that to powerful people. It will be the death of you.”
Juliette shook her shoulders out of her father’s grasp.
“Surely not,” she argued. “He is powerful, but he does not have the power to kill me.”
“Very well,” Lord Cai said rmly. “He may not kill you—”
“Then why can I not speak freely?”
Her father sighed. He breathed in, then breathed out, searching for his answer.
“Because,” he said nally, “it hurts his feelings, Juliette.”
Juliette folded her arms. “We stay quiet about the injustice of all this simply because it hurts his feelings?”
Lord Cai shook his head. He took his daughter by the elbow to lead her farther away, sparing a long look over his shoulder. When they were near one of
the gazebos, he let go and clasped his hands before him.
“These days, Juliette,” he said, low and warily, “the most dangerous people are the powerful white men who feel as if they have been slighted.”
Juliette knew this. She knew this far more than people like her father and mother, who had only ever seen what the foreigners were capable of after they sailed their ships into Chinese waters. But Juliette—her parents had sent her o to America to be educated, after all. She had grown up with an eye pinned to the outside of every establishment before she walked in, searching for the segregation signs that demanded she keep out. She had learned to move out of the way whenever a white lady in heels was coming down the sidewalk with her pearls, learned to fake meekness and lower her gaze in the event that the white lady’s husband would note the slight roll of Juliette’s eyes and yell after her, demanding to know why she was in this country and what her problem was.
She didn’t have to do a single thing in oense. It was the entitlement that drove these men forward. Entitlement that encouraged their wives to place a delicate handkerchief to their nose and sni, wholeheartedly believing the tirade was deserved. They believed themselves the rulers of the world—on stolen land
in America, on stolen land in Shanghai.
Everywhere they went—entitlement.
And Juliette was so tired.
“Everyone gets their feelings hurt,” she said bitterly. “While he’s here, he can experience it for once in his life. He doesn’t deserve to have power. It’s not his right.”
“I know,” Lord Cai said simply. “All of China knows. But this is the way the world works now. For as long as he has power, we need him. For as long as he has the most guns, he holds the power.”
“It is not as if we do not have guns,” Juliette grumbled anyway. “It is not as if we have not had an iron grip on Shanghai for the last century with our guns.”
“Once it was enough,” Lord Cai replied. “Now it is not.”
The French needed them, but the Scarlet Gang did not need the French in the same way. What her father meant in actuality was that they needed French power—they needed to stay on their good side. If the Scarlet Gang were to declare war and take back the French Concession as Chinese territory, they
would be destroyed in hours. Loyalty and gang hierarchy was nothing against warships and torpedoes. The Opium Wars had proved that.
Juliette made a sound of disgust. Seeing her father’s stern expression, she sighed and diverted the topic back to what was important. “Never mind. I heard nothing of interest from his men.”
Lord Cai nodded. “That is fortunate. It means less trouble for us. Go enjoy yourself.”
“Sure,” Juliette said. By that she meant, I’m getting food and then I’m leaving.
She had spotted Paul Dexter coming through the gates. He was searching through the crowd. “I’ll be hiding—” Juliette coughed. “Pardon me, I’ll be hovering by that tree.”
Unfortunately, despite how quickly Juliette paced away, she still wasn’t fast
enough.
“Miss Cai, what a pleasant surprise.”
Having reached the food table, Juliette set her clutch down and primly picked up an egg tart. She took a nibble, then turned around, facing the human equivalent of stale bread.
“How have you been?” Paul asked. He clasped his hands behind his back, stretching the blue fabric of his tailored suit. He wasn’t wearing a mask, either.
His green eyes blinked at her unfettered, reecting the golden lights above them.
Juliette shrugged. “Fine.”
“Excellent, excellent,” Paul crowed. She didn’t know why he was responding so enthusiastically to her uninspiring reply. “Let me say, it’s most—”
“What do you want, Paul?” Juliette interrupted. “I already told you that we don’t want your business.”
Undeterred, Paul only ramped up his zeal and took Juliette by the elbow to lead her away from the food. At the back of her mind, she considered shooting him, but because this was a party with hundreds of rich foreigners mingling about, she decided that probably would not be the best course of action. She tensed her arm, but allowed Paul to lead her away.
“Just to talk,” he said. “We’ve taken our business straight to the other merchants. Worry not. I have no more intentions to bother the Scarlet Gang.”
Juliette smiled sweetly. Her teeth were gritted hard.
“And if that is the case, why are you bothering with me?”
Paul smiled sweetly back, though his expression appeared genuine.
“Perhaps I am after your aection, pretty girl.”
Gross. She would bet her life savings that he only thought her pretty because she was digestible to Western standards. Her feminine beauty was a concept as eeting as power. If she acquired a tan, put on some weight, and let a few decades pass, the street artists would not be rendering her face to sell their creams anymore. Chinese and Western standards alike were arbitrary, pitiful things. But Juliette still needed to keep herself in line, force herself to follow them if people were to look up to her. Without her looks, this city would turn on her. It would claim that she didn’t deserve to be as competent as she was. The men, meanwhile, could be as tan, as fat, and as old as they wished. It would have no bearing on what people thought of them.
Juliette removed her arm from Paul’s grip, pivoting on her heel to return to the food.
“No, thanks. My aection is not won with such humdrum energy.”
It was as thorough a dismissal as any. Juliette thought she had been left alone when she picked up a drink. But Paul was persistent. His voice came over her
shoulder again.
“How is your father?”
“He is well,” Juliette replied, barely biting back the aggravation that wanted to climb into her words. Out of social courtesy, she asked him in a light voice, “And how is yours?”
Juliette was the queen of socialites. She had had nothing but practice. If she wanted to, she could have turned her slight, polite smile into a megawatt grin.
But she did not think she could get any information out of Paul, and associating with him seemed pointless.
Perhaps Paul could tell. Perhaps he was smarter than Juliette gave him credit for. Perhaps he had indeed detected the restlessness of her tapping ngers and the ceaseless movement of her craning neck.
So he made himself useful.
“My father and I have started working for the Larkspur,” Paul said. “Have you heard of him?”
The Larkspur. Juliette’s tapping ngers halted midmovement. Lā-gespu.
Larkspur. That was what the old man in Chenghuangmiao had been trying to say. Hearing one lunatic scream about a mysterious gure, claiming he had received a cure for the madness, was unworthy of notice. Hearing that same mysterious gure mentioned twice in a few days was strange. Her eyes focused properly on the British smooth talker before her, for once settling into a steady gaze.
“I’ve heard some things, here and there,” Juliette replied vaguely. She tilted
her head. “What do you do?”
“Run errands, mostly.”
Now Paul was being deliberately vague, and he knew it. Juliette watched the lines of his small smirk, the curve of his eyebrows drawing together, and read him to an inch of his life. He wanted attention for his involvement with the Larkspur, but he was not allowed to give answers. He would hint at all he knew, but he would not give anything up just for gossip.
“Errands?” Juliette parroted. “I cannot imagine there is much to do.”
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” Paul said, his chest pung up. “The Larkspur has created a vaccine for the madness. He has merchants rushing for it in droves, and the organization of such a large aair requires workers the size of an army.”
“Your salary must be fantastic.” Juliette eyed the chain of a golden pocket watch draped through one of his buttonholes.
“The Larkspur sits upon stacks of money,” Paul conrmed.
Is this Larkspur benefiting off the panic of the madness, then? Juliette wondered. Or does he truly have a vaccine that is worth the money of these merchants?
Juliette could have voiced her musings aloud, but Paul was looking too satised to give her a truthful answer. She only asked bluntly, “And does the Larkspur have a name?”
Paul shrugged. “If he does, I do not know it. If you would like, I could arrange for you to meet him.”
At this Juliette straightened up, peering at him from underneath her blackened eyelashes, waiting for the catch.
“Though I must say,” Paul continued, looking apologetic, “I am not yet very high in the ranks. You would have to stick around for some time while I work my way up.…”
Juliette barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Paul was still blabbering on, but she had stopped listening. He was only after a power trip. He couldn’t make
himself useful after all.
“Excusez-moi, mademoiselle.”
Paul abruptly shut up as the voice spoke behind Juliette, giving her a blissful few seconds without his prattling. She silently thanked the French intruder, then took it back the moment she turned and faced the masked blond man standing
before them.
Oh hell.
“Voulez-vous danser?”
Though Juliette could feel a vein in her forehead throbbing dangerously, pulsating with the rhythm of her anger, she took the opportunity to escape.
“Bien sûr,” she said tightly. “À plus tard, Paul.”
Juliette snagged Roma’s sleeve and dragged him away, her ngers curled so tightly that her right hand turned numb. Did he think she wouldn’t recognize him just because he was wearing a blond wig and a mask?
“Do you have a death wish?” Juliette hissed, switching to English as soon as Paul was out of earshot. Then, noting all the British ministers and merchants around her, she lowered her tongue into Russian instead. “I should kill you right now. Your audacity!”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Roma replied, his Russian fast and biting. “Would you risk allowing the Scarlet Gang to be seen as violent brutes in front of these foreigners just to get rid of me? The price is too high to pay.”
“I—” Juliette clamped her lips shut, swallowing whatever else was poised on her tongue. They had paused in the fray of the dancing, amid a gathering of couples steadily increasing with the change in music. The pull of strings from the quartet was coming fast—the tune was livelier, the rhythm was teasing.
Roma was right. Juliette wouldn’t dare, but the foreigners had been the furthest thing from her mind. Juliette wouldn’t dare because no matter how big her talk was, she still couldn’t separate the hatred broiling in her stomach with the
sudden lurch of adrenaline that came to life with his proximity. If her body refused to forget who Roma once was to her, how was she to make those same limbs rebel from their nature, make them destroy him?
“Penny for your thoughts?”
At Roma’s switch back into English, Juliette’s gaze jerked up. Their eyes locked. A tremor shuddered along the back of her hands. In the midst of so many swishing skirts, the stillness between them was starting to look suspicious.
Really, Juliette wondered how Roma avoided looking suspicious anywhere he went. He moved too well. Had someone told her four years ago that he was a god in human form, she would have believed them.
“I doubt you have a penny on you,” Juliette nally replied. Reluctantly, she took a step forward and raised her hand; Roma did the same. They didn’t need to speak to make the complementing gesture. They had always known how to predict what the other was about to do.
“Indeed, but I have plenty of larger bills. Would you oer more thoughts for those?”
The music grew louder, spurring the couples all around them to move with a renewed vigor. Roma and Juliette were forced to circle each other, hands extended but not touching, hovering but not steady, needing to move to blend in but unwilling to make contact, unwilling to pretend to be more than what they were.
“What are you doing here, Roma?” Juliette asked tightly. She did not have the energy to play along with his trivial conversation. At such an intimate distance, she could hardly keep her breath even, could hardly hide the trembling that threatened to shake her extended hand. “I gather you are not risking your life just to have a little dance.”
“No,” he replied surely. “My father sent me.” A pause. Only then did it seem like Roma was struggling to get his next words out. “He wishes to propose that the Scarlet Gang and White Flowers work together.”
Juliette almost laughed in his face. She quavered at the rising numbers of the dead lost to the madness, yes, and she feared another outbreak within her own house—this time targeting those of her blood, those whom she knew well and held close to her heart. But it hadn’t happened yet, and it wouldn’t happen if
Juliette could work fast enough—alone. No matter how much more ecient it was for the two gangs to work together, to join a divided city into one, she had no incentive at all to agree to Roma’s proposal, and he appeared to think the same.
The words coming out of his mouth were one matter, but his expression was another. His heart was not in it, either. Even if working together could merge their territory, even if it could bring a momentary peace to the feud so they could discover why their gangsters were being picked o one by one, it wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough to set down the hatred and the blood, to resolve the fury that Juliette had been nursing in her heart for four years.
Besides, why would Lord Montagov, of all people, propose an alliance? He was the most hateful of them all. Juliette could only come to one conclusion, the most likely: it was a test. If he sent Roma here and the Scarlet Gang agreed, then Lord Montagov knew the extent of their desperation. The White Flowers didn’t truly want to work together. They only wanted to know how hard the Scarlet Gang had been hit, so they could use the information to strike even harder.
“Never,” Juliette hissed. “Run home and tell your father he can choke.”
Juliette whirled on her heel and broke away from their half dance, but then the music changed to suit a waltz, and Roma snagged her arm, pulling her back until her other hand landed on his shoulder and his came around her waist.
Before she could do a thing about it, he had pulled her into the proper stance, chest to chest, and they were dancing.
It was like she was under compulsion. For a moment she allowed herself to believe they were fteen again, spinning on the rooftop they liked to hide on, moving to the jazz club roaring beneath their feet. Memories were beastly little creatures, after all—they rose with the faintest whi of nourishment.
She hated the knee-jerk way she leaned into him. She hated that her body followed his lead without resistance. They used to be unstoppable. When they were together, they never had an ounce of fear, not when they were hiding at the back of a noisy club playing cards, nor when they made it their mission to sneak into every private park in Shanghai, a bottle of whatever Juliette had stolen from the liquor cabinet tucked underneath Roma’s arm, giggling like a pair of idiots.
It was all too familiar. The feeling of Roma’s hands on her waist, his hand tucked in hers—those hands were of such grace, but she knew better than anyone that blood was soaked through and through the lines of his palms. Lines that read like scripture in appearance were in truth nothing but sin.
“This isn’t proper,” she intoned.
“You give me no choice,” Roma replied. His voice was strained. “I need your cooperation.”
The music rang sharp and then it moved fast, and as Roma twirled her outward, her skirts clinking alongside the tune, Juliette’s resistance snapped to attention. When she came back, she wasn’t content to let Roma lead. Despite their stance, the moves, the steps, the angle of their hands—despite everything about the waltz that determined she was the subservient partner, Juliette started to dictate where they were stepping.
“Why do you not dance with my father, then?” she asked, taking in a deep gulp of air as the next spin came. “He is the voice of this gang.”
Roma was ghting back. His grip was tight on her hand, his ngers pressing into her waist like he was trying to press his ngerprints into her dress. If she had only heard his voice, she would not have known the pressure he was under. His voice was easy, casual.
“I fear your father would shoot me in the face.”
“Oh, and you don’t fear that I would do the same? It would appear my reputation doesn’t precede me.”
“Juliette,” Roma said. “You have power.”
The music came to an abrupt stop.
And they froze too, just as they were—eye to eye, heart to heart. As the people around them broke away in light laughter, switching partners before the music started again, Roma and Juliette simply stood there, heaving for breath, chests rising and falling, as if they had just engaged in close-contact combat
instead of the waltz.
Step away, Juliette told herself.
The pain of it was almost physical. The years had worn on between them, had aged them into monsters with human faces, unrecognizable against old photos.
Yet no matter how much she wanted to forget, it was like no time had passed at
all. She looked at him and she could still remember the terrible dip in her stomach when the explosion happened, could still feel the tightness in her throat that signaled the onslaught of tears, worsening and worsening until she was breaking down against the exterior wall of her house, holding her scream back with nothing but the palm of her silk-gloved hand.
“You must consider it.” Roma spoke quietly, like any loud noise could startle the bubble that had formed around them, could stomp down the strangeness between them, boiling and boiling to the surface. “I give my word that this is no ambush. This is a matter of preventing chaos from descending onto the streets.”
Once, a long time ago, at the back of a library while a storm raged on outside, Juliette had asked Roma, “Do you ever imagine what life would be like if you
had a dierent last name?”
“All the time. Don’t you?”
Juliette had thought about it. “Only sometimes. Then I consider all that I would miss out on without it. What would I be if I weren’t a Cai?”
Roma had lifted onto his elbow. “You could be a Montagov.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Very well.” Roma had leaned in, close enough that she could see the twinkle in his dark eyes, close enough to see her own blushing face in the reection of his gaze. “Or we could erase both names and leave this entire Cai–Montagov nonsense behind.”
Now she wanted to tear out the memories, launch them as a wad of spit right at Roma’s face.
You give your word. But you have always been a liar.
She opened her mouth, the words to turn Roma away balanced right at the tip of her tongue. Then her gaze went to a rapidly approaching blur of movement coming toward him, and she blanched, her jaw wiring shut.
Roma became stock-still when he sensed the gun that Tyler had pointed to his head.
“Juliette,” Tyler said. Where the loose sleeves of his dress shirt billowed with the light wind, his hands were perfectly still, not a single tremor to the steady grip on his weapon. “Step away.”
Juliette considered the situation. Her eyes darted a quick inventory of the foreigners around them, taking in their scandalized gasps and their confused, wide eyes.
She needed to deescalate this right now.
“What is wrong with you?” Juliette scolded, feigning outrage as she stepped
away.
Tyler frowned. “What—”
“Put away your gun and apologize to this kind Frenchman,” she continued.
She placed her hands on her hips, like she was Tyler’s snappy aunt instead of a girl with a heartbeat that threatened to tear through her rib cage.
Tyler’s expression morphed from furious to perplexed and back to furious again. He was buying it. It was working.
“Tyler,” Lord Cai called from a distance away. “Gun away. Now.”
“This is Roma Montagov,” Tyler snapped. Gasps sounded from the British couple who stood behind him. “I know it. I could tell by his voice.”
“Don’t embarrass us by acting out like this,” Juliette warned quietly.
Tyler responded by pressing the barrel of the gun deeper into Roma’s neck. “I will not tolerate a Montagov parading around on our territory. The disrespect—”
Two gures stepped out of the shadows then, their guns already pointed on Tyler and snatching the words from his mouth. Benedikt Montagov and Marshall Seo had not even bothered wearing disguises. It was the Scarlet Gang’s fault for not recognizing them. After all, Juliette had known they might be coming. She knew that Roma had snatched her invitation, that the White Flowers would have heard about this function even without it. And perhaps this was her own fault too. Perhaps some traitorous part of her had wanted Roma to show just so she could see him. That part of her—the one that had dreamed of a better world, that had loved without caution—was supposed to be dead.
Just like monsters were supposed to be mere tales. Just like this city, in all its glitter and technology and innovation, was supposed to be safe from madness.
“Stop,” Juliette said, inaudible even to herself. This would end in a
bloodbath. “Stop—”
A scream echoed into the night.
The confused rumblings began immediately, but then confusion turned to panic and panic turned to chaos. Tyler had no choice but to lower his gun when the British woman standing two feet away from him collapsed to the ground. He had no choice but to dart backward and give wide berth when the woman’s hands launched at her delicate lily-white throat and tore it to pieces.
All around them.
One by one by one by one.
They dropped—Scarlets and merchants and foreigners alike. Those who had not been infected attempted to run. Some made it out the gates. Some succumbed as soon as they skidded onto the pavement outside the gardens, the madness kicking in with delay.
Juliette’s lungs were tight again. Why was it spreading so damn fast?
“No,” Juliette cried, rushing for a familiar gure on the ground. She got to Mr. Li right before he could place his hands on his throat, slammed her knee onto his wrist in the hopes that she could prevent him from acting.
The madness was too strong. Mr. Li yanked his arm out from underneath her and Juliette was sent toppling, her elbow skidding against the grass.
“Don’t, don’t!” she shouted, lunging forward and trying again. This time his hands made contact with his throat before she could reach him. This time, before she could try to wrap herself around her favorite uncle and force him to stop, someone was pulling her away, a rough grip pushing Juliette back onto the ground.
Juliette scrambled for the knife hidden in her back, her rst instinct to brace for defense.
Then she heard, “Juliette, stop. I’m not attacking you.”
Her hand froze, a cry caught in her throat. An arc of blood ew wide into the night, drops landing on her ankle, her wrists, dotting her skin like morbid, crimson jewelry. Mr. Li grew still. His face was frozen in his last expression—one of terror—so unlike the kindness that Juliette was used to.
“I could have saved him,” she whispered.
“You couldn’t,” Roma snapped immediately. “You would have just infected yourself in the process.”
Juliette let out a small, surprised breath. She scrunched her sts to hide their shaking. “What do you mean?”
“Insects, Juliette,” Roma said. He swallowed hard as a nearby bout of screaming increased in volume. “That is how the madness is spreading—like lice through your hair.”
For the shortest, uncensored second, Juliette’s eyes widened, the web of facts in her head nally connecting, a thin line tracing from point to point. Then she laughed bitterly and brought her hand up to her head. She knocked upon her skull, and a hard, crispy sort of sound came from her hair, a sound that made it seem like she was knocking on cardboard instead. Her naturally straight hair needed at least three pounds of product to make her nger waves, or else the formation wouldn’t harden in place. “I’d like to see them try.”
Roma didn’t say anything in response. He thinned his lips and looked out into the gardens. Those who were alive had chosen to huddle under a gazebo, somber and uncertain. Her father stood separated from the rest, his hands behind his back, merely watching.
There was nothing that anybody could do except stand there and watch the
last of the victims die.
“One meeting.”
Roma jerked his eyes to her, startling. “Pardon?”
“One meeting,” Juliette repeated, as if his hearing had been the problem. She wiped the blood o her face. “That’s all I can promise you.”
