Thirty-Three

Thirty-Three

April 1927

The grass under Juliette’s feet was damp, leaving dew on her polished shoes as she shifted under the shade of the tree. She scratched at her ankle, then winced when her finger caught the metal of her shoe buckle. She inspected her hand. No blood. No scratch. Instead, she felt covered in grit, an unwashable taint upon her skin.

Shanghai was now under the rule of the Nationalist Army—under Chiang Kai-shek, their commander in chief. Juliette shouldn’t have been surprised that it had come to this. He had already seized much of the country, after all; the Northern Expedition had been building for months, after all. But it was the workers who had ravaged the city until it was awash in red. It was the Communists who had led the effort. Then the Communists had asked their workers to give way when General Shu marched his men into the city and set up Nationalist bases before the dust had even settled.

Something was afoot. The tension was a pungent smell in the air, waiting to see whether it would be the Nationalists or the Communists who struck at the other first. And Juliette knew—she just knew—that the Scarlet Gang was involved, but no one would tell her how.

Juliette cast a glance to her side, reaching out and putting a hand to Kathleen’s wrist. Kathleen jolted, then realized what Juliette was indicating. Her cousin stopped tapping the side of her qipao, resolved to clutch her hands in front of her instead, her feet planted firmly in the short cemetery grass.

Last week, most of the Scarlets had escaped the chaos on the streets relatively unharmed. There were casualties, certainly, but few enough that this was the last of their funerals. Instead of mass lives, what they had lost was control.

Nanshi, and all the industrial roads south of the French Concession—taken.

Hongkou, the narrow strip of land surrounded on three sides by the International Settlement—taken.

Wusong, jammed amid ports leading into the Huangpu and Yangtze Rivers—taken.

East Shanghai—taken.

West Shanghai—taken.

Zhabei, where the workers were most densely populated of all—taken, though their fight with the White Flowers had lasted through the night. When morning broke, whispers flew through the city to report that the White Flowers had at last relinquished, slinking into their homes with broken bones and letting the streets take a different ruler. By six o’clock, Shanghai was quiet, occupied by the workers.

Officers had been ousted out of police stations, call centers raided and trashed, rail stations bombed to render them ineffective. The web of connections that powered Shanghai had been snipped at every juncture point save for inside the French Concession and International Settlement, which the foreigners now guarded with chain-link fences and barbed wire to keep the Nationalists out. In the Chinese parts of the city, there was no such thing as Scarlet-controlled or White Flower–controlled territory anymore. For a fleeting moment, it had seemed that Shanghai was some malleable place, humming with the possibility to grow anew. Then the Nationalist armies marched in and the workers gave way, letting the soldiers take over. Now everywhere they looked, there were Nationalist soldiers stationed along the streets, the city under occupation.

The most outrageous thing was, these few days had still passed as normal. Though the clubs were closed, though the restaurants were closed, though the city was ghostlike in its stillness as it waited for the next political move, her parents acted like nothing was wrong. Private dinners hosted at the mansion went on, albeit with more Nationalists present. Private parties went on, albeit with more Nationalists present.

And funerals went on, albeit with more Nationalists present.

“. . . may he go on to the next life peacefully.”

It didn’t make sense. The blackmailer was still out there. Unless Juliette had been utterly mistaken this whole time, the blackmailer had to be aligned with the Communists in some way. Yet in this crucial moment, why hadn’t the monsters come out? Why not fight the Nationalist Army off with madness?

“Juliette,” Kathleen whispered. “Now you’re the one twitching.”

Juliette shot her cousin a quick glance, conveying her annoyance. In the same motion, she caught sight of three Nationalist soldiers to their left, eyeing her.

The Communists’ fight was a long one, Lord Cai had said after the takeover. Their fight encompassed not just this city but the whole country. Why would they upset their alliance with the Kuomintang so soon? Why wouldn’t they pretend that all this rebellion and bloodshed had been a joint matter of sticking it to the imperialists, of taking Shanghai back under the control of a true unified government, and bide their time for class revolution? Would it not be sensible to revolt against the Kuomintang only when they actually had a true army alike to the Nationalists? Red rags and anger could not stand up against soldiers and academy training.

Lord Cai had sounded convincing. He had not sounded one bit worried. Their whole city had just been overturned by a force so mighty, and he cared not? Their entire way of life was at a standstill, waiting to see how the Nationalists would organize their rule, how the Nationalists would come to an agreement with the foreigners, and Lord Cai was content to stand by and let it happen?

It was unlikely. Juliette wondered what she was missing.

“If all who wish to speak have spoken, then let us bid Cai Tailei a safe passage away.”

The priest stepped aside, gesturing for the relatives nearest to him to begin saying their goodbyes. Each person in the cemetery today clutched a flower in their hands: a faded pink, for though it was customary to use white for mourning, the Scarlet Gang would never use white flowers under any occasion.

Lady Cai stepped up and tossed her flower into the grave. The casket already lay inside, closed, as shiny as the headstone. Once the procession finished, the grave would be closed with dirt and laid softly with new grass.

Juliette clenched her fists tight, nodding as her mother motioned for her to go on. How fortunate it was that she was a modern girl who did not believe in the afterlife. Otherwise, she would certainly burn in hell for this.

“Oh, Juliette.” Lady Cai brushed her daughter’s face as she passed. “Don’t look so somber. Death is not the end. Your dear cousin performed tremendous feats in his time alive.”

“Did he?” Juliette said softly. There was no challenge in her voice. It would be foolish to voice resentment now, when she was standing and Tyler was dead.

“Of course,” Lady Cai reassured her, taking her daughter’s monotony for grief. She clutched Juliette’s hands, holding them steady. “He made the Scarlets proud. He stopped at nothing to protect us.”

He should never have had the power to do so. We should not have the power to do this. And yet it was all a lost cause, wasn’t it? If it were not the Scarlets stopping at nothing to consume the city, it was someone else.

“I will go pay my respects,” Juliette rasped, swallowing every bitter word that she wanted to throw in her mother’s face.

Lady Cai smiled, and with a squeeze on their enjoined fingers, stepped back to let Juliette proceed. For the briefest moment, Juliette imagined what her mother would say if she knew—knew what blood had once tarnished her palms, knew what blood was running traitorous inside Juliette’s veins.

Perhaps there was a possibility that she might be forgiven.

But mercy and blood feuds had never mixed well together.

Juliette approached the grave, peering down at the casket. There was already an abundance of flowers scattered upon the smooth wooden lid.

“Maybe you would have made a better heir, Tyler,” Juliette whispered, crouching to throw her flower in. When it landed, its petals appeared far paler than the others. “But I have a feeling the title is soon going to be rendered null.”

Once, Juliette could never have considered a future without the Scarlet Gang—a future where they were not in power. That was before a monster tore through their numbers, before a madness incited revolution. That was before politicians marched their armies in and filled the streets with their artillery.

Once, she had wanted power. But beneath it all, maybe it was never power she wanted.

Maybe it was safety.

Maybe there was another way to get it, away from being heir to a crumbling empire.

Juliette rose to her feet. Her hands felt clawlike, still folded over an invisible flower. Someone was coming up behind her and it was time to take her leave, but for a second longer, she hovered around Tyler’s headstone, committing its features to memory.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice so quiet she could be heard only by herself . . . and Tyler, wherever he was. “If there is a life after this, one that is free of the blood feud, I hope we can be friends.”



Juliette slipped away from the funeral after-activities without notice, tipping her hat low and falling out of step with her relatives once they exited the cemetery. Kathleen quirked a brow in her direction, but Juliette shook her head, and Kathleen merely looked to the front of the footpath again, pretending not to see. The Scarlets walked onward in the direction of their parked cars, and Juliette pivoted onto a smaller street, melding deeper into what was once Scarlet territory.

Soldiers. Soldiers everywhere. Juliette pulled at the sleeves of her dress and tried to walk without letting her posture slump. The French Concession and International Settlement were closed: no one in, and no one out. That could not last for long—the foreign concessions were never built to operate as their own self-contained territories, and once they came to an agreement with the Nationalists, the barbed wire and makeshift fences would go down. For now, people steered clear in fear of the armed soldiers along Boundary Road, and so that was where Juliette went, to the rooftop of a building at the outer bounds of the Chinese part of the city, just out of view of the foreign soldiers peering through their rifle scopes. There was no telling what this building once was. Perhaps a small noodle shop, or a tailor’s parlor. When Juliette trekked up, she saw shattered glass and ripped ledgers left behind on the emptied shelves.

Juliette eased open the rooftop door, her shoes coming onto the cement carefully. She kept her breath in her lungs, scanning the space . . .

Her exhale came out with relief. Silently she bounded over to the figure standing in the corner and wrapped her arms around his shoulders before he could turn around, setting her chin at the crook of his neck.

“Hello, stranger.”

Roma relaxed under her grip, tipping his head back so that his hair brushed her cheek. “Is this an attack?”

“Perhaps,” Juliette replied. She shook the knife from her sleeve and pressed the blunt side to his throat. “One lone White Flower, out in the middle of nowhere?”

Juliette felt a sudden pressure on her ankle. She hardly had a moment to gasp before she realized Roma had hooked his foot over her leg and pulled her off-balance. For the briefest second, she was falling backward, before Roma turned around fast and caught her waist, swiping the knife out of her hand and pressing the flat side to her throat instead.

“You were saying?” Roma asked, grinning.

Juliette shoved his shoulder. She was scowling, vexed to be caught off guard, but then Roma dropped the knife and pulled her closer. Their lips met, and she forgot what exactly she was going to rebuke him for.

“I missed you,” Roma said when he pulled away.

Juliette quirked a brow, placing her hands upon his face. “You saw me yesterday.”

“To talk business.”

“We’re here today to talk business too.”

“Semantics—” Roma stopped with a frown, noticing the headdress twined around her hair. It was pale pink, just as the flowers at the cemetery were, a far lighter color than a Scarlet would usually dare to wear. “Another funeral?”

“Tyler’s,” Juliette answered quietly.

Roma touched the fixture in her hair, adjusting it carefully so it would hold back the strands from her eyes. When he had it in place, he smoothed his hand along her neck.

“Are you okay?”

Juliette leaned into the touch, exhaling. “What other choice is there?”

“That’s not an answer, dorogaya.”

Juliette pulled away gently with a shake of her head. The warmth and kindness were too distracting—it fooled her into thinking that all would be well, that the city was not crumbling under their feet. Instead, she twined her arm around his to drag them to the edge of the rooftop. There, they looked out upon the streets, upon the casual sprawl bleeding outward to the horizon.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Surviving. That’s the best one could hope for now.”

Roma cast her a sidelong look like he was going to argue, but Juliette shook her head, directing the topic back to true business. They were meeting today because Roma had sent a note about new information on the blackmailer, and to tell the truth, Juliette had been surprised. Much as she wanted to eradicate the threat once and for all, it hardly seemed important in the grander scheme of things. The monsters had not attacked in so long. Now Roma and Juliette’s search for the blackmailer was not so much in fear of the madness or in desperation to protect their people—it was simply for something to do, something to keep themselves from sitting idle while their city fractured to pieces on a level the teenage gangsters could not touch.

“What did you find?” Juliette asked.

A hint of pride flickered upon Roma’s expression. “I got a name for the Frenchman,” he said. “The one who turned into a monster on the train. Pierre Moreau.”

Juliette blinked, the name striking a nerve of familiarity. Roma was still speaking, but Juliette had stopped listening, desperately searching her memory for where she had heard the name before. Had it been an introduction in the French Concession? No, she would have remembered if she had met the Frenchman before. Could she have seen his name in their records? Their guest lists? But then why would she have seen a White Flower on Scarlet lists?

“. . . sailed into the city some few years ago to start trading.”

Finally, Juliette remembered.

She almost dropped to her knees.

“Roma,” she said breathlessly. “Roma, I’ve seen that name before. A slip of paper on Rosalind’s desk. She said he was a patron at the Scarlet burlesque club.”

Roma furrowed his brows. She had told him about Rosalind’s disappearance, about her affair with a White Flower whom she wouldn’t name. Roma had reported back a brief sighting of Rosalind near the White Flower headquarters the day she went missing. Because the Scarlet grapevine wasn’t working as well as it used to, that was the last time anyone had heard from or seen Rosalind.

“Impossible,” Roma insisted. “I may not have known the man by name, but he is prominent enough to be recognized in your clubs. He would have been identified immediately as a White Flower.”

“Then . . . ?” Juliette physically felt her gut twist, her fingers pressing to her stomach. “Then he was never a patron at the club. Rosalind just happened to have a list of names, the first of which happened to be a monster.”

Juliette needed to find the list again. There were four other names on it.

Four other names, four other monsters.

“Could it be?” she whispered.

She met Roma’s eyes, a reflection of her own horror, having reached the same conclusion. Rosalind was raised in Paris, as passably French as anyone in the Concession could be.

“Is Rosalind the blackmailer?”