Adeline was starting to see where Pek Mun got her personality. As the husband on-screen began an impassioned, melodramatic speech, the older girl picked the remote up again and switched it off with finality.
Tiger Aw slapped her. Not hard, but enough to make Pek Mun flinch. “I was watching that.” But she didn’t turn it back on. Instead she crossed over to a lacquer desk and arranged herself in the carved teak chair, turning a mirror and beginning to dust her face. Horribly, for a second she looked a little like Adeline’s mother. “So why are you here?”
“There’s girls dying on Desker Road. Girls with magic. We know your house is also on the list.” Pek Mun paused. “Is that your cure?”
“I don’t know about dying girls. Do I look like I’m dying to you?”
“You look beautiful,” Pek Mun said blandly.
“More than you do, that’s for sure. You must have loved seeing me fall apart.”
“I didn’t.”
“And what’s your name, little sister?”
It took Adeline a second to realize Tiger Aw had turned a beatific smile on her. The shift in tone was so abrupt it was hard to reconcile with the same mouth, but once Adeline had caught up she understood exactly what was happening, the exacting shifts of devotion and dismissal being wielded by a master. She understood, but was trapped regardless, until she caught a glance from Pek Mun that clearly shared the same understanding, and was letting her do it anyway.
“Adeline,” she finally responded.
“How pretty. Sounds so European. I should have one of my girlstake it up; it’s easier for the ang mohs to pronounce. So, Ah Mun, I don’t see your suitors, all these other choices you said you had. You’re almost twenty-two, you think you have so much time?”
“Three Steel,” Pek Mun said coldly. “Where are they finding these girls? What treatments did they give you?”
“You won’t get the Kwong son back, but I’m sure there’s a man desperate enough to take you even with that shit on your skin.” Tiger Aw had a glint in her eye that Adeline thought might have inspired her nickname. She rattled an enameled tin on her desk; little things clattered inside it, like beads. “Three Steel makes medicine you can’t even dream of. This is what a visionary looks like. Not that good-for-nothing Crocodile.”
“Three Steel makes drugs.”
“They’re all the same thing. Just because you like to see me in the worst condition doesn’t mean that others are as selfish.”
Pek Mun didn’t respond. “I’m leaving.”
“And what did you get out of it?” Tiger Aw snorted. She returned to her powders. Pek Mun rolled her eyes and headed for the door.
Adeline followed, but behind them, Tiger Aw coughed. Adeline glanced over her shoulder in time to see the woman pull a bloodied handkerchief from her mouth.
Pek Mun shut the door. She pressed the tattoo on her throat, briefly, and Adeline suddenly understood it.
“Well, that was as helpful as I imagined her being. I hope you’re happy.”
Far be it from Adeline to have sympathy for Pek Mun, but there were several things that didn’t add up about this whole situation. “Why would Tian ask you to talk to her knowing what she’s like?”
“Tian doesn’t know. My mother was always good at doting on me in front of the other girls. Making everyone hate each other. Didn’t you hear the way she talked to you?”
“So you brought me because…”
“Because I need to make it very clear to you what Tian joinedRed Butterfly for. Her father is an opium addict who’s been in and out of prison since she was born. Her mother sold her off because she owed the Crocodiles thousands in gambling debts and her brother had already joined another gang instead of trying to get a job. Now he’s sorry, of course, he even bought her that stupid motorbike, but she won’t talk to him otherwise and I hope she never has to. Red Butterfly is her family. Your mother took her in. I would never have killed her. I want what’s best for Tian. Always.”
“That just means you would have killed her, if you thought it would have benefit.”
“But it didn’t,” Pek Mun said plainly. “So I didn’t.”
“What am I supposed to tell Tian?”
“You don’t. If you love her you can lie to her.”
Adeline said, “I don’t—”
Pek Mun turned on her heel. “This way.”
