It was a cool night. There were crickets somewhere in the manicured trees, and a low-gliding bat arced past them with a faint chitter. Across the lawn sat the cluster of black-and-white houses that the hotel had consolidated, each two stories, white pillars with dark trims and slatted windows, red gables and veranda arches through which light spilled.
Charles dropped them off in the garden by a pond with instructions to wait there, as they would stand out too much inside. Christina handed him a small pouch. “Life of crime,” Charles sighed, but pocketed the sleeping pills and headed inside.
With nothing to do but wait, the girls stood around the pond under the cover of trees, Christina and Tian smoking again while Adeline wandered a little, trying to get good vantage points around the hotel. They could hear the bar’s faint music from here—Christina had said there was a show one Sunday a month.
“Your teeth will turn black,” Adeline sniped, when Tian finished her third cigarette and just reached for another.
“Don’t kiss me then,” said Tian, who stuttered into a look of instant regret. She glared at the smoldering stick in her hand like someone else had put it there and unceremoniously tossed it into the bushes.
“Please kill me,” Christina said, and went off to see if she could sweet-talk her way into the Hangar instead. She had cruised herefor a little while, years ago, and thought she might still know the bouncer. It was strange to think how many lives Christina and Tian had already lived. Sometimes Adeline felt behind.
And now, speaking of Tian, Adeline became acutely aware of her sole presence, burning like the goddess was constantly reaching through her conduit for any Butterflies around. The urge to go closer was intense. The urge to put a hand on her waist was worse. But Tian took several steps away, putting the pond between them.
“I don’t intend on dying,” she said. “Or letting people get hurt because of me.”
“Oh,” Adeline said sarcastically. “What was all that then? Suddenly you’re afraid of Three Steel?”
“Yes,” Tian snapped. “And if you had any sense—”
“Oh, please, tell me more.”
“Gods.” Tian went for her pockets, found nothing adequate there, threw up her hands instead. “Fan Ge threatened you that night. Somehow he heard, or guessed, that I—” She sucked in a breath. “I’m not going to repeat what he said. I’ll burn his tongue out if I ever get the chance. But I tried to block the goddess because I wanted to see if I could end it another way.”
“He said me?”
“He meant you.” Tian’s eyes lingered, drifting to the bare triangle under Adeline’s collar and then back up again, but she didn’t elaborate. “Yes, Adeline, I am afraid of them, because they are dangerous and they mean it, and there aren’t enough of us. I wish you were never here and I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t. They see you because they seeme, Adeline. You are in danger because you are standing next to me. Is that so hard to understand?”
“It’s hard to understand why this means you have to be fucking stupid.”
Tian might have knifed her back. “You would be safer if I hadn’t touched you.”
“You are so full of yourself.”
“I brought you here. I made you—”
“You didn’t make me do shit. I’ve done a lot of things. I know exactly what I’m doing when I do it. You think you’re special? You think I’m some innocent little girl you dragged out of the box?”
“Knowing what you want and understanding what that means isn’t the same thing.”
“Do you thinkI’mstupid?”
That stopped Tian for a while. “I think you deserved to be,” she said. “If I—”
“Enough with the ‘I.’”
A booming voice made them both jolt. “Is that Ang Tian?”
Across the garden, Christina was returning with a statuesque figure in a pink gown and blond Marilyn curls. Presumably the star of the Sunday show, now completed. Adeline turned away from Tian, feeling like a wound she needed to scratch. Meanwhile, Tian forced a smile.
“Amon, long time no see.” Nonetheless, she hugged the drag queen back without reluctance as she was enveloped, even laughing a little at being squeezed. Adeline walked away and started kicking clumps of soil into the pond, disturbing the fish.
“Ah, I had to get out of the old place for a while. Who’s the doll?”
“That’s Adeline,” Christina said, introducing her friend in return as the headlining performer Kueh Lavish, onstage, and Amon, to friends. (“And Amonsak to my disappointed father,” Amon added.) Adeline conceded to do a little wave.
“Yeah, I saw Charles inside with Iron Eye,” Amon was saying a few minutes later. “Hard to miss. Charles has him wrapped around his finger.” They had switched entirely back to Hokkien, although Amon had something of an accent. Thai, apparently. Adeline thought it was actually impressive how many acquaintances Christina had who were, by all accounts, entirely willing to abet a murder. Either Three Steel’s tattooist wasn’t well-liked, or it was something they were used to and didn’t care enough to get in the way. “Buthey,” Amon said suddenly, worried. “You really going after Three Steel?”
Tian had lit up again after all, and she exhaled with a short burst of smoke. “Yeah. There’s no other choice. If they want to come after us I’m not just going to lie down for them. Fan Ge says he doesn’t underestimate us, but I think he does.”
