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alkboard. Lord Montagov spoke in such a commandeering manner that it felt like a sin to deny him your full attention.
One of the Chinese men cleared his throat. He was wringing his hands on his shirt so aggressively that Alisa leaned forward into the rafters, squinting through the mesh to see if she was mistaking the motion.
“A monster.”
Alisa almost toppled over. Her hands came down on the beam just in time to right herself, letting out a small exhale in relief.
“I beg your pardon?”
“We cannot confirm anything regarding the source of the madness except for one thing,” the third and final man said. “It is linked to sightings of a monster. I saw it myself. I saw silver eyes in the Huangpu River, blinking in a way no man could—”
“Enough, enough,” Lord Montagov interrupted. His tone was rough, impatient with the turn this information briefing had taken. “I have no interest in hearing nonsense on a monster. If that is all, I look forward to reconvening at our next meeting.”
Frowning, Alisa scuttled along the beams, following the men as they left. She was already twelve years old, but she was tiny, always darting from shadow to shadow in the manner of a wild rodent. As the door shut below, she hopped from one ceiling beam to another until she was pressed flat directly above the men.
“He looked afraid,” one remarked quietly.
The man in the middle hushed him, except the words had already been said and birthed into the world, becoming sharp arrows tearing through the room with no target in mind, only destruction. The men pulled their coats tightly around their bodies and left the broiling, chaotic mess of the Montagov house behind them. Alisa, however, remained in her little nook up in the ceiling.
Fear. That was something she didn’t think her father knew how to feel anymore. Fear was a concept for the men without guns. Fear was reserved for people like Alisa, small and slight and always looking over her shoulder.
If Lord Montagov was afraid, the rules were changing.
Alisa leaped from the ceiling and sprinted off.
Three
The moment Juliette barreled into the hallway, shoving the last pin into her hair, she already knew she was too late.
It was partly the maid’s fault for not waking her when she was supposed to and partly Juliette’s own fault for failing to get up with the sunrise, as she had been attempting since her arrival back in Shanghai. Those sparse moments just as the sky was brightening—and before the rest of the household rumbled to life—were the most peaceful few minutes one could get in this house. The days she started early enough to snatch a breath of cold air and a gulp of utter, complete silence on her balcony were her favorites. She could trail through the house with no one to bother her, skipping into the kitchen and snatching whatever she liked from the cooks, then taking whichever seat she pleased on the empty dining table. Depending on how fast she chewed, she might even have a while to spend in the living room, the windows thrown open to let in the tunes of early birdsong. The days when she failed to scramble out of her covers fast enough, on other the hand, meant grumpily sitting through the morning meals with the rest of the household.
Juliette stopped outside her father’s office door now, cursing under her breath. Today hadn’t only been a matter of avoiding her distant relatives. She had wanted to poke her nose into one of Lord Cai’s meetings.
The door opened swiftly. Juliette took a step back, trying to look natural. Definitely too late.
“Juliette.” Lord Cai peered at her, frowning. “It’s so early. Why are you awake?”
Juliette placed her hands under her chin, the picture of innocence. “I heard we had an esteemed visitor. I thought I’d come offer my greetings.”
The aforementioned visitor raised a wry brow. He was a Nationalist, but whether or not he was truly esteemed was hard to determine when he was dressed merely in a Western suit, void of the decorations his Kuomintang military uniform might bear on the collar. The Scarlet Gang had been friendly with the Nationalists—the Kuomintang—ever since the Kuomintang’s founding as a political party. Of late, relations had become even friendlier to combat the rise of their Communist “allies.” Juliette had been home for only a week, and she had already watched her father take at least five different meetings with the harried Nationalists who wanted gangster support. Each time she had been just too late to slip in without acting like an embarrassment, and settled for idling outside the door instead to catch whatever bits and pieces she could.
The Nationalists were afraid, that much she knew. The budding Communist Party of China was encouraging its members to join the Kuomintang in a show of cooperation with the Nationalists, only instead of demonstrating cooperation, the growing influence of Communist numbers within the Kuomintang was starting to threaten the Nationalists. Such scandal was the talk of the country, but especially in Shanghai, a lawless place where governments came both to be born and to die.
“That’s very kind of you, Juliette, but Mr. Qiao has another meeting to hurry to.”
Lord Cai gestured for a servant to lead the Nationalist out. Mr. Qiao politely tipped his hat, and Juliette smiled tightly, swallowing back her sigh.
“It wouldn’t hurt to let me sit in on one meeting, Bàba,” she said as soon as Mr. Qiao was out of sight. “You’re supposed to be teaching me.”
“I can teach you slowly,” Lord Cai replied, shaking his head. “You don’t want to get involved in politics yet. It’s boring business.”
But it was relevant business, especially if the Scarlet Gang spent so much damn time entertaining these factions. Especially if Lord Cai had hardly blinked an eye last night when Juliette told him the heir of the White Flowers had pranced into their most central burlesque club, telling her that he had been made aware already and they would speak of it in the morning.
“Let’s go to the breakfast table, hmm?” her father said. He placed his hand on the back of Juliette’s neck, guiding her down the stairs as if she were at risk of running off. “We can talk about last night, too.”
“Breakfast would be delightful,” Juliette muttered. In truth, the clamor of morning meals gave her a headache. There was something about mornings in this household particularly that made Juliette uneasy. No matter what it was that her relatives discussed, no matter how mundane—like their speculation on the rising prices of rice—their words dripped with scheming and relentless wit. Everything they discussed seemed more fitting for the late night, when the maids retired to their rooms and the dark crawled in on the polished wood floors.
“Juliette, darling,” an aunt crowed the moment she and her father approached the table. “Did you sleep well?”
