Phoebe awoke to a heinous shrieking in her ear.
It took her a moment to realize that it was coming from outside, not from within the cell. A facility-wide alarm was blaring again, diPerent from the one that went oP during the rescue mission. Her shoulder was numb. Her eyes weren’t focusing yet, showing only dark colors and the bars of the cell.
What was happening? They had mostly left her alone these few days. That electric shock had packed a punch, and even after Phoebe stirred back into consciousness afterward, it had felt exceedingly difficult to make sense of her surroundings. Everything spun. She could do nothing except shut her eyes again and curl up into a ball, fading in and out of fretful sleep in a bid to ease her dizziness. The few times she lifted her head oP the Aoor were when they slid food and water through the bars, and she had consumed the slop with the vague fear that they might just call it a day and slip her poison. It was bizarre that no one was coming to interrogate her. Bizarre that she would hear faint voices arguing by the corridor doors but no further torture.
“Are you awake?”
Suddenly Phoebe could feel a presence in the cell with her. A hand touched her arm. Her eyes bugged wide, her entire body jerking away. Yes, she was awake
—1nally, when she sat upright this time, her head wasn’t spinning anymore. “It’s me, it’s me,” Silas hissed quickly.
“That doesn’t make me feel much better,” Phoebe croaked. The skies were alive in warning, which meant they were getting bombed again. “Are you here to torture me?”
Silas muttered something under his breath. While Phoebe tried to push past the wave of nausea pressing at her throat and sit up, he kneeled closer, his hands
splayed to show he meant no harm.
“I have been keeping them away from torturing you.” “Oh, my hero, how can I ever thank you?”
A grimace. Silas glanced over his shoulder. “We don’t have much time,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for this next wave of shelling before trying to get you out. The soldiers are evacuating. We have to move at the same time while the doors are open.”
Phoebe was having a hard time believing that this, too, wasn’t some trick. Doubt had crept into her mind, had colored her very perception of him with the rancor of betrayal.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she whispered. “You hurt Oliver.” “I had him sedated—”
“You’ve given something horri1c to my mother! The Japanese are going to invade us because of you!”
“I tainted every vial!”
The alarm got louder. It must have been shrieking at half volume before, because its full capacity was deafeningly loud, almost drowning out the 1rst shell when it struck the base’s vicinity. The walls shuddered.
“What?” Phoebe whispered.
Silas shook his head. Seeing that he wasn’t getting her cooperation anytime soon, he grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet by force. He had rolled his sleeves up. When Phoebe scrambled for balance, her eyes latched on to the crook of his elbow, where he was wearing a bandage.
“Here’s what happened,” Silas said, tugging her through the door of the cell and into the corridor. It was empty. The guards were gone. “Yes, I contacted your mother. Intelligence coming through both Nationalist and Communist covert determined that she kept trying to get in touch with Oliver, but no one could 1gure out why. I took a risk. Early in the tour, I’d heard from Rosalind that Oliver was oP the grid and on her tail. Anywhere Rosalind went, Oliver would be present too. So I acted the traitor. I made a bargain with your mother
—I promised I could get her Oliver if she let go of Orion.”
A monstrous shudder swept through the corridor. Just as they were turning a corner, a section of the low ceiling detached, crashing into their path and ripping
the pipes out from the walls. Heat blew into the tight space. Phoebe coughed, her arm coming up to block her nose from the smoke, and Silas cursed, pulling them backward onto another route.
“At 1rst she said she would consider it. I hadn’t understood what she was actually doing; I only knew that she was trying to get to Oliver, though it wasn’t her priority yet. It wasn’t until the last vial was destroyed during the tour that she switched gears and agreed. She would release Orion to us as long as I could get Oliver into captivity and take a certain amount of blood from him.”
Another boom rocked the facility. Phoebe could barely catch her breath with how quickly they were moving. She almost tripped on something in her path, but Silas maneuvered her smoothly, letting her recover her balance.
“If you must be angry at me, be angry that I was willing to risk Oliver’s safety to get Orion back. But I am a double-, triple-, quadruple-crosser by nature. I was never going to aid her fully. I was going to get what we needed, give her the illusion of cooperation, then tug the carpet out from beneath her.”
With another shudder, a crack ran through the wall to their left. There was shouting when they passed an oPshoot corridor, and Silas picked up speed, his grip tightening.
“I am,” Phoebe muttered. “I am angry at you for that.”
Yet she couldn’t deny that without him they probably never would have gotten Orion back. Without him Lady Hong could have easily held on to him forever, kept him under her control.
Silas paused at a turn in their path. He looked along the two options, then at her. His mouth pinched into a pained expression, and then he was hurrying them forward again, taking the left. Phoebe suspected a 1re was burning somewhere in the facility. She could smell it, pungent in her nose and bringing tears to her eyes.
“My point is,” Silas concluded, “I was taking a small amount of blood from myself every time the soldiers took from Oliver. Once they handed the vials over to me, I’d mix the blood together.” He pulled them down the corridor faster; gauging by noise alone, they were nearing the outer periphery. “Your mother may have the supply now and it may seem like everything is going 1ne when she
tests for the presence of seramorine, but as soon as she uses them to experiment, nothing is going to last. Ratio’s all oP. Perfect sabotage.”
Another collision rocked the facility. Silas was explaining himself as though the matter had been so simple. As though he wouldn’t have been killed immediately had either side caught on to him.
“You should have told me,” Phoebe said. Her voice was hoarse. “I could have helped.”
How much easier could their jobs have been if they had worked in tandem instead of against each other? How much quicker could they have found what they needed, put together the pieces? It was too late for the thought. It was an impossible one anyway, because at no point could Phoebe have ever suspected that Silas was capable of this.
Silas halted by a door. There was already a bag waiting. “You’ll leave through
here.”
Phoebe looked at the bag. She couldn’t fathom what was inside—it was long and bulky, strangely shaped at one end. “What?”
“I’m getting you out,” Silas said slowly, and she needed every bit of emphasis he applied to his words, because they were not registering in the slightest. He had worked so hard to 1nally secure Priest… and now he was throwing it away?
“What about you?”
“I have to stay.” He reached into his jacket and withdrew a pistol. Before Phoebe could be frightened that he was about to shoot her, he gave it to her handle-1rst. “Hit me.”
Phoebe gawped at him. “Excuse me?”
“Make it look realistic. I’ll tell them you forced me to 1nd you an exit and then discarded me. Hit hard.”
“You are insane,” Phoebe hissed.
“Come on,” Silas prompted. The facility shook. If they dawdled any longer, the whole thing might collapse overhead. “Priest would do it.”
Phoebe’s jaw dropped. He did not just say that. He absolutely did not. “Do
not tell me what Priest would or wouldn’t do.”
“Why not?” Silas challenged. He almost looked humored. “She would. That’s why she’s so likable.”
Phoebe resisted the urge to stomp her foot. “I can’t believe,” she seethed, “how stupid you are to think you like her.”
“I do.”
“You’re mistaken!”
A low, persistent whine was seeping down the corridors. Though Phoebe and Silas practically had to scream to be heard, their conversation felt enswathed, unaPected by the world falling apart. Silas watched her for a beat. Seemed to register that she was genuinely oPended by what he was saying.
“Are you being serious?” he 1nally asked.
She drew her spine dead straight. “Obviously.”
Silas shook his head. ScoPed. Then he stepped directly in front of her, saying: “Hong Feiyi, don’t you see why I couldn’t let go of Priest? I’m not some unerring operative. I tried to convince myself that I was simply devoted to the country, but then I saw you in that cell and everything 1nally made sense.” His eyes dropped. “Of course I was committed to her beyond what was acceptable for the mission. I was so fascinated because I could see the parts of you in her.
I’ve loved you this whole time, just split in two.”
Phoebe, for once, had no retort at the ready. Her mouth opened and closed. When her grip tightened on the pistol in her hand, she 1nally followed Silas’s instructions, and hit him hard across the face.
The metal made contact with a vicious clunk.
Silas reared back, his hand immediately coming up to touch his face. Purple bloomed along his jaw, the color already showing after mere seconds. A splotch of blood appeared at the side of his lip where the impact had split his skin. When he lowered his 1ngers, they were smeared with red.
“Christ, I know I asked to be hit, but a warning would have been nice—”
Phoebe kissed him in apology. Though she was still holding the pistol in one hand, her other dug into his hair, holding him as close as she could, her lips pressed right where she could taste blood. For a moment, Silas was frozen, unresponsive.
Then he leaned in too, his hands coming to both sides of her face. His lips captured hers with an uncharacteristic ferocity, but Phoebe supposed this whole undertaking was full of uncharacteristic behavior, both of them 1nally peeling
oP skins they had been wearing and 1nding they were the same underneath. He kissed her, and she recognized the tune even if the pitch was diPerent. She kissed him, and the feeling was as electric as picking up a real pistol for the 1rst time.
Phoebe drew back. Took a shaky breath. Silas was watching her with his glasses skewed, and she reached to 1x them. “Will they punish you for this?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he answered without hesitation. “My mission has never been more important than you are.”
Her heart was making a racket against her ribs. “Don’t die,” she whispered. “I’m not done hitting you.”
Silas huPed a pained laugh. “Noted. Now go. Get out of Zhabei.” He pulled away to pick up the bag, handing it to her. As soon as Phoebe took it and heard the clatter, she realized what he had prepared inside. It was a riAe. Plenty of cartridges, too, if the heavy weight was any indication.
She looked up at him. Silas was already smiling, pleased with himself as he opened the door, letting in the blazing night outside. The horizon was engorged in red. Fire, burning endlessly from the bombing.
“Go!”
Phoebe nodded. She ran out the door, crossing the short section of the facility perimeter and looking around wildly, taking the road out. She ran and she ran, ducking when she caught sight of crowds of people, veering away when national soldiers and enemy soldiers alike moved too close in the night.
Phoebe had a whole battleground to cross before she could make it back into the International Settlement. She could hear yelling in every direction, loud enough to echo past the roar of the planes overhead. Across the whole neighborhood, civilians were being rounded up by the invading army and urged not to resist, even when their neighbors remained locked in buildings being torched aAame to eliminate resistance before it could erupt.
Phoebe paused. She slowed down around the corner of a street, watching a group of militiamen at the intersection. The ronin—Japanese auxiliaries to the army—were marked by their armbands, taking it upon themselves to order the streets of Zhabei. She eyed the group as they hooted into the night, heading for the cluster of civilians with their bags over their shoulders. The civilians were
clearly seeking safety. Hurrying toward the border into the International Settlement, intent on Aeeing.
She unbuckled her bag. Loaded her riAe. The 1rst ronin didn’t even make a sound before he was going down, a bullet studded into his head.
Phoebe Hong had somewhere to be, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t clear out her path while she was moving along. She exhaled, calmed her raging pulse.
She took aim again, and 1red.
Even the underground hospital was 1lling beyond capacity. Celia took another glance at the clock, biting her bottom lip. Though this location remained a secret by official catalogs, the sheer chaos rippling through Zhabei and Hongkou at present was likely spreading its word as a last resort, knowing the proper hospitals were complete mayhem.
“Fine, you’re discharged,” the doctor said hurriedly, coming back with a bottle of something in his hands. He was terribly young. Freshly out of school, or perhaps still studying. It wasn’t as though these sorts of places could be picky about quali1cations. “You have to stop exerting the wound, though. Stay oP your feet for at least a week. Disinfect twice a day.” He passed the bottle to Oliver, who took it, then looked at it as if he had been handed something alien.
The doctor left the room. There was another patient in the corner who had been groaning for the past ten minutes, but he was probably very low in the queue. The hospital was no bigger than three rooms, and Celia had counted only two doctors. She had barely gotten Oliver here in time to be tended to. His bleeding had worsened exponentially on the car ride, and the doctor had put him under a sedative the moment they arrived. It took another two days before they acquired the materials to get him into surgery. Though he had awoken shortly afterward, feeling 1ne, the doctor had forbidden him from leaving until he was able to stand on his own again, which he managed today.
“All right,” Oliver said. He got up from the makeshift bed, raising his voice to be heard over the hubbub in the room, over the fretting parents and frantic elderly, the crying children and the civilians shouting just to get the panic out of their system. “Let’s go.”
“Did you not hear what the doctor just said?” Celia demanded. “You have to stop exerting the wound.”
“I’ll be perfectly 1ne.”
Celia crossed her arms. Oliver winced, as if he knew he had misstepped somewhere.
“What is the alternative?” he asked. “Sitting out entirely?” “No. Of course not.”
A plan was already forming in her head. She had kept the earpieces from the rescue mission, had held on to Rosalind’s, too, when she’d needed somewhere to put it while they were raiding that dress shop. Celia knew what she had up her sleeve when it came to causing a distraction into the International Settlement, as she had promised Rosalind. The only problem was that she had another point of concern too.
“Take this,” she said, bringing out one earpiece. Before Oliver could protest, she put it into his ear, securing it tight. “Go to the liaison station three streets down. Your next objective is 1guring out where Alisa is.”
Oliver frowned. Earlier in the day, Celia had been the one to check in with the nearest liaison station, 1nding that Alisa had left a message for her. Celia had passed it on, moving as quickly as she could.
It was only now, after musing on it awhile, that she was starting to get confused. Where had Alisa made the call from? She had to have found a telephone somewhere, which meant she couldn’t still be surveying Lady Hong. Where did she go afterward? Why hadn’t she found her way here?
“What does Alisa Montagova’s location have to do with the trouble at present?” Oliver asked. “She said my mother is generating soldiers. That should be the focus.”
“And as we speak, my sister is making her way over to combat your mother,” Celia returned. “I can help her. I can do our part. I just need you out of it. Please, Oliver.”
He hesitated. It went against his every instinct, she could tell. He wanted to brush his health oP. He wanted to insist otherwise so long as it meant he was on the battle1eld. In that moment, Celia was terribly afraid that she couldn’t get through to him.
Then he reached out and brushed her cheek lightly. A gesture of acceptance, waved like a white Aag.
“You,” he said with distress, “are making the most pleading eyes at me right now, you know that?”
Celia pretended she had no clue what pleading eyes he was talking about. She grasped his hand, her own palm sliding against his 1ngers.
“If this is going to work between us, you have to let me decide what’s good too,” she said quietly. “You can’t keep me out of matters. You allow me in, and you accept it if I disagree. If I want to draw the plans instead.”
A beat passed. The hospital roared with noise, suddenly more raucous than ever when a plane swooped overhead and gun1re sounded in the distance. Others in the room shrieked with terror, but Oliver and Celia remained still— watchful, waiting. Maybe he wouldn’t accept it. Maybe it wouldn’t be what he wanted after all.
“It’s going to work, I promise,” Oliver 1nally said. It was so gentle that Celia’s heart prickled in reaction. She could feel the promise sink deep, burrowing into the very marrow of her being. For that one vulnerable moment, she could see every fear and worry in his expression, but still he was allowing it.
Celia rose onto her toes and stole a kiss. The world shook, Aashing light into the hospital. Overhead bombing, resuming once more.
“Be careful,” Oliver whispered into her ear. He pressed another kiss to her temple. Then he exited, moving quickly before the next round of overhead planes could cause havoc outside. Celia waited a minute in case there were enemy operatives watching to catch them. Once enough time has passed, she hastened an exit too.
As she was passing the front desk, though, the secretary waved for her attention, spotting her in an instant. She was holding the phone line, the receiver dangling loose.
“For me?” Celia con1rmed.
The secretary nodded wordlessly. Everyone here was on the same payroll— the hospital was in direct communication with the liaison station. Celia picked up the phone and pressed the receiver to her ear.
“Wéi?”
“Report landed two minutes ago from the liaison station in Xujiahui,” the voice on the other end said. “Fortune has been sighted coming in. Resume your mission. Secure Huntsman when he surfaces.”
Celia acknowledged receipt and put the phone down. Yes—she did have a mission to resume.
There was no trouble getting into the International Settlement with their forged papers. Slowly Rosalind drove past the control point and rolled her window up again, her eyes Aicking to the rearview mirror. “You can come out now. We made it through.”
Orion emerged from underneath the back seats, blowing a huP of air. “I can’t believe I had to hide when I have perfectly forged papers.”
“It’s not to hide from the Kuomintang at the control point,” Rosalind muttered, squinting out the windshield and picking up speed. “There are going to be faction eyes watching every border. I don’t want the Communists noting your presence here and trying to come after you. We can resume civil war after this threat is eliminated.”
If only it were really that easy to push oP domestic matters while an international one was pressing on their city. Orion climbed back into the front seat.
“Do you want me to drive now?”
Rosalind braked chaotically, letting a Aock of birds take Aight from the intersection before she accelerated again. “No, I’ve got it.”
Orion grimaced, looking terri1ed for their safety. Wisely, he didn’t voice it. It wouldn’t take long to get to Arden Road, even if Rosalind couldn’t stay within the lines of the road. The real tribulation came with their next steps. They weren’t crossing into Zhabei, but they were still entering a war. Lady Hong possessed a militia, most of them more dangerous than ordinary soldiers when they were conditioned to follow her commands no matter the cost.
They drove past a group of girls. It had to be some volunteer force, because they were wearing medical personnel armbands, carrying what looked like sheets in their arms.
“I’m worried about Phoebe,” Orion said.
Rosalind turned a corner too fast. The tires screeched.
“Chances are high we will 1nd her with your mother as well. And if we don’t… that would probably mean she’s safe in a Nationalist room.”
Orion grimaced. His 1sts curled in his lap. “When this is over, she’s in so much trouble. There’s no reason she had to enter the facility and put herself in danger.”
But at the moment, there was very little they could do about the situation short of putting out a citywide call for Phoebe Hong. And since Lady Hong was so close to destroying the very world with her research, they needed to make that their 1rst priority.
“We play this out 1rst, and then we worry about what comes next,” Rosalind decided, keeping her voice 1rm. Whether she was trying to convince herself or Orion, she wasn’t sure. “Again—we may 1nd her there.”
“I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing.”
Rosalind glanced over at him. She had thought she was taking her eyes oP the road for merely a second, but then a great bump rolled beneath her right side, and she quickly focused her attention again. What had that been? Did someone leave their shoe out on the road?
“Do you think she would hurt Phoebe?”
Orion leaned against the window. “No. That’s never been a risk, especially given that Phoebe has no use in her experiments. I’m more worried that my sister is going to involve herself.” He grimaced, then removed his forehead from the glass. Rosalind’s driving was too erratic to rest gently. “She’s a live grenade. Did you hear her on the communication line?”
Rosalind stayed quiet, more concerned about watching for their next turn. Orion, meanwhile, continued mumbling to himself, mimicking, “I’m going dark. I’ll be all right. Why would she say that? She sounded just like an operative.”
A chill skated down Rosalind’s spine. They fell silent.
“Speaking of sisters,” Orion said after a while, returning to his normal tone, “how is yours getting in contact with you?”
“She’ll 1nd a way,” Rosalind replied. Outside the window, most of the French Concession seemed to be carrying on life as normal. There was no indication whatsoever that some of the foreigners strolling these streets even knew there were bombs falling in the north. Her jaw clenched, her grip tightening on the steering wheel.
“Hey.”
Rosalind Aicked another quick glance over. She thought Orion was going to tell her to ease up on her driving, but as she passed the boundary from French Concession into International Settlement, Orion wasn’t watching the road. He reached over, tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Whatever happens,” Orion said, “I love you.” “Oh, shut up.”
Orion blinked. “Rosalind—”
“Don’t say anything that sounds like it could substitute for goodbye,” Rosalind interrupted. She pulled the steering wheel. They almost collided with a corner before she course-corrected, speeding again. The buildings whipped past. Between the alleys, Aashes of the Bund were visible, warships and battalions pressed up against the boardwalk.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Rosalind tried to relax her shoulders. It was an impossible task. They might have become permanently melded into her terror-stricken posture.
“Then we have a whole lifetime for you to tell me,” she said quietly. “Let’s 1ght this 1rst.”
Rumors of a sniper in Zhabei spread in an instant.
“Do you know anything about this?” Celia asked. She pressed hard on her earpiece, relaying what she was hearing from the crowds that rushed past in evacuation.
“Yes,” Oliver replied instantly. “It’s Priest.” “Your instructions?”
“Not mine. There are other snipers at work too, hitting back at the Japanese militia. Scarlet Gang sent them. I think Priest is just the most ePective.”
Celia frowned, moving through the streets with haste. For all intents and purposes, the Scarlet Gang was dissolved, operating as a mere arm of the Nationalists. It was only when it came to underground activity that they brought the term back out. The Chinese army needed to follow official governance. As did the Japanese army. But when auxiliaries like the ronin ran rogue, the city needed to hit back with the same energy. Just as Celia paused by a shop front to take inventory of the pandemonium, she heard a series of gun1re from one of the windows, taking out a group of Japanese militia.
This had become an utter war zone.
“De1nitely more than one sniper at work here,” Celia muttered. “Find anything yet?”
While Celia picked her way to her destination, Oliver was behaving, staying put at the liaison station to investigate. The matter had certainly captured his attention more than he had expected. Half an hour ago, he had reported to Celia about 1nding the operative who answered the call from Alisa—he only needed to trace the log at the operating center now.
“Give me a moment. A call is coming in about the inquiry I sent out.”
Oliver went quiet in her ear. Celia 1nally arrived at the safe house: the same one they had been holed up at to plan the rescue mission. The paper bag remained by the door. When Celia peered in, she made a curious noise, realizing that the last set of clothes there were gone. So Phoebe must have come by before she appeared at the facility. Celia supposed that made sense. Phoebe had to have gotten her hands on the last earpiece too if she had been communicating with them once she arrived, and that had been left here on this table.
Celia pushed the table aside. There was a storage space in the Aoor, visible only if she pressed hard on the Aoorboard and popped the latch out. She hadn’t told any of the others while they were here because it was unnecessary for the mission, but it was certainly necessary now. With ePort, Celia lifted up the storage space, revealing the case hiding underneath. Her cousin wasn’t the most infamous weapons dealer in the area for nothing.
“Still there?”
Celia nudged her ear into her shoulder, hitting the microphone. She needed both hands to tug the case out. “Where else would I go, Oliver?”
“Only making sure you didn’t get plucked away, sweetheart. I have confusing news.”
Celia frowned. She started to peruse the explosives, picking the ones she thought would work best. “What does that mean?”
“Did Alisa sound at all distressed when she was reporting in?”
“I have no idea.” A few of the explosives needed assembling. Celia moved fast, screwing halves together or pulling oP safety mechanisms, putting them into her bag one after the other. “When the liaison station passed her message to me, they didn’t say anything about that.” Celia paused. “The only strange thing they noted was that she slipped in a line of Russian at the end. The liaison station transcribed it phonetically. I was the one to put it together before sending it oP to Rosalind.”
“Was it anything important?”
“Not at all. Something about bathing. It was the rest that needed attention. I passed most of it on to Rosalind. ‘I found Lady Hong’s base of operation. 7 Arden Road. She’s succeeded with her experiments. Go as soon as you can.’” Celia zipped up her bag. She was ready. Her earpiece had gone silent. “Oliver?”
“Well,” he said slowly. “My 1ndings say that the call originated from 7 Arden Road. So unless Alisa Montagova was so sneaky as to use a telephone on my mother’s own base, I have to wonder if this message actually came from her.”
