MAY 1932
The streets spilled with May’s summer Aowers—magnolias, blooming on the whispering trees. It hadn’t been this warm in quite some time, which meant everybody was out and about, moving along Nanjing Road to enjoy the day.
Rosalind stood on one of the corners, waiting. She was lying low these days. Most of her time was spent at her apartment, reading or listening to the radio, keeping pace with the city’s aPairs. The Battle of Shanghai ended in March, letting the rubble shift into place and the 1res extinguish up in Zhabei. They had 1nally signed the official cease-1re yesterday, which Rosalind heard through the quieter channels before she heard it on the news.
“Fresh Aowers, xiǎojiě?”
A bouquet popped into view on her left, carried by a young girl selling them by the bucketload. Rosalind shook her head nicely, and the girl moved on, soliciting other potential customers waiting at the busy corner. If anyone were to take in the laughter and activity bustling about the main road, no one would know what had been sent oP in the government offices only some short distance away.
They hadn’t lost, but they hadn’t exactly won, either. All Chinese troops had been pulled out of Shanghai. They said the city had been demilitarized, an ePort made to let it thrive without conAict, to let businesses operate without fear. The British and the French and the Americans didn’t have to worry about havoc on their pro1t-earning endeavors, not like the terrible strain they faced while the 1ghting was going on outside their concessions. They didn’t want to think about the casualties at the hands of the Japanese military, nor the violence from their auxiliary militias, and so the solution was for the League of Nations to declare the whole zone neutral and forbid the presence of troops.
All the same, some Japanese units had been allowed to remain. As if their idea of neutral was to let the invader hold on to a little bite and 1gure that it made everyone happy. It was unfair—horri1cally, sickeningly unfair—after the damage and the bodies left behind in Zhabei, but there was nothing that could be done, certainly not by one agent, not even by a whole branch of operatives.
Rosalind had left her Nationalist work entirely. Even if covert hadn’t already wanted to abandon her, she couldn’t stick around for any of it. The world would spin on without her, and she had to allow it. She might never loosen her shoulders again if she insisted on hauling every bit of rubble onto her back.
In truth, the parting hadn’t been as terrible as she’d expected. Some nights she was kept awake thinking about the deaths and the war and the next time invasion would appear on the horizon, but Rosalind could sleep now, and eventually those thoughts were forced away when she reached for comfort from the person next to her and closed her eyes. It was not an utter resolution—far from it. But it was a moment forged out of sweat and blood, carved painfully from the ground that whispered maybe she ought to learn to forgive herself, and Rosalind was trying to listen.
A work in progress, but a work nonetheless. “Xiǎojiě.”
The Aower seller was back, holding a pink bouquet out to her.
“I’m all right, really,” Rosalind said. There was nowhere in the apartment to put it. She would have to buy a vase. “It’s beautiful, though.”
“No, it’s for you,” the girl insisted, pushing it into her hands. “Someone has paid for it already.”
The girl trotted oP. Rosalind blinked, staring at the bouquet in her hands. “You don’t like it?”
The voice behind her had called out from some distance away, but Rosalind still heard it as though he spoke right into her ear. She turned over her shoulder, spotting Orion crossing the road with one hand in his pocket and the other clutching the edge of his suit jacket, carelessly tossed over his shoulder.
“You don’t have a high-paying job anymore,” Rosalind said when he stopped before her. A ruckus passed around them: a crowd of cyclists merging and
zipping along the rest of the traffic. “Are you sure you should be spending so recklessly?”
Orion was quick to grin. It had taken him some time to gather the nerve to go to headquarters today. Understandably, given that it had been the site of his brainwashing. They hadn’t rushed him to come in, at least. After Lady Hong was captured, after her militia dissolved and her ties to Japanese diplomats across the country severed, after all the paperwork was submitted and the higher-ups had gathered around a table to discuss how her charges of national treason would be laid out, Orion had been cleared from fault. While Lady Hong awaited a trial that Orion was doing his very best to block out, the Kuomintang told him he could resume his duties when he wished. Become Huntsman once more when he was done resting—even if he was always going to be under suspicion by the high society he used to spy on, given that the newspapers had plastered his covert work in full detail.
“Office admin still pays, beloved,” Orion said, swinging an arm over her
shoulder. “Maybe not as much as your fancy new salary, but I uphold a commendable ePort nonetheless.”
Rosalind snickered. He hadn’t wanted to leave entirely. Not when the other option was mingling through high society without spying, and Orion still seemed to think he needed to keep some sort of eye on the nation. So today he had officially transferred into the administrative end of government work, trying to manage what he could, but ever wary in case the landscape changed. He and Rosalind had made an exit plan already. The moment things started to worsen, the very moment the city started to murmur about war again, they would leave. The matter was nonnegotiable.
“Whatever you say.” She lifted the bouquet to her nose. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Orion said softly. His eyes latched on to the other item in her hand: a small note card. “What is that?”
Rosalind gave it over without explanation. It came in this morning from her
new employers. Alisa had brought it to her door, because enough disruption had sent shock waves through the city that no one was paying attention to her coming in and out of Zhouzhuang, working as a traveling assistant for Roma and Juliette after withdrawing from the Communists. In classic Alisa fashion,
she had decided that she wanted to see more of the country rather than doing work she was already good at, and now, whenever the illegal weapons ring business needed any correspondence or stock delivered across the country, she was moving like a speed machine. Thankfully, Rosalind had a far diPerent role: she was their Shanghai representative. After all, there was no need to waste resources by employing eyes and ears from various sources when they could just plant one person they trusted.
“What is this?” Orion asked, squinting at the card. “Is this supposed to be a drawing of two people? What is one holding—oh.”
When she 1rst opened the envelope, Rosalind had thought it was a task letter, similar to the previous few she had received, but there was no writing on the card. Only two hand-drawn people with sticks for limbs, holding what she determined was supposed to be a baby.
“I think it’s an announcement,” Rosalind said, plucking the card back. “But with Juliette’s drawing skills, I really can’t be sure.”
“Maybe they’re having a pumpkin.”
Rosalind nodded in mock seriousness. “I’ll be sure to ask about the pumpkin the next time I see them.” They started to walk along the road, moving farther from the looming headquarters that Orion had just exited. She hesitated before returning to the prior topic, asking: “Did everything go okay? With the transfer?”
Orion’s arm tensed slightly. She felt the strain along her own shoulders, and on instinct, she reached to lace her 1ngers through his, her thumb moving back and forth.
“I don’t think they expected me to come in with that request,” he said. “After months of sitting idle, they probably assumed I was preparing to resume work.”
“They are careless if that is the case.” A surge of righteous anger stirred in Rosalind’s stomach. So many of their superiors hadn’t noticed Orion being brainwashed with every visit to headquarters, and they had the audacity to wonder why it had taken him this long to step foot back into that building again.
His 1nger tapped the back of her hand. As if they were taking turns for who needed to reassure the other.
“It’s all right,” he said. “There were a few questions about Oliver, but I feigned ignorance. No trouble otherwise. The fact that Silas remains highly trusted in covert is a big help.”
They could not go a few days without hearing from Silas, which amused Rosalind greatly but had Orion scratching his head. It wasn’t that they heard from Silas frequently for no reason: it was because Phoebe was the biggest handful and made it her mission to mess with him. Priest was still at large, though the Kuomintang hadn’t blamed Silas for her escape when they knew how tricky she was. Every time there was word about her movement in the city, Silas was sent after her. Whenever the trail seemed to be getting too warm, Silas panicked and tried to warn her. Whenever Phoebe ignored his warnings, Silas would ask Orion to please tell his sister to behave, and then Orion would roll his eyes and say he had absolutely no control over what she did.
The last time Rosalind asked Phoebe about the nature of her and Silas’s relationship, Phoebe had given a very sly shrug. It was complicated, Rosalind assumed. Phoebe wouldn’t put her gun down, and Silas was still tied to the government. Yet when Phoebe had free time, she was sneaking into his house. When Silas was working, he was conveniently misplacing the evidence that passed in front of him about Priest’s activity. The last time Rosalind asked Orion what he knew about their relationship, he slapped his hands over his ears
and said it was better if he didn’t know anything about what his sister and his
best friend got up to in their spare time.
Rosalind smiled a little at the thought, and Orion cast her a look as if to ask why Silas still being in covert was so amusing. She wouldn’t say anything when it wasn’t her place, but she could guess there was only one reason why Phoebe didn’t leave Shanghai to work, despite the risk of being exposed. Oliver was permanently established in a small township outside of Shanghai these days, after all. The girl could go live with him if she wanted. But she stayed because Silas was here, and sooner or later she would have to admit it.
“What did they say about Oliver?” Rosalind asked. “Nothing concerning, I hope.”
Orion shook his head. He skirted around a puddle on the pavement, nudging Rosalind a distance away from the water too so that she wasn’t splashed.
“The usual. What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
Though Celia and Oliver still worked for the Communists, they were no longer mission agents either, but rather the people behind an operation base. Which meant they weren’t being held responsible for matters like their famously Nationalist siblings. It also meant they didn’t move around anymore, and Rosalind could visit her sister easily, bringing Orion with her and forcing his reconciliation ePorts with Oliver by mere proximity. He couldn’t show up and not talk to Oliver.
Though their brotherly relationship remained dented and marred by the weight of the past, its frozen heart was thawing slowly. Rosalind had caught Orion on the phone with Oliver only today. Of his own volition, no less.
“What don’t they know?” she asked, sidling closer to his side and peering up at him. “What secrets did you exchange on the phone this morning?”
A quirk appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Not information relevant to the state, that’s for sure,” Orion returned. “He was asking when we would be available to attend their wedding.”
Rosalind stopped dead in her tracks. “Excuse me?”
Orion halted with her, confused. “Wouldn’t Celia have already told—” He blinked, then realized his mistake in an instant. “Oh. Oh, so he hasn’t proposed yet.”
“Hong Liwen, you are in so much trouble….”
“Don’t tell, don’t tell, pleasepleaseplease,” he begged in theatrics. Rosalind bolted forward. “I’m going to tell.”
He tugged her close at once, lifting her oP her feet entirely without breaking his stride. “You are absolutely not.”
At times like these, Rosalind was mightily impressed with herself for holding her own against Orion when he’d had enhanced strength. Because even here, when he had returned to being a regular person, he hauled her around like it was no matter in the slightest.
“Orion,” Rosalind said. “You are carrying me like a handbag.” “Swear to secrecy. Then I will put you down.”
Rosalind mimed zipping her mouth and throwing away the key. With a sigh, Orion set her back on her feet, though his hand remained at her waist.
“You know,” he said, “we could steal their thunder.” “Oh?”
In the fallout of all that had happened in this city—his parents locked away and awaiting a trial from the Kuomintang that was sure to go on forever and ever
—Orion had inherited his house and whatever assets remained. He had brought in people for its maintenance, which meant Ah Dou had real help and people to talk to when he watered the gardens or polished the walls. It was no longer the old housekeeper alone in the big estate but rather a big estate bustling with life and noise… though Orion himself was still rarely around. Phoebe’s room was always carefully tidied so that she could come and go as she pleased, but Orion was consistently lured over to a building in the French Concession, to an apartment on the second Aoor.
In technicality, Rosalind’s apartment was a Nationalist assignment, but Lao Lao was still the owner of the building, and she told Rosalind 1rmly that she was not to move… unless it was to relocate somewhere larger, which Lao Lao always said with a blatant nudge in Orion’s direction. They had abandoned High Tide however many months ago, and there was no assignment that kept them bound together, but all the same, Rosalind and Orion acted as if they were still married, which wasn’t quite proper by societal standards.
They had yet to speak about the matter plainly. Which was 1ne for Rosalind. Really. It wasn’t like she needed a real proposal. Or a real marriage certi1cate. Or, hell, even a ring.
It would, however, be nice to have all those things, because no matter how many times Orion asked her to move in with him so they could run a household, it felt rather peculiar to go into their courtship backward. She knew how he breathed when he slept, but she didn’t know which term of address to use for him. He kept her amused in the mornings, monologuing about his eternal undying love, but they had never gone to a café in the Concessions together for breakfast because their faces were too recognizable, and chances were high that someone would approach their table in curiosity. Fortune had many enemies, too. Though that part of her was gone, Rosalind still endured the consequences of her past work. If she showed her face in public too often, it might just prompt
revenge seekers into the open again, which was less than ideal now that the papers had 1nally gotten bored with writing about her.
“Oh?” Orion mimicked, sounding amused. “What was that supposed to
mean?”
“It means exactly that,” Rosalind replied. “A prompting noise for you to continue talking. Are you proposing, Orion?”
She had never asked outright like this. In the 1rst month after he’d almost died, the focus was on making sure he was healing properly. Their days were occupied by worry over Oliver and Celia making it out of the city and settling somewhere safe. Then to Phoebe and Silas and their frantic movements on the game board that was this everlasting civil war.
As the weeks warmed, matters seemed to calm. As summer swept in, suddenly Rosalind was thinking more and more about the two of them, the last ones left to tend to once everyone else had their own lives in motion.
“Maybe.” Orion had a funny grin on his face. “What would you say if I was?” Rosalind rolled her eyes. “You clearly are not.”
“No?”
Something rumbled in the distance. Rosalind’s 1rst instinct was concern, recalling the screech of warplanes screaming above the city and dropping bombs onto the streets. When she lifted her head, though, she spotted only a single plane Aying across the bright day, and her nerves eased. The sky shone so clearly, a blue vivid enough that not a single cloud could be seen—at least not until the plane started to leave behind long arches of smoke where it had Aown.
The plane did a loop. Rosalind frowned, tilting her head.
“It’s a little late for me to reschedule now,” Orion said, and Rosalind still wasn’t comprehending, “so I should probably clarify that I had this planned far in advance, and the thunder-stealing comment was a joke.”
Words. The plane was using its trail of smoke to write words, beautiful
calligraphed strokes emitting one character after the other, each appearing at rapid speed.
我愛你… 你願意嫁給我嗎?
Rosalind gaped at the sky. The plane did a 1nal loop, then disappeared quickly, Aying away to leave the question Aoating in the bright blue.
I love you… Will you marry me?
The crowd around them was starting to notice too. Elderly ladies pointing up in excitement; little children clapping their hands as they tried to read aloud.
“What a coincidence,” Rosalind managed. “Someone in the vicinity must also be discussing proposals.”
Orion barely held in his laugh. He grabbed her shoulders, tipping her head down to look at him. “Beloved, it’s for you.”
Rosalind blinked stubbornly. “No, it isn’t.”
His hands pressed into her face, along her cheeks. The motion was so tender that Rosalind’s breath snagged in her throat, her eyes turning up again to read the words. The smoke hadn’t blown away yet, though it had fuzzed a little at the edges.
“It’s for you,” he said again, quietly this time. His amusement faded for earnestness. He must have known that she wasn’t being contrary in an ePort to be difficult. She had lived a long past life being hidden as a secret, and the habits were hard to shake, the expectations hard to rebuild. Rosalind stared and stared and stared, but the words didn’t fade away; nor did the murmurs and the soft squealing from every part of the street, shoppers turning and searching to locate who the question was addressed to.
Rosalind’s gaze drifted back down. Orion was still looking at her, patiently waiting.
“I’m sorry this took so long,” he said, and Rosalind wasn’t sure if he meant since this past January or since the moment they were assigned together as High Tide, when Orion asked if she wanted silver or gold. He let go of her face and held forth something between them, glinting in the daylight. “I wanted to get it custom-made. The center opens with a tiny hidden compartment—see? You can put powders or liquid in here. I know you’re not Fortune anymore, but it would be a shame to waste your talent.”
He was holding a ring. A glimmering, dazzling ring, with a thin gold band and a circle of rubies surrounding the diamond in the middle. He really wasn’t joking. The understanding 1nally set in.
It was beautiful. The most beautiful ring she had ever seen.
“I know too that you would hate it if I got down on one knee, because it would end up in the papers,” he continued. “I’m settling for a compromise. I will refrain from being an attention-seeking menace if you let me be very public. The sky itself says I love you. I have loved you since we weren’t actually married, and I can’t bear another day living in a falsity. Please, Rosalind, put me out of my misery.”
She inhaled. Exhaled.
“Of all matters you think I would hate to end up in the papers,” Rosalind demanded, 1nally 1nding her voice, “do you think I would mind this?”
Then she lunged forward, startling Orion. Fortunately, he caught on in an instant—he caught her in an instant, the bouquet clasped between them.
The moment she kissed him, there was no hiding from the world. She wound an arm around his neck, he lifted her oP the ground, and then suddenly there was commotion in every direction. Perhaps there was a Aash, perhaps there was someone capturing the scene so they could speculate how the city’s former covert operatives ended up here, identities exposed and making a rare public appearance before they disappeared again. Whatever they were to say, Rosalind could hardly hear them.
“That’s a yes, then?” Orion whispered when they drew apart.
At any moment the alarms could blare, could bid them to pick up their bags and Aee. The ground could break under their feet, the sky could wash out its blue, descend into ash instead. The next month lay uncertain, as did the very next day, but no longer was it time spent in the shadows, hidden without love.
“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s a yes.”
