Rosalind heaved for breath, throwing herself onto her side. Half a second—that was how long she allowed herself to pause before she scrambled to her feet again, her hand clamping down on the blood spilling from her shoulder.
A few paces away, Orion threw oP his attacker and tore the bag from his head. Alisa Montagova winced as she landed on her back, rolling to get out of the way.
“Alisa, go,” Rosalind demanded at once. “This is dangerous.”
“Yes, I know,” Alisa said, her voice dripping with attitude. “Hence why I’ve arrived to help you.”
“Alisa.”
Orion, in his hostile state, slowly looked between the two. As soon as he processed the intrusion, he was going to attack again. Rosalind’s shoulder wasn’t healing. With every second she wasted, another gurgle of blood rushed to the poisoned surface and seeped down her arm. She couldn’t pull the blade out, either, because keeping the weapon there was actually stanching most of the blood Aow.
“Do you think you’re going to win this 1ght?” Alisa hissed. “You were two seconds away from getting stabbed right in the—”
Click. Rosalind’s attention whipped toward the smoke. She hadn’t forgotten
that Lady Hong waited there, but she had hoped someone else would engage her in combat or pull her away. Instead, Orion’s mother stood calmly by an overturned outdoor chair, pointing a gun with the safety oP. She was growing tired of the argument, it seemed.
“Allez,” she told Orion.
Go on.
Orion started forward. Rosalind’s shoulder throbbed.
“Arrêtez,” Alisa snapped in response, reaching into her sleeve. She was not talking to Orion. She had turned to Lady Hong. “Is this what you want?”
When Alisa Montagova tore out the vial, its liquid practically glowed green, neon with the promise of its might. The hastening dusk brushed the glass, touched up against its strangeness and Ainched away.
A furrow of confusion sank into Orion’s expression. Lady Hong, meanwhile, lowered her weapon. This was the last remaining vial of her 1nal experiments: a merge of Rosalind’s immortality and Orion’s strength. The one that Orion had tested citywide in his brainwashed state until they 1nally got to its 1nished form. The one that Rosalind had given Alisa for safekeeping in case it proved useful for reversing whatever had been done to Orion. Before, Rosalind still held hope they could take back his strength, let him be another ordinary civilian walking the streets without the power to turn the tide of a war. But now his memory was a whole different matter, and where did they even start, with or without the vial? “Alisa, don’t,” Rosalind whispered. Slowly, she reached up into her hair and
withdrew a pin. “It’s not going to be enough for her.”
A series of bullets rang through the gardens. The smoke, however, proved still too thick to shoot accurately, so the sounds faded shortly before they could hit their own side.
“This is what you have come for, no?” Alisa went on. “Or you wouldn’t have moved so fast.”
Lady Hong’s expression turned steely. Rosalind was paying more attention to Orion, whose eyes were 1xed on the vial. He had been told to grab it. Now the one who issued the instruction was holding on standby too. Even in his altered state, Rosalind thought she could read him: he wasn’t sure what to do.
“Miss Montagova,” Lady Hong said. “Hand it over. You won’t like it if I have to force you.”
This time Alisa didn’t oPer a retort. She turned slightly to her right and met Rosalind’s eyes. Sorry, Janie, she mouthed. Then: “Grab him.”
Rosalind reared back. “What?”
Alisa smashed the vial to the ground. The glass split down the middle with a single fracture and parted the vial into a clean two, releasing the concoction
inside. Though smoke swirled low around them, there was enough visibility to watch the green liquid seep into the grass and disappear into the brown soil.
For a moment, Rosalind could only stand gaping in shock, unable to believe that Alisa had destroyed their primary bait. It was gone. What were they to use as a lure now?
Grab him.
But if she was fast enough, they wouldn’t need further bait at all.
Rosalind lunged before the chance could slip away. The pin was cold in her hand. She knew to duck to avoid Orion’s immediate defenses; she knew to feint left, one arm coming behind his back to loop around his neck.
The time for softness was gone. “Good night,” she whispered.
She shoved her pin into his neck. It pushed with resistance, battled with her strength as if the very act of hurting Orion repelled her hand. Before she could scarcely 1nish the slash, Orion grabbed her arm and tossed her over his shoulder, the motion so fast that Rosalind Aew across the gardens and thwacked against a tree trunk.
Her head spun. She suspected that awful crack was her collarbone breaking. “Over there!”
Rosalind groaned, trying to rise onto her elbows. Her shoulder continued dripping blood. Her collarbone screamed in pain while the pieces reached for each other, trying to smooth back together. In that one throw, she had been hurled far enough from the stage that she couldn’t see past the smoke anymore. Though her sight was veiled while she staggered upright, sound carried well across the gardens, and clear as day she heard Lady Hong command: “Get in contact about the bargain. We will accept the terms.”
A bargain?
“This way! This way!” That came from the other direction. Nationalists. Sooner or later Jiemin was going to 1nd her, and she needed to wrap this up before he could interfere. With a pained grunt, Rosalind stood properly, her shoulder pulsating hot and her cheeks red with exertion and rage.
“What kind of poison did you put on this?” she muttered, gripping her shoulder hard. Her collarbone seemed to have healed. It didn’t hurt to rotate her
other arm anymore, but even the slightest brush of her coat edge was irritating the blade in her shoulder.
Rosalind pivoted. A 1gure broke out from the smoke suddenly, coming to a prompt halt before her. In shock, the two of them stared at each other, waiting a beat in case the scene was a mere illusion.
“No,” Rosalind said in lieu of a greeting. “You’re not snatching him away.” Celia spluttered. “Calm down. That’s not what I’m doing.” She gestured at
Rosalind’s shoulder. “Do you want me to pull that out?” Rosalind shook her head. “Poisoned. I’ll bleed to death.” “You’ll have to stitch it closed.”
“Yes, thank you, mèimei—how could I forget to stitch my wound closed in
the middle of battle?”
Celia frowned at her. Rosalind resisted the urge to press her palm to her mouth and blow a raspberry. They were having this conversation to the backdrop of men scuAing and what were likely knives clanging in the smoke. Someone was going to stumble onto them at any moment if they kept this up.
“What are you doing here?” Rosalind asked.
Instead of answering, Celia hurried forward, tugging Rosalind’s coat around. She barely had a second to give her sister an annoyed look before Celia was yanking her sleeves down.
“Give me this.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Celia took her coat. Rosalind’s confusion overrode her suspicion.
“Go,” her sister said. “I will handle this. The nearest hospital is in Zhouzhuang. Go there.”
Zhouzhuang. There was that name again.
“How do you know that—”
Celia spun on her heel and disappeared.
“Wait, what are you doing with my coat?” Rosalind bellowed after her. She waited a beat. Celia wasn’t coming back. With a huP, Rosalind lurched in the direction of the stage, her arms now bare in her short sleeves. Just as she was wondering whether she was going the right way, Rosalind slammed into another 1gure in the thick of the smoke.
“Sorry, sorry,” Alisa hissed, reaching forward quickly to steady her. “Come on, I have a way out.”
“I’m not leaving without—”
“Orion is collapsed on the ground over there. Your poison kicked in.” “Sedative,” Rosalind corrected quickly. Following the direction Alisa was
pointing, she waved frantically at the smoke before 1nding her way to the stage, muttering a curse under her breath. Orion was lying on his side. His head had lolled into the grass. Her pin was still sticking from his shoulder.
“Oh, darling,” she whispered. She plucked the pin out. He didn’t stir. If she ignored the roar of the gardens at war, Orion looked so normal before her, as though it were only another afternoon on the couch in her apartment. Flipping through 1les together, then declaring he was only going to rest his eyes for a minute before falling asleep in her lap.
“Rosalind! Get ready!”
Rosalind whirled around. She had thought Alisa to be directly behind her, but now her voice was coming from elsewhere, echoing through the smoke. Where had she gone?
“Alisa?”
And where was Orion’s mother? Her best weapon had been left here, unguarded and weak. How could she let that happen?
Rosalind tossed her pin away. She pulled another from her hair, this one coated with proper poison, squeezing until her grip tightened to the point of pain. A section of the smoke had cleared to show silhouettes. By some instinct, Rosalind was certain that Lady Hong was one of them, departing the scene.
She hesitated. She didn’t know what protocol to follow. Leaving Orion might mean exposing him to danger. Letting Lady Hong slip away meant the potential demise of the very country.
What do I do? she thought, frantic. What do I do what do I do what do I do—
As though it were a real voice blown across the gardens, Rosalind suddenly heard Dao Feng in her ear, each of his training lessons tugged out of her memories and spoken into the wind. She Aipped through the earliest days of her work, through Dao Feng’s made-up scenarios and his step-by-step instructions
when they would walk through every worst-case possibility during an assassination and how she was to get out of it.
Yet all those lessons Aashed past her mind’s eye without taking root, each occurrence unable to be used at present. Instead, the one memory that clawed forth from the others hadn’t even been spoken directly toward her. The loudest piece of her former handler that suddenly echoed into the gardens was: She stops at nothing to do what’s right. I’m proud of her.
Rosalind lunged forward. “Hey!”
Someone grabbed a handful of her hair.
“Oh my goodness,” Rosalind said at once, coming to a quick halt. “Alisa, what’s wrong with you?!”
“Sorry, sorry, I panicked.” Alisa let go quickly. She examined her hands, sniffing with distaste, then seemed satis1ed when she was sure that she hadn’t accidentally pricked herself on any poisoned pins. “What were you doing? Let’s go.”
“Lady Hong is about to get away—”
“Let her,” Alisa said. “Your Nationalists are going to home in on us if you don’t get Orion out of here in the next minute. Do you want that?”
She very much did not. With a curse under her breath and the bitter acknowledgment that Alisa Montagova was correct, Rosalind reached down to help an unconscious Orion upright, grumbling for Alisa to hurry and help.
“This way,” Alisa instructed once they had Orion between them. She was inclining her head into the smoke.
“What?” Rosalind wheezed. “I have a car. Come on.”
Alisa didn’t wait for Rosalind to 1nish processing the instruction—she yanked Orion’s other side hard and started to lug them forward. Three strides through the smoke revealed a small civilian vehicle, its engine still running and its tires mowed over the low garden fence, leaving the entire north side of the fence collapsed.
“Did you drive over that?” Rosalind hissed. Alisa shot her a dirty look. “I couldn’t see.”
She opened the rear door. In tandem, they pushed Orion onto the seats.
“He dropped unconscious shortly after 1ghting with you,” Alisa reported cautiously, nudging the headrests away to get more space. “I heard Lady Hong tell her men to leave him here. Orion, I mean. It looked like she was trying to exit the scene as soon as he went down.”
That didn’t make any sense. His mother had to be planning something. As soon as Alisa 1nished adjusting the back, Rosalind clambered in too and reached for Orion, balancing her knee on the leather seat. She grabbed his jaw, turning him toward her. This was him. From the arch of his brow to the mole behind his ear, this was Orion—not some lookalike placed to play tricks on her. Still…
“Something’s not right.” Rosalind swallowed hard. “But we can 1gure it out later.”
“What about…?”
Alisa trailed oP, tilting her head toward a new chorus of shouting. Though Lady Hong had presumably departed the scene, many of her soldiers remained, 1ghting Rosalind’s side. A gunshot tore through the smoke, and they both Ainched. The night grew darker. It was impossible to see where the bullet had landed.
“I’m going with you,” Rosalind decided 1rmly. Her priority was Orion. The foremost matter at hand right now was getting him out of here.
“Okay,” Alisa said, already moving. “Get in.”
Rosalind scrambled into the back, her heart beating a cacophony in her chest. Alisa, meanwhile, tumbled into the driver’s seat so fast that she slammed the door closed with half her hair caught outside.
“Ow, shit.” She yanked her hair in through the door. “Language.”
Alisa spared a second to roll her eyes. “You think you’re so funny.” She put the vehicle into reverse. Stepped down hard on the accelerator. “Hold tight.”
The car screeched, pulling away from the gardens. For a moment, they seemed suspended, hovering in the smoke with the same opaque nothingness on every side. Then Alisa grumbled more curse words under her breath and jerked sharply on the wheel, putting them on the road with an aggressive bump over the sidewalk.
In a matter of minutes, Rosalind had abandoned the tour—and the Kuomintang at large.
