Despite his best ePorts, which included wrapping a small blanket around himself, Orion’s headache was back. The safe house had picked up a draft from some corner that he couldn’t 1nd, though he had checked the windows and doors. Every few minutes, a breeze blew through the main room, funneling right into his ear and knocking into his brain like an ice pick.
“Won’t you sit down?” Alisa asked. She was hovering at the washroom doorway, brushing her hair.
Orion, meanwhile, stood aimlessly, planting himself in the middle of the room and surveying the walls. “I’m looking for a crack,” he said. “The wind keeps getting in.”
“I think you might be imagining it.”
He narrowed his eyes. Before he could make a fuss, Celia gave a polite cough from the table, shutting them both up again. They had done this three times already. Alisa minded his business, Orion insisted there was a problem at hand, and Celia rolled her eyes while she continued 1ddling with the earpieces in front of her.
“How is that going?” Alisa asked, gesturing to the earpieces.
Half of the wires weren’t working as they should, which was bad if they wanted to be in communication tonight while breaking into the facility. Silas had said he didn’t have time to go looking for more earpieces because he needed to go to Kuomintang headquarters and put the last of the double-edged plan in place, so now Celia was in charge of 1xing the ones that weren’t producing sound.
“I think I know what broke,” Celia replied. “Now it’s a matter of whether I can put it back together.”
Just as Orion was about to suggest yanking out all the wires for a full reset, there was a quick knock on the door: three fast taps to signal someone returning.
Alisa skittered over to open the door. Before Alisa could step back, Rosalind slipped in and closed the door behind her, her chest rising and falling.
“Where’s Phoebe?” Alisa asked.
“Headquarters,” Rosalind answered with a hitch. “Lady Hong’s here.” The faint ringing in Orion’s ears got louder.
“What?” Celia demanded. “In the city?”
“Yes. Her soldiers found us. She must have established a secret base to operate from.”
Rosalind strolled into the room, dropping the paper bags in her arms and undoing the silk scarf that she had tied around her hair. As soon as that came oP, Orion could see the blood splattered on her qipao, a crimson stain that spread from her shoulder to her elbow. Before anyone could remark on the sight, Rosalind was already saying: “I’m 1ne. Just a knife. We extricated ourselves, and Phoebe was unharmed. She’s gone to raise the alarm among the Nationalists.”
Orion wanted to go to her. He didn’t know whether he was allowed. For a short moment, he wavered with indecision, watching Rosalind frown while she inspected the damp fabric at her shoulder. Then he strode forward, 1guring that he could always get yelled at if he was crossing a line.
“Here.” He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief.
Rosalind took it, Aashing him a brief, grateful look. Warmth moved through his chest in response, the sensation distracting him brieAy before the pulsating at his head drew his attention again. He really needed to 1x this. Or put an actual ice pick through his other ear—maybe that would help assuage the phantom sensation.
“I thought the complaint we had against the Nationalists was that they’re too slow.” Alisa crouched down, inspecting what Rosalind had brought back. She was still holding the hairbrush in her hand, so she used it to prod at the bags like there might be a live animal waiting inside.
“They are,” Rosalind said, wiping away a streak of blood on her neck. “It’s still hugely bene1cial if they’re on the lookout for her. I wouldn’t trust them to be much help, but we might as well exhaust every resource we have.”
At the table, Celia put one of the wires into her ear, testing the sound. She didn’t seem satis1ed. It still wasn’t working.
“A prison break is already going to be hard enough,” Celia muttered. “We cannot aPord to be waging battle at the same time if Lady Hong also shows up tonight.”
And yet, from what Orion was understanding, chances were high that she would. She was already in the city—what reason did she have not to?
“What can we do about it?” Rosalind countered. She leaned closer to a vase
on the mantel, using the reAective surface to check how much blood remained. “The priority now is Oliver. Both for the sake of his life and to keep him away from contributing to something terrible. No oPense, Orion.”
“None taken.” Though his voice managed to stay light, his headache operated separately from him, seeming to take extreme oPense. The space between his ears screeched with heinous imagined noise, and he barely resisted dropping to his knees entirely. He brought his hand to the bridge of his nose. Clamped down, hoping that the pressure would ease it.
Celia, meanwhile, scraped back on her chair, going to the shelf near the front door. There, she picked up a newspaper, bringing it back to the table with a rustle.
“I was reading today’s front page earlier,” she said quietly. “Listen to this. ‘The ten-day ultimatum issued by the Japanese has reached its close. Though our officials assure there is no conAict to come and the mayor is shutting anti- Japanese boycott organizations, the Concessions react in a way that says otherwise. Over twenty units have organized in the International Settlement, including but not limited to the American Company, the Shanghai Scottish, the Portuguese Company, and a Russian regiment.’” Celia looked up from the paper. Her face was pale. “War is coming. Lady Hong can hear the news just as well as we can. The Japanese are attacking sooner or later, which means she needs to give them something on their 1rst oPensive wave if she wants in on their side. She’s going after Oliver tonight. I guarantee it.”
Orion reminded himself to breathe. He had gotten through all of his headaches these few days by riding through them. They always eased once the pain crested.
“Hey.”
A small whisper, to his left. He hadn’t realized he had shut his eyes until they snapped open again, 1nding Rosalind at his side. Her hand settled on his arm.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
Orion nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Celia and Alisa hadn’t noticed that he was scrambling to keep his wince at bay, and if he could help it, he preferred to keep it that way. They were still discussing the matter at hand, with Alisa announcing:
“I have an idea.” She paused. “You won’t like it though, Celia.” Celia raised her eyebrows. “All right, then, I don’t want to hear it—”
“We should cause an outright melee,” Alisa went on as if Celia hadn’t answered her. “Let’s tell the Communists too. Let’s say that Orion is still with Lady Hong, and she’s entered the city. Intelligence will 1nd her in an instant. They’ll get in her way if she acts tonight too.”
Wait. What?
BrieAy, Orion released the clamp he had on the bridge of his nose, a frown forming. “Why would they believe I’m still with her?”
“It was the last thing they heard anyway. No one on our side knows what happened after the attack at that tour stop,” Alisa returned. She gestured at Celia. “Our agents never reported in.”
“I was going to report in when I got Oliver back,” Celia said, setting the newspaper down 1rmly. “But you want to go beyond omitting information. You want me to outright lie.”
“It increases our greater success tonight. We get the Nationalists out of our way by sending in Priest. We get Lady Hong out of our way by sending in the Communists. Set up distractions on every front so that we have a clear path to Oliver.”
Celia didn’t look very convinced. “Operatives are going to die 1ghting her.” “Willingly,” Alisa replied in an instant. “Central command has told covert to
prioritize gaining Lady Hong’s inventions. They know it could turn the tide of the civil war.”
“But it’s still a lie.” At this, Orion knew that Celia was gesturing toward him, but he had mostly closed his eyes again. “Orion’s not with Lady Hong anymore.
They would be going in to die for nothing.”
“No, they would be dying for duty. No one 1ghts a war believing every move will advance the battle1eld.” Alisa shrugged. “Our side wants a scienti1c discovery never before seen by mankind. Fine. Now they are putting in the work for it.”
Celia still seemed hesitant. Rosalind hadn’t said anything in a while either, but Orion couldn’t tell if it was because she was staying out of it as a Nationalist agent or if she was more concerned with watching him closely. He could feel her scrutiny. He was using every bit of energy to keep his pain oP his face.
“We’re tricking them.”
“We’re deceiving the leadership,” Alisa admitted. “But for the agents on the ground, is it really deception? Ask any of them if they’d rather do nothing or stop Lady Hong from arming the Japanese, and most would choose to act, wouldn’t they?”
Orion didn’t catch Celia’s response. The next jolt from the base of his skull was excruciating, forcing an involuntary sound from his throat as he nearly gasped for breath. He sensed Rosalind speaking to him—her tone frantic and terrified—but everything else faded, his vision flashing white and amplifying the pain.
When his focus cleared for a brief moment, he found Rosalind in front of him, hands cupping his face. He was on his knees—when had that happened?
“Come with me now,” she urged, pulling him to his feet and dragging him into the study. His vision spun.
The door slammed shut behind them.
“Is it your head?” Rosalind asked.
Something about this felt eerily familiar, as if she had asked him this question before. As if he had once held her hand like this, pressed to his temple, teetering on the brink of consciousness because he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Okay,” Rosalind said when he couldn’t respond. “Let’s get some fresh air.” She grabbed his other hand, and he heard a creak as the bookshelf opened, revealing a door that led to stairs descending into the alley. Though his sight was still blurry, Rosalind guided him forward until they finally stepped outside.
Gray sunlight. A cold, snow-dusted afternoon.
He breathed in and his chest seized. He breathed in and there was no oxygen to take.
“Ros—”
Her lips pressed over his. Suddenly he stopped trying to make frantic inhales
—suddenly he forgot that he needed to draw breath at all when there was the softness of her presence and a sharp, fragrant taste on his tongue, spreading as molten gold might. His heart slowed from its usual breakneck clamor. His body calmed like a weapon tempered under heat.
Though neither of them had exhaled into the kiss, Orion felt as if she had moved a vital breath into his lungs.
Rosalind pulled away. Slowly. Warily. Orion’s eyes Auttered open to 1nd his vision cleared, the world misty around the edges. Beyond the alley, there was the low echo of what almost sounded like a foghorn.
“I should have just done that in the room,” she whispered. She kept her eyes closed. Her cheek pressed into his shoulder.
“In front of your sister?”
Rosalind laughed. Once. That same sound from his memory, the only one he truly remembered.
“In the study after I closed the door, you blockhead.”
A breath out. A breath in. The worst of the headache had eased, fading to the dull twinge he had been putting up with since he woke up in Zhouzhuang.
“Orion?”
He had been silent for too long. Without giving himself time to hesitate, he wrapped his arms around her and sent a note of gratitude into the universe when she let him pull her as close as he could.
“Yes?”
Rosalind hesitated. When she spoke again, she was very quiet, her voice muAed against the fabric of his shirt. “There’s something I skimmed over when I was explaining the situation in Zhouzhuang. You were one of the earliest
recipients of your mother’s strength experiments, which means you need new doses of those alterations on a routine basis. Without them, the headaches are a sign that it’s eating away at your body. It’s slow-acting, but you’re deteriorating.” Orion had had a suspicion that this was related back to his mother’s work.
He wasn’t surprised that he could hear recognition in Rosalind’s voice. A headache like this had happened in front of her before.
“I would have guessed it was caused by the mind conditioning,” he said. “But that makes sense too.”
Rosalind sighed, pulling back from his embrace. She peered up at him awhile before lifting her hand and grabbing his face gently. Her palm to his chin, four 1ngers on one cheek and her thumb pressing into the other, lightly enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin instead of the pressure of her hand.
“Probably related, though,” she said dolefully. “If your physical health weakens, it might allow the conditioning remaining in your mind to creep back.”
Orion grimaced. He wanted Rosalind close again. He didn’t want to think about these headaches, nor about what it was doing to his mind, unbeknownst to himself.
“See anything troubling?” he asked. She was still holding his face, keeping him at arm’s length to observe him. His hand, almost absently, traced a Aower stitched at the waistline of her qipao. He had the temptation to pluck her up as if she were a bloom too, to hear a proper laugh and store it away in a place no one could ever take from him again. He wouldn’t dare, of course—she would probably bite him if he tried.
Which was tempting in and of itself too.
Rosalind searched his eyes. Perhaps she had been expecting to 1nd something worse, because her concern settled. “No. You don’t appear to be crying tears of blood or vomiting sludge.”
“Terrifying visual.”
That earned a smile. “Don’t worry. You’re still pretty.”
The urge to hold her grew all-encompassing. Perhaps he ought to feel embarrassed that the desire was this strong when Rosalind was right—without most of his memories, he knew very little about her. Yet his instincts
remembered what his mind didn’t, in the same way that he hadn’t forgotten how to walk or to speak.
“You’ve stolen my line. I was about to say that to you.” “I have claimed it. Find something else.”
“Fine.” He couldn’t help it. He started to lean closer. “A jewel, then—”
The hidden stairwell thudded in interruption, its door opening into the alley. Before either of them could move, Alisa had poked her head out, examining the scene.
“Hello,” she said. “I came to check if you needed help.”
“No,” Rosalind replied. Her hand was still splayed upon his cheek. “All is 1ne. We’re only talking.”
“Oh, all right.” Alisa didn’t move. “What are we talking about?”
The girl knew exactly what she was doing. There was a slow grin spreading across her face.
Orion cleared his throat. “Nothing very interesting—”
“I am so interested to hear it,” Alisa interrupted. “I want the full scoop. Don’t leave a single detail out.”
“Alisa…,” Rosalind warned. “Yes, Miss Lang?”
Rosalind pulled away from Orion fully, plucking a pin from her hair and wielding it like an axe. “How dare you mock an assassin? I will have you answer for your crimes—”
Alisa shrieked, hurtling back up the stairs. Rosalind shot after her. For a moment, Orion could only blink in confusion. Then he hurried to shove his foot through the doorway before it could lock him out, slipping through too.
“Wait for me!”
