Sundown drew long over the French Concession, tinting the houses a delicate sort of blue. Phoebe could hear a chorus of birds cawing on the next street over. Seconds later, their entire formation shot up into the violet sky, soaring in the shape of an arrow before disappearing south.
The vehicle stopped. At the front, the soldiers paused for a few seconds before moving to disembark. There were two seated at the back too, but they weren’t making any great ePort to guard her. She had come willingly.
Phoebe eyed the soldiers as they got out, careful with her skirts when one held the door open for her. In the time they had spent getting across the city, she had been observing the soldiers, and she couldn’t determine whether they were all under chemical conditioning or not. They didn’t speak much; nor did anyone speak to her. One, though, was humming to himself during the drive. Another had casually adjusted his hair in the reAection of the window. With the way Rosalind had described it, Orion had become an entirely diPerent person while under conditioning. Even prior to their mother inducing total amnesia, he would slip oP to headquarters and lose track of reality until the task was complete. Nothing would stir him out of it.
The vehicle doors slammed shut. A pair of birds perched on the closest tree shot oP too, blending into the hastening night. They had parked outside a manor, it seemed, though little of the residence was visible from the gate. There were soldiers inside already waiting for their arrival, opening the gates with the low, long groan of its hinges.
“Where are we?” Phoebe asked.
She wasn’t sure if anyone would reply. They didn’t. She had been keeping track of where they were driving up until the sharp turn 1ve corners prior, and
then she had lost her bearings. All she knew for certain was that they remained within the International Settlement, because there had been no control points to pass, and their surroundings remained a peaceful sort of quiet. A battle would never press in on foreign territory, so the streets here would remain idle and beautiful no matter what raged in the north.
Which begged the question: How had Lady Hong established herself here anyway?
The men waited by the open gate, gesturing for Phoebe to proceed. She could run now. Turn on her heel and get as far away as possible instead of risking herself. But that wasn’t the attitude of an operative, so Phoebe clutched her hands together and proceeded, her heels clicking on the stone path. A few of the soldiers trailed after her in a loose line. Others remained by the entrance, still and silent to watch over the street.
None of them resembled the sort of mind-controlled playthings Phoebe would have imagined. They only seemed… a little subdued. Each soldier clearly remained their own person. If she suddenly took a knife and charged at one, he wouldn’t stand there and take it; he’d swerve out of the way. If all were asked to return home and resume whatever routine had been in place before their recruitment into Lady Hong’s militia, they could do it.
A harsh wind blew at her eyes, ice-cold upon contact and causing her to tear up. Her heart raced beneath her ribs—wild, frantic. Careful, a snarky voice whispered in her head. It sounded a lot like Priest. We wouldn’t want her to think you suddenly developed the gene.
Phoebe continued walking forward. Before she knew it, she was at the door, staring at the beige color a moment before rapping her knuckles against it.
“You may go in,” one of the soldiers said behind her. English. “She’s expecting you.”
Phoebe couldn’t wrap her head around this. She pushed at the door, half expecting him to be lying, but it opened without any resistance.
Inside, the foyer was empty, devoid of furniture. A circular rug decorated the Aoor. Little else here resembled a usual household: no shoes in the corner or frames on the walls. None of the soldiers followed her in, so Phoebe was alone when she crossed the marble Aooring and entered the living room, holding her
breath. White curtains blew along the open deck doors. Beyond the glass, the manor’s grounds extended endlessly, taking up space in a way that de1nitely signaled outer International Settlement. Where were they? And why?
A melodic clinking sounded from the corner of the living room. Phoebe’s
gaze shot over at once, 1nding another door that had been left ajar.
She took a step closer. Then another. Though she would have guessed this was some storage space tucked into the side of the main wing, she prodded the door open to 1nd a whole laboratory—gleaming white walls and polished metal tables. And standing by one of the shelves…
“Feiyi,” her mother greeted her, ePortlessly casual, sounding as though she had stepped away momentarily to make dinner instead of leaving Phoebe for seven years.
“Māma,” Phoebe croaked.
Lady Hong hadn’t changed a bit. She looked exactly the same, actually, from the carefully brushed hair to the knowing glint that sparked in her eye. Phoebe used to think her mother could read her mind. That each of her secrets would spill to the forefront the moment her mother gave her nose a tap.
Lady Hong set down the clipboard in her hands. She walked over. Closed the distance in less than three steps. When she lifted her hand, brushing Phoebe’s hair back to get a better look at her face, it seemed that even her scent remained the same—the faint whiP of perfume that Phoebe had never found in stores no matter where she looked—and Phoebe couldn’t help herself. Despite knowing their situation at present, despite knowing everything that her mother had done, Phoebe reached out for a hug.
Her throat was tight with tears. She clamped herself to her mother, and she was twelve years old again. No time had passed and nothing had gone wrong. Lady Hong wrapped her arms around her, and Phoebe could pretend that it was their house around them instead of a lab, could pretend that Oliver and Orion were about to walk through the doors too and ask who was sniAing up a storm.
That last thought 1nally gave her the push she needed to step back. She was halfway to a sob before her hand came up to her mouth, locking the sound away.
Her mother didn’t try to stop her. Phoebe composed herself quickly, drawing an inhale and swallowing it down. Another curtained area had been roped oP to
her right, beside the shelves. In the silence, the fabric waved gently, picking up a breeze blowing in from the foyer. There was nothing particularly secretive from what Phoebe could see. Boxes, crates, folders.
“I know you must have a lot of questions,” Lady Hong said. “Believe me, Feiyi, if I could have reached out, I would have done so.”
Phoebe didn’t know what to say for a long moment. There were all these varying versions of herself that wanted to jump to the helm. The Phoebe who kept peace among adults, whose instinct was to match her mother’s calm tone. The Phoebe no one would ever suspect of being a Communist assassin, tempted to play the fool and act as though she didn’t know what her mother was doing here. Somewhere, dark and deep within, there was also the feral girl stupid enough to play Priest, and she wanted to reach for a gun.
Phoebe lowered her hand.
“I have just one question,” she said, and her voice was far steadier than she would have expected. “Was it worth it? Was your research worth breaking apart this entire family?”
Lady Hong lifted a brow. At once Phoebe knew that nothing she said here would land; nothing would strike as anything close to an attack. Her mother almost looked exasperated, the same sort of expression she’d worn when Phoebe clattered into the kitchen with her shoes muddy, the same sort reserved for children who didn’t know better.
“Hong Feiyi,” Lady Hong said. “Do you know where this country is heading?”
“To war?” Phoebe snapped.
“Yes,” her mother replied easily. “Since long before you were born, this country knew that it was crumbling. If not the Japanese, don’t you think another power will try, sooner or later? Look at the land we stand on. Look at the state of Shanghai for the last century.” She nudged a clipboard on the shelf, aligning it straight. There was a long column upon the paper, but Phoebe couldn’t read what it said. “The government calls me a national traitor. Fine. From another angle, I am only protecting my family. I am choosing the victor before their victory. Don’t you remember what I told you?”
Phoebe did remember. The last time she had seen her mother, it was the thick of London’s winter. The sky had resembled the one tonight, low and gray and dark. They had stood surrounded by snow at the neighborhood park, and when Lady Hong said goodbye, summoned away by business in Shanghai, she had bade Phoebe to take care of herself and her older brother.
Some people fight for the nation, her mother had said. We fight for ourselves.
“‘Protecting your family is the most important thing,’” Phoebe echoed dully, recalling her mother’s parting advice. “What happened to that?”
“Don’t you think I am protecting you all?” her mother 1red back. “What happens once Japan takes over? Who do you think survives: the ones who helped them or the ones who opposed them?”
“They would have a harder time taking over if people like you weren’t helping
them,” Phoebe hissed. She couldn’t believe she was having this argument. She couldn’t believe it boiled down to something as simple as her mother doubting their own country might have its own two legs to stand on. Their civil war had been raging for years now without either side relinquishing. Didn’t that mean something? Awful as the war was, didn’t that say something about the spirit pulsing upon every part of the land?
Lady Hong shook her head. “I won’t be made into a villain for being realistic. I have worked to pave our place in the new societal order. I have contributed immense research to make sure we live well.”
“You used Orion as your personal soldier.”
“As he was made for,” Lady Hong returned sharply. Her calm was 1nally slipping. “He is no ordinary civilian, and he shall not be treated as such.”
For all these years, Phoebe had been carrying her promise to her mother closer to her chest than anything else. Yet that promise had been nothing more than a gross misinterpretation. She had set out to protect Orion, had believed herself so heroic for it, when her mother had really just wanted Phoebe to protect her asset.
All along, the greatest threat Phoebe should have been fending back was the
very one she idolized.
“I read your research, Māma.”
Her mother tilted her head, eyes narrowing. “You did?”
“Cover to cover. Who knew? Turns out all those years of private tutoring means I’m actually smart.” Phoebe scrunched her hands into her skirts. It kept them from shaking. “You began this work long before the empire started creeping in. So tell the truth. You want to discover immortality. Everything else is an excuse.”
Lady Hong sighed. “Can’t it be both, darling?”
“It can’t.” Phoebe stormed forward. Her mother didn’t stop her from snatching the clipboard on the shelf. From Aipping through out of a vehement need to see what was hiding right in front of her. “You either birthed us as people capable of individual thought, or you birthed us as components to be used. It can’t be both.”
Nothing about the pages on the clipboard made any sense. Though Phoebe
had enough background to understand her mother’s thesis, she didn’t understand the numbers and letters drawn up here as formulas across and diagonal.
“It can.” Lady Hong, almost gently, took the clipboard back. “You know how Liwen is. If you gave him the choice to experience some pain so that the rest of us would be protected, he would choose to do so.”
“But he didn’t choose. You did.”
“Same thing, no?”
“No!” Phoebe snapped. “You abandoned us. You told me again and again that family was the most important thing, and then you left us for seven years.”
“And how is that any diPerent from sending you abroad for school?” her mother returned.
“Because we believed you to be dead!”
Lady Hong shook her head. “It was a sacri1ce I was willing to bear. There is one goal in sight for us, Feiyi. If we want safety in the end, then I can forsake everything that is temporary. Don’t you see?”
Arguing about this was a lost cause. Phoebe took a shallow breath, then another, and she felt herself giving up on her mother like the loss was a physical sensation; she felt the illusion of her family shatter into pieces as cleanly as an arrow through the heart. There was no such thing as being utterly safe, just as there was no such reality where Phoebe could have stayed in the shadows forever
protecting Orion. Eventually, people had to face their own danger. Eventually, countries had to 1ght their wars.
“You 1nd it worthwhile.” Phoebe could scream that her mother had lost it, could curse and shout and hurl accusations. It would be useless. This had always been her mother. Phoebe had merely been too young to see it. “But I do not. We will have to agree to disagree.”
“Regardless of what you think, it’ll be over soon.” Her mother set the clipboard down. “You will all return to my side when this is said and done. We’ll be a family again. Nothing will be able to break us apart when I’ve produced something so worthwhile.”
“We were never a family to begin with,” Phoebe said quietly. From somewhere in the house, there came the thud of a door. Had someone else come in? Was that from the foyer? “Anyone who cooperates with you is just as much a hanjian.”
“Is that so?” Lady Hong’s eyes lifted to the door. Footsteps pattered closer, heading their way. “Feiyi, step behind the curtain.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Lady Hong gestured at the curtain, as if Phoebe needed directing. “Go on.
You’ll see.”
Phoebe didn’t like this. She had to be getting back soon. They were heading for the facility at nine o’clock—and they were trying to keep Lady Hong away from it. Should Phoebe do something here? Would her mother even let her leave?
Suddenly, showing up on her own seemed like a horribly bad idea. The entire perimeter was guarded. If Phoebe made a run for it, she wouldn’t get far at all. Her mother gave her another pointed look, and Phoebe hurried for the curtain, slipping out of sight just as something else came into the laboratory.
“You’re late,” Lady Hong said.
“My apologies,” the new voice replied. “I had a lot of stops to make before this meeting, obviously.”
Phoebe blinked rapidly, trying to register the words, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. Something was very, very wrong.
“Is everything set for your end of the bargain?” her mother asked.
“Yes. I have been overseeing each withdrawal session since his capture. There will be enough blood by the time I make a retrieval tonight. You don’t need to attend personally.”
What the hell? Phoebe thought. It couldn’t be. That couldn’t be who she
thought it was.
Slowly she reached for the curtain. Her 1ngers curled around the fabric, pulling just enough to show her who had stepped into the room.
No. No no no no no—
“Fantastic,” Lady Hong said. “Thank you, Xielian.” Silas nodded, oPering a small smile.
