The 1rst tour stop was in Shanghai, because the media vultures at home were the most important.
And the most vicious.
“Lang Shalin, what have you started here?”
Jiemin pushed into the dressing room. Outside, the clamor was reaching a fever pitch, the lobby of the hotel 1lling up beyond capacity. There was a whole Aurry of activity each time the door opened, and yet Jiemin managed to look bored as he came closer, waving oP an assistant trying to give him a schedule.
“How nice of you to show up,” Rosalind replied, mimicking his indiPerence. She was standing over the small sink in the corner, scrubbing at a blotch on her palm. Now she turned the tap oP, water trickling along the sides. “I was wondering where you had gotten to. Didn’t manage to catch Alisa out there, did you?”
Jiemin frowned. He sidestepped a second assistant hurrying around with a bundle of forms in the crook of her arm—someone at the hotel had wanted their own photographer on the scene, and now the group of assistants in the corner were arguing over whether they had permitted a front-row seat. It was an important matter. The Nationalists had chosen a location on Bubbling Well Road, a hotel that was smack-dab where the members of the highest social status usually mingled.
A few of the elite were hovering in the lobby when Rosalind poked her head out. It was easy to pick out the men in suits and the women in qipao among the reporters who Aocked close to the podium. Though they weren’t the primary targets of the tour, there would be plenty of intrigue among civilians. Rosalind was counting on it. Their interest made her indispensable. Their interest stitched
her into the papers in a way that would cause an outcry if her employers tried to tuck her away in retirement and bid her to hush.
“You can imagine my surprise when they yanked me back and made you my charge again,” Jiemin said.
“Really?” Rosalind used her wet 1ngers to slick back a strand of hair. “Because you asked for me to be decommissioned?”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
Back when he worked undercover at Seagreen as well, Jiemin always looked vaguely distracted, which was certainly one way to avoid being perceived as a threat. Rosalind could see now that it wasn’t a front: he was always like this, even while dressed in uniform, holding a position legions above what was expected at his age.
“Regardless…” With a harrumph, Rosalind walked over to the vanity mirror, then brushed oP some excess powder on her nose. “I don’t need a handler for this. You can rest easy.”
“Of course you need a handler,” Jiemin returned. “You cannot truly believe you are doing a public service, Lady Fortune. These reporters will tear you apart if given the chance.”
“I am well aware.” The room suddenly fell quiet. Her voice bounced back in
echo, its loud volume cutting through the other hubbub. Patience lived paper- thin inside her these days, always one wrong fold from scrunching into something unsightly. Her anger itched to turn ugly, begged to be let out at the slightest provocation.
One of the assistants cleared her throat. “Shall we—”
“Do you think,” Rosalind interrupted, “that I’m foolish enough to believe any of them out there like me? They would desire nothing more than to see me break into pieces so they can snap a picture and make it a headline: ‘What Finally Kills an Immortal Girl?’”
She could see her reAection out of the corner of her eye. When Rosalind turned to look, every snarl was plainly written on her expression. At once, she hardly recognized herself and saw herself more clearly than ever. She wasn’t enough of a fool to believe that she could have the world’s love, and yet she was enough of one to stick around wanting it anyway.
“Not a very creative headline,” Jiemin said drolly.
The clock struck three in the afternoon. It chimed rapid-quick to the rhythm of her thudding heart, each beat striking hard against her ribs.
“It doesn’t really matter what they write, does it?” Rosalind tried to smooth her rage away. “Until I am dead, I am still immortal and larger than life—larger than every single one of you within the Nationalists. If I say get in line for a sound bite, then the reporters will get in their little lines and let me speak.”
A knock came on the door. An assistant poked his head in, looked around to see the tense situation, and dropped his voice to whisper, “We’re ready.”
Rosalind ignored him. As did Jiemin. In silence, they only regarded each other until Jiemin said, “You’ve changed, Lang Shalin.”
The assistant cleared his throat again. Microphone feedback screeched once outside.
“I haven’t,” Rosalind said. “I have always been like this. I merely forgot who I was for some time.”
She brushed by, stepping through the door and into the lobby. The assistant led her out, arm extended to show her the path. Sound hummed around her like white noise. Soft golden light fell in all directions, beaming from the patterned light 1xtures on the high ceiling and the crystal Aower bulbs craning their necks in the corners. The thick support beams that dropped to the Aoor were made of polished marble and cut in perfect straight formation, blocking out parts of the crowd until Rosalind walked past them and came around the podium, realizing that the whole picture was so much more gargantuan than she had estimated. Though a grand piano sat in the middle of the lobby as a piece of functionary decoration, it was entirely swallowed up with Aocks on its every side.
A bulb Aashed. Rosalind smoothed down her qipao.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. Her voice boomed into the microphone, squealing against the speakers for a moment before clearing. “It has been such an endeavor to get before you today, but I pleaded and pleaded to the powers that be. Better this than hiding away inside windows some of you have tried to climb.”
Scattered laughter moved through the crowd. Her smile turned wider. Here was something else Rosalind Lang had forgotten: she was a born performer.
Before she was an agent, she had been a dancer. Before she was an assassin, the stage had been hers.
“Lady Fortune, why are you under their control?” someone yelled out.
Rosalind looked toward the voice. She didn’t know who had said it, but the approving mutter in the front-most rows meant it didn’t matter—it was everyone’s question.
“Listen very carefully,” General Yan had said when he’d agreed to her plan. “We have accepted your proposal for the well-being of the nation. But for it to succeed, there are certain criteria you must follow.”
“Very well,” Rosalind had returned evenly. She didn’t care about telling a few lies here and there. She didn’t care about anything as long as they sent her out.
“Most primarily”—General Yan leaned forward on his desk—“Lady Fortune emerged out of your own volunteering. Forget that there was ever sickness. We take Lourens Van Dijk out of the narrative. You became an agent for the Kuomintang, and you took on these abilities.”
Rosalind had nodded. Walked through the rest of the list of matters to memorize and change. Discarded what they told her to discard and adopted the lies they wanted told. Though she had always considered Fortune a part of her, Fortune was now being presented to the world just like another undercover identity, formulated for a purpose and designed for an end goal.
The microphone screeched again as Rosalind adjusted it. She leaned in closely.
“Control?” she echoed. “Let me clarify how my work began….”
They were enraptured by her narrative. The questions went on and on. At some point, Rosalind felt the approach of a presence behind her, and she knew that Jiemin had come along to signal the close of this session and 1nd an opportunity to withdraw her from the reporters. Clearly, they were not eager to let her go. They asked about her opinions on the city and her opinions of the foreigners. They asked how much truth there was to the collapse of the Scarlet Gang and the downfall of the White Flowers. No answer out of her mouth was the complete truth. Nor did any qualify as a full lie. Only a story, woven from fractured pieces.
Rosalind pointed at one more reporter.
“What about Hong Liwen?”
The lobby grew brighter. Her hands tightened on the podium. Jiemin cleared his throat. “I think it may be time to 1nish up now—”
“The media has had a dozen diPerent sources, but I know he’s innocent,” Rosalind answered. “In fact, the reason he’s even anywhere near the imperialist ePort is wholly because his traitor mother has captured him. Lady Hong used him to experiment with a concoction that will aid the Japanese in their invasion, and I still have the last vial of it—”
Her microphone cut oP. Jiemin took her shoulder and dragged her away from the podium, gesturing quickly for the assistants to hold the reporters back as they surged forward in excitement.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jiemin demanded under his breath. Rosalind barely caught his words. He marched her across the lobby at breakneck speed, cutting a line through the people and heading toward the front doors. “You said you gave the last vial to Alisa Montagova.”
“I did.”
Rosalind left it at that. She didn’t bother with smug, didn’t lift her nose. The single seed was planted. Now it needed to sprout before she got self- congratulatory.
Jiemin turned a brief glance at her. It was hard to read his expression.
They exited the hotel, greeted by another wave of Aashbulbs and a gust of winter air. Rosalind Ainched, but Jiemin yanked her shoulder roughly and pushed her into a waiting car. Seconds later, Jiemin got in from the other side. The chauPeur glanced back, saw that he had acquired his passengers, and pulled away from the sidewalk.
“Whatever you’re trying,” Jiemin said slowly, carefully, “you’re playing with 1re. You’re not on assignment anymore.”
Rosalind stayed quiet. What could she say in her defense anyway? Her ulterior motive was rather blatant.
Jiemin, after a few seconds, seemed to realize that telling her oP was not only a lost cause but embarrassing for both of them. The Nationalists weren’t going to pull the tour when they knew how useful it could be. Any threats he made
were empty. Any promises Rosalind made were lies. The car turned the corner onto Seymour Road.
“You ought to be very careful,” he eventually concluded. “We begin traveling in two days. I’ll be accompanying you on the journey.”
“All right,” Rosalind replied.
She shifted her gaze out the window. Shanghai shimmered in the afternoon light, mounds of dirty sleet collecting on some corners and hefty trash bags 1lled with excess stacked up on others. Each shop front winked an eye of mischief under the golden haze; hawkers ducked under their stall covers when the wind blew too cold, huffing into their palms to get their 1ngers moving again in the city winter.
Rosalind’s own hands curled in her lap, burrowing into her qipao skirt. If her plan succeeded, at some point in the countryside, Lady Hong would come after her with Orion in tow.
And then Rosalind was going to snatch him back where he belonged.
