“Is that—”
Slowly, Juliette put up her hands, showing herself to be weaponless.
“I come unarmed,” she called. The crowd had fallen silent. Whatever Dimitri might have been in the midst of saying was cut off as he stared at her, eyes steely with consideration. To his side, Roma looked aghast. He did not speak, did not yell her name in horror. He knew that Juliette was up to something.
“Somehow, I find that hard to believe,” Dimitri said. He waved his hand. The nearest armed worker leveled his rifle at her.
“Pat me down and you’ll see I bring nothing. Only my life. In trade.”
Dimitri hooted with laughter. He threw his head back with the sound, drowning out the gasp that Roma made and the muttered confusion coming from Marshall.
“Miss Cai, what makes you think you have any trading power?” Dimitri demanded when he turned his attention back to her. “I can have you shot—”
“And then what?” Juliette asked. “Juliette Cai, Princess of Shanghai, killed by random worker. The textbooks on the revolution will be sure to mention it. I come to you, offering you my life side by side with my husband, and you throw it away?”
Dimitri tilted his head now. Her words registered.
“You mean to say—”
“I’m not trading my life for Roma’s,” she confirmed. “For Marshall Seo and Alisa Montagova. Let them go. They didn’t need to be dragged into this fight.”
“What?” Marshall exclaimed. “Juliette, you’re out of your mind—”
The nearest worker pressed his rifle into Marshall’s neck, shutting him up. Dimitri’s gaze, meanwhile, swiveled to his captured subjects, a notch appearing in his brow as he tried to consider the matter. He didn’t look like he was entirely buying it. Perhaps Juliette was not acting this right.
She met Roma’s gaze. He didn’t believe her either.
Perhaps the only way to convince Dimitri was to convince Roma first.
“I made a vow to you, Roma.” She took a step forward. No one stopped her. “Where you go, I go. I will not bear a day parted. I will take a dagger to my own heart if I must.”
Her shoes clicked down on the ground—on gravel, on tram-line metal, on a drain covering. With every step, the crowd continued to part and shuffle. There was confusion, hearing her words spoken to Roma, to her enemy. There was panic, not wanting to be caught in her path, fearful of her even when her hands were in the air, even with rifles pointed at her head from three different directions. It was as if she were partaking in the most bizarre wedding march, if the groom waiting on the other end of the aisle was Roma tied and bound for death.
“No,” Roma whispered.
“This city has been taken,” Juliette went on. The hitch in her voice was not feigned. The tears that rose to her eyes were not feigned. “All that is good is gone, or perhaps it never existed. The blood feud kept us apart, forced us onto different sides. I will not allow death to do the same.”
By then Juliette had come to a stop right before Roma. She could have tried to break him out in that moment, snatch a rifle and slash the sharp part over his rope bindings.
Instead, she leaned in and kissed him.
And from under her tongue, she pushed the vaccine into his mouth.
“Bite down,” she whispered, just before two of the armed workers yanked her away. The crowd around them murmured in utter bewilderment. This had been a public execution, and now it was appearing more like a ground for scandal.
Juliette whipped her hand out, closing her fingers around one of the rifle ends and pointing it straight at Dimitri. The workers scrambled to stop her, but Juliette wasn’t doing anything except keeping her hand near the barrel. She was nowhere near the trigger. The rest of the rifle remained strapped to the poor worker, who had frozen in confusion.
“You don’t know what I am capable of,” she said, her voice ringing loud in the night. “But I am honorable. Let them go. And I will not resist.”
The scene was still for a long moment. Then:
“I tire of these dramatics,” Dimitri announced. “Just tie her up. Let go of the other two.”
Alisa cried out softly in protest, her eyes drawn wide. Marshall, meanwhile, leaned forward with a vicious curse. His face would have been red with exertion if the light were better, wanting to fight Dimitri himself and put a stop to this.
“You cannot be serious. Juliette, you cannot trade your life. What’s wrong with you—”
Juliette said nothing. She said nothing as they untied Alisa and let her stumble away. She said nothing as Marshall was released from his bindings too, his expression utterly rattled, looking up at Juliette as they dragged her to the pole and looped her tightly to it. He was bouncing on his toes—a second away from lunging at Dimitri, all the armed workers be damned.
“You cannot be serious,” he said again. “You absolutely cannot—”
“Go, Marshall,” Roma said roughly. He didn’t know what he had swallowed, but he had to know now that it meant there was a plan. “Don’t make this all for nothing. Take Alisa and go.”
Go, Juliette wanted to add. Go, and Benedikt can explain everything.
Marshall visibly hesitated. Then he took Alisa’s hand and hurried away with her, charging through the crowd as if afraid that they would shoot him in the back as soon as he turned around. Juliette let out a breath when they disappeared from view.
She had almost been afraid they would shoot.
“And so this is how it ends.” A click of a pistol. Dimitri was loading in his bullets. “It shall truly be a new era.”
“Marshall!”
Marshall jolted, stopping dead in his tracks. He was breathing hard, the sound audible even before Benedikt tumbled out from the car. Marshall had never looked so horrified in his life. His expression flashed with surprise, then relief in sighting Benedikt, but it didn’t last long.
“Ben,” Marshall gasped. He hurried to him, clasping on to his hand. “Ben, Ben, we have to go help them. Roma and Juliette—”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Benedikt reassured him, smoothing his other hand against Marshall’s neck. “I’ll explain. Alisa, get in the car. We need to be ready.”
“Freed from Scarlets. Freed from White Flowers,” Dimitri continued.
Juliette started to count, wondering when Benedikt would make his move. Surely, soon. Surely, very soon.
“Instead,” Roma said, “it is a city ruled by monsters.”
One of the workers nudged his rifle hard into Roma’s head, shutting him up. Dimitri maintained a neutral stare. He was still pretending.
“What convenience that you bring it up,” Dimitri said. He looked the picture of innocence. “Then I shall reveal to the city that I present to it two gifts. The end of gangster tyranny, and—” He gestured to several bags on the ground by his feet. Juliette hadn’t noticed them before, but they looked like the sort used to store flour or rice, found in multitudes at the food markets. These were tied up at the ends with string, the cotton fabric looking like it would fray at any second to give way for whatever was bulging inside.
“—a vaccine, distributed to all who are loyal to me.”
A murmur spread through the crowd, and Juliette’s gaze flickered up with surprise. So that was how he was going to play it. Exactly as the Larkspur had done: set ruin on the people with one hand and offer salvation with the other.