It was her mother’s turn to resist an eye roll. “Very well. Selin? Are you eyeing any fabric you’d like me to snatch up for you?”
Kathleen smiled, and though Juliette had been flippant through this whole conversation, her cousin seemed genuinely touched to be asked.
“That’s kind of you, Niāngniang, but I have enough garments in my wardrobe as it is.”
Lady Cai sighed. “All right, then. If that is how you ladies choose to live.” She turned on her heel and was on her merry way, brisk and quick. Except she had left Juliette’s door wide open.
“I swear my mother does this on purpose,” Juliette said, rising to close the door. “She’s far too smart to actually forget that—”
A disturbance wafted into the hallway. Juliette stopped, inclining her ear out.
“What is it?” Kathleen asked.
“Sounds like yelling,” Juliette replied. “Perhaps from my father’s office.”
Right on cue, Lord Cai’s office door flew open. The volume grew infinitely louder, and Juliette frowned, digesting what the argument was actually about.
“Oh, wonderful.” She reached into the back of her dress, feeling around amid the fabric at her shoulder blades. There, where the loose stitching dipped into a little hollow to accommodate a sash of black that trailed to her legs, she dug out her pistol. “I’ve just been dying to thwack a Nationalist lately.”
“Juliette . . . ,” Kathleen warned.
“I’m kidding.” But she didn’t put the pistol away. She merely waited by the doorway, watching the Nationalist march out with her father closely behind him. This was a different Nationalist from the many she had already seen coming and going from the office. A lesser-known officer with fewer medals pinned to his chest.
“You have free rein because you’re supposed to keep this city in check,” he shouted. “Until the National Revolutionary Army comes and swallows the Beiyang government for the Kuomintang, there is only you. Until we may install a central force so that power in Shanghai is not a game of bribing police officers and militia forces, then there”—he started punctuating each word with a stab of his finger into the wall—“is—only—you.”
Juliette’s grip twitched. Again, Kathleen gestured furiously for her to put the gun down, but Juliette only pretended not to see. How foolish of the Nationalist to put the Scarlets in their place by reminding them of what was coming. The Scarlet Gang wouldn’t possibly cooperate with a future where they bent to the will of a government . . .
. . . Would they?
Juliette looked at her father. He did not appear offended or otherwise irritated.
“Yes, you have made that point very clearly,” Lord Cai said, his voice wry. “The front door is that way.”
The Nationalist ignored him. “What am I supposed to report to my superiors about the state of this city? When Chiang Kai-shek asks why Shanghai is under attack again, what am I supposed to say?”
“It is no concern,” Lord Cai said evenly. “This is no longer an epidemic; this is one blackmailer. Once we figure out who is responsible, we can stop this.”
“And how are you to do that? By paying the blackmailer more and more each time? I’ll say this, Lord Cai: on behest of the government, you are not to grant this last request.”
Juliette was ready, her mouth already half-open to jump in with outrage, but her father was faster.
“We will not fulfill this demand. But you must know there will be an attack.”
“So put a stop to it.” The Nationalist pulled at his jacket, huffing out an angry breath. He took his leave, hurrying down the stairs in rapid motion. With each step, his badges and medals glimmered under the overhead lights, soft golden light reflecting off the edges of decoration that spoke of such valor and bravery in battle—but Juliette had only witnessed today a frightened foot soldier.
“What did he mean?” Juliette called over.
Lord Cai turned suddenly, his jaw twitching the smallest fraction. That was the closest Juliette would ever get to startling her father.
“You didn’t want to go shopping with your mother?” he remarked, peering over the banister one last time before returning to his office.
Juliette made a disgruntled noise, shoving her pistol back into her dress and mouthing to Kathleen that she would not be gone for long. Before her father could close the office door again, Juliette sprinted down the hallway, sliding in just as he was pushing at the handle.
“You didn’t tell me there was another demand,” Juliette accused. It had hardly been three days since the last. The previous ones had had weeks in between.
“And you are eerily fast for someone who never gets any exercise.” Lord Cai sat down at his desk. “A few walks in the park would be good for your health, Juliette. Otherwise you will be like me and have clogged arteries at old age.”
Juliette thinned her lips. If her father was diverting the topic this outrageously, it had to be something bad. He had a letter in front of him on his desk, and when she reached for it, Lord Cai moved it out of the way, shooting her a look of warning.
“It is not from the blackmailer,” he said.
“Then why can’t I see it?”
“That’s enough, Juliette.” Lord Cai folded the letter in half. Something in her gaze must have looked ready to argue, because her father did not bother taking on a stern tone; nor did he try ordering her out of his office by command. He simply relinquished and said, “Weapons. They want military weapons this time.”
Whatever Juliette had been expecting, it wasn’t that. She blinked, dropping into the seat opposite her father. These few months, they had been fulfilling the demands, hoping that the blackmailer would go away once they had siphoned enough and could run. But it was clear as day now that they weren’t in it for the money. They were here to stay, for whatever endgame.
Why military weapons? Why so much money?
“That’s why the Nationalist was so stoutly against giving in to the demand this time,” Juliette said aloud, connecting the dots. “The blackmailer is building something. They’re gathering forces.”
It didn’t make sense. Why gather guns when you had monsters?
“It could be for a militia,” Lord Cai said. “Perhaps to aid a workers’ rebellion.”
Juliette wasn’t so sure. She chewed on the inside of her cheeks, focusing on the harsh sting of her teeth biting down.
“It just doesn’t seem to add up,” she said. “The letters are coming from the French Concession, but beyond that, this is Paul Dexter’s work. Whoever has control of the monsters now, whoever had the mother insects, which began the infection, he gave them over.” Juliette thought back to the letter Kathleen had found. Release them all. That was the hurdle she simply could not cross. If Paul Dexter had had a partner in this all along, how did she not know? She may not have paid him that much attention while he pursued her, but surely for someone as important as a mission partner, he would have dropped a name at some point.
“Therein lies the rub,” her father remarked evenly.
Juliette slammed her hands down on the desk.
“Send me into the French Concession,” she said. “Whoever this is, I can find them. I know it.”