Rosalind blinked, taken aback by the switch in topic. “This?” She pulled at the chain, and out came the silver, dangling with a plain strip of metal at the end. “It’s nothing special.”
A feeling prickled the hairs at the back of Juliette’s neck—a peculiar anxiety that she couldn’t quite place.
“I just never see you with jewelry.” She scanned her cousin’s desk again, then the shelf space above, where Rosalind’s loose knickknacks sat. Short of a few earrings, she sighted little else. “Imperial women used to own mounds upon mounds of jewelry, you know. They were seen as vain, but it wasn’t that. It was because it was easier to run with jewelry than it was with money.”
The clock on the mantel gave a loud chime. Juliette almost jumped, but Rosalind only quirked her left eyebrow.
“Biǎomèi,” Rosalind sighed. “I’m not a merchant that you need to speak in metaphors with. I’m not going to run. The whole reason I’m picking up after my father is because I have no interest in leaving.” She splayed her hands. “Where would I even go?”
There were plenty of places to go. Juliette could list them, by distance or by English alphabet. By safety or by likelihood of being found. If Rosalind had never considered it, then she was the more righteous person here. Because Juliette had, even if she could never actually carry it out.
“I don’t know” was all Juliette said, her voice faint. The clock chimed again to mark the first minute of the hour passing, and noting the time, Juliette quickly stood, feigning a yawn. “Anyway, good talk. I will retire now. Don’t stay up too late, all right?”
Rosalind waved her off, casual. “I can sleep in tomorrow morning. Bonne nuit.”
Juliette slipped out from the room and, after closing her cousin’s door, retrieved her basket. Rosalind’s words had left her uneasy, but she tried to push the apprehension down, to swallow and repress it as she did with all things in this city that needed to be dealt with, for otherwise one might implode with all that rested on their shoulders. With a quick pitter-patter, Juliette hurried through the rest of the house and out the front door, easing it shut with a quiet click.
“The things I do,” she muttered to herself. The moon glowed overhead, lighting the driveway. “And for what? To get a gun held to my head, that’s what.”
She slid into the car, waking the chauffeur, who had been snoozing at the driver’s seat.
“Hold out for a little longer, could you?” Juliette said. “I would really prefer not to crash.”
“Don’t worry, Miss Cai,” the chauffeur chirped, immediately sounding more awake. “I’ll get you to the burlesque club safely.”
That’s where the chauffeur thought she went when she took these midnight trips every week. He would idle in front of the burlesque club, and Juliette would slip in then out through the back, trekking the rest of the distance to the safe house. It usually took her no longer than half an hour before she would return, sliding into the car again. The chauffeur would drop her home, and then he was off to his own apartment so he could take his rest before his next early-morning shift, and everyone in the Scarlet Gang would be none the wiser to what Juliette was up to.
Juliette poked her head into the front seats. “Have you eaten?”
The chauffeur hesitated. “There was a short break at six—”
There was already a bun floating beside him, dangling in its bag. Juliette had extra from the many she’d bought off the street cart earlier, and unless Marshall Seo could eat five in two days, they would go bad.
“It’s a little cold,” Juliette said when he took it gingerly. “But it’ll go colder the longer it takes for us to reach our destination, where you can eat it.”
The chauffeur hooted a laugh and pressed the car faster. They rumbled through the streets—busy as ever, even at such an hour. Each building they passed was flooded with light, women in qipao ignoring the winter cold and leaning out their second-floor windows, waving their silk handkerchiefs into the breeze. Juliette’s coat, meanwhile, was long enough to completely cover the dress she had on beneath, thick enough to hide the shapelessness of those American designs.
At last they arrived a distance away from the burlesque club, where they always parked to avoid the stream of men coming and going from the front doors. The first time, the chauffeur had offered to walk Juliette, but his offer dried up as soon as Juliette removed a gun from her shoe and set it in the passenger seat, telling him to shoot if he was ambushed. It was easy to forget who Juliette was when she was lounging in the back seat, inspecting her nails. It was harder when she clambered out and put on her heiress face to combat the night.
“Lock the doors,” Juliette ordered, holding her basket with one hand and rapping on the window with the other. The chauffeur did so, already biting into the bun.
Juliette started forward, keeping as close to the shadows as she could. The fortunate part of the winter season was a lack of observers: people did not like looking up for too long with the wind prickling at their eyes, so they walked staring at their shoes. Juliette never had much trouble making her way to the safe house, but tonight she was on edge, glancing over her shoulder once every few seconds, paranoid that the noise she heard some street over was not the last tram rumbling to its stop but a car trailing her just out of sight.
She blamed all that talk about spies.
“It’s me,” Juliette said quietly, finally arriving at the safe house and knocking twice. Before her fist had even finished coming down the second time, the door was opening, and instead of welcoming her in, Marshall leaned out.
“Fresh air!” he said, dripping with theatrics. “How I thought I would never experience it again!”
“Hajima!” Juliette snapped, pushing him back inside.
“Oh, we’re speaking Korean now?” Marshall stumbled from Juliette’s shove, but he recovered fast, shuffling into the apartment. “Just for me? I’m so honored.”
“You are so annoying.” Juliette shut the door, pulling the three locks. She set the basket down onto the table and hurried to the window, peering through the thin crack between the boards nailed to the glass. She didn’t see anything outside. No one was coming for them. “I’m going to kill you a second time just to see how you like it.”
“It might be fun. Make sure to shoot me so it’s symmetrical with the other bullet scar.”
Juliette spun around, putting her hands on her hips. She glared at him for a long moment, but then she couldn’t help it. The smile slipped out.
“Ah!” Marshall shrieked. Before Juliette could shush him, he was already lunging at her, picking her lithe frame off the ground and spinning her around until her head was dizzy. “She shows emotion!”
“Cease immediately!” Juliette screeched. “My hair!”
Marshall set her down with a steady thump. He held on to her even once she was on her own feet again, his arms splayed along her shoulders. Poor, touch-starved Marshall Seo. Maybe Juliette could find him a stray cat.
“Did you bring me alcohol this time?”
Juliette rolled her eyes. Finding the room to be too dark, she wordlessly tossed Marshall her lighter so he could light an extra candle while she brought out the food, unwrapping fruits and vegetables at rapid speed. In the weeks that Marshall had been hunkered down here, they had worked together to get the water running again without horrendous rumbling in the pipes and the gas connected so that Marshall could cook. In honesty, Juliette didn’t think this was a bad living situation. Disregarding the whole legally dead situation, that was.