“Yes, well,” Roma Montagov said, “given that it is Juliette, I am sure it will be loud and obvious.”
An unbidden sound of amusement escaped from Kathleen, and though she clamped down on it immediately, Roma’s expression twitched too—not entirely enough to qualify as amused, but certainly not stoic, either. Kathleen’s inappropriate levity turned to scrutiny. As they fell into a taut, waiting silence, she bit her lip, fighting the urge to speak further. This was far from the first time she had observed Roma Montagov and Juliette working together despite their multiple attempts to kill the other. And if Juliette would not say anything about why . . .
“I hope,” Kathleen said, unable to resist the temptation, “you understand that Juliette is doing you a great favor.”
Roma immediately scoffed. “There are no favors in this city. Only calculation. You heard what she said to your sister, did you not?”
Kathleen had. There is an incredible amount of difference between killing an enemy too soon and killing them when the time is right. And it seemed she was the only one who had heard the hitch in her cousin’s voice that indicated she was lying. How strange it was. Both that Roma Montagov seemed angered by Juliette’s intent to destroy him and that Kathleen could see Juliette didn’t intend to at all.
“She is saying what she thinks Rosalind wants to hear.”
Roma frowned. “I do doubt that.”
Kathleen tilted her head. “Why?”
This time Roma really did laugh. It was a disbelieving sound, like Kathleen had asked him if it were possible to breathe without air.
“Miss Lang,” he said, his voice still soaked with incredulity, “in case you forgot, Juliette and I are blood-sworn enemies. You and I, too, are blood-sworn enemies.”
Kathleen looked at her shoes. They were getting dusty, picking up the weird bits and pieces always littered about the sidewalks.
“I do not forget,” she said quietly. She bent down to wipe at the strap across her heel. “I used to think this feud could be stopped if both gangs would just understand each other. I used to draw so many plans to send to Juliette when she was in America. So many things we could say, we could propose, we could put into effect so the White Flowers would see that we were people who didn’t deserve to die.”
She straightened up. There was still no cue from Juliette. Only a dark, foreboding building, rumbling with confusion as some of the restaurant patrons wandered outside. Roma lowered his hat to avoid recognition, but he was listening.
“Only it’s not that, is it? It was never the problem of alienation. It doesn’t matter how deeply we tell the White Flowers of our pain. You know. You have always known, because you tell us of your pain too.”
Roma cleared his throat. “Isn’t that the whole point of a blood feud?” he finally asked in response. “We are equals. We do not try to colonize the other, as the foreigners have done. We do not try to control the other. It is only a game of power.”
“And isn’t that mightily tiring?” Kathleen demanded. “We destroy each other because we wish to be the only ones in this city, and we care little how much the other will hurt. How do we live like that?”
Silence. Roma’s expression was tight, like he suddenly couldn’t remember how he got pulled into this conversation. Above them, the clouds were blowing in, gathering with thickness to prepare for what would be a storm.
“I am sorry.”
Now it was Kathleen’s turn to blink. “Whatever for?”
“For not having a solution, I suppose.”
Was he really, though? How could any of them truly be sorry when they did nothing to stop it?
“It is no good to be sorry,” Kathleen said plainly. She knew clear as day that Juliette had realized this a long time ago. That was why her cousin had never put into effect any of her plans. Why her cousin had always brushed the topic away, had resisted from engaging directly, speaking of her parties and speakeasies instead in her letter replies. “So long as the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers have hope for a future where they are the only mighty power, the blood feud lives on.”
Roma Montagov shrugged. “Then there is a solution. Destroy the gangs.”
Kathleen lurched, almost colliding with the wall that they stood alongside. “No,” she said, horrified. “That might be worse than having a blood feud.”
That would be unending grappling, rulers ousted at every turn or politicians who lied at every moment. No one would be as loyal to this city as gangsters were to it. No one.
It was then that the sound of smashing glass interrupted Kathleen’s train of thought, and her gaze whipped up to find a book falling through one of the third-floor windows. There was a shout from inside the building, then a whole series of footsteps thundering up—a voice that sounded like Tyler calling for backup.
“There is our cue,” Roma Montagov said, already striding for the entrance.
Heart pounding, Kathleen made to follow, goose bumps rising at the back of her neck. She was always on edge when she had to perform tasks that could get her in trouble, and breaking into their own Scarlet labs was certainly more troublesome than going undercover at Communist meetings.
“Best to hurry,” Kathleen warned. “There’s no telling how long Juliette can hold Tyler’s attention away for.”
They descended into the lab quickly. It was pitch-dark. Kathleen squinted in haste to avoid colliding with a worktable, her hands groping about to find her way. Roma did not seem to have the same problem, pulling a small burlap sack from his coat and using the thinnest stream of moonlight coming from the windows to light his way. He made fast work of taking samples from the mountain in the center of the lab. The texture was as malleable as clay, as light as dust.
“Miss Lang, where are the papers?”
Kathleen wrinkled her nose, still squinting without much success. “They made almost a dozen copies, so they’re all around us. Just make sure you find a complete set, not duplicates of the same page.”
Roma set down the burlap sack and dug into his pocket again, coming out with a small box in his hand. Kathleen didn’t register what he was doing until there was a whoosh! sound and a flame burst to life between his fingers, eating up the matchstick.
“Are you mad?” Kathleen hissed. “Put that out! The vaccine is flammable.”
With a grimace, Roma pinched the match out. “No fuss,” he said. He reached for a stack of papers right beside him. “I think I’ve got it.”
Kathleen huffed, wiping a thin sheen of sweat from her forehead. She had had one job—to watch him—and this place had almost gone up in flames.
Above them, there came the rumbling of more footsteps. The sound of glass shattering again echoed inside the building, and then, almost scaring the life out of Kathleen, a fast tapping came on the windows to the lab. When her gaze whipped to the moonlight, she found Juliette gesturing frantically for them to hurry.
“You have everything?” Kathleen asked Roma.
Roma gestured to the materials in his hand. “Thank you for aiding a White Flower break-in, Miss Lang.”
Juliette waited outside impatiently, half thinking that it would be Tyler emerging before Kathleen and Roma did. The timing could ruin this whole scheme. All it would take was Tyler freeing himself from the bonds that she had secured over him, bonds that she had secured rather hastily after attacking him from behind with a bag over his head. Time had been of the essence: it was more important for her to get out than it was to keep him tied down all night.