At last Kathleen and Roma emerged from the restaurant, stepping back into the busyness of Chenghuangmiao. At the same moment, there was a shout from above, loud because of the broken window. A few late-night strollers glanced up but did not pause, paying no heed to the strange events that occurred in these places.
A bang. Tyler had freed himself.
“I’ll try to keep him distracted,” Kathleen said, already moving back in the direction of the restaurant. “Both of you, go!”
They didn’t need more prompting. Side by side, Roma and Juliette kept a steady, nonsuspicious pace until Tyler burst out from the building, bellowing into the night and asking for the intruder to show himself. By then enough time had passed that they had faded into the crowd and could pick up speed. Though there weren’t as many people here in the night as in the day, it was enough cover to blend in and step into an alleyway out of Tyler’s sight utterly.
“Come on,” Juliette whispered, forging ahead. The alley walls loomed alongside them, tall and foreboding. “Remember your bargain, Roma. Find me the Frenchman.”
“I will work as fast as I can,” Roma said from behind her. “I promise that—oomph!”
Juliette whirled around with a gasp, alarmed by Roma’s muffled shout. For a startling moment, she did not even think to draw a weapon. She could only wonder how Tyler had found them when she thought she’d lost him. She thought that he wouldn’t have been able to move through the crowds at such speed.
Then her vision focused, and she realized Roma was not being attacked; whoever had ahold of him was pressing a cloth to his face, and when Roma dropped to the ground, falling unconscious, the figure set him down without malice.
It was not Tyler who had found them.
It was Benedikt Montagov, who stood to his full height, pushing back the hood of his coat and walking toward her.
Tā mā de.
“I didn’t gauge you to be the type to murder your own cousin,” Juliette snarked, slowly inching back. If she bolted now, chances were that she could make a run for it. There was another alley across from this one, leading into a busier street that might give her shelter.
“He is only knocked out,” Benedikt replied coldly. “Because he could not do what needs to be done.”
The gun came out in an instant. He had not been holding it before, but then it was in his hand, the stark, sleek weapon glinting under the moonlight and only three paces away from being pressed directly to Juliette’s forehead.
There was no way out of this. There was no way Juliette could run fast enough without a bullet entering one body part or the other, and then she would bleed out here, like another one of the workers rioting for life. Benedikt was not like Roma. He had no hesitation with her life.
“Listen to me,” Juliette said very carefully, holding her hands up.
She imagined her brains blown upon the wall, pink and red smeared with the tiles. She would accept her death when it came someday, but not now, not under a false revenge that this Montagov cousin had taken upon himself.
Benedikt’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Don’t waste yourself on last words. I will not have it.”
“Benedikt Montagov, it’s not what you—”
“For Marshall,” he whispered.
Juliette squeezed her eyes shut. “He’s alive. He’s alive!”
The bullet did not come. Slowly, Juliette eased her eyes open again and found Benedikt with his arm slackened, staring at her in aghast disbelief. “I beg your pardon?”
“You fool,” Juliette said, the insult coming softly. “Do you not remember Lourens’s serum? In all this time, I have half expected one of you to realize the truth. Marshall Seo is alive.”
Twenty-Five
Benedikt didn’t put away his weapon as he followed Juliette through the city. He didn’t trust her. He couldn’t guess how she might sidle out of this, couldn’t pick out the clear sign of a lie when she had winced at Roma’s unconscious form in that alleyway and waved for Benedikt to walk alongside her, but there was plenty of time between now and wherever they were going for Juliette to run—or God forbid, retrieve her own weapon and shoot.
She didn’t pull out any weapon.
She only continued walking forward, her step certain, like she had walked this route a thousand times before. Benedikt was developing a tic in his cheek. He could hardly think long on what Juliette had said lest he lose his mind before he saw the truth for himself. He had the urge to smack his palm against something, to stamp his feet down until his shoes were in pieces. He did nothing. He only followed, obedient and blank-faced.
Juliette stopped outside a nondescript building, its exterior small and faded enough that it blended right into all the walls and windows nearby. There were three steps that went up into the building, and through the open entranceway, there was a single door pressed right by the entrance, two or three paces away from a staircase that continued winding up. Benedikt listened. Past the howl of the wind, there was very little to be heard. The upper levels of this building were likely vacant.
Benedikt jumped, the gun in his hand twitching, when Juliette plopped herself down upon a crate outside the apartment door.
“I’ll wait out here,” she said. “Door’s unlocked around these times.”
Benedikt blinked. “If this is a trick—”
“Oh, spare me! Just go in.”
His hand came down on the handle. For whatever reason—or for every reason, he supposed—his heartbeat was raging like a war drum in his chest. The door eased open, and he stepped into the dim apartment, eyes adjusting while the door clicked behind him on its own. For a moment he did not know what to look for: a stovetop, papers scattered on a table, a shelf, and then . . .
There. Like a goddamn specter raised from the dead, Marshall Seo was lounging on a shabby mattress. Hearing the intrusion in the room, Marshall casually glanced up from the wood carving he was working on, then did a rapid double-take, bolting to his feet.
“Ben?” he exclaimed.
He was paler. His hair was shorter, but uneven, as if he had taken a pair of scissors with his own hands and hacked away, doing a piss-poor job at the back.
Benedikt could not move, could not say anything. He gaped like a fish, all wide eyes and loose hanging mouth, staring and staring, because this was Marshall, alive and walking and right in front of him.
“Benedikt,” Marshall said again, nervously now. “Say something.”
Benedikt finally jolted to action. He picked up the nearest object he could find—an apple—and threw it at Marshall with all his strength.
“Hey!” Marshall yelped, jumping out of the way. “What gives?”
“You didn’t think to contact me?” Benedikt shouted. He picked up an orange next. It bounced off Marshall’s shoulder. “I thought you were dead! I mourned you for months! I slaughtered Scarlets in your name!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Marshall kept darting around, trying to avoid being target practice. “It had to be this way. It was too dangerous to tell you. Juliette’s reputation is on the line if this gets out—”
“I don’t care about Juliette! I care about you!”
Suddenly Benedikt and Marshall both froze—the former remembering that Juliette was still within hearing range and the latter realizing that she must be outside if Benedikt was here.