“Why?” he rasped. He might have been echoing her. But Juliette knew he wasn’t—he was asking a question of itself.
Juliette’s hands came down harder, certain that if she just pressed enough, by sheer will she could close the wound, could stop the blood, could reverse the last minute of the world.
But even if she did, the city’s feud would still go on.
“Because—” Juliette said. Her voice was no louder than a bare whisper. Yet in the quiet of the alley, with only Tyler’s gasps, she was all that could be heard. “I love him. I love him, Tyler, and you tried to take him from me.”
Tyler exhaled. Something like a dry laugh shuddered from his lungs. “All you . . . had to do,” he said, “was . . . choose your people.”
Juliette’s jaw trembled. Nothing was ever as simple as “my people” and “your people,” but to Tyler, it was. He thought himself capable of rising to the top, thought himself worthy of being the next heir, but all he had ever done in his eighteen years was act off orders from the top, tainted by the hate that ran like poison through their lives. How could she fault him for that?
In that fleeting moment, Juliette closed her eyes and tried to remember a time before it all. A time when Tyler tossed her his apple before breakfast because she was hungry and her little fingers couldn’t reach the fruit bowl. When Tyler climbed onto the roof of the house to fix the electrical wiring and was hailed a hero by the household staff. When Juliette walked into his bedroom shortly after she’d returned from New York and found him curled into himself, crying over a picture of his father. He had slammed his door in her face, but she understood.
She had always understood.
By the time Juliette opened her eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry,” Tyler was already dead.
Thirty-One
Numbly, Juliette removed her hands from Tyler’s body. They were coated in red up to her wrists. Her fingers were wet, slick with the viscosity of blood.
For a long moment, the alley was quiet and still, frozen like a film that had become stuck on its reel. Then Alisa darted forward and flung herself at Roma, who opened his arms for her, his face shell-shocked. He stared at Juliette, Juliette stared at her hands, and the only one who seemed to have some sense remaining was Benedikt, who called, “Juliette, you should probably tell him now.”
A harsh, salt-soaked gust of wind blew at Juliette’s hair, obscuring her vision when she looked up. Some faint argument had broken out afar in tandem with dimly chiming bells—striking twelve times to signal noon, each echo adding to the white noise in her ears.
“Just my two cents,” Benedikt added softly.
Roma’s grip tightened on Alisa. He looked between Juliette and his cousin, his brow furrowing, still unable to erase the shock in his expression.
“What?” he managed faintly. His eyes shot to the corpses on the ground. “Tell me what?”
Juliette rose to her feet. It was a shaky effort. It was that feeling in dreams when she couldn’t push up from the ground, her bones as heavy as metal.
Only before Juliette could respond, she was interrupted by another voice—one that came from above, from the roof of the building pressing in on the alleyway.
“That she beat me to the shot.”
A blur of motion landed before her with a thump. Marshall Seo turned smoothly, as if he had not leaped down two stories, tugging off the cloth around his face and offering Roma a small smile.
Roma stared. And stared, and stared, and stared.
Then he ran at Marshall and hugged him so tightly that he had to thump his friend’s back to work off his excess energy. Marshall hugged Roma just as enthusiastically in return, not at all minding the attack.
“You died,” Roma gasped. “I saw you die.”
“Yes,” Marshall replied simply, “Juliette tried very hard to make sure of that.”
Suddenly, Roma released Marshall, his eyes snapping to Juliette. She could feel her distress emanating off her skin like a visible aura. She didn’t know how to stand or where to place her hands, didn’t know whether it was appropriate to try to rub the blood off or if she was to pretend she wasn’t occupying an alley with three White Flowers while all her Scarlets lay dead around her.
Roma’s mouth opened. Before he could demand an explanation, Juliette was already speaking, her eyes turned back to her hands. She couldn’t—couldn’t look at him.
“I had to.” Her voice cracked. “Tyler had to see your hatred. He would have destroyed us if he knew I—” Juliette broke off, her red fingers scrunching into fists. She hardly needed to elaborate. They had heard her. They all heard what she’d said to Tyler.
“Juliette.”
Juliette looked up. She lifted her chin and faked bravery, faked it like she faked every damn thing in her life—all to survive, and for what? To piece together some pathetic excuse of living surrounded by material goods and not a single shred of happiness. Her heart had never felt so heavy.
“It doesn’t matter,” Juliette said. “He can’t hurt us now, can he?”
Juliette turned away and started to walk. She could feel it—the shaking was already starting in her hands, and soon the tremors would shudder her chest, consume her whole body. She needed to leave before she could break, before her mind started to circle exactly what she had done here and how she would explain this away.
Tyler was dead. Tyler’s men were dead. The only person left to spin the tale was Juliette. She could say whatever she wanted, and the thought felt too big for her to comprehend.
“Juliette.”
Footsteps thundered after her. She picked up her pace a moment too late, a touch coming upon her wrist. Only as soon as Roma grabbed her arm, a horrific sound came from outside the alley, from North Suzhou Road, near the wide creek. They both ducked at once, heads turning toward the source.
“What was that?” Benedikt demanded. “Was that gunfire?”
The sound came again: a spray of bullets moving even closer. Like phantoms materializing from the mists, three men suddenly ran across the mouth of the alley—quickly enough that they did not sight Roma and Juliette standing there, but not so quick that Juliette couldn’t sight the red rags tied around their arms. It all seemed to happen in seconds. Where it had been quiet, the roads suspiciously empty like its business occupants were taking the day off, the city suddenly roared to life: shouting at every corner, and gunfire. Constant gunfire.
“It’s happening,” Juliette said in disbelief. Today was the twenty-first of March, by the Western calendar. “Revolution.”
“Where are they? Where are Juliette and Tyler?”
Kathleen peered down the second-floor banister, frowning at the sudden commotion. The front door slammed and the volume in the foyer increased, voices shouting atop one another. Lady Cai seemed to be giving instructions, but with so many other people speaking too, she had grown inaudible.
Kathleen hurried down the stairs. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Nobody paid her any attention. Lady Cai continued giving orders, her posture stick straight, her arms gesticulating—grouping men together and sending them out the door as if she were merely conducting some orchestral show.