“. . . forces?”
Juliette shifted forward, trying to hear more than a few snippets of each sentence. Fortunately, it was past dusk, and the purpling hour of the night obscured her strange position against the walls of the house. There weren’t many Scarlets around the house to catch her like this anyway. She had been sitting on the couch all afternoon, observing the quiet around her. For however many hours Juliette wasted away in the living room, dragging a sharp nail down the armrest, the front door had not opened once—no one coming in, no one going out.
In the twenty-four hours that had passed since learning Dimitri Voronin was the blackmailer, Juliette had assigned messengers to watch every corner of the city. Until Rosalind gave up a location, there was no way to seek Dimitri. Until the Nationalists actually acted, until the Scarlets acted, there was no way to know how the coming fight would unfold if Dimitri were truly going to unleash madness on behalf of the Communists. Lord and Lady Cai feigned ignorance. When Juliette gave them Rosalind’s accusation about the coming massacre, passed off as a rumor on the streets, her father had waved her off with assurances that this was nothing she needed to concern herself with. Which made no sense. Since when was the heir of the Scarlet Gang supposed to remain unconcerned? This was her job.
“. . . numbers . . . unknown.”
Juliette cursed under her breath, hooking her leg over the balcony when it sounded as though the meeting in Lord Cai’s office was ending. The thing was, she had been waiting to hear something—anything—from the eyes she had placed across the city. Scarlet messengers were commonly prone to false reports. Even when nothing was awry, the more dramatic ones who wanted to prove themselves always came in with a whisper or two picked up from unreliable sources.
Juliette was playing eavesdropper in her own house because she had received absolute silence. And silence didn’t mean the city had settled into peace and harmony. It meant the messengers weren’t reporting to her anymore. Someone—multiple someones—had clammed them up, and after all, there were only two people in this gang higher-ranked than her. Her parents.
“Have you seen Juliette?”
Juliette froze right in the middle of the guest bedroom. Slowly, when it seemed the conversation was only passing in the hallway, she crept forward to press her ear to the door.
“She was in the living room earlier, Lady Cai.”
For a second Juliette wondered if she was finally being summoned. If her parents were going to sit her down and explain what the Scarlet Gang was planning, assuring her that they would never collaborate with Nationalists if collaboration meant bathing their city in a wave of red.
“Ah, well. Her father asks to keep her away from the third-floor sitting room if you see her. We have a meeting.”
The voices faded. Juliette’s fists clenched tight before she even realized what she was doing, carving her nails deep into the skin of her palms. She could not fathom the meaning of this. Her mother was the one who told her time and time again that Juliette deserved to be heir. Her father was the one training her to take over, who summoned her into his meetings with politicians and merchants alike. What was different now?
“Is it me?” she whispered into the bedroom, her breath disturbing a fine layer of dust gathered on the wall. Juliette was a traitor. Juliette was a child. When push came to shove, maybe her parents had decided she wasn’t competent enough.
Or maybe it was them. Maybe whatever plans were being dreamed up behind closed doors were so horrid that they were too ashamed to pass them on.
Juliette pulled the door open, popping her head out. At the other end of the hallway, a group of gossiping relatives bade one another a good night and dispersed, parting ways like they were taking separate exits in a stage play. Only when the coast was clear did Juliette slink out, trekking down the stairs and poking her head into the kitchen, where Kathleen was skinning an apple.
“Hey,” Juliette said, leaning her elbows onto the counter. She switched to French, in case any maids were listening. “We need to do something.”
“And by something,” her cousin replied, thumb still working at the apple peels, “what are you referencing?”
Juliette’s gaze roamed around. The kitchen was empty, the hallways otherwise quiet. It was eerie for there to be so little noise, for the household to be absent of messengers dropping in and out. It made the mansion feel unwell, like some dark shroud had crept into the walls, muting sound and blocking sensation.
“I think we need to scare Rosalind,” Juliette said. “Juste un peu.”
The knife in Kathleen’s hands came to a stop. Her eyes flickered up. “Juliette,” she said sharply.
“I can’t sit around like this!” The days were counting down. The clock kept ticking forward. “I cannot claim to stop the Nationalists. I do not claim to have the power to stop a whole political movement. But we can stop Dimitri from making it worse. Rosalind is sitting on his location. I know it!”
When Juliette fell quiet, she was breathing so hard that her chest heaved up and down. Kathleen was unspeaking for a moment, letting Juliette put herself together again, before shaking her head.
“What does it matter, Juliette?” Kathleen asked quietly. “Don’t rush to answer me. Really ask yourself it first. What does it matter? Whatever is about to break out, what is one more element of chaos? It will be bullets against madness. Gangsters with knives against monsters with claws. It will be a fair fight.”
Juliette bit down on the inside of her cheeks. Of course it mattered. One life was one life. One life did not become forgettable merely because it was lost in the masses. She wouldn’t regret the lives she had taken, but she would remember them.
Before Juliette could say so, however, she was interrupted by the quiet groan of the front door opening. Its hinges squealed despite the messenger’s effort, and when Juliette rushed into the living room, his wince was immediate.
It was dusk. The house was dim with shadows. Nevertheless, Juliette immediately zeroed in on the letter the messenger held, marching his way.
“Give me that.”
“I’m sorry,” the messenger said. He attempted a firm tone, but his voice shook. “This isn’t for you, Miss Cai.”
“Since when has anything,” Juliette exclaimed, “in this house been not for me?”
The messenger resolved not to answer. His lips thinning, he simply tried to push by, heading for the staircase.
When Juliette was twelve, she had felt a sudden flare of pain inside her abdomen while watering the flowers over her Manhattan window. The feeling had spread like an internal invasion, had felt so hot and severe that she’d dropped the watering can with a spasm—watched it fall and smash to pieces on the pavement four stories below when she crumpled to the floor. Later, they would tell her that her appendix had ruptured, had refused to keep on functioning and had torn a hole in its own wall, pushing infection into the rest of her body.
That was what her anger felt like now. Like something had died, and now its vicious pus and poison had burst inside of her.
Juliette unwound the garrote wire from her wrist. In one lunge, she had it around the messenger’s throat, silencing his cry before it could escape.
“The letter, Kathleen.”
Kathleen snatched it quickly, and Juliette held on to the stranglehold for just a second longer until the messenger slumped. The moment he did, Juliette loosened the wire and let the messenger collapse in unconsciousness. By then Kathleen was already reading the letter. By then her hand was pressed over her mouth, so much horror in her eyes that she could have been a painting rendered by tragedy.