Foul Heart Huntsman (Foul Lady Fortune, #2)

by Chloe Gong

The easiest way to disappear was to never disappear fully, always hovering right at the periphery of being caught, responding in an instant when there was movement. It was hard to fall into a trap if you were the one setting the bait. Hard to be taken unaware when you drew the whole game board.

To disappear well was to partake with her surroundings, to understand their rhythm and reasons instead of hiding and hoping she wasn’t seen as an ill-fitting intrusion.

“At least give the dagger back.” “I have claimed it,” Alisa said without turning around. She gripped it tightly in her hand, a smile tugging at her lip. “Go take it up with my sister-in-law herself if you want to argue otherwise.”

books. The shirt was warm on her shoulders. It felt safe in a way that her own clothes didn’t, as if Orion were still around, making a racket through the apartment.

As false as their marriage had been, Orion Hong had molded himself onto her like an extra attachment of the flesh. Being cut away wasn’t something she would eventually get used to: it was an invisible wound that refused to close like her bodily ones did, and the damage had been carved into the deepest part of her heart. If she pulled her ribs open to look at the organ, she could point to its exact site… at last, an injury that wasn’t healing over at rapid speed. If she didn’t get him back, eventually she would bleed out entirely.

She wanted to love more than her city; she wanted the love that had been wholly hers for that gasp of a moment. Given the choice between the two, she had her suspicions about which one she would run toward.

“I reject that,” Rosalind whispered. Her voice shook, barely audible to herself, never mind to General Yan. “He loved me, and I left him.”

Her heart had been hurting long before these bullets. It would keep on hurting even after this bullet was pushed out too, landing as emphatically as a teardrop shaped like death.

“You know, Oliver”—Celia slapped her hand down, leaning forward—“it is really hard to provoke my temper, but somehow you are incredibly good at it.” The faintest hint of a smile tugged at his lips. “I have missed you quite fiercely.”

“I haven’t missed you in the slightest.” Lies. A whole mouthful of lies.

“What is it that they say about siblings?” she grumbled, waving Oliver along and gesturing that they could hurry now. The sun was going down soon. Night falling in cover for operatives to fetch their battle gear and return to the intelligence field. “We can’t pick the ones we need to chase across province lines.”

But people were more complicated than how political allegiances looked on paper; people protected one another in ways that made no sense and held on to larger beliefs even while committing smaller infractions along the way.

That’s something to remember about men: the trickiest ones know how to hide their temper, so one should never assume the absence of anger equates kindness.

Patience lived paper-thin inside her these days, always one wrong fold from scrunching into something unsightly. Her anger itched to turn ugly, begged to be let out at the slightest provocation.

“You’ve changed, Lang Shalin.” The assistant cleared his throat again. Microphone feedback screeched once outside. “I haven’t,” Rosalind said. “I have always been like this. I merely forgot who I was for some time.”

The thought didn’t make her feel any better though. On the contrary, she felt so much worse knowing that her handler had loved her—he had cared about her enough to write those words and mean them, and he had still left. What more did it take, then? What hope did any other love in this world have?

Her system only knew that something was wrong and it wanted some way to expel its hot panic, but the poison wasn’t an illness in her body; it was an exhaustion in her mind. She was so angry. She was so sad.

“In proper society, I wouldn’t be killing people for a job, either, but I suppose we can’t be fussy during times like these.”

“Well, for her sake, I hope she’s not in love with him,” Celia muttered. “It can only make everything a dozen times more complicated.” “For Orion’s sake, I hope she is,” Oliver countered. “Maybe it’ll save him when nothing else will.”

The truth was that he needed her. At every waking moment, if there was nothing dependent on him, then he might crumble into dust and ash.

He didn’t even know how to describe Phoebe. An ever-expanding supernova. A hurricane that changed worlds and remade them.

She wasn’t afraid of him; she was terrified that she wasn’t going to get him back, that he had been pulled too far away to reach. In her plans, she had envisioned rescuing Orion to be as simple as meeting his eyes and convincing him to leave with her.

“You are nobody.” “Excuse me?” A wave of irrational anger overrode the pain of her landing. “I am your wife.”

The loudest piece of her former handler that suddenly echoed into the gardens was: She stops at nothing to do what’s right. I’m proud of her.

“I don’t suppose she’s just trying to kill me. She’s had nineteen years in the same household as me and five years with an enemy faction to try.”

“Rosalind, do something!” Alisa screamed. With one yank, she was hauled off the top of the car and roughly onto the gravel. “I’m out of bullets!” “I’m”—Rosalind grasped frantically through her hair—“trying!” “Try harder!” “Alisa, that is so unhelpful!”

Alisa let out a shriek. Rosalind stiffened, except when Alisa ran forward and launched herself at the stranger, she realized it wasn’t a sound of alarm but sheer delight. “Oh my God,” the man said. He wrapped his arms around Alisa tightly, holding her up. “Oh my God, Alisa, you’re so big now.” He was speaking Russian. And his voice sounded… familiar. Slowly, Rosalind turned to the woman. Holy shit. She was seeing ghosts. The woman yanked the square of fabric off her face. “Biǎojiě,” Juliette Cai said, grinning. “Don’t you recognize me anymore?”

“Don’t move too much. I stitched you up as well as I could, but Roma said it looks like I attempted abstract art on your shoulder.”

Juliette Montagova. Arisen from the dead and bearing a solution.

“You got used, Rosalind. What is love if you are not cared for in return? It doesn’t matter how thoroughly you choose it.”

“And I forgave you,” Juliette cut in, her hands coming around to grasp Rosalind’s shoulders, “a long, long time ago. Even if I were dead, you made a mistake, and then you needed to pick yourself back up to live for me. What else is there to do? Do you expect to repent forever?”

They had always possessed the same expressions, though painted with different color palettes.

“I couldn’t keep tugging your sleeve my whole life, and I couldn’t bear it if I had lost my mind entirely. So I went back to Shanghai and I imagined you out here. I went back to Shanghai and I never left, because if I left, how the hell would you be able to

“I would have found you anywhere.” He reached forward. Tugged that piece of her hair, then tucked the curl behind her ear. “Across the world and under it. No matter how well you hide. It doesn’t matter where you go. I’ll always find you. Understand?”

If Oliver was resolved to become their torture subject, Celia was going to raise a damn battalion to insist otherwise.

“I’m going to kill you,” Celia muttered, clambering out from the floorboards. “I’m going to save you, and then I’m going to kill you. Cut you into tiny chunks. I’ll feed you to the fish.”

Celia felt like she had left the house and forgotten to put on clothes. Like she had marched into war without a shield. Oliver missing from her side was an appalling feeling.

“Those two are backstory. Forget about them.” “Ouch,” Roma said at the door. “We’re sensitive,” Juliette added.

“If you saw a candle burning underneath a curtain about to catch on fire, wouldn’t you move it?” “What if it’s not a candle?” Alisa returned just as quickly. “What if it’s a pipe that overheats in the winter and can’t be plucked out without renovating the whole house?” “Then we should renovate the whole house,” Rosalind countered. “But you’re not a renovator,” Alisa said. “You don’t have a renovating license.” “You might as well just safely fireproof the curtains,” Orion added.

Nature was acting witness to her confession, jotting down her words onto its tree bark, and maybe someday, centuries later, those who looked hard enough at the weeping willow could bear witness to her wrongdoings too.

“It was nice to be asked, actually,” she whispered in defeat. “It was nice to be all that you needed, even if it was for one moment, for one decision regarding a mere tie.”

“Do you want to know what I think?” She looked down at her hands. Blood-lined, terror-inducing hands. “It’s easier to save the world, actually. Easier than saving myself. Easier than trying to save you. I’m not trying to prove a point by going after your mother. She’s just the only threat I can fight. Everything else… Everything else feels like a lost cause most days. Eventually I’ll destroy myself. Eventually you’re going to leave.” All of a sudden, Orion lifted his head, his eyes wide open like he had never been asleep. “I’m not going to leave.”

“I was waiting for you,” he said quickly. “I didn’t want to startle you, so I was waiting for you to come back. Don’t go.”

Now there was a bewildering battle in Rosalind’s head, because he had grown on her so thoroughly that it physically ached to be near him without reaching out and touching his face—and yet it wasn’t this Orion who had grown on her, so how could she reconcile the two split images?

believed you when you called yourself my friend,” he said slowly. “But that is not all, is it?”

“Beloved.” Orion blinked. “Beloved?” “That was what you called me,” she said. “Not Rosalind. Beloved.”

wondered whether it might be you.” Alisa gave him a look askance. “How could I be a sharpshooter when my aim is shit? You never taught me.”

“But you are going on this rescue.” “Of course.” “Then I must as well,” Orion concluded. “You are my side. It is not betrayal.”

He was making his decision under the assumption that they were one combined unit, choosing not by reason but by his faith in her. How could he trust her so easily? What had she done to deserve it, especially now, when he didn’t even remember her?

It wasn’t that either of them made him feel deficient on purpose—but in comparison to two people who possessed attitudes capable of shaking the world, Silas had always wondered what use he was if he couldn’t achieve the same.