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Roma Montagov wasn’t the heir scheming in the shadows anymore. It seemed that he was sick of the city seeing him as the one slitting throats in the dark, the one with a heart of coal and the clothing to match. He looked like a White Flower. He looked like his father.
At this distance between them that she had willingly manufactured, because they had been born into two families at war, and she would rather die at Roma’s hand than be the cause of his death.
“Why do you pause?” Juliette mimicked bitterly. Softly, she set him down, brushing his mussed hair out of his face. “Because even if you hate me, Roma Montagov, I still love you.”
This time the chaos will take shape, grow jaws and sharp teeth, prowl the corners for any opportunity to attack. And it will have this city dance on its strings.
And she knew—she just knew—that this particular petal came from the peonies at the Montagov residence, from the back of the house where the petals shed from the high windowsills and settled into the muddy ground. Because five years ago, Juliette was the one tracking these all over the house.
Sometimes her father spoke to her as if he had truly forgotten that the real Kathleen was dead. Sometimes she wondered what would happen if she spoke the name “Celia” before him again.
I did this,
You told me you would choose me above all else, and then I did this to us.
“Roman Nikolaevich Montagov. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
There was a part of her that had always known that that was his true name, but the city had long forgotten it just like they had forgotten that hers was Cai Junli.
“Father,”
“I crave violence.”
She had to stop growing so fond of White Flowers. It would be the death of her.
Once, he would have burned the damn city to the ground just to keep her unharmed. Of course it was hard for him to hurt her now. It went against every fiber of his being. Every cell, every nerve—they had grown into place with one mantra: protect her, protect her. Even after knowing she had become someone else, even after hearing all the terrible things she had done in New York… she was still Juliette. His Juliette.
A revolution is never pretty. Nor is it clean, quiet, peaceful.
“Unless people are dying, I don’t care,”
“—we always end up here, don’t we?”
“Chasing lead after lead and inevitably circling back to where we started. We will continue asking around the French Concession, and when all roads lead to this vaccine facility, we will go, only to be pushed right back into the Concession. I can see it already. How easy it would be if we could just cut right to the end.”
For as long as Roma was Roma, there would be a part of him that could not fully believe Juliette would betray him, and he was right, but he could not know.
“These violent delights have violent ends,” Juliette whispered to herself. She tilted her head up to the clouds, to the light sea breeze blowing in from the Bund and stinging her nose with salt. “You have always known this.”
“If he is a White Flower,”
“then why does he look rather murderous toward you, too?”
“Perhaps he thinks I am prettier,”
“I don’t.” He was trembling with his fury. “I hate you.” And when Juliette didn’t recoil, Roma kissed her.
Only he knew that if he screamed I hate you, what he really meant was I love you. I still love you so much that I hate you for it.
Even if they were inexplicably bound to each other, he didn’t want the girl without the heart. He didn’t want Juliette without the love—love that wouldn’t cut. Love that wouldn’t destroy.
But in a city like theirs, that was impossible.
Like twin statues reaching for each other, they both fell asleep at last.
“How mighty you are,” he whispered quietly. “I am grateful that our roles are not switched, for I would have dove headfirst into the Huangpu should I be left in this world without you.”
“What, Benedikt? What could I possibly not get—”
“I loved him!”
“Jesus.”
“It’s Kathleen, actually, but I appreciate the holiness,”
“You’re clearly trying to kill me.”
“I’m obviously not very good at it because you remain alive, so stay still!”
Because I cannot bear to see you hurt, even when I am the one hurting you the most.
And any day now, the city will turn inside out, corrupted by the poison in its own seams.
“She’s the White Flower spy.”
But all she could think was: if Rosalind was whipped like this for leaking Scarlet information and protecting an ordinary White Flower, then what was Juliette’s fate if they were to ever find out about her past with Roma Montagov?
“I may think carefully and shoot you, or I may forget to think entirely and shoot you.”
“Teach me how one should forget to think,”
“That sounds like a feat most valuable.”
“How much easier it would have been,”
“if it had been you instead. How good you are. How noble.”
Astra inclinant, sed non obligant.
Because he had not made the illegal shot. Juliette had.
“I love him. I love him, Tyler, and you tried to take him from me.”
“This kindness is disconcerting,”
“Whatever turmoil exists in my heart, I deserve it.”
“What are you afraid of?”
