The matter was, even if he indulged her now, Lord Cai was only pretending to be concerned about an alleged madness. Juliette could tell—this was child’s play atop the already monstrous list plaguing her father’s attention. After all, who would care for rumors of strange creatures rising from the waters of this city when the Nationalists and Communists were rising too, guns poised and armies ready to march?
“And that was all Roma Montagov revealed?” Lord Cai finally asked.
Juliette flinched. She couldn’t help it. She had spent four years recoiling at the mere thought of Roma that hearing his name aloud—spoken from her own father, no less—felt like something improper.
“Yes.”
Her father tapped his fingers on the table slowly.
“I suspect he knows more,” Juliette continued, “but he was careful.”
Lord Cai fell into silence once again, allowing the noise around him to lull and pick up and fall. Juliette wondered whether his mind was elsewhere at this very moment. He had been terribly blasé at news of the White Flower heir on their territory, after all. Given how important the blood feud was to the Scarlet Gang, it only showed how much more consequential politics had become if Lord Cai was barely giving Roma Montagov’s infraction any serious consideration.
Before her father had the chance to resume speaking, however, the swinging doors to the kitchen slammed open, the sound ricocheting so loudly that the aunt seated next to Juliette knocked her cup of tea over.
“If we suspect the White Flowers have more information than we do, what are we doing sitting around discussing it?”
Juliette gritted her teeth, mopping the tea from her dress. It was only Tyler Cai who entered, the most irritating among her first cousins. Despite their shared age, in her four years away, it was as if he hadn’t grown up at all. He still made crude jokes and expected others to kneel before him. If he could, he would demand the globe turn in the other direction simply because he thought it was a more efficient way to turn, no matter how unrealistic.
“Do you make a habit out of eavesdropping at doors instead of coming in?” Juliette sneered, but her scathing remark went unappreciated. Their relatives jumped to their feet at the sight of Tyler, hurrying to fetch a chair, to fetch more tea, to fetch another plate—probably one engraved with gold and crusted with crystal. Despite Juliette’s position as the heir to the Scarlet Gang, they would never simper after her in such a manner. She was a girl. In their eyes, no matter how legitimate, she would never be good enough.
“It seems simple to me,” Tyler continued. He slid into a seat, leaning back like it was a throne. “It’s about time we show the White Flowers who really holds the power in this city. Let’s demand they hand over what they know.”
“We have the numbers, the weaponry,” an obscure uncle chimed in, nodding and stroking his beard.
“The politicians will side with us,” the aunt beside Juliette added. “They have to. They cannot tolerate the White Flowers.”
“A territory battle is not wise—”
Finally, Juliette thought, turning toward the older second cousin who had spoken up, a sensible voice at this table.
“—but with your expertise, Tyler, who knows how much farther we could advance our turf lines.”
Juliette’s fists tightened. Never mind.
“Here is what we shall do,” Tyler started excitedly. Juliette cast a glance at her father, but he seemed content to merely consume his food. Since her return, Tyler had been finding every opportunity to upstage her, whether in conversation or through sidelong remarks. But each time, Lord Cai had stepped in to shut him down, to remind these aunts and uncles in as few words as possible to remember who the true heir was, to remember that this favoritism they were showing for Tyler would take them nowhere.
Only this time Lord Cai remained silent. Juliette didn’t know if he was abstaining because he found his nephew’s tactics to be laughable, or because he was actually taking Tyler seriously. Her stomach twisted, broiling with acid at the thought.
“—and it’s not as if the foreign powers can complain,” Tyler was saying. “If these deaths have been self-inflicted, it is a matter that could affect anyone. It is a matter of our people, who require our help to defend them. If we do not act now and take back the city for their sake, then what good are we? Are we to suffer another century of humiliation?”
The voices at the table sounded their approval. Grunts of praise; wrinkled, scarred thumbs stuck into the air; claps of esteem against Tyler’s shoulder. Only Mr. Li and her father were quiet, their faces held neutral, but that wasn’t enough. Juliette threw her utensils down, shattering her fine porcelain chopsticks into four pieces.
“You want to deliver yourself into White Flower territory?” She stood up, smoothed down her dress. “Be my guest. I’ll have a maid untangle your guts when they send them back in a box.”
With her relatives too shocked to protest, Juliette marched out of the kitchen. Her heart was thudding despite her calm demeanor, afraid that maybe this time she really had pushed it too far. As soon as she was in the hallway, she paused and glanced over her shoulder, watching the kitchen doors settle. The wood of those doors, imported from some distant nation, was carved with traditional Chinese calligraphy: poems that Juliette had memorized a long time ago. This house was a mirror of their city. It was a fusion of East and West, unable to let go of the old but desperate to mimic the new, and just like the city, the architecture of this house didn’t quite meld well with itself.
The beautiful but ill-fitted kitchen doors flew open again. Juliette barely flinched. She had expected this.
“Juliette. A word.”
It was only Tyler who had followed her out, a frown etched onto his face. He had the same pointed chin that Juliette had, the same single dimple at the lower-left corner of his lip that appeared in times of distress. How they looked so alike was beyond her. In every family portrait, Juliette and Tyler were always placed together, cooed at as if they were twins instead of cousins. But Juliette and Tyler had never gotten along. Not even in the cot, when they played with toy guns instead of real ones, and Tyler never missed a single wooden pellet aimed at Juliette’s head.
“What is it?”
Tyler stopped. He folded his arms. “What is your problem?”
Juliette rolled her eyes. “My problem?”
“Yes, your problem. It’s not amusing when you shut down my every idea—”
“You’re not stupid, Tyler, so stop acting like it,” Juliette interrupted. “I hate the Montagovs just as you do. We all hate them, so much that we bleed from it. But now is not the time to be waging a territory war. Not with our city already carved up by the foreigners.”
A beat passed.
“Stupid?”
Tyler had missed the point entirely, and yet he was offended. Her cousin was a boy with steel skin and a heart of glass. Ever since he lost both his parents too young, he had become this faux Scarlet anarchist, pretentious for the sake of it, wild within the gang for no reason, and because like called to like, his only friends were those who hung around hoping to shortcut a connection with the Cais. Everyone tiptoed around him, happy to throw choreographed punches and let him think himself powerful when each hit bounced off, but give him one sudden kick down his middle and he would shatter.