“What are we rising for?” the speaker onstage asked. “What do we incite change for? Our own gain? Our own peace?”
Kathleen pulled at her braid. Her mind wandered to Rosalind, to her sister’s silence last night when she had stirred back into consciousness.
“The state will continue to suppress us. The law will continue to cheat us. Anyone who deems themselves a savior of this city is a fraud. All kings are tyrants; all rulers are thieves. It is not peace nor gain that revolution shall aim for. It is only freedom.”
All through the meeting hall, Party members rose to their feet. Their chairs scraped back, the noise grating to the ear. Kathleen didn’t move, only taking it all in. She wasn’t worried about sticking out. No one was paying attention to the last row, too focused on the speaker at the front.
“The gangsters of this city sacrifice us for their pride, for their meaningless blood feud. The foreigners of this city sacrifice us for riches, for unending gold stockpiled on their ships. We will free ourselves from these chains! Who are they to tell us what to do? Who are they to punish us when they see fit?”
His words washed over her like a tidal wave. Kathleen suddenly wanted to clutch her stomach, unable to bear the truth knotting up inside her. Indeed, who was the Scarlet Gang to whip Rosalind bloody merely because they had decided she was not loyal enough? Why did they deserve the power to hurt another person? Why was this the way they lived, falling to their knees under Lord Cai just because it was the way it had always been? If he wanted them dead next, then Kathleen and Rosalind had no choice save to place their heads down for the sword’s blow. Protection was nothing when it hinged on one family’s whims and desires. This wasn’t what Kathleen had sworn loyalty to. She wanted order—she wanted order under Juliette’s control.
But if order needed to tremble under fear first, maybe it wasn’t worth it.
“Rise!” the speaker onstage said. “Too long have we suffered and languished. We shall rise!”
At last Kathleen stood too, putting her hands together to clap.
Alisa chewed on her fork, her foot dangling off the roof edge.
At present, she was sitting at the very top of headquarters, face turned to the cold wind as her fingers flipped through a file swiped from her father’s office. Her bedroom was directly below, warm and cozy, but her brother or other White Flowers could walk in at any moment, and she couldn’t have that while she was snooping. In search of privacy, she had climbed up to the roof tiles instead, a plate of cake in one hand and the folder of papers tucked under her arm.
She stabbed her fork in for another bite, chewing thoughtfully. Just as she started flipping to the next page, there was a burst of noise from afar—the usual rowdy shouting of a fight starting. Alisa stiffened, knowing she would need to go inside if there was blood feud conflict coming nearer, but she couldn’t see anything other than the usual empty alleyways, even as the voices got louder. For several long moments, Alisa continued searching, but nothing moved in her periphery short of her blond hair waving with the wind.
“Strange,” she muttered, content to stay put for the meanwhile.
Alisa flipped to the next page. The folder had been selected at random after she poked her head into her father’s office for the briefest second and saw it lying on his desk. She had heard rumors of Communist spies infiltrating the White Flowers and was curious; Roma had been busy lately, though Alisa wasn’t sure if he was looking into the same Communist spies or something else. No one ever told Alisa anything. No one ever paid her attention at all unless it was to barge in on her and tell her that her tutors were here.
Unfortunately, Alisa didn’t think she had stolen anything very relevant. The folder contained profiles on the Kuomintang, but nothing past basic information. Some news clippings on Chiang Kai-shek. Some maps from spies who were tracking the Northern Expedition. The only thing that seemed briefly interesting was an investigation into General Shu, who had little information made public about his life. By the time Alisa scanned to the end, however, all she had gathered was that General Shu had a bastard son. Which was entertaining but hardly helpful.
“Hey!”
Alisa set the file aside and peered down from the roof. With that shout catching her attention, now she could see the fighting, though it seemed not to be a fight at all. She squinted, trying to pick out exactly what was coming in her direction, and only when she saw the signs did she realize that perhaps it was not a blood feud conflict moving down the main road but a workers’ protest.