“I don’t know. I don’t know where she is.”
The first knot came undone. Rosalind could move her left shoulder.
“Juliette,” Benedikt prompted. Get to the task at hand, he seemed to be saying.
Juliette paced the length of the room, digging her hands into her hair. She pulled at the strands, so unused to the straight cut that brushed her neck as she moved.
“We’re letting you go,” she said. “But we want to know everything you know about the monsters.”
Rosalind pulled her right arm out as the bindings there came loose too. She had lost all her energy—finding no need to rush or agitate while the rope fell from her body.
“If I had information to give, do you not think I would have offered it by now?” Rosalind asked. “I have nothing more to gain by holding on to anything. Dimitri was only using me as a source into the Scarlets. He was using me long before he decided to blackmail us.”
“You must have picked some things up, no matter how little attention you paid his business,” Benedikt said, refusing to take her answer. He pulled hard on her ankle rope. Rosalind winced. “How did this begin? Were the monsters already active before he obtained control?”
“No,” Rosalind replied. “He found the host insects in that apartment. Five of them, gargantuan and floating in liquid. I recruited the Frenchmen for him to infect.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “He said it was a war effort. No mass killings, no chaos. Only a tactic to garner power.”
“In all fairness,” Juliette said quietly, “that part was not a lie.”
She blamed Rosalind for falling prey. She pitied Rosalind for falling prey. The Scarlet Gang dealt in violence day by day too. When you were raised in such a climate—loved ones telling you that blood could spill so long as it was in loyalty—how were you to know when to draw the line once you loved someone outside family?
“And the insects,” Benedikt continued. “They burrowed into the hosts?”
Juliette leaned forward, her hands braced hard on the table. It had been the same with Qi Ren. One host insect, occupying his body. Giving him the ability to transform into a monster.
“Latched onto their necks and dug right in,” Rosalind whispered.
“How did they turn afterward?” The question they needed answered the most. “How did they trigger the transformation?”
All of Rosalind’s bindings fell to the floor. Her arms and legs were now free to move, yet she remained on the chair, her elbows resting on her knees, her head dropped in her hands. For several seconds, she remained like that, as still as a statue.
Then Rosalind looked up suddenly. “Ethanol.”
Juliette blinked. “Ethanol? Is that . . . alcohol?”
Rosalind nodded gingerly. “It’s what the insects were first found floating in, so it’s what brings them out. Alcohol was what the Frenchmen used the most. A few drops was enough—it didn’t have to be concentrated.”
Benedikt spun around, seeking Juliette’s gaze. “How are we supposed to find enough alcohol? How are we supposed to find alcohol at all?”
Restaurants were closed. Cabarets were closed. The places that weren’t locked by iron and chain were already ransacked and robbed.
“We don’t need to,” Juliette said. She looked out the window, to that one section she had freed, letting in the street outside. “A car’s gasoline has the same effect.”
A sudden shriek came from afar, and Juliette jumped, her hand coming to her heart. Rosalind, too, leaped to her feet, but then the sound faded just as quickly as it came, and Rosalind looked unsure what to do, hovering by the chair. She was too proud to give voice to the pain in her eyes. She was not quite cold enough to avoid Juliette’s eyes completely and let her believe otherwise.
“Go, Rosalind,” Juliette said quietly. “There will be more chaos on the streets in a few hours.”
Rosalind thinned her lips. Slowly, she reached around her neck and unclasped the necklace she had been wearing, setting it upon the table. It looked dull in the weak light. Nothing more than a slab of metal.
“Did you tell the Scarlets?” Rosalind asked. Her voice was feather-soft. “Did you tell them that I am responsible for the new monsters?”
Juliette should have. She had had the time and the opportunity. If she had offered Dimitri’s name as Rosalind’s lover, then revealed Dimitri as the blackmailer, Rosalind’s crimes against the Scarlet Gang would be far more severe than mere blood-feud spying.