“Tragic,” Marshall muttered into the wind. Montagovs were so dramatic.
Yet he missed the dramatics, missed being right in the heart of the city, at the heart of the feud that kept it in halves. If Benedikt were here, he would probably tell Marshall to stop being thickheaded. There was nothing good about a feud. Nothing other than loss. But if nothing else, it was a singular purpose in a place that seemed to ask for too much.
Another gust of wind blew hard into his face, and Marshall shrank back, searching for a better place to sit. He had come out tonight for a breath of fresh air; only then he had sighted Roma and Juliette walking along Avenue Foch and wasted no time following on their tail. They hadn’t noticed him trekking a few steps behind, nor when he hurried ahead to get onto the scaffolding at the back of Bailemen when Roma and Juliette disappeared within. Marshall was almost surprised. He expected more from two heirs who could probably hit a fly with a needle if they threw hard enough.
“What have you two descended into?”
There was no reply to come, not unless the night itself had an answer. Marshall needed to stop speaking out loud, but it was the only thing keeping him less lonely. He missed conversation. He missed people.
He missed Benedikt.
The wail of a siren swept the streets some distance away, then the echo of what might have been a gunshot. Marshall pulled his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. When he first joined the White Flowers, he was just another scrappy kid picked off the streets, thin and hungry and constantly dirty. That was how Benedikt found him that day. Curled up in the alley behind the Montagov house, legs pulled close, arms wrapped in a fetal position. He hadn’t yet learned how to fight, how to smile so sharply that it would cut as fast as any blade. And when Benedikt crouched in front of him—looking like a shining cherub with his pressed white shirt and curly combed hair—he didn’t remark on any of that. All he did was extend a hand, asking, “Do you have somewhere to go?”
“I do have somewhere to go now,” Marshall muttered. “But it was better when you were there with me.”
A sudden rustle came from the other side of the rooftop, and Marshall jolted, startling out of his thoughts. He had gotten so caught up in his memories that he had tuned out the world around him. A mistake—one that he couldn’t afford to make. This was Scarlet territory.
And indeed, a Scarlet circled around the rooftop tower, coming into view. He froze as he looked up, cigarette dangling from his lips.
Please don’t recognize me, Marshall thought, his hands creeping for the pistol in his pocket. Please don’t recognize me.
“Marshall Seo,” the Scarlet croaked. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
Aish.
The Scarlet threw his cigarette down, but Marshall had readied himself. There was only one way this could end. He drew the pistol from his pocket in one fast motion and fired—fast and first, because that was what mattered.
At the end of the day, that was the only thing that mattered.
The bullet landed true. With a harsh clatter, the Scarlet’s weapon fell to the floor. It might have been a gun. It might have been a dagger. It might even have been a throwing star, for all the consequence it held. But in the hazy dark, all Marshall cared about was it being out of reach, and then the Scarlet collapsed too, a hand clasped over the hole studded into his breastbone.
For a few tense seconds, Marshall heard labored breathing, the metallic smell of blood permeating the rooftop. Then, silence. Utter silence.
Marshall kicked the edge of the rooftop, skittering little stones down the side of Bailemen. All this death on his hands. All this death, and in truth, none of it mattered to him so long as it protected him, protected the secrets of those he was hiding for.
“Goddammit,” he whispered, scrubbing his face and turning to the breeze, away from the smell. “I hate this city.”
Fourteen
Juliette peered at the train platform, eyeing the tracks below. When she felt a presence behind her, she didn’t have to turn to know who it was. She recognized him by footfall, by that soft pitter-patter paired with a hard stop, like he had never in his life walked in the wrong direction.
“To the southwest,” she said beneath her breath. “White man with the tatty clothing and French novel tucked under his arm. He’s been watching me for the past ten minutes.”
Out of her periphery, she watched Roma turning slowly, seeking the man in question.
“Perhaps he thinks you are pretty.”
Juliette clicked her tongue. “He looks ready to kill me.”