“Chasing answers,” her cousin replied, dabbing a finger at the corner of her mouth. The line of her lipstick was already a perfect bow. “Eternally running around trying to save a city that does not want to be saved, that is hardly good enough to be saved.”
Juliette hadn’t expected such a question; nor had she expected to reel from trying to answer it. Down the hallway, the voices were still communing in their meeting, leaving her out of whatever plan would soon beset the city. The men who governed this place did not want her help. But she was not doing it for them; she was doing it for everyone else.
“I’m not saving this city because it is good,” she said carefully. “Nor am I saving this city because I am good. I want it safe because I wish to be safe. I want it safe because safety is always what is deserved, goodness or wickedness alike.”
And if Juliette didn’t do it, then who would? She sat up here on a throne encrusted in silver and dusted with opium powder. If she didn’t use her birthright to offer protection where she could, what was the point?
Kathleen’s frown only deepened, but there was too much to unpack, especially while Juliette was hovering on her toes, rushing to leave. All that her cousin managed was a soft sigh and then: “I beg you to be careful.”
Juliette smiled. “Aren’t I always?”
?
“You look a mess.”
Juliette rolled her eyes, pushing past Marshall to get inside. She could smell the city on her skin: that mix between the windblown salt coming in from the sea and the unidentifiable jumble of fried foodstuffs permeating the streets. There was no avoiding it whenever she rode through on a rickshaw.
“I have a question,” Juliette said immediately, pulling the locks on the safe house door.
Marshall wandered deeper into the room—not that there was anywhere to go in such a small space—and collapsed on his mattress. “Is that why you have arrived without gifts to bear?”
Juliette palmed a knife into her hand and pretended to throw.
“Ah!” Marshall yelped immediately, throwing his arms over his face. “I jest!”
“You’d better be. You certainly pick up enough things to eat and drink whenever you go outside.”
Juliette put her knife away. With a stride that could be described more as stomping than walking, she made her way over to the mattress too and dropped down beside him, her dress clinking with noise.
“You’re my only White Flower source right now,” she said. “What do you know about your communication with the Communists?”
“The Communists?” Marshall echoed. He had been lying back, elbows propped on the sheets, but now he sat up straight, brows knitting together. “Most of the Russians in this city are Bolshevik Revolution refugees. When have the White Flowers ever liked the Communists?”
“That’s what I want to know,” Juliette grumbled. She blew a piece of hair out of her eyes, and when that did nothing to get the lock away from her face, she huffed extra loudly and pushed it back, smooshing it with the rest of the tangle.
“Given, it is not as if I am very up to date with the latest White Flower goings-on.” Marshall reached for something tucked near the wall, his whole arm straining to make contact without moving from position. When he finally retrieved it, he returned to Juliette with a flourish. “May I? It’s hurting my eyes to look at you.”
Juliette squinted at what he was holding, trying to pick out the label in the dim light of the safe house. She snorted when it registered. Hair pomade.
She inclined her head toward him. “Please. Make me pretty again.”
In silence, Marshall scooped a clump of pomade and started to brush through her hair with his fingers. He made fast work of re-forming her curls, though his tongue was sticking out in concentration, as if he had never tried shaping longer hair but he would be damned before Juliette told him he was doing it wrong.
“You should ask Roma,” Marshall said, finishing a curl near her ear. “It’s his job, is it not?”
“That’s a little difficult right now,” Juliette replied. The blood feud pushed away her answers about the blackmailer. Politics pushed away her chances at protecting the city so they wouldn’t need answers about the blackmailer. Why did everybody in this city insist on making life so difficult for themselves? “None of this would even be happening if General Shu would just let us distribute the vaccine.”
Marshall froze. He tried to hide it, tried to resume with the curl as if nothing happened, but Juliette sensed the delay, and her head swiveled to him, interrupting his work.