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The Larkspur chuckled. “Miss Cai, you realize how detrimental it is to my business if I tell you. It would be like me asking you to give up your client lists.”

Juliette slammed her hand onto his desk. “This is about people’s lives.”

“Is it?” the Larkspur shot back. “What are you going to do with the formula of my vaccine? Make a preventative cure? I’m trying to run a business based on demand, not a research facility.”

Roma grabbed Juliette’s elbow. He was telling her to ease back, not to upset the Larkspur before they had gotten what they came for. But his touch startled her, and when she jumped in shock, her already fraught nerves rose from tense to catastrophic.

“What is your business with Zhang Gutai?” Roma asked. “Surely you must have heard the rumors about his role as the maker of the madness. You must realize how suspicious it is that you seem to be the healer.”

The Larkspur only laughed.

“Please,” Roma said through clenched teeth. “We’re not accusing you of anything. We are merely putting together names, finding a way to fix this mess—”

“You’ve made it so far into your little investigation and you still can’t put it together?”

Juliette was seconds away from lunging over the curtain and beating the Larkspur until his cryptic answers had some damn clarity.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think, Miss Cai?”

Juliette shot out from her chair so quickly that the chair flew backward and turned over. “All right. That’s it.”

She reached over, and in one quick, deft movement, tore at the curtain, her strength ripping the fabric from the rings that held them onto the ceiling.

The Larkspur leaped up, but Juliette didn’t catch a face. She couldn’t. He was wearing a mask—one of those cheap Chinese opera masks that every vendor in the open markets sold to curious children, decorated with wide, bulging eyes and red and white swirls to emphasize the nose and mouth. It hid every part of his features, but Juliette was quite sure that the Larkspur was looking rather pleased with himself right now.

He was also pointing a gun at her.

“You are not the first person to do that, Miss Cai,” the Larkspur said, almost sympathetically, “and I killed the last one who tried.”

Juliette’s weapon was tucked inside her dress. By the time she reached for it, she would have given the Larkspur plentiful time to shoot.

Still, she put on her bravado.

“Who do you think can shoot faster?” Juliette sneered.

“I think by the time you reach for your pistol, there will already be a hole in your head.”

Juliette looked over at Roma. His jaw was gritted so hard that she feared he would soon have cracks in his molars.

“It is merely one question,” Roma said quietly. He asked again: “What is your business with Zhang Gutai?”

The Larkspur considered them. He cocked his head and made a noise, then gestured with his free hand, meaning for Roma and Juliette to come nearer. They did not move. Instead, the Larkspur sidled closer to the table and leaned in, as if he was to release a great, big secret.

“You wish to know my business with Zhang Gutai?” he whispered gutturally. “Zhang Gutai is turning himself into a monster. I am making the vaccine using information he is giving me.”

* * *

“Why?” Juliette demanded as they hurried down the stairs. “Why would he tell us this? Why would Zhang Gutai give him the formula to a vaccine?”

The world was moving too fast. Juliette’s pulse was thudding at breakneck speed. Her breath was coming too rapidly, even when they reached the ground level and stopped to find their bearings, stopped to gather their thoughts, realizing they now had every puzzle piece they needed to stop the damned madness tearing Shanghai apart.

Didn’t they?

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Juliette spat. “He must know we aim to kill the monster. He must know that we will hunt Zhang Gutai now with this knowledge. Why would he give this up? Without the monster, there is no madness. With no madness, he goes out of business.”

“I don’t know, Juliette,” Roma replied. “I can’t think of any viable answer either. But—”