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Marshall grimaced. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, inching over. A flash of a blade in his hand; then the woman’s long braid detached, landing with a dispassionate thump on the floor.

“Helps prevent contamination to us,” Marshall explained. He grabbed her legs, taking on some of the burden. “Now, let’s move. Lourens is probably closing up.”

Twenty-Four

Juliette was clenching her fist.

Open, closed, open, closed. Her hands were absolutely itching for something to do.

Mostly, they were begging to get ahold of the vial that Roma had tucked in his sleeve. Juliette hadn’t asked for it—she wouldn’t overstep her bounds that far and have him think she mistrusted him that much. But it was a true test of strength to keep her hands to herself and not attempt a snatching.

“It’s just around this corner,” Roma assured, either oblivious to her internal turmoil or misinterpreting it. “We’re nearly there.”

He spoke to her like she was a startled rabbit about to bolt. Juliette was antsy, but just because she was on White Flower territory didn’t mean she was about to let herself be attacked, and the more Roma tried to be kind to her, the more her nose wrinkled.

“You are more nervous than I am right now,” Juliette commented.

“I am not,” Roma shot back. “I am simply a cautious person.”

“I don’t recall you looking over your shoulder every second when you came into the Scarlet burlesque club.”

In fact, she recalled him looking rather confident, which had annoyed her immensely.

Roma gave her a sidelong glance, narrowing his tired eyes. He needed a moment to find his answer, and when he did, he simply muttered, “Times have changed.”

They had indeed. Starting from the mere fact that Roma and Juliette were walking side by side and yet Juliette’s arms were casually swinging, positioned far from her weapons.

When they turned the corner, Juliette immediately spotted the research facility Roma had described. Among the row of buildings, it was the only one more silver-toned than brown, bearing metal platings that shone under the moonlight, where others, constructed of plaster or wood, only glowed dully. She took her time admiring the sight, but Roma ran up to the door quickly, long accustomed to the appearance of such detailing.

“Did you fund this?” Juliette asked.

She eyed the fancy lock that Roma was twirling around. His eyes were focused on the rapidly spinning numbers that appeared above the panel, moving the dial into the hundreds before dropping back to 51, 50, 49… Though the inside of the glass-paned doors was dark, she could make out a long hallway and one sole door that gleamed with light.

“I did not,” Roma replied.

A heavy sigh from Juliette. “Did the White Flowers fund this place, you wet blanket?”

The lock clicked. Roma pulled the door open and signaled for Juliette to go ahead. “Indeed.”

Juliette nodded. There was some surprise, some acknowledgment, and just the smallest hint of approval in that small jerk of her head. The Scarlet Gang would never fund something like this. She assumed the White Flowers probably tested their products here, making sure that the drugs they traded were what the merchants said they were, but with technology like this, there were infinite possibilities in research and innovation.

The Chinese were still very much people of the past. They emphasized classical texts and poetry over science, and it showed—in the dingy, cramped basements that the Scarlet drug testers were placed in, in the thousands of poems Juliette had been given to memorize before she was taught the basics of natural selection.

She looked up at the neatly spaced electric lights, all currently extinguished into darkness. Even while swathed in shadow, she could pick out the unblemished lines in the ceiling, the bulbs that were undoubtedly polished by cleaners every weekend on the clock.

“Lourens, let me in.”

The hallway suddenly lit up, but not from the bulbs. The one door that had been brimming with light had opened.

“Zdravstvuyte, zdravstvuyte,” Lourens bellowed, sticking his head out with his greeting. He faltered upon seeing Juliette. “Ei—ni hao?”

His confusion was almost endearing.

“You don’t have to switch, sir,” she said in Russian, walking toward the lab. Internally, Juliette quickly ran through the possibilities of his accent. “But we can speak Dutch if you’d like.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Lourens said. The wrinkles near his eyes crinkled deeply in amusement. He had never looked so charmed. “Poor Roma here would feel terribly left out.”

Roma pulled a face. “Excuse me, I—” He stopped. He turned to the doorway, appearing to be listening hard. “Is somebody coming?”