ed star of the stage, the one training Rosalind to become the next dazzling meteor.
Amethyst also drove Kathleen up the wall. She was always telling her to buy those whitening creams, to get a new qipao fitted, edging closer and closer toward the most offensive insinuations—
Until the day Kathleen finally snapped.
“Juliette!” she remembered her cousin yelling from the back of the burlesque club. “Juliette!”
“What is going on?” Juliette had muttered, leaving her table and moving toward the sound of Kathleen’s call. Eventually, she found herself slipping into Rosalind’s dressing room, and though Rosalind was nowhere to be found, Kathleen was pacing the length of it, guarding a slumped figure sprawled on the floor.
“I think she’s dead,” Kathleen cried. “She tried to grab me, so I pushed her and she hit her head and—”
Juliette waved a hand for her cousin to stop speaking. She knelt on the ground and put a hand on Amethyst’s neck. There was a small smattering of blood coming from the girl’s temple, but her pulse was thudding just fine.
“What is she even doing in here?” Juliette asked. “Did she follow you?”
Kathleen nodded. “I got so angry. I was only defending myself! I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, hush, she’s fine,” Juliette said, standing. “I’m more concerned about how loudly you yelled for me to come—”
Rosalind’s dressing room door flew open then. Two other dancers barged in, with Rosalind in tow. Immediately, the dancers rushed for Amethyst on the floor, crying out in concern.
“What happened?” Rosalind asked, horrified. The two dancers immediately looked to Kathleen. Kathleen looked to Juliette. And in that moment, as Juliette and Kathleen exchanged a glance, an understanding had clicked into place. One of them was always safe. The other was not.
“Maybe Amethyst should mind her own business,” Juliette said. “Next time I’ll hit harder.”
One of the dancers blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Do I need to repeat myself?” Juliette said. “Get her out of my sight. In fact, get her out of this club. I don’t want to see her face ever again.”
Rosalind’s jaw had dropped. “Juliette—”
It didn’t matter how much Rosalind tried to make a case for Amethyst. With a wave of Juliette’s hand, Amethyst was escorted out in seconds, still unconscious.
“To this day,” Juliette said now, “Rosalind still thinks I attacked Amethyst for no reason. We never did find the heart to tell her that her friend was awful, even after she sent word that she wasn’t coming back to dance.”
“I don’t think anybody is brave enough to come back to their place of employment after the Scarlet heiress drives them out.”
“Oh, psh. I’ve threatened plenty of people in this city. You don’t see everyone running home crying.”
Kathleen rolled her eyes, but it felt kindly. She reached out, placed a hand on Juliette’s arm.
“Listen to me, biaomèi,” she said quietly. “You and Rosalind are my only family. The only family that matters. So please, stop thanking me every second like a damn Westerner just for helping you. I will never judge you. I could never. I’ll always be on your side, no matter what.” Kathleen checked the time again, then stood, smiling. “Understand?”
Juliette could only nod.
“I’ll get a note to you as soon as possible.”
With that, Kathleen got up and made her exit, hurrying to her destination before the sun could fully set. The room fell quiet, hosting only the sound of the clock’s ticking hands and Juliette’s soft, grateful exhale.
“Thank you,” Juliette whispered anyway, to the empty room.
Twenty-Eight
Roma had chosen a seat at the back of the performance room, at a long table that saw visitors to Great World coming and going every few seconds. They would gulp down their drink, slam it down, then be swept back into the audience of the show going on at the front. They were fast, and ferocious, and definitely bursting with a dozen different drugs in their system.
In contrast, Roma must have appeared downright leaden while he sipped from his glass and waited. His hat was pulled low over his face, preventing those around him from looking too closely. If they recognized him, they would start whispering about sighting Roma Montagov watching the singsong girls who high-kicked on the stage with dresses slit to their armpits, and heaven knew how his father would react to that. He had warned Roma against Great World since Roma was a child, warned that places like these—places that teemed with life, pieces of entertainment slotted together with Chinese ingenuity—would corrupt the mind faster than opium. Here, visitors squandered their wages and traded food for forgetting. As much as Great World was looked down upon, it was still a marker of success. Those who worked in the factories out in Nanshi were not making enough in a day’s wages for a mere admission ticket.
Roma sighed, setting his drink down. With his face shielded, the only person who would be able to find him among the drunken masses and screaming visitors knew exactly how to look.