Foul Lady Fortune

Orion walked into the double-story restaurant at a brisk pace, rolling his shirtsleeves to his elbows. Behind him, Silas Wu tried his best to keep up, nudging his thick glasses along his nose every few seconds when they started to slide down from exertion.

“I cannot believe you dragged me up for this,” Silas huffed. “I’m an agent too, not your chauffeur.”

“And as an agent,” Orion replied, shooting a brief look over his shoulder to make sure his best friend was keeping up, “I need you to help me out while we pretend to drink and socialize.”

Under normal circumstances, Three Bays was not his preferred locale for drinking and socializing. The crowd was too old, too full of politicians. Which meant it was his father’s go-to when he had free time in the evenings, and the place where Orion was most likely to find him.

“You couldn’t have worn a hat and come alone?” Silas grumbled. He wiped his shoes on the red carpet in the foyer, wrinkling his nose at the fish tanks set up by the menu boards. “I’m willing to bet no one is paying enough attention to recognize you talking to your father.”

“I’m playing it safe. I’ve a new alias now. I cannot be a Hong.”

“So you yank me along everywhere like a butler? I can’t stand you.”

Orion bit back his laugh, amused by Silas’s stream of complaints. Perhaps it was rude of him, but Silas would forgive the matter in minutes. Orion refused to take most things seriously, and Silas took everything so seriously that they evened out. That was surely how equations worked, was it not?

“Are you my chauffeur or my butler? Make up your mind.”

Silas bared his teeth. He looked like a Pomeranian pretending to be a guard dog. “I’ll have you know—”

“Besides, what is it that you Communists say?” Orion interrupted, clapping a hand on Silas’s back as they ascended the stairs. The large wooden structure swirled in a half circle before reaching the second floor, winding around a marble fountain with a naked sea creature rising out of the water. “You have nothing to lose but face?”

Silas looked at him askance. Despite their age difference, they had been as close as brothers ever since they were both shipped off to England the same year for schooling—Orion at nine and Silas at five, living under the same roof because their fathers put them with the same tutor. Orion hadn’t minded the new lifestyle. Silas, on the other hand, had grown up hating his time in the West. In his eyes, he had been sent away from a perfectly good childhood at home, so he would act out by stomping his feet during lessons, then crying at night, hoping his parents would take pity and summon him back. It didn’t work. Once he was older and crying wasn’t an option anymore, Silas made a task of going through his education as quickly as possible, shaving off the extra years wherever he could.

He returned around the same time as Orion. Weeks later, he had a job: an operative for the Kuomintang’s covert branch. Silas had published such a scathing op-ed in one of Shanghai’s top newspapers condemning the foreigners—and condemning the native elite for valuing Western education over their own—that the Kuomintang took notice. Back then, though Orion knew of the covert branch’s existence through his father, it was Silas’s recruitment that first gave Orion the idea to work for them too.

And here they were.

With the years they had spent together getting whacked by their tutor’s ruler if they got a question wrong, and then the years after running around playing politics, Silas certainly knew that Orion wasn’t misquoting from a lack of knowledge. Orion was just being an asshole on purpose.

“You have nothing to lose but your chains,” Silas corrected. “Keep your voice down. This isn’t a good place to be keeping up that cover.”

Silas wasn’t really a secret Communist. He was, if one wanted to get technical about it, a triple agent: an established Nationalist who had contacted the underground Communists claiming to defect while still holding on to Nationalist loyalties for the covert branch. Among the Nationalists he was code-named Shepherd; he had not given Orion the code name he used among Communists to prevent any chance of them finding out he was still loyal to his original faction. He had been planted for almost a year now, making slow headway toward uncovering the identity of Priest, one of the Communists’ assassins. Last Orion heard, Silas was progressing well, but this wasn’t a line of work where that meant anything. He could just as easily fall back to square one if a source was yanked away or the enemy grew suspicious.

Orion glanced around, eyeing the clumps of businessmen who had convened to talk outside their private rooms. There was so much cigarette smoke in the vicinity, wafting from their conversations and smothering the upper restaurant level in gray. His stomach clenched. He forced himself not to pay his surroundings any mind, to let the knots in his gut unravel.

“There’s a matter I need to sort out, Silas,” Orion said quietly, sobering from his previous humor. “Oliver made an appearance last night. He was searching through my father’s desk.”

Immediately, Silas blinked, his brows furrowing. “On the contrary, that is a matter you need to report.”

No, Orion thought. He couldn’t do that. What if it prompted the Nationalists to search through his father’s belongings as well, wanting to understand what the Communists might be looking for? What if they ended up finding something bad?

“I will have to sweet-talk a hostess into locating my father,” he said, pretending he hadn’t heard Silas’s suggestion.

“Or you could mind your mission instead of always sticking your nose into your father’s business,” Silas continued. “But I already know you’re not going to do that.” He paused for a moment, waving at the smoke. “Speaking of your mission… is it true you got married?”

The twitch on Orion’s lips was immediate, the tension in his stomach easing a tad as it latched on to the distracting thought. Janie Mead. With her familiar face and careful mannerisms and a perennially pinched nose that conveyed a need to see Orion buried six feet underground. The more she visibly expressed annoyance at him, the more he felt the urge to annoy her, if only to hold her attention longer. She was fascinating. She was so uninterested in him, and it intrigued him immensely, partially because he swore he knew her. From where or how, he could not recall, but the feeling of having made her previous acquaintance was in his bones.

If Janie Mead’s story were to be believed, she had not been in the city for the past ten years, raised entirely in America. Orion didn’t buy it. But he liked a challenge, so he would not push the subject with her. He would pluck it out bit by bit instead.

“True indeed,” he answered, flashing a grin. “She says her name is Janie Mead, but I can’t find a single person who knows her.”

Silas pushed his glasses again, nudging the very corner so he wouldn’t smudge anything. “So, she’s a hermit?”

“No, she’s a liar. A beautiful liar, but a liar nonetheless.” It was common enough among the covert branch. Orion would try not to take it personally. With a wave of his hand, he signaled for Silas to follow him farther into the second floor, where there would be hostesses to squeeze for information. “Do you know anyone who might have information about the American returnees in the city?”

“I can ask around,” Silas replied. “What happened to that other girl you were dating? Zhenni?”

Orion wrinkled his nose. “We broke up weeks ago. Keep up, Silas. She liked Phoebe more, anyway.”

Silas almost choked on his next inhale. It was no secret that Silas was infatuated with Orion’s younger sister, not when Orion was the poor soul who had to endure the secondhand embarrassment each time Silas tried to make his intentions clear. By the time Phoebe blew out her sixth birthday candles and their parents prepared to send her abroad early, their eldest brother, Oliver, had almost finished up his studies in Paris, so Phoebe joined Orion in London instead, living right down the road. From the very moment they met as children, Silas could not take his eyes off her, no matter how much Orion made gagging noises when Phoebe’s back was turned. It would have made more sense for Silas to have befriended Phoebe instead of Orion—given Silas and Phoebe were only half a year apart in age—but Silas was a wimp in all aspects when it came to Phoebe. More than a decade had passed since then, and either Phoebe remained startlingly oblivious to Silas, or she pretended to be. His sister was simply too flighty to put up with the matter.

“Jealous?” Orion asked, brow quirking. Time and time again he had smacked Silas’s head and insisted that he tell her outright how he felt. Silas always refused.

“No,” Silas spluttered. “Phoebe can make her own decisions.”

Orion swung an arm over Silas’s shoulder. “I was talking about me. Maybe if I take you from Phoebe, she’ll finally notice you—”

Silas swatted him away furiously as Orion pretended to lean in. “Back, back!”

“Aw, come on—”

“You can’t just play with a man’s feelings like that—”

A sudden voice cut through the corridor of the second floor. “Gēge!”

“What the hell?” came Orion’s immediate response, giving up on tormenting Silas and turning to locate the sound. “Speak of the devil and she shall appear, I suppose—Hong Feiyi, what are you doing here?”

Phoebe hurried closer, the layers of her skirt swishing with every movement. “Why are you throwing my full name around like that?” she asked sweetly. “Can I not be seeking Father’s audience just as you are?”

Orion checked his wristwatch. “It’s past your bedtime.”

“I’m seventeen—I don’t have a bedtime. Try again.”

“I vehemently disagree. You are an infant.”

Phoebe blew a breath up into her bangs and shook her head, disturbing all the little ringlets in her permed hair. “I am on my way out anyway. Father isn’t here.”

“What?” Orion exclaimed. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Silas giving him a dirty look. Orion had dragged them out here for nothing. “Then where is he?”

“Overnight at the office, according to his dear chums in private room number five,” Phoebe replied. “I did see Dao Feng along Fuzhou Road earlier though. He had a note for you.”

Orion held his hand out straightaway. Phoebe was not an agent, only the winner of the world’s most busybody little sister award. Where Orion had chased down his employment and Silas had been recruited, Phoebe just so happened to be in proximity to the covert branch. By virtue of who she was related to, Dao Feng trusted her enough to run messages to Orion, which meant Phoebe was looped into every single one of his missions.

Orion had protested the matter time and time again. She was not trained, no matter how much Phoebe liked to claim she knew martial arts. Their mother used to visit once every few months while Orion and Phoebe were abroad, and while Orion worked on his essays, Lady Hong took Phoebe out to the park, making an event out of getting air by telling Phoebe they would practice wǔshù. Phoebe would boast that she knew how to throw a punch, but then she ran away squealing if a fly landed lightly on the back of her hand. Their mother—loving as she had been—was a mere bookkeeper before she married into being the lady of the house. She had taught Phoebe nothing except how to speak loudly—certainly not fighting skills. Even if Orion had his own bad habit of involving himself in other people’s business, at least he could handle the dangers. Phoebe kept wading into deep waters she wasn’t tall enough to stand in. He wanted to keep her protected. He wanted her where it would be forever safe and dry.

“You’re welcome,” Phoebe said emphatically, passing the note. “Silas, doesn’t he take me for granted?”

“W-what?” Silas stammered.

Phoebe had already moved on. “I fought to get this message here, you know. I could have sworn I was being followed into the restaurant.”

Orion frowned. He lifted his gaze over Phoebe’s shoulder. The second floor of Three Bays had most of its windows facing the street, letting in the loud sounds and vivid lights of every other restaurant along the block. The corpse from earlier that day flashed in Orion’s head, as well as that pinprick of red, somehow marking a lethal wound despite its miniature size. Down on the street, there was a shriek—it was impossible to tell whether it signaled delight or disaster.

“How so?” Orion asked. He stepped closer to the window, pressing a hand to the glass. There were numerous people milling on the pavement directly below, oblivious to what danger might be lurking in the alleys nearby. Some in groups, laughing among themselves. Others standing alone, looking up at the restaurant…

Phoebe shrugged. “I saw the same man reflected in the shop windows down Fuzhou Road twice. I went home for the afternoon, and when I headed out again, I thought I saw him at the traffic lights.”

Orion frowned, peering more attentively at the one man standing alone. “Green necktie?”

A pause. Phoebe’s eyes grew wide. “How did you know?”

Orion didn’t waste time. He snapped, “Stay here. Both of you,” and dashed to the stairwell, almost colliding with a couple who were midway up.

The night was raucous around him when Orion slammed out of the restaurant, searching through the flocks of pedestrians. There—the Chinese man he’d spotted from the window, wearing a green necktie and a Western suit, idling by a lamppost.

The moment the man saw that he had been sighted, he turned to flee.

“Hey!” Orion gave chase, despite his flare of confusion. If the man had been following Phoebe, what could it possibly be for? Not the strange business with the chemical killings, surely. Had she been spotted taking something from Dao Feng?

The man sprinted into an alleyway, swinging under a laundry line. Orion hurried to follow, pushing through the surprised pedestrians and darting into the alley before the man could put too much distance between them. Though Orion was staying narrowly on his tail, he had to admit this man was running fast, and unless there was some way to slow him down…

Orion sighted a potted plant out of his periphery, sitting quaintly on someone’s front step. Making a split-second decision, he scooped it up as he passed by. Then he threw it as hard as he could.

The potted plant smacked directly into the man’s head, smashing into shards and soil clumps. Ahead, the man tripped, and with the pause that afforded, Orion closed in, grabbing his shirt collar and yanking him back.

“Who are you?” Orion demanded. “What do you want?”

The man didn’t answer. He whirled around, meeting Orion head-on.

A jolt of alarm turned Orion’s blood cold. The man’s mouth was set in a snarl, but his eyes were entirely blank. Like he had been disturbed while sleepwalking, and still he did not wake. There was an eerie mismatch in that vacant gaze paired with such quickness—

The man kicked out. Though Orion braced, thinking he could take the hit and swivel into his own offensive move, the impact landed so hard that he skidded back three steps and slammed into the wall. By the time Orion shook his head, gasping for breath and clearing his vision, the man had run away.

Orion winced, patting around to check if he had damaged anything in the aftermath. When he seemed to remain in one piece, he rose back onto his feet slowly, his head still reeling.

“Orion!”

Silas appeared at the end of the alley. Then Phoebe, standing on her tiptoes to see over his shoulder.

“Why don’t you two listen to a single thing I say?” Orion asked, wiping at his mouth. Something tasted metallic. He must have bitten himself when he hit the wall.

“What happened?” Phoebe hurried closer, glancing around wildly. Her dress settled when she stopped in front of him, each layer making her look like a wispy purple cloud that had been misplaced on the ground. “Are you okay?”

“My question is, what sort of tail are you picking up?” Orion huffed. “I’m fine. There’s nothing we can do it about it now, I suppose. Tell Father to give you a guard.”

Phoebe frowned. “I don’t need a guard. It probably wasn’t for me.”

Those eyes. Orion was still thinking about them. The complete hollowness in the stare. There would be bruises on his arms and hip tomorrow for certain, but his greatest injury at present was how shaky he felt, like he had encountered some unknowable entity.

He shook his head, dropping one hand on Phoebe’s shoulder and the other on Silas’s elbow. At once, he pushed them all out of the alley, returning to the main road.

“Silas, let’s get a drink. You—” He pointed a threatening finger at Phoebe. “Go home.”

Phoebe stuck her tongue out and raised her arm for a rickshaw.