would be just the sort of thing they’d pull.”
I picked up the knife sticking out of the cutting board at Chang’s elbow and ran the blade against my thumb. “It’s a simple question. Did they bribe or threaten you to get to me? I know they’re in San Francisco. Tell me the truth.”
Chang shook his head. “I don’t know where you’re getting this idea from, Aoife, but I’m just doing this because I can tell you’re going to keep trying with or without me. And next time, you might not run into someone who’s as nice as I am. You might run into someone who truly wants to hurt you and your friends. Someone this Brotherhood of yours
He put the eggs on a plate and sat down to eat. “Desperation makes people stupid. I’ve seen that with the doctor, and I’d really prefer to keep others from that path, if I can.”
He gestured to a seat across from him. “Now can I have the knife back? I need it to cut my fruit.”
I took my seat, warily. Chang sighed when I handed over the blade. I still had misgivings, but he was so calm and open, so unruffled by my accusation, I had a hard time believing my own paranoia. The Brotherhood was sneaky, but they couldn’t be everywhere.
“You haven’t had many people be kind to you, have you?” Chang asked.
“No,” I said honestly. “Nobody, really, except Cal and Conrad. And Dean.”
“That explains it, then,” he said. “Why you want him back so badly. And I’m smart enough to know I can’t stop you. So why don’t you eat something, and I’ll see about getting the lab back to specs.”
A bell jangled from the back room where the doctor stayed, and Chang’s pleasant expression vanished. “I’ll be back,” he sighed. “Just have to go and see what he needs.”
As soon as Chang left, I got up and found a pad of receipts and a pen. I scribbled a note to Cal and Conrad so they wouldn’t worry about me, and then found a heavy rain jacket hanging by the back door. I had an idea of where I was going, and knew I wouldn’t get another chance before I had to tell Cal or Conrad where I was going and they tried to convince me otherwise.
They’d probably be able to talk me out of it—I knew even as I slipped out this was a bad idea, but I didn’t have a better one.
The way back to Madame Xiang’s wasn’t hard to figure out—we’d only made a few turns when she’d brought us to the Boneyard. The streets were quieter in the early morning, but not by much. Drunks were stumbling out of bars and laborers were crowding into round-the-clock diners. The smells and sounds were still persistent.
A Proctor airship hummed overhead, toward the bay, but it didn’t slow down or drop altitude. This place truly was closed off to the Proctors, and, I hoped, to the Brotherhood after we’d escaped them.
Fang from the night before opened Madame’s door with his same lack of expressiveness. I stood my ground.
“I need to see Madame,” I said.
“She’s asleep,” Fang grunted.
“It’s important,” I told him. “I’ll owe her a favor.”
Fang grinned. “I think you already owe her one, little girl. I doubt you want to owe her a second.”
“Fang, for goodness sake, stop letting all the warm air out.” Madame was wearing an impeccable silk robe printed with cherry blossoms, and her hair was wrapped in an orange scarf that set off her skin. If possible, she was even more gorgeous than before.
“Oh,” she said. “You again. I thought I’d shooed all the strays away from my doorstep.”
“I need something,” I said. Madame smiled, taking a cigarette from a small mesh purse and waiting for Fang to come light it. When he did, I moved inside and shut the door, which made him grunt with irritation. I hoped he didn’t take too much offense. I didn’t want to be on the bad side of somebody that large.
“I thought you needed something last night,” Madame said. “I was under the impression I’d already bargained with you.”
“I know, and I’ll still carry the message,” I said. “But in order to do that I need something, and I think you’re the only one who can help me.”
Madame sighed and stubbed out her cigarette in a nearby bowl. “Fine. What now?”
“I need something that will stop my heart,” I said. “Just for a few moments. I need to be dead, but I also need something that will let them bring me back.”
“So basically, you’re asking me to help you cheat,” Madame said. “Tsk, tsk.”
“Please,” I said. “It’s the only way this will work.”
“I didn’t say no,” Madame said. “I rather like cheating.” She drew close to me, and I could smell cold cream and a hint of old perfume rolling off her. “But you’re going to owe me a lot more than a little message to my brother. You do understand, yes? What it means to owe the tong a favor?”
“I’ve owed favors to people a lot worse than you,” I told Madame, and met her eyes.
She laughed. “All right. Come with me.”
I felt my body loosen, the tension I’d been holding inside running out of my skin and bones. “Thank you, Madame Xiang.”
“Call me Lei,” she said. “Close as we’ve become, it seems only fitting.”
She led me through the curtain, into the back room, which was a parlor and a small kitchen crammed together. Lei didn’t stop, though. She took me to a door that led to the first floor, a windowless room that couldn’t be seen from the street.
“I’d much rather do this in a basement,” she said, “but this place isn’t stable. Rat-infested mud hole that this city is. You know when they started the Engine under Alcatraz, it cracked the whole city in two? That there’s still wreckage under the streets they covered up and pretended wasn’t there? There’s a giant chasm in the basement. Under this whole section of the city, really. We use the tunnels for smuggling, when we have things we’d rather the Proctors not see.”
She lit an oil lamp and perused the shelves. They seemed to close in all around us, full of bottles and jars, some containing specimens of things both recognizable and not, most containing brilliantly hued liquids in every color of the spectrum.
“The medium thing just makes ends meet,” Lei said. “What my mother taught me is to be a poisoner. I can mix and match anything you’d like from these jars. Even death.”
I watched her as she ran her hands over the bottles. I didn’t think Lei would poison me in any way that I couldn’t wake up from eventually, but I didn’t trust her either, so I kept my eyes on her.
“You’re certainly good at knocking people out,” I said.
“That?” She laughed lightly. “That’s just a little sleepy-time, some opium and a few herbs. I have one that will leave you with no memory at all. But I wouldn’t use that one on stupid kids. That’s reserved for real problems.”
She handed me a small vial of white liquid. “Here. This will work, but when you start breathing again it’s going to take a while for the toxins to make their way out of your system. You’ll be unconscious and vulnerable.”
She blew out the lamp and let me walk ahead of her up the stairs. Fang watched us when we returned to the parlor.
“Now go away and let me have my rest,” Lei said. “And if you don’t survive, I don’t want your mates showing up here, blaming me.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. Now that it was light, I could see the dot in the sky—a blot, growing ever closer. “If I don’t survive, you’ll have bigger things to worry about.”
Conrad and Cal were on the stoop when I returned, and Conrad jumped to his feet. “You can’t just go running off like that!” he shouted.
“I left a note,” I said.
“Dammit, a note’s not enough when we’re in a strange city.” Conrad sighed. “You always go off and leave me to worry.…”
“What are you so afraid I’m going to do?” I said, fingering the vial in my pocket. “Start another apocalypse?”
“Okay, that’s not fair,” Conrad said. “I don’t blame you for what’s happening. I’m here helping you, aren’t
