Foul Lady Fortune

When the grandfather clock struck midnight, its echo rang cavernously through the mansion house. It wasn’t that there was a lack of belongings to absorb the sound—plush couches lined every common area, circled by large flower vases and antique paintings hanging on the walls. It was only that the Hong family had been downsizing their staff these recent few years, and now they merely had two servants left, which gave the house a ghostly sort of emptiness that was impossible to counter.

Ah Dou was nearby, adjusting his spectacles as he organized the calling cards that had been stacking up on the foyer cabinet. And on the living room couch, sprawled sideways with his legs over the armrest, was Orion Hong, looking the very epitome of frivolous and relaxed.

“It’s getting late, èr shàoyé,” Ah Dou said, casting a glance at him. “Are you preparing to retire soon?”

“A bit later,” Orion replied. He rose onto his elbow, propping himself up on the couch pillows. His dress shirt wasn’t made for such a casual posture, and the white fabric strained at the seams. If he ripped it, maybe it would make him look tough. Disregarding the fact that Orion was the least tough-looking person in the city. Maybe he could scare someone off with his pretentious dishevelment. “Do you think my father will be home tonight?”

Ah Dou peered at the clock, making an exaggerated sound while he straightened his back. It had rung minutes ago, so they both knew exactly what time it was. Still, the elderly housekeeper made a show of checking. “I would guess he’s staying at the office.”

Orion tipped his head into one of the pillows. “With his work hours, you would think he’s on the front lines of the civil war instead of running upper-tier administration.”

It wasn’t that Orion was home often, either. If he wasn’t assigned on a mission, he was luxuriating somewhere in the city, preferably in a loud dance hall surrounded by beautiful people. But on the nights he did return, it was strange to see the house in its state. He should have been accustomed to it by now, or at least grown familiar with how it emptied bit by bit every year. Yet each time he came in through the foyer, he was tilted off-kilter, lifting his chin to look at the chandeliers dangling off the main atrium and wondering when the last time was that they had been lit at full brightness.

“You have your father’s spirit,” Ah Dou answered evenly. “I’m sure you understand his dedication to his work.”

Orion flashed his best grin. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m only dedicated to a good time.”

The housekeeper shook his head, but it wasn’t true disapproval. Ah Dou was too fond of him for that—before Orion had been sent off to England, he had grown up with Ah Dou hovering over his shoulder, whether to report to his nanny that he was wearing his jacket or to make sure that he had eaten enough for the day.

“Would you like some tea?” Ah Dou asked now, setting the calling cards down neatly. “I shall make you some tea.”

Without waiting for a response, Ah Dou shuffled off, his slippers clapping against the marble flooring. He parted the beaded curtain into the dining room, then disappeared into the kitchen, making a clatter of the water kettle. Orion sat up straight, running a hand through his gelled hair.

A single strand fell into his eyes. He didn’t bother brushing it out of the way. He only rested his arms on his knees and eyed the front door, though he knew it wouldn’t be opening anytime soon. If Orion had wanted his father home during the nights he returned, he could have made a phone call ahead of time and confirmed first… but they weren’t that sort of family anymore. General Hong would ask if there was anything pressing to be addressed at the household, then hang up if Orion said no.

It didn’t used to be like this. That seemed to be his daily refrain. Once, his father would come home at five o’clock on the dot. Orion would run at him, and even though at nine years old he was getting too big to be picked up and swung around, his father did it anyway. How terrible was it that his happiest memories came from such a distant past? England in the years following had been a blur of gray skies, and then nothing was the same after he returned to Shanghai.

A sudden rustle sounded from upstairs. Orion’s gaze whipped toward the staircase, his attention sharpening to a point. To the left of the second floor, his father’s home office was situated in an open-plan room: a large dome of stained glass shining patterns down onto his desk when the sun was in the right position. In the night, the entire house echoed the loudest from the office; the shelves and shelves of books looped above the desk did nothing to insulate the space. His father had been particularly fond of pacing alongside those books during Orion’s youth, always tapping on the railing of the walkway that curled up to the shelves. The bedrooms were to the right of the main staircase. Sometimes Orion would hear the metallic clanging when he was sleeping, taking the sound as a lullaby.

“Phoebe?” he called. He thought his younger sister had gone to sleep hours ago. At his voice, the rustling stopped short. Orion bolted to his feet. The sound wasn’t coming from the right, where Phoebe’s bedroom was. It was coming from his father’s office.

“Èr shàoyé, your tea—”

Orion’s arm shot out. Ah Dou halted fast.

“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” Gone was the easy grin; in slid the operative. Orion Hong was a national spy. No matter how lightly he wanted to take the world, the world came barreling toward him at breakneck speed every second day.

He hurried up the stairs, keeping his footfalls as quiet as possible. Because the moonlight streamed in through the side windows, only certain parts of the office space were visible. When Orion entered, he made no noise, creeping closer and closer to what he thought was movement at his father’s desk. If luck would have it, he would find nothing more than a wild rodent that had nibbled its way in through the drywall.

But luck wouldn’t have it.

A figure stood up from behind the desk.

Orion sprang forward, fists clenched in attack. With any other intruder, he would have backed away and called the police—the most efficient solution. But this particular intruder had not even concealed his identity, so his grimace was stark on his expression when Orion hauled him by the collar, slamming him against the lower bookshelves.

“What the hell are you doing here, Oliver?” Orion spat in English.

“What?” Oliver retorted, sounding entirely casual despite the wheeze at his throat. “Can I not enter my own home?”

Orion pressed harder. His older brother still didn’t look threatened, though his face did turn red with effort.

“This is not your home anymore.”

Not since Oliver defected to the Communists. Not since the April 12 Purge four years ago, when the Nationalists turned on the Communists and kicked them out of the Kuomintang party through mass slaughter, throwing the country into civil war.

“Ease up,” Oliver managed. “When did you start using your fists instead of your words?”

“When did you start getting so foolish?” Orion returned. “Walking back here knowing what would happen if you were caught.”

“Oh, please.” Even while he was being held down, Oliver sounded so confident and assured. He had always been like this. There was little that the eldest son of a Nationalist general could not demand, and he had grown up with his requests granted at the click of his fingers. “Let’s not bring politics into our family—”

Orion reached into his jacket, then jammed his pistol into his brother’s temple.

“You brought politics into our family. You drew division lines in our family.”

“You could have joined me. I asked you to come too. I never wanted to leave you or Phoebe behind.”

Orion’s finger twitched on the trigger. It would be so easy to pull it. Shanghai had become entirely hostile to Communist activity: no known member could walk the streets without being hauled in, either to be immediately executed or tortured for information and then executed. He would only be hurrying along Oliver’s ultimate fate.

Oliver eyed the pistol. There was no fear in his eyes, only mild exasperation.

“Put the gun down, dìdì. I know you’re not going to shoot.”

“Qù nǐ de,” Orion spat. He was the aggressor, and yet his heart was pounding with terror. As if he had been the one to get caught sneaking somewhere he wasn’t allowed to be. “Did they send you to gather information? Kill me?”

Oliver sighed, trying to crane his neck back from the forceful grip that Orion had on his collar, putting wrinkles into the fabric. He was in a Western suit, which meant he was undercover, dressed in pretense of the elite he used to be instead of the politics he believed in now.

“I’ve quite literally run into you in the field before,” Oliver replied plainly. “Wouldn’t we have come after you sooner if we wanted you dead?”

Unwittingly, Orion’s eyes flickered up to the library walkway, where he had said goodbye to his brother just before Oliver’s defection. Civil war had yet to entirely break out back then. It was coming, and everyone in the city knew it, but they were resolute to pretend until it could not be ignored any further. That night, Oliver had made a mess of the books in his search for a journal, claiming that the reason their mother had left was because their father was a national traitor—that General Hong was hanjian, that he did not have the right loyalties.

“He has been cleared,” Orion had insisted, holding his hands out, frantic to catch the books his brother was tossing. “Oliver, please—”

“Do you believe it? I do not.” Oliver hadn’t been able to find what he was looking for. He had made up his mind already anyway, and when Oliver made up his mind, there was no changing it. “I’m leaving. You have the same choice.”

“I would never,” Orion replied, barely able to get the words out.

Oliver whirled around. “You can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep trying to fix our father’s mistakes.”

“That’s not what I’m doing—”

“It is. Of course it is! Joining the Kuomintang? Training as their operative? You don’t have any interest in any of that. You’re only trying to prove a point to them—”

“Stop it,” Orion tried to interrupt. He had been the one to volunteer his services. When the covert branch came to discuss business with his father, he had been the one to follow after the higher-ups and slap his academic transcript on their desks, showing his years abroad and his early graduation from Shanghai’s secondary education academy, demanding a job that suited his background. “You don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“They’re corrupt. You’re going to fall into his same path—”

“I’m not.” Orion snatched the last book right out of Oliver’s hands. “Treason is not inherited. They’ll see. They’ll have to see.”

It was a long moment before Orion realized what he had said. What he had let slip, and what Oliver would have caught on to immediately.

“So you admit it,” Oliver said quietly. “You do think he committed treason.”

Orion stilled. “I didn’t say that.”

There was no point fighting that fight. Oliver was intent on walking out; Orion was stubbornly adamant on staying. When the front door to the house slammed shut that night, it had echoed so loudly that one of the glass droplets on the chandelier detached and pitched to the floor at rapid speed, shattering right in the center of the living room.

Orion tore his attention away from the books, from the shelves that he had spent hours afterward tidying. His father had been accused of taking Japanese money against national interests. His mother had abandoned them without any explanation. His brother had defected to the enemy. Orion had grown up as a careless middle child with nothing on his shoulders, and suddenly within the span of weeks that fateful summer, he was the only tool left to prove to the Nationalists that the Hong family name was worth something.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Orion said. His words were vehement, but he drew his pistol back and released his hold on Oliver’s collar. “If you weren’t my brother, I wouldn’t take my hand off your throat until I had pulled out your tongue with the other.”

“Good thing I’m your brother.” Oliver straightened his collar, huffing at the creases. “I’m not here to make trouble.”

“Then what are you here for?”

“It would be boring if I told you, wouldn’t it?”

Orion clenched his jaw. He much preferred to go through life unbothered than angry, but with every run-in—every brief public encounter on missions that collided with each other, every time Oliver was undercover and Orion was forced to pretend he had no clue who this man was even while they were rehashing the same old arguments under their breaths—there was no one who got him angrier than his estranged brother.

“Go, Oliver,” Orion seethed. “Before I report you.”

Oliver considered the matter. He folded his arms, then seemed to look at Orion more carefully. “Do you know about the chemical killings yet?”

Orion furrowed his brow. Had any of his words even gotten through? “The what?”

“I suspect you will soon,” Oliver continued. “My sources say they’re putting you on the task. Typical of the Nationalists to start formulating their plan of action without your agreement first.”

“Don’t—” Before Oliver could lean in and take something from their father’s desk, Orion grasped him by the wrist. When Orion turned to examine the desk, he couldn’t see what it was that Oliver had been reaching for. Maybe his brother was playing mind games. “Either tell me what you’re here for or go.”

“You’re too trusting, Orion. You ought to be more careful. You ought to look more closely at the people you’re working for.” Oliver tugged his wrist away and, for the first time that night, winced to show visible discomfort.

“I am not the one working for an ousted party,” Orion said dully. “Go. Please.”

Don’t go, please, he had pleaded years ago. When there was still hope that their family wasn’t crumbling into pieces. When Oliver was the prodigy and Phoebe was the baby, and all Orion needed to do was ensure he didn’t get caught making frivolous trouble.

But none of that remained in the present. Now Orion worked for the country’s legitimate government, and Oliver worked to overthrow it, other interests be damned. Oliver smoothed his sleeves down. That slip of emotion before when he had pulled his wrist back could have been entirely imagined. Nothing more to say, Oliver brushed by and walked away without a second glance, just like the first time he’d left this house. Moments later, Orion heard the front door close, albeit a lot softer this time around.

Orion loosed his tight exhale. Though his breath came more evenly, he was far from relaxed. What had Oliver been looking for?

Orion took a step away from the desk. He tried to put himself into his brother’s shoes, see the world from his brother’s eyes. Every small thing became a thousand times more pressing, every sudden decision made so much faster. Though he performed a careful sweep of his father’s desk, eventually pulling at the drawers too to check what Oliver might have been digging through, he found nothing save for invoices and boring correspondences with assistants.

“Shàoyé?” A knock at the doorjamb. Ah Dou was poking his head into the office, his expression held with careful neutrality. “Is everything quite all right?”

“You didn’t hear anything, did you?” Orion asked. His tone indicated what answer Ah Dou needed to give: No, sir, I heard nothing at all. In households that played politics, the staff either blocked everything out or risked being removed. Ah Dou was familiar with the procedure.

“Nothing at all,” he returned evenly. “Are you looking for something of your father’s?”

Orion gave the desk one last scan. He had to admit: yes, he was expecting to find something suspicious. He had to admit: he lived every day afraid that his father would mess up again and that, this time, the case would not fall apart before conviction; this time, he would not be cleared when the evidence proved too insubstantial. He would be hauled in, and Orion would watch the last of his hope fall apart. He didn’t know what to believe. Traitor or not, hanjian or not. It was his father. Perhaps it made Orion a bad operative, but if he were ever to encounter incriminating evidence within the walls of his house, his first instinct would be to hide it away.

Orion allowed himself one shaky sigh. Then he transformed his expression into a bright grin, and had he glanced into a mirror, he might even have fooled himself.

“Only some extra paper. You have the tea ready?”