Then he strode away, motioning sharply to his men. Tian frowned sideways at Adeline. “Have you met him?” Adeline shook her head. Tian ran her tongue over her teeth, visibly unnerved. “Drink?” she said abruptly.
Adeline let her fetch two Green Spots as Christina returned to join them. Fan Ge had already left, but in the following hours several more representatives came to visit. Yang Bak Fu, the leader of the Sons also known as the Dead’s Uncle, was unassuming compared to his Three Steel counterpart, in a light gray suit and a ring of ten circles tattooed on each of his hands. He checked over the funeral arrangements and spoke to Genevieve; she did not introduce him to Adeline. Following him was a younger man from the Society of the Broken Chain. His collar exposed colorful links on his chest. He wasn’t important enough to have an epithet, apparently, but they ran the Kettle, one of the remaining opium dens in the city on the edge of Butterfly territory, and were friendly. There was a Spinning Lion, whose troupe supposedly melded their minds and bodies when they got under their dancing lion skins. Then there was a representative from the Nine Horse gang—not its leader, Three-Legged Lee, Tian said, just a younger member.
Christina smirked when Adeline asked why Lee had that name. “By right, because he carries a cane—but it depends who you ask. He had a reputation, where I used to work.”
“Where was that?”
“Bugis Street,” Christina said mildly, but Adeline sensed her reaction being watched.
She knew, obviously, of the strip in the red-light district that came alive at night with food, booze, tourists, and its famous women—transsexuals and cross-dressers—prettier, they said, than their wives at home. If Christina hadn’t said, Adeline wouldn’t have been able to tell.
“How did you end up in Red Butterfly?” she finally asked.
“A friend,” Christina said meaningfully.
Pek Mun had just arrived with four other Butterflies and gone to pay her respects. There were twenty-one Butterflies altogether, Tian explained, and ten of the girls stayed in a shophouse in Chinatown her mother had managed to acquire. Most gangs didn’t live together like that; they lived with their families for part of the day, or else a few of them took rooms in buildings that doubled as bars or gambling dens or warehouses, or all three. The way Tian described it, everywhere needed purpose on purpose these days, with the way the police were squeezing them and rooting out hideaways, but the Butterfly house existed as shelter and only shelter for former (or current, in cases) bar girls, call girls, and restless truants from bad homes who were willing to shed a little blood for a better one. Sure, there were some prices and prayers to be exchanged for the safe roof and fire, and it required a certain character, but protection wasn’t free anywhere.
Adeline could have listened to Tian go on, but then a vise grip closed around Adeline’s arm. Pek Mun loomed over her.
“How long have you been wearing this?”
“What the hell?” Adeline shoved at Pek Mun, whose grip only tightened.
“How long have you been wearing this?”
“Mun,” Tian hissed. There weren’t many people around, but Pek Mun relented anyway, taking the next seat before tugging sharply again at the patch on Adeline’s sleeve.
“Has anyone seen?”
Tian craned her neck to look around. Finally, understanding dawned on her. “The Sons,” she replied reluctantly. Paused. Then, quieter: “Fan Ge.”
Pek Mun’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Not a problem, then.”
“Whatisyour problem?” Adeline snapped. “He saw the patch, so what?”
“Now the other kongsi know Madam has a daughter,” Tian interrupted. “You could be in danger if they find out you somehow have fire. There are some Butterflies who still don’t know yet.”
“You didn’t tell them?”
“We didn’t know about you until three days ago, Adeline,” Christina said gently.
“You didn’t know I had fire? Or you didn’t know I existed?”
“No one knew,” Tian said. “She kept you a secret from us the same way she kept us from you.”
“Probably for a reason,” Pek Mun offered. “Maybe you should think about why before you start running around announcing to every possible enemy in town that you’re her daughter.”
“I’m not sorry for things I didn’t know. And it sounds like whoever takes over as your conduit has more to worry about than the daughter of the dead one.” Pek Mun could deal with Fan Ge, Adeline thought ungenerously, and then somewhat cheerfully. She didn’t feel sorry about Pek Mun having to make hard choices.
“You’d better stay safe, then,” Pek Mun said. She gave Adeline a polite smile that was somehow worse than an insult and allowed herself to be ushered off by Christina.
Tian sucked air through her teeth. “I’m sorry.”
“Then be sorry.” Adeline had no patience for platitudes. It should have felt vindicating in a way that her mother had kept them all in the dark, but she felt like she’d been erased.
“I don’t want to fight at your mother’s wake.”
“I don’t really care what you want.” Her mother had started it, after all. But Tian still hadn’t left. Adeline took one of the red threads from the center of the table, meant for departing visitors to pick up and discard to prevent funerary spirits from following them home. She wound the thread around her pinkie and pulled tight. “Are you prepared to die?”
