“She killed the Butterfly that did it. What was there to save?”
Lee shrugged. “She went too soft on her; lots of people wereunhappy. Some people still believe she set the other woman up to do it. That fire was a god’s fire. How else would the woman have gotten that much power? Red Butterfly was fighting with the gang that controlled Ho Swee, at the time. The motive was there. Some even say the government paid them to do it.”
“It was ten years ago. People don’t have anything better to wonder about?”
“You wouldn’t forget it if you’d seen,” he replied simply. “You girls already had a reputation for being demon women. After that, well. Even I had to wonder. You know they say that the woman ran through the houses and walls simply caught fire. She brushed past people and they simply collapsed. They say she was laughing as homes burned, that she wept tears of blood, that her skin bled without wounds, that she had wings. I don’t believe everything, of course, but I do believe that no ordinary person produces tales like that. And now there’s you. Girl born with fire. You can see why I had to come find out for myself.”
“You signed the Act. You’re not part of this anymore.”
“A legitimate man can’t be curious?” They jerked to a stop at a traffic light. Stalled, the whole car hummed under them, the vibrations reaching through Adeline’s skin. “It works for us, you know. It can be a good deal, if you’re not hung up on tradition.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“I’ve made our god understand. I will not pass it on, so it will die on the mortal plane with me. I will make my penance, and we will make our peace.”
Adeline felt inexplicably disgusted. Three-Legged Lee smiled. “No, I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Not with that monster of a goddess you have.”
“Call her that again.”
“Monster,” he said slowly, “of a goddess.”
She jerked. Lee’s cane flashed out, slamming Adeline back against the seat. His lips peeled back over his teeth, and for amoment, nostrils flaring, there was a rearing stallion in his skin. The rain thundered outside, battering the windows.
But then he settled back down again, catching his cane and replacing it placidly over his lap, and he was just a man again. “Don’t get me wrong, hor tiap. Lots of our gods are monsters, if you ask the right people. Many of the jealous gods are fighters by nature, fueled by being surrounded by their kind. The magic demands to be used. It demands its devotees persist. But you Butterfly girls and your conduits have always been even more different. Something about the fire takes over. Those who try to keep it too long end up being consumed by it.”
Lee spoke as if he knew better than the Butterflies themselves, and perhaps he did, because he’d seen it, hadn’t he? He’d been around longer than they had. He’d known her mother and the Madam Butterfly before her, maybe even the one before that. And yet—“Maybe it’s just that it has nowhere to go,” Adeline said sweetly, still unnerved. “Maybe we should be burning more things down.”
“You’re not what you look like,” Lee said. Despite his earlier disparaging remarks, it sounded like a grudging compliment. “Your mother used to talk like that, too, like the rules didn’t deserve to apply to her. That kind of talk makes you enemies. Tell me, how did Red Butterfly react, when they realized you wouldn’t simply give them whatever they wanted?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, that’s why they haven’t put up a new conduit yet, isn’t it? You haven’t decided.”
“The girls choose the new conduit,” Adeline said slowly.
Lee’s brows rose. “Well, in a way. But it’s your blood that decides it.” He paused, realizing they were no longer trading jibes. “You weren’t told? The next Madam Butterfly will need to take your blood. Why do you think Fan Ge is going around bleeding out the tang ki ko he kills? Kongsi have hidden and resurfaced over the decades,but the only way to truly end one is to kill the conduit and spoil the blood that’s left. It can still work if it’s fresh enough.” He raised his cane and tapped Adeline on the wrist, on the blue of her veins.
If the Sons hadn’t told them first, the revelation about Three Steel’s executions might have been enough to throw her off. It wasn’t common knowledge—official news, tabloids, and gossip networks talked variously about increasing fights, raids, and defectors being hunted down, but the exsanguination was a detail that they had still only heard that once. She’d already had time to sit with that fate, though, and so it was the other implication that took hold. Tian’s anxiety that she stay, Tian’s admission that the ascension wasn’t so simple as rallying the other girls into agreement—and above all, Tian’s unfaltering attention, and her private smiles, and her willingness to share her conspiracy with Adeline, all of which now felt like Adeline was a pig being raised for slaughter. “If I refuse?” she said tightly.
“Well, unless the conduit is already dead, it’s always beenproperthat the blood is given willingly. But they could simply take it from you.”
Tian dabbing at her mouth, casually taking her hand, pulling her through Bugis Street; her arms around Tian’s waist, leaning into curves, entire body pressed against her spine. Adeline hadn’t realized how comfortable she’d grown in the reliability of Tian’s physical presence—safe, constant, unassuming, assuring, protective—until it warped at this very moment. Understanding that all this fighting had not just been for what she represented, but what ran through her body, this substance under her skin that would have to be extracted, eventually, with some violence. In some ways Adeline should have seen it coming, but it was impossible to remember anything as gentle now.
None of which she allowed herself to reveal. “We were worried Three Steel would come after me,” she said.
“What, because you have your mother’s blood? I doubt it. RedButterfly might need you for the ceremony, and you may technically be the goddess’s current conduit, but Fan Ge doesn’t see you as the tang ki chi. The man is traditional in spite of the war—they tried very hard, you know, to stamp out all the remaining mainland rituals. I would be surprised if he challenged Red Butterfly until there is a proper tang ki chi for him to control.”
The car slowed, the outside a sheet of gray water. Lee jerked his head. “Go on. Show your sisters I promised no harm.”
Sisters? Adeline turned and found they had stopped outside the Butterfly house, and there, waiting in the five-foot way, were Tian and Pek Mun.
Lee sensed her hesitation. “Could I guess,” he mused, “who you want to give your blood to?”
Adeline banged the door open. Rain lashed in immediately. She got out and slammed the door with as much force, heading right into the dark corridor. Tian reached for her and she jerked away, a motion that she saw propel Tian’s alarm to urgent, worried heights.
“Adeline, what did he—”
“Don’t touch me.” Adeline was still drenched, clothes clinging to her, hair damp on her neck. “Is it true? You need to take my blood to make the next Madam Butterfly?”
