“Anggor Neo.”
“They broke neutrality when they killed him. But I think you should try to save Miss Chew first,” Master Gan said, “or all this will be for nothing.”
Adeline looked down at Elaine. “Leave us.”
The Needle obliged, surprisingly, perhaps familiar with the request for secrecy.
Adeline sat on the edge of the bed and touched Elaine’s forehead. It was scalding. Elaine was sweating violently. Next to her were an empty basin and washcloth; there were marks at key points on her limbs, presumably from the Needle’s attempts to heal her. “You’re so fucking stupid,” Adeline said, only somewhat smugly.
Elaine’s eyes flickered open. “What?” she murmured. Even when she registered Adeline, she barely had the energy for shock. “What are you…?”
“Did you take anything at the revival? Pills?”
Delirious blinking. “We only drank wine. Communion. The sacrament.” Elaine reached for Adeline. Pushed aside the collar of her blouse with burning fingers, exposing the butterfly tattoo. “When I close my eyes… I see… wings.”
“You’ve been—infected somehow.” It wasn’t the right word to use, but it was the only one that came to mind. Lady Butterfly’s magic was somehow taking hold in hosts that had no ties to her. “You must have drunk it. Does the butterfly say anything? What do you feel when you see her?”
Elaine whined and curled up. Adeline gritted her teeth. The questions would have to wait. The Needle was right—she had to try to save her first. An idea was coming to her, but it was recklessly dangerous, and entirely untested. It was completely possible she might just kill Elaine.
Well, win-win.
She grabbed Elaine by the elbow. Elaine tried to squirm from her. “I’m trying to save your life,” Adeline snapped, unable to believe those words were coming out of her mouth, but tightening her grip anyway, and spreading her other hand over Elaine’s abdomen.
Heat bloomed in her senses like a bruise. She had underestimated how muchmorea person was compared to a bird, how hot-blooded. The sun that was Elaine didn’t want to be restrained. The mortal body was not meant to hold so much fire, not without help. This fever was foreign. Adeline recognized it like recognizing herself. Some piece of Lady Butterfly had gotten into that wine, and without oaths and tattoos to anchor it, it was burning Elaine from the inside out.
It was already resisting Adeline’s attempts to corral it. She had hoped to bring it down slowly. Instead, it seemed she was going to have to bring it down the same way they’d brought the heat up in that chicken—suddenly, violently, and just hopefully not fatally.
“You’re stronger than a chicken,” Adeline muttered.
“… What?”
Adeline shoved at the fever. She sucked in a breath at the aftershock that spiked through her, blistering and bitter. It wasn’t happy, but it didn’t matter. It was hers, it was Lady Butterfly’s; like a relentless child, it would obey. She pushed again, harder this time, demanding its retreat.
For all her willpower, Adeline was burning as she wrestled the fever down. It kept coming back in waves, spilling through any lapses in her guard. Stars broke in the corner of her eyes. She had to force herself to focus. Elaine was panting and whimpering from the fight raging within her, but Adeline was getting somewhere, even if she had to keep pushing harder to keep Elaine still. Putting a fire out was easy, she told herself. A snap of the fingers to summon it, and another flick to go away. To everyone else it might be a monster. In her hands it was malleable. It washermonster.
Adeline gripped, and pain seared through her, and she ground the fever down.
Elaine’s eyes fluttered, and the tension dissolved from her face. Under Adeline’s palms, her body was cooling petulantly, to something near normal.
“Heavenly fire,” Elaine murmured. Adeline ignored her, still waiting for it to come undone. But she seemed to have quelled the fever permanently.
The longer the seconds passed without the devouring heat returning, the more she became aware of Elaine’s breathing evening out, her stomach rising and falling under the gentle pressure of Adeline’s hands, skin still damp and clammy from sweat. Abruptly, Adeline pulled away and stood. But she continued looking at Elaine, the fear of whom seemed like a distant, laughable thing. Elaine was still a schoolgirl, and Adeline was…? Adeline was understanding Mavis’s glittering eyes on the playground, the wild ambition of a demigod. She had done something entirely new here, grasped a power that might open new paths if they could only start heading down them. Perhaps it had never been done, but did that mean it was wrong? Could something be wrong if those who had come before could never even have conceived of it?
Everything had been new once, before it turned into tradition.
Adeline stared at Elaine for a moment longer, then went to find the Needle outside. “You can get Mr. Chew now.”
When he arrived, Mr. Chew ran to Elaine and clasped her face, checking her temperature.
“You care about her now,” Adeline observed, “when you’re not running out on your family.”
Mr. Chew jolted and saw her properly, for the first time. He still didn’t remember the girl she’d been, ten years ago—but the dawning recognition suggested their last encounter was returning to him. “Desker Road?” Adeline prompted. She had the feeling that she shouldn’t risk testing him—that he owed her, currently, and she should keep it that way. But she was wrung out of patience and still highly strung from the earlier exertion. “I stole your wallet. Saw her picture in there.”
Mr. Chew didn’t balk, the kind of confidence that came with assurances upon assurances. “Three Steel has Red Butterfly magic. How?”
It was still bizarre to hear the words come out of his mouth. They were not supposed to exist in the same world, Chinatown gangs and Nassim millionaires, but such divides, in truth, were very recent things.
Master Gan shook his head. “Lady Butterfly and the Steel General are two of the most jealous gods in the set. They could never share. However Fan Ge is doing it, it’s by new methods. Or,” he added, “you have a traitor.”
