The man outside the door bellowed a gruff command at the girl. She set the tray down on the chair and backed out of the room, bowing. The man snatched her by the neck and roughly shoved her down the hall, then shut the door and locked it.

Aida waited until their footsteps faded, then rolled off the bunk and crawled to the tray of food. She lifted the napkin and found the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.

Her silver lancet.

THIRTY

WHO SENT THE LANCET? VELMA? WINTER? WHOEVER IT WAS, someone knew where she was—or at the very least, knew how to send something to her.

Reeling with hope, she spent several minutes considering how to hide the lancet, and decided to wedge it under her garter, as it was less likely to be found and taken than it would be if it were palmed in her hand.

No one returned for her, so she began inspecting the food. The beer was capped. She smelled it, poured some out to inspect the color, then tasted it in incrementally larger amounts, until she was as certain as she could be under the circumstances that it was untainted. Once it was finished, out of sheer desperation, she relieved her aching bladder in the rusting sink. Not her finest moment, and she cursed Yip’s name for treating her like an animal.

An hour after the food was delivered, the big man returned with a partner. He held up the tin with the noxious cloth as a warning before herding her out of the room. A terrible rush of anxiety rattled her nerves as she was led down the corridor. But instead of heading back to the booze storage, they took her to a room with double doors. The metal plate on the wall, stamped with both Chinese characters and English, read FIRST-CLASS DINING ROOM. They entered.

“Ah, Tai,” called a cheery voice in the distance. Yip. “Bring in Miss Palmer.”

Her eyes darted around the expansive room. Like the rest of the ship, it lacked electricity, but lit lanterns had been set upon round tables. She could imagine those tables, when the ship had seen better days, covered in white linen and silver tableware; now, they were pushed to either side of the room to make an aisle, broken chairs piled near the walls. Two other sets of doors had been nailed shut with boards.

A large chandelier hung in the center of the room. Some of the bulbs were broken, and a few dripping candles had been stuck in their place. The candles cast a meager golden light on two tables below that had been shoved together. A long, dark box sat atop them, and behind stood Doctor Yip.

“Come, come,” the herbalist said, waving her closer. “I hope you’re well rested now, and you’ve eaten.”

Aida didn’t answer.

He gave a command in Cantonese to the big man, who dismissed his partner, and closed the doors. Yip spoke to her again. “Tai will mind the door while we talk, yes? Step closer, please. I have something marvelous to show you.”

No need to panic, she told herself. She was armed, and by calling her forward, he was putting several yards between him and Tai. She’d be alone with him, and the lancet sat snug against her leg.

He should be the one frightened.

Steeling herself, she slowly approached the doctor, but didn’t make it halfway before she halted.

“What’s on the table?” she said.

“It’s a coffin, my dear.”

“An empty one?” The second the words were out of her mouth, something putrid and foul wafted. She recoiled and clapped her hand over her mouth. Something crunched under her shoes: dirt and gravel. A line of it led to the coffin.

Yip chuckled. “You would think someone with your skills would be less wary of the dead. Though, I do forget that your talents are different than mine. Not accustomed to graveyard work, I take it?”

“No,” she managed.

“It’s not pleasant, I’ll admit. But you must remind yourself that it is just a body.”

“Whose body?”

“Come closer, and I’ll show you.”

Another smell hung over the stench of death. “Are those herbs? More of your spellwork?”

He laughed. “No, that’s to help with the odor of the body. If I wanted you drugged, I would’ve already done so. I’m trying to show you something, please.”

She stepped closer, giving the coffin a wide berth as she tried not to breathe through her nose.

“Let us be frank,” Yip said, wiping his hands on a soiled handkerchief. “I know you have been seeing Mr. Magnusson. I also know you are booked in New Orleans, so I am assuming your time spent with the bootlegger is merely a dalliance.”

“It’s none of your business, is what it is.”

He waved a hand, dismissive. “I don’t care about that. What I’d like to talk to you about is a partnership.” He tipped his head her way. “All hives have a queen, yes?”

She nearly choked. “What?”

“I don’t suggest anything physical. I am referring to a working partnership. An indoctrination into my organization.” He held up a hand when she balked. “Now, hear me out. We are cut from a similar cloth, you and I. We both can call spirits from the beyond. My powers are stronger, but you are able to do something I can’t, which is to speak to them. I cannot do this, I confess. I can bring them back and command them—and truly, this gives me more power than you.”

“Truly,” Aida muttered.

“You’ve seen my results, yes? Mr. Magnusson’s murder victims? I think he’s been using you to get rid of them.”

“It’s a fine trick, luring them with the coins and buttons,” she said.

“I knew it! You can send them back. Is this a skill you’ve been taught?”

She didn’t understand why he was so excited, and she wasn’t going to admit that she hadn’t been able to send them back—at least not when she tried it on the bloated ghost in the tunnel under the street. “So you basically channel spirits into dead things instead of yourself.”

“Yes,” Doctor Yip said, throwing his handkerchief aside. “It is one difference between us. I can call them and give them life again. Command them. You can call them into you temporarily. You cannot command them.”

“I can send them back.”

He smiled at her, as if this was the best news he’d ever received, then cleared his throat. “Yes, yes. And you can speak with them. I cannot. They will follow my commands, but they will not talk to me. And someone with your particular talent might be helpful in obtaining information from the dead. Not this plebeian work you’ve been doing, but real information from important spirits.”

“Why in God’s name would I want to help you with that?”

“I know you are sympathetic to the Chinese people—”

“I’m sympathetic to most people, as long as they aren’t trying to kill me.”

He made an impatient noise. “What I’m offering is a chance to use your abilities for a greater cause. You will be given a place of honor in this organization.”

“And live on a rotting boat like a rat?”

“Live wherever you’d like. I will pay you a salary that will allow you a luxurious lifestyle, if that is important to you.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe that. You did try to burn me alive in my old apartment.”

He idly brushed the front of his vest. “I was only thinking of you as a problem then. I’ve been doing a lot of consideration and prayer, and I see now that I was wrong. You’re much more useful to me alive.”

“That’s a comfort.”

“You are suspicious. Very smart. And we can talk about this for hours, but you will not be convinced until you can see what I’m capable of. Action will convince you where words fail. And I truly believe that something in you will understand better.”

He cracked open the lid of the coffin.

Aida recognized the moment for what it was: an opportunity. She should stab him now, while he was weak, while his goon stood across the room. She could kill him, or injure him badly enough to escape. But how loyal was the big man, Tai? Would he stop her at the door?

Her mind whirled.

“Like speaks to like,” Doctor Yip said as he stood the lid open on its hinges. “We are the same, you and I. No one can truly understand who you are like I can.”

The stench worsened considerably.

Yip leaned over the open coffin and chanted something she didn’t understand several times. “Hay-sun-la, hay-sun-la . . .”

Aida’s breath turned white.

She scanned the coffin for a ghost and saw nothing.

Yip’s shoulders drooped. His breath wasn’t like Aida’s—no ghostly fog billowed from his mouth. His breathing was, however, strained. He gulped air like he was drowning and made a crude hacking noise.

Aida’s focus splintered when something thudded from inside the coffin.

He’d called something over the veil, her breath told her that. And she expected it to look much like the ghosts he’d sent after Winter.

It didn’t.

A decomposing corpse came into view as it sat upright in the coffin. Half bone, half decayed, rotting flesh, it turned its head toward Yip. It was hard to tell if it was male or female, as most of the hair and flesh was missing from the back of its skull. It was wearing clothing, but it was soiled beyond recognition with decomposition, its chest sunken. Shriveled lips remained, sutured closed. The eye sockets were filled with dark sludge.

“You channeled the spirit into the corpse,” Aida whispered.

He coughed and placed a hand on his vest, as if to steady his laboring lungs. “Yes. I don’t use memento mori, as you say in your show. I use their bones as a beacon.” He mumbled incoherent words to the corpse, which promptly lay back down in the coffin. But he didn’t send her back over the veil, because Aida’s breath was still cold.