Down the hall leading to the bedrooms, Winter could hear her humming the refrain of an old song over and over. She had a beautiful voice—he’d inherited his own from her, if nothing else—and now he found himself stopping to admire it, listening to the sweet notes repeat themselves.

  “Hi, Mom,” he called out to her. The singing paused. He held out the bouquet of flowers before him, as if she could see it. “Got a spare vase?”

  “Zaì shuǐ cáo xià,” she called back in Mandarin. Under the kitchen sink.

  He could hear the tension in her voice now, the slight disappointment tainting her musical voice that always seemed to pop up whenever he visited.

  As he went to the kitchen to pull out an old glass vase from under the sink, his mother emerged from her bedroom in a quiet flurry. Today, she was dressed in a chunky white sweater and a pleated green dress that swished as she walked, and her wavy black hair was tied back with a bandana, the locks draping over one of her shoulders. A large tote hung from her arm. Like the apartment, everything about her appeared hastily thrown together, but in a way that looked like perfection. His mother, always stylish even without trying.

  But he knew she did try, of course. She’d probably been up for several hours already, pulling on and taking off outfit after outfit, unable to stop until she finally managed to settle on something that ended the cycle.

  “Thank you for the flowers, baby bear,” she said breathlessly, this time in English, as she put her earrings in without a mirror. “They’re beautiful.”

  Winter nodded, even though she wasn’t looking directly at him and hadn’t even seen the flowers. “I got you tulips.”

  “I love tulips.”

  He knew that, of course. Knew that tulips were her favorite flower and that yellow and blue were her favorite colors, had personally gone to the best flower shop in the city that had closed just for him, had handpicked each tulip so that they looked the freshest.

  He had put his heart into the bouquet, even though he knew his mother wouldn’t notice.

  “I’m leaving for a retreat tomorrow,” he added as he looked for a pair of scissors. “And then a concert overseas. I’ll be back in a few weeks.”

  She fumbled in the side table’s drawers for her wallet, then cast him her first direct look and a brief smile. “That’s great, Winter!” she exclaimed. “You’re going to be amazing.”

  No questions about what the retreat was for or where he’d be. No questions about his concert. No Be safe! or Bring a jacket! At least keeping Panacea a secret from her would be easy. He kept a straight face as he cut the stems of the flowers and arranged them in the way he knew she preferred. “You know that billionaire guy from the UK? Eli Morrison?”

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “I’ll be performing for his daughter for her birthday,” he said.

  “Oh?” Mom turned slightly to look at him with a raised eyebrow, her wallet now in hand. She switched back to Mandarin. “Nǐ gēn tā hǎo le?” You’re dating her?

  He laughed. “No. I’m just the entertainment.”

  “Ah, xióng bǎobǎo.” Ah, baby bear. She dropped her wallet into her purse. “Zǒng huì yǒu yì tiān, nǐ zhǎo dào shì hé de nü péng yǒu.” Someday you’ll find the right girl.

  There she was, half listening to him as always, assuming that he just dated girls, answering him but not really taking in what he was telling her. Winter bit his tongue as he turned on the kitchen’s faucet and filled up the vase. “No, I’m not trying to date her,” he explained again. “It’s just a really great opportunity, and I think I’ll meet some important people at the parties during the week. It’s a big celebration.”

  Back to English. “Sounds like it!”

  He sighed as he walked over to the living room and carefully cleared a space on the coffee table for the flower vase. “Nín haí hǎo ba, Mom?” You’re doing well, Mom? It was his way of asking if she was taking her medication regularly.

  “Haí hǎo,” she said. “I’m taking a trip later today to New York for the week, with some friends.”

  Of course she was. He hadn’t even seen Mom wheel out her suitcase. Knowing her, she’d probably made the decision to go just this morning.

  “Sounds fun,” he replied, pushing aside a small stack of magazines on the couch to sit down.

  She smiled at him again as she took out her phone. “What have you been up to?”

  His latest album had just come out a month ago, and he’d done a national tour for it. He’d broken records with it. He’d been on every talk show, day and night, had graced the covers of Rolling Stone and Vogue and GQ and a dozen other magazines.

  Mom hadn’t asked about any of it, hadn’t even sent him a congratulatory message.

  Artie used to endure long interrogations from her about where he was going and for how long. Knowing now what Artie really did for a living, Winter felt even more impressed that his brother had managed to keep his secret from their mother.

  Winter wouldn’t have any such trouble.

  As a kid, he had sometimes screamed in her face about it. I’m right here! Why can’t you see me? But he was nineteen now and just didn’t have the heart for it anymore. He knew this was her way around him, that she willfully ignored what was happening in his life in an attempt to protect herself.

  He knew it was because he looked exactly like his father, her second husband, the man she had fallen wildly in love with and divorced in the span of a year. Whom she hated now with every fiber of her heart. He knew that every time she looked at Winter, she saw him, that she was reminded not of her son but of a man who used to pick apart everything from her face to her clothes to her words until she became a shell of herself. Winter knew that she’d left him home alone so often because she couldn’t bear to be in the same room as him for long. To watch Winter succeed felt a little to her like watching that man succeed.

  Winter leaned his elbows against his knees and said, “Just the usual. I’ve been fine.”

  “Fine’s good,” Mom said as she came over to sit across from him. “How’s Claire?”

  “Haí hǎo.” Fine.

  “Still as busy as ever?”

  “She’s been looking after me well, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Good, good.”

  Winter stole a glance at her, aching to ask her about Artie. To probe for clues about how his brother had managed to keep everything so under wraps. To see if his mother really hadn’t known, when she’d always been so fixated on Artie’s life.

  But the questions died on his tongue. Even bringing up Artie’s name would open a Pandora’s Box, and he had no intention of ruining this entire visit.

  Instead, Winter dug into his back pocket and pulled out a red envelope, perfectly crisp. He handed it to his mother.

  “Oh, baby bear,” she said, tilting her head at him and shaking her head. She smiled. “I’m supposed to be giving you hóng bāo.”

  “Nah. I’m an adult, Mom,” he said, dipping his head to her once. It was his habit, the flowers and the red envelope, every time he was about to leave town for a while. After her divorce and Artie’s death, after the lengthy trauma had triggered in her endless sleepless nights and an inability to settle for longer than an hour, a therapist had suggested flowers for her as a calming ritual. So Winter brought them whenever he could. The red envelope was carefully stuffed with a couple thousand dollars in crisp new bills because he knew his mother’s aversion to cash with any wrinkles on it. Once, she had gotten stranded in France after being unable to find a bank that could give her new bills. Winter had flown there himself to deliver her the money and help her get sorted.

  Besides, it was an excuse for Winter to see her. This was the only way he knew how to visit. If he didn’t, she would never ask for him, never come over, never call. Never miss him. At least their frequent farewells gave him an excuse to bring gifts over.

  Mom looked at him for a moment with that wistful, searching expression, then took the envelope. “Duì nǐ mā zhēn hǎo,” she said, patting his cheek. You’re good to your mother. He felt himself lean into the coolness of her touch.

  “What are you doing in New York?” he asked.

  “Having some fun, letting off some steam. I’m going to see this amazing new Broadway show, Highland Street Hustle, that everyone’s been talking about, and then head to a rental house upstate.” She made a tsk sound. “My friends all ask about you. Katie wants to know if her daughter Emma can get a signed album from you, and I told her yes.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you, baby bear. I think you’d like Emma. She’s a nice girl, and get this—she also interned for a summer in Baltimore, just like you did in senior year. I should tell her, she’d love—”

  “No, don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Winter cleared his throat gently. “I didn’t go to Baltimore. That was Artie.”

  His mother’s frenetic movements by the side table suddenly paused, and when he looked over at her, she had her eyes fixed on him for the first time since he’d arrived, her entire body rigid like she was an insect trapped in amber. Her eyes widened as she realized her mistake.

  “Oh,” she murmured. “Duì, Artie did.”

  Winter shuffled uncomfortably, hating that he had to bring his brother up. There was nothing new about Mom mixing up his past with his late brother’s—she frequently confused Winter’s birthday with Artie’s, substituted Artie’s favorite foods and clothes and haunts in place of Winter’s. It had worsened considerably after Artie’s death. But Winter still hated that even the mere mention of Artie’s name could get his mother to halt in her tracks and forget everything else, when nothing he said or did could make her stop and pay attention to him.

  Then he felt like an asshole for being jealous of his dead brother. His Peace-Corps-turned-secret-agent brother. His emotions roiled in a familiar storm.

  “I’m sorry,” Mom said now, and this time she genuinely meant it. He could see the grief flood into her eyes, shrouding the restless energy that had danced in them just moments earlier. “I knew, I just—”

  “Meí shì, Mom,” he interjected, giving her as carefree a smile as he could muster. It’s okay. “Emma sounds nice. Send me your rental house’s address. I’ll ask Claire to post the album to you.”

  “Thank you.” His mother hesitated, her expression suddenly lost, and he felt his heart lurch in sadness. He could still remember that fateful phone call Mom had gotten at exactly six in the morning, could recall the time on his clock as he rushed out of his bedroom to the balcony at the sound of her scream. He had pressed his face against the banisters as he listened to her broken, trembling questions drift up from below. How? When? What happened? Are you sure it was him?

  Since that day, Winter had never been able to sleep past six.

  As much as he missed Artie, he knew his grief couldn’t compare to his mother’s, to how she had crumpled to the floor at the news of Artie’s death, to the smallness of her figure curled alone in her bed in the months that followed, the bottles of antidepressants and methylphenidate sitting open on her dresser. How she had been so lost in her sorrow that she never even noticed when Winter would sneak some of her pills to suppress his own pain. Sometimes he imagined her as a young woman cradling a newborn Artie in her arms, marveling over every tiny feature of her firstborn son. Kissing his eyelids, his nose, his little mouth, his perfect fingers. Of her delicate voice singing him lullabies, promising him the whole world. He pictured her in what must have been those heady first days of love and tried to remind himself to be gentle to her, this woman who had to endure losing that baby boy decades later. Who would never know who he’d really been or why he had really died.

  Winter tried not to wonder whether she remembered she had a second baby.

  Now his mother’s gaze broke away from him. A small shiver seemed to course through her body, and then her hands were moving again. She grabbed the keys from the side table and adjusted the tote on her arm. As she did, Winter stood up to leave. Neither one of them said a word.

  Winter reminded her too much of everything. Of her awful, short-lived second marriage. Of the second husband she loathed. But worst of all, of the fact that her beloved firstborn son was forever gone, and that only Winter, her afterthought, remained.

  As they stepped out of the apartment together and his mother locked the door behind them, she stretched up to plant a quick kiss on his forehead. Even now, she didn’t look directly at him.

  “Lù shàng xiǎo xīn, xióng bǎobǎo,” she said. Take care of yourself, baby bear. Her eyes were already turning away, her body angled toward the elevator as if she had finally reached the limit for the amount of time she could spend around him.

  He could command the attention of ninety thousand people in an arena, could attract screaming throngs whenever he stepped out any door, could be on the covers of every magazine in the world. And yet he could never convince his mother to stay.

  “You too, Mom,” he said, his hands in his pockets. “Love you.”

  She gave him a smile over her shoulder and waved at him. He didn’t hear her say it back. Then she was gone, hurrying toward the elevator, leaving nothing but the faint scent of jasmine perfume on the air.

  Winter stood there for a long moment, his heart still struggling in his throat, feeling the crush of loneliness curl its cold fingers around him. He pictured the vase of tulips back inside his mother’s apartment, beautifully fresh blooms that no one would appreciate, ready to spend the week alone, dying. By the time his mother came back from New York, they would be dead.

  He shivered, suddenly missing the company of his entourage. Of the roar of the crowd. Of anyone.

  As if on cue, his phone buzzed in his pocket. When he pulled it out, he saw an incoming call from Claire.

  “What’s up?” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “This new girl you hired,” Claire said, sounding slightly irritated. “Did you tell her to meet up with us for lunch today? Because she’s at my door and asking where you are. She’s cute, and she looks like she could kill someone.”

  Sydney. Winter felt the shards of his grief retreat a bit, and the bubble of a laugh rising in his throat. Sydney really wasted no time getting on the nerves of others in his circle.

  “I did,” he sighed into the phone. “And I’m on my way.”

  “I’ll order your usual,” Claire said. “Don’t take too long picking your outfit. Love you.”

  She hung up before he could say anything back. Winter stared at his phone, the weight of being alone momentarily lifted by the relentless cheer in Claire’s voice. The ease with which she showed him affection.

  He could never understand how she always knew when he needed her.

  He slid the phone back in his pocket and headed for the stairs, leaving his mother’s empty apartment behind.

  8

  Rules of the Game

  One floor below the Panacea Group’s Experimental Design level was a massive, underground training area. Running around the circular space was a fifty-foot-wide tunnel with a track on the ground and on its walls, designed for agents to practice driving and riding techniques. The main floor was split into quadrants, and those quadrants then equally split into various habitats, spaces that simulated extreme heat or cold or humidity or dryness, complete darkness or baking sunlight, every environment they could think of in order to push their agents to their limits. There were physical therapy training areas and gyms, matted spaces for learning martial arts and self-defense.

  There was everything.

  The first time Sydney had ever visited this space was when she was fifteen, two months after she officially joined Panacea, determined to become the best agent they’d ever had. Sauda had shown her around the area herself, watching Sydney’s stunned expression as a young teen, the hungry way her eyes took in everything around her. She had trained relentlessly down here, earning her entry into specific quadrants and environments, graduating into levels of weaponry and vehicles and combat. She had survived an immersive course where they’d transformed the entire space into a realistically functioning city of spies and assassins, had spent six months living in that simulation and come out of it so entrenched that sometimes she still felt like she was living in that fictional world.

  Sydney had studied for two years down here.

  Winter would spend a week. And she was in charge of getting him up to speed.

  Maybe that was also why she felt a little resentment toward him, she realized as she watched him step out of the elevator to meet her on the main training floor, his hair casually swept up and his hands in the pockets of his black sweats, his gaze skipping sharply around the vast space. Life seemed to have handed him shortcuts for everything.

  His eyes locked on her. A smile twitched at the edge of his lips before he forced it away and held up his phone.

  “What does huyl mean?” he asked, glancing at the text message Sydney had sent him minutes earlier.

  “Hurry up, you’re late,” she replied.

  He nodded. “Very intuitive,” he said.

  She ignored his sarcasm and stared at the neon yellow words emblazoned in a stylishly bold font across his black sweatshirt.

  I’M A SPY

  She raised a withering eyebrow at him. “Really?” she muttered.

  He looked down at his sweatshirt, then back up at her. “What?” he said innocently. “It’s from Balmain’s new Fall collection.”

  Sydney pushed down an urge to deck him.

  As with his first meeting, his presence seemed to draw the attention of everyone in the space. She could see a few workers walking the floor shift slightly in his direction, their conversations hitching for a moment to take notice of him. Two agents currently gearing up for a test drive paused to turn toward him. Then they all continued about their business, but not without full awareness that Winter Young was down here.