But he can’t. His red eyes blaze with war-sickness. “You thought you could escape me? Abandon me after you swore you’d stay with me ’til death do us part?”

Emily looks up, shocked. “Tak-Wing? What are you doing here?”

“I loved you. You ruined me.”

She scowls. “I was attacked by soldiers.”

“If you weren’t a hussy you would have fought them off.”

“They had pistols and bayonets. No one they accosted could fight them off. Many of the doctors and nurses died horrible deaths.”

“Where is the pure beauty I married?”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“An idiot? Don’t call me an idiot. I won’t take that from you.”

Raymond howls.

“Can’t you shut that brat up?” He grabs the child, moves to hurl it against the sacred chapel wall, but she throws herself at him and wrenches Raymond back. “What are you doing? This is your son!”

“Don’t lie. I know the truth.”

“What truth, you dead, stupid ghost?”

“Raymond is the son of that murdering devil, the head of the Kempeitai, Noma Kennosuke.”

“Raymond is your son, and no one else’s. Look at his eyes.” She holds Raymond up to the level of Tak-Wing’s face. The baby writhes and howls.

Tak-Wing gets a hold of himself. He doesn’t need to beat them to death. He’s got the anti-opium pills. He looks into the screaming child’s eyes. There is indeed a spirit there, connected to his own, but he is too war-sick to see it, so he just pretends. “He looks a little like me.”

“Yes,” Emily says, “because he is your child.”

“I don’t believe it,” Tak-Wing mutters, more to himself than her. “I don’t believe it.”

“The child is yours. Many women were raped that day. Almost all of the nurses. It’s not our fault. It’s a war. I’m the same Emily you married at the Supreme Court five years ago. The one you loved, remember? The one you drank Awakening Lion aerated lemonade with on the steps of the Peak Hotel?”

He stares at her, not comprehending. “Awakening Lion aerated lemonade?”

“We drank it with my sister, Violet, who came as witness.”

“Awaking Lion lemonade … your sister, Violet …” He’s in a daze.

Tin Hau gazes down on them.

“You loved me very much that day.”

“Loved you …”

Tin Hau’s gaze bathes them in a pink glow.

“And I loved you. Remember?”

“Loved me …”

The glow suffuses the room. It reflects off the wall and the pink light pours into them. In the distance, they can hear the ocean, lapping against the pier.

The air seems full of ghosts—all doubles of himself and Emily in better times. But he came so full of hate. And committed to his hate. He digs for it now.