Wearing the Cape 5: Ronin Games
Page 31
“You’ll still be able to dream your way here,” she answered the biggest of my unasked questions. “I promise.”
“Thank you.” We sat. The sun had risen high over the string of green islands. I could see a larger mainland behind them, and wondered if my island sat in a spirit-realm analogue of the Inland Sea. I didn’t wonder very hard; watching Little Dragon chase startled seabirds was much more fun.
And I just had to know.
“How— How did Cutter and Little Dragon…”
Kannon laughed, and it was a sound I could listen to forever. “Even simple objects have their own kami. And the kami of objects animating by magic are certainly aware. Dying, Cutter followed you here. He was your sword, after all. Little Dragon followed the rest of you. I believe I will keep them.”
She gave me the smile that had brightened her face when I opened my eyes. “And your real question, Hope?”
I blinked, realized my face was wet and didn’t know why. “You hear the cries of the world. How can you be happy?”
“Oh, my dear.” Her gentle smile didn’t waver, but her eyes grew solemn and she reached up to stroke my chin. “I am happy because I also know how it ends.”
“How what ends?”
“Everything. ‘And they all lived happily ever after.’”
The warmth of her kiss on my forehead didn’t fade until I’d been home for days.
Epilogue
There were a lot of awkward conversations. First there was the one with Blackstone, who we had to tell that we’d lost a multi-million dollar piece of NASA equipment east of Japan. Then there was the one I didn’t have with Veritas, where I didn’t explain what we hadn’t done and what his boss didn’t need to know about, and the one I had with Father Nolan about Kannon. The worst was the one with the parentals—there were going to be a lot of home waffle-breakfasts over the coming weeks.
And then there was the news coming out of Japan. The worst of that was my Catholic horror and guilt over being turned into a Shinto kami—and Chinese shen! But there were leaders in Japan and the Chinese states who were milking the nation-hopping adventures of the beatified Three Remarkable Ronin for all they were worth, and I supposed I couldn’t blame them. It was one more step to burying China’s memories of Japan’s early 20th Century crimes against it, one more tie that could bring them together in the League of Democratic States.
And one more reason for the Three Remarkable Ronin to forever remain Japanese heroes. Nobody would ever, ever find out that I, Hope Corrigan, had been made a kind of saint—before I was even dead.
One possible downside to not disappearing down the rabbit-hole, one that occurred to me with my mother’s reminder a week after my return, was I wasn’t going to miss the Silver and Green Ball. I couldn’t even plead injury, since all the post-operation damage I’d done to myself seemed to have gone away and Dr. Beth had been able to put me on a workout regimen to help me compensate for the lost muscle.
* * *
The ballroom had been decorated with silver lights and green potted topiary—textured bushes, shrubs, and mosses in the shapes of real and fanciful creatures. I even found a Chinese dragon. Julie had picked my dress since we’d all come together with Dane as our escort; I wore a jade green strapless floor-length gown with a patterned silver ribbon that ran over and beneath my minimal bust before crossing to hug my waist, doing my shape some justice. I’d known I was in for a lot of handshakes and conversation since Hope Corrigan had long been outed as Astra—but despite that everybody looked at Annabeth and Dane, and Julie and Megan too, when they took the floor to dance together. Which was how it should be.
“Are you having a good time, Hope?”
Mrs. Lori’s question shook me out of my mellow reverie. Grande dame of Chicago and Mom’s charity-rival she might be, but she had introduced me to five “nice young men” since I’d arrived. Blood of the bluest blue, of course, even if one had the misfortune of being the scion of a Boston family. I was feeling too good to care.
“I am! Thank you Mrs. Lori. Next year I’ll be able to drink the champagne, and then it will be even more fun.”
“Scamp.” But she smiled approvingly. “You’ve done your duty and can run along with your friends if you desire; the young always have more interesting places to be. But before you go, I wanted to bring you one more gentleman who seeks an introduction.” She stepped aside and I finally saw the man standing beside her.
“Hope, may I make known to you Mr. Yoshi Miyamoto. His is an old Japanese family. He has come to Chicago to acquire some art, and even to buy some property in town.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you.” Kitsune bowed formally, and I bowed back without thinking. Same narrow face, high cheekbones, night-black eyes; his dark hair was longer, feathered to lie almost like fur on his head, and he sported facial hair again—the shadow of a mustache and fringe of a beard along the edge of a strong jaw I’d seen on a different face.
And he looked really, really good in a tux; I knew without looking that a flush had started to creep up my chest, and his smile grew as I desperately scrambled for a thought, something to say, anything at all.
“Have—have you found anything you like?” What did I just say? I turned beet red as he opened his mouth, closed it without taking dastardly advantage of my idiocy, and smiled again.
He held out his hand. “May I have this dance?”
The End
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