by Jay Kristoff
He blinked at her. Speechless. Senseless.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” she sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Yukiko breathed deep, clawed away her hair. He could see it written on her face. Boiling inside her. Curling her fingers into fists, her lips to a grimace. When she spoke again, her voice was soft with it, trembling at the outskirts.
“I know it wasn’t your fault, Kin. The gaijin. Inochi. All of it. I know there was nothing you could do to stop it. Kaori and the others say otherwise. They say there’s no steel in you, but I know helping me in Kigen took more courage than most could ever dream.
“But this is war, Kin. The Yukiko you knew? That frightened little girl in the Shōgun’s palace? She’s gone.” Fire in her eyes. “She’s dead.”
“No steel in me…” he whispered, lips twisting in a bitter smile.
“It’s bullshit, Kin.” She took his hand, entwined her fingers with his own. “Don’t you believe it. Any of it. But know you have enemies here. People who see you as Guild first and everything else second. Stay close to Daichi while I’m gone. And stay as far from Ayane as you can. Don’t give them a reason to doubt you.”
“Why would I bother?” he spat. “They’re doing perfectly well without one…”
“Kin—”
“I hope you find the answers you seek.” He pulled his hand away, let it drop to his side. “I know Buruu will keep you safe.”
Hurt in her eyes as she chewed her lip, searched the dark for the right words to say.
“Kiss me good-bye?”
Hovering uncertain. Wanting it more than he could say. Pride and anger shushing want, leaving it alone and friendless. All he’d given, all he’d sacrificed, and this was the life he’d purchased. Watching her fly away. Leaving him, just like she’d left him in Kigen. Alone.
Again.
He put his hands to her cheeks, feeling the satin warmth of her skin, the sensation of it beneath his tingling fingertips almost crushing his resolve to powder. But in the end, tilting her head up to his, her lips parting ever so softly, he leaned down and kissed her gently on the brow.
“Good-bye, Stormdancer,” he said.
And then he turned and walked away.
Part of him screamed he was an idiot. That he would regret it. But anger and pride urged him on, the burning fuel of the indignant fool, and he stalked off into the dark with the waterfall of his blood thrashing in his ears. She called his name again, just once. But he didn’t stop. Didn’t turn his head. And somewhere deep in the back of his mind, a tiny thought found its voice for the first time; a whisper almost too faint to hear.
It kept him awake most of the night, belly-up on his mattress of straw, staring at the ceiling with sandbag eyes. Breathing. Listening. The limbo of insomnia, gray and bottomless as the hours dragged on forever, leaving him in the muddy dawn with a heart exhausted and seven words lodged in his mind like a handful of splinters.
The same question.
Over and over again.
What the hells are you doing here?
10
SALT AND COPPER
Yoshi’s lashes fluttered against his cheeks as he stole along fly-blown gutters on four feather-light feet. Towers of fetid waste looming all around him, nostrils filled with rot and fresh death, blood leaking from a broken skull onto cracked cobbles. He skulked past a snarling brood—a sleek and fearsome bunch, fourteen strong—scratching and fighting as they tore strips from the new bones. Squealing and spitting at him as he scampered by. A warning. A challenge. First spoils to the finders. Leavings to the rest. Our meat. Our alley. Our dirt.
He could smell salt and sweet copper, his stomach growled for the slippery, lovely wanting of it, warm and sticky-lush. But on he scampered, up through the spindly broken-leg alleys, a stale ocean of refuse in which to swim. Whiskers twitching. Mangy hide inflamed from the furious worrying of a dozen fat, black fleas. Pausing to scratch with scabrous little claws, delighting in the bloody relief.
Stopping in the alley mouth across from the whorehouse, blinking with eyes as dark as river water, his tail twitching. Rough-looking men were gathered in the stoop, arms inked from shoulder to wrist, speaking in hushed, lotus-scarred voices. No clan tattoos on their shoulders, no, just floral patterns and geisha girls and interlocking scorpions marking them as Burakumin. Lowborns all—turned to the shadow trade calling every man birthed in Kigen’s gutters. The fist and the fade. The smoke and the skin. A den of them. A seething, sweltering nest of them.
Yakuza.
Minutes passed. Hours. The Moon God Tsukiyomi rode low in the sky behind a choking veil of fumes. More painted men strolled up to the stoop, ushered inside with gap-toothed smiles. And finally, as the hours wore on and the Goddess Amaterasu was just beginning to lighten the eastern skies, two men exited the building. The first, a skulking knife-thin bastard, yellowed teeth like broken stumps in dark gums. The second, a short, broad lump with piggy eyes and cauliflower ears. On their shoulders, each gangster carried a small beaten satchel, filled with the clink of muffled coin. Yoshi felt his whiskers curl, yellow teeth bared in what might have been a smile, and he whispered thanks to the body he rode and stole on back to his own.
He opened his eyes
the room throbbing and all
a-shudder flexed inside long limbs and hairless
flesh and grubby cloth the body he’d lived most of his
life inside feeling
for just a moment
longer
like something utterly
repulsively
wrong.
Jurou was sitting across from him as his vision came into shuddering focus. Dark bangs hanging in dew-moist eyes, empty lotus pipe utterly wasted on those perfect lips.
“Well?” he said.
“Same time. Every morning just before the dawn,” Yoshi smiled. “It’s a money-house for certain.”
“Who runs it?”
“Scorpion Children. Biggest yakuza crew in Downside.”
“You sure you want to start that heavy?”
“You recall a time old Yoshi ever did things by halves, Princess?”
“I’m just not—”
Yoshi put his finger to Jurou’s lips, frowning toward the door.
“Daken’s back. Hana too.”
Yoshi arranged himself on a pile of cushions in the corner, Jurou leaning against his bare chest. He sipped the dregs of their rice wine, felt the big tom drawing closer, the way a magnet must feel as iron draws near. Slouching on his cushion, legs askew, hand snagged in Jurou’s hair as Hana’s key twisted in the lock. Tipping his split-brimmed hat away from his eyes, he aimed a crooked smile at his little sister.
“This is the part where I juggle some comedy about what the cat dragged—”
Hana stole into the room, looking paler than usual, skin filmed in a sheen of fresh sweat. Behind her loomed one of the biggest men Yoshi had ever raised an eyebrow at. A straw hat pulled down low over his brow, ragged black cloak over street-worn thread. Door-broad shoulders, a jaw you could break your knuckles on, a few steps on the right side of handsome, truth be told—at least from what Yoshi could see. He walked with a pronounced limp.
“Well, well,” Jurou smiled. “Took my advice, girl?”
Hana muttered a mouthful, looking embarrassed. Shuffling before the pair like a disobedient child before the Great Judge, she gestured feebly to the giant still looming in the doorway. She spoke so fast her words tripped over each other in the rush to her teeth.
“AkihitothisismybrotherYoshiandhisfriendJurou.”
Jurou’s grin was all Kitsune-in-the-henhouse, aimed squarely at Hana, but he spared a glance for the newcomer. “How do?”
Yoshi’s eyes hadn’t left the big man. He nodded once. Slow as centuries.
“Akihito-san is going to be staying here for a few days,” Hana said.
“Do tell,” Yoshi frowned.
“Only a few.”
“Not like you to have houseguests, sister-mi
ne.” His eyes shifted to the big man. “Can he cook? Doesn’t look much of a dancer.”
Her voice was soft, expression pleading. “Yoshi, please…”
Who the fuck is this, Daken?
The tomcat had assumed his usual perch on the windowsill, cleaning his paws with a tongue as rough as an iron file. His thoughts were velvet-smooth by contrast, a whispered purr rolling through Yoshi’s mind like sugared smoke.
… friend …
Yoshi sniffed. Squinted. Trying hard to find fault with it and coming up empty. She’d never brought anyone home before, but Hana was a big girl now. What she did, who she did, was her business. He leaned down, kissed Jurou on the forehead and shrugged.
“All good, sister-mine.”
She turned, gestured to the big fellow. “Come on.”
With a guilty nod aimed Yoshi’s way, the big man limped past the pair and into Hana’s bedroom. Hana was on her way to join him when Yoshi softly cleared his throat.
“Forgetting something?”
Hana made a face, reached inside her servant’s kimono, drew out the iron-thrower. Leaning down, she placed it in Yoshi’s open palm, whispered for his ears only.
“Explanations later.”
He glanced at Daken, now sawing away at his nethers with his long, pink tongue.
… don’t ask hers won’t tell yours …
“As you say.” He waved the ’thrower. “By the by, you can’t take this to work with you tonight. We need it.”
“What for?”
“Explanations later.”
The curiosity gleaming in Hana’s eye retreated with reluctance. She gave him a small nod, slipped into her bedroom. Daken prowled inside behind her and she quietly closed the door. Jurou had a grin on his face like he was the one about to do the mattress bounce. He leaned over and switched on the soundbox, turned up the volume to bestow some privacy, looking ready to turn a cartwheel.
“Good for her,” he grinned.
Yoshi lifted the iron-thrower and sniffed. A burned chemical smell, like generator oil and refinery stink wafting from the barrel. It felt just a touch lighter than it had yesterday. Just a little less death inside.
He pulled his lucky hat down over his eyes.
“Doubtless…”
* * *
Akihito perched by the window, peering out through dirty glass as Hana shut the bedroom door with a whispering click. The flat was four floors up, commanding a decent view of the street below; claustrophobic and wreathed in exhaust. But even with an elevated vantage point, he still felt utterly naked, shaking with nervous energy, belly doing cartwheels. His thoughts went to Gray Wolf, to Butcher and the others. Praying they’d gotten away safe or died fighting. He’d seen enough of Kigen jail to know it was no fit place for anyone to end.
Poor Kasumi …
Reaching inside a pouch on his obi, he retrieved an old chisel and a pinewood block, began whittling at the surface, his eyes still on the street below. No sign of bushi’ out there; just a few street urchins running dice on a corner, two lotusfiends playing pass the pipe. And still his nerves were bunched tighter than overwound clock springs, the chisel’s handle slippery in sweat-slick fingers.
“That’s pretty,” the girl said, gesturing to his carving. “What is it?”
“Present,” he muttered. “For a friend.”
“So what do you think happened? How did they find us?”
Akihito glanced to the doorway, the boys in the living room beyond. The beautiful tones of shamisen players were spilling from the soundbox, slightly muffled by the two inches of cracking plaster between them. He couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness. Of being watched. Vulnerable. “It’s not safe to talk in here. We could be overheard.”
“It’s just my brother and his boyfriend.”
“And your neighbors? I’ve met blacklung beggars who weren’t as thin as these walls.”
The girl pouted, blew a stray lock from her eye. He sized her up with a slow stare—waif-thin, pointed chin, an old scar gouged down her brow and cheek, leather eyepatch hiding the worst of it. An unruly bob of straw-dry hair, black as cuttlefish ink. Hard, he decided. The kind of hard bought on broken concrete with an empty belly and bleeding fists. Smart? Smart enough for this whole thing to be a long game? Was she playing him?
Doesn’t make a lot of sense. But maybe …
She sat down in the middle of her grubby mattress. Glancing at the door. At him. Back to the door. The hint of a crooked smile curling her lips.
“Ohhhh,” she sighed, shivering.
Akihito frowned, hands falling still at his carving. He drew breath to speak when another low moan from the girl killed the words on his lips.
“Ohhhhhh, gods.”
The big man sat a little straighter, slightly disconcerted, jaw hanging loose. He watched the girl pull herself up on all fours, prowling across the sheets. Searching the room for somewhere else to look, he found the tomcat sitting at his feet, head tilted, staring at him with wide, pus-yellow eyes.
Blink. Blink.
Leaning up against the bedroom door, the girl groaned, throaty and breathless, as if in the throes of first-night passion. She slapped one hand against the doorframe, thumping her heels against the floorboards.
“Ohhh,” she purred. “Ohh, please.”
“What the hells—”
She held up a finger, silenced his protest, continued her performance against the wafer-thin wood. Her brother’s muffled curse seeped under the door—a plea to the great and beneficent Lord Izanagi to strike him deaf as stone, or failing that, for a quick and merciful death. Akihito heard what sounded like laughter and applause from the other boy.
“Oh. My. Go-o-o-o-ods,” Hana groaned.
The soundbox squealed in the room beyond, cranked to full over Yoshi’s prayers, the tiny speakers now strained and crackling under the increase in volume. Loud enough to drown out the girl’s groans. Loud enough to drown out her screams, truth be told. Hana plopped herself back down on the mattress, tucked her feet beneath her with a satisfied smile.
“Safe enough now?”
Akihito couldn’t help but chuckle. “Nice.”
“You’ll have to forgive my brother.” Hana began running fingers through her badly cut bob of raven hair. “I don’t usually have friends … stay over.”
“Has he always been like that?”
“You mean a smart-mouthed little bastard?” Hana laughed. “Always.”
“No, I mean like that.”
Hana blinked, taking a few moments to process.
“Ohhhh … You mean has he always liked boys?”
Akihito muttered a series of incomprehensible words.
“Why?” An eyebrow crept toward the girl’s hairline. “What do you care?”
“I don’t.” Akihito seemed mortified at the suggestion. “I’m just, well…”
“Not used to that sort of thing.”
“No.”
“Well, don’t fret.” Hana smiled lopsided, began tying her hair into braids. “You’re definitely not his type. Far too old.”
Akihito felt his cheeks flush. The girl’s laughter rang out on the walls, the empty beach-glass eyes staring onto smog-choked streets. The straining soundbox filled the void, drowning the murmur and hum outside. Hana watched him for a long time, saying nothing, working plaits across her scalp.
“So,” she finally said. “How did they find us?”
“Hells if I know,” he sighed, pulling off his hat and running one hand over his braids. “Trailed someone. Caught someone and made them sing. I’m still not one hundred percent sure you didn’t set us up, truth be told.”
The tomcat jumped into his lap without warning, and Akihito gasped as its claws sank into his flesh. Using his leg as a springboard, the cat vaulted up onto the windowsill and began licking at its nethers like they were made of sugar-rock. The big man winced, whispered a curse, massaged the old wound and new claw marks in his thigh.
The girl nodded to his blood
stained hakama. “How’s the leg by the way?”
“Hurts like a bastard,” Akihito murmured, still kneading the flesh.
“What happened to it?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“So?”
“So how would you feel if I asked what happened to your eye?” He gestured to the leather patch.
“I’d tell you my father was a mean drunk.” A small shrug.
“Izanagi’s balls…” Sudden guilt slapped him across the mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. So how’d you hurt it?”
It had been over a month since the bloodbath during Masaru’s rescue from Kigen jail, but the sword-blow wasn’t healing well. Akihito knew he should have been resting, changing his dressings more often, but circumstances being what they were, he was just glad it hadn’t gone gangrenous. When Michi had gone back to the palace in search of Lady Aisha after the jailbreak went sour, she’d abandoned him with nothing but a tourniquet and vague directions to the sky-ship that was supposed to ferry everyone out of the city. Akihito hadn’t even limped halfway to Spire Row before the bushi’ locked Kigen down, sky-spires, rail yards and all. He’d returned to the Kagé safe house he’d sheltered in before the prison break, hooking up with Gray Wolf and other members of the city cell. His thinking was simple enough—if he couldn’t get to Yukiko, he’d do his best to help her from where he was.
Masaru would have wanted it that way.
Kasumi too.
“Just … helping a friend,” he said.
She nodded. “Well, I’ll see if I can find some bandages at the palace tomorrow.”
He scowled, turned his eyes back to the wood in his hand, carved off another chunk. A Guild sky-ship cut through the smog overhead, its engines rattling the windows. He thought of the ambush in Kigen jail, Kasumi’s blood glistening on the floor. The betrayal that had killed her. Killed Masaru. Almost killed him too.
“How did you know those bushi’ were coming tonight, Hana? You said your lookout spotted them before ours did, but who was your lookout? How did he get word to you?”
