Chapter 22

As I stand with my back to Yukimi, I suck in the icy night air to steady myself and freeze the blurring in my eyes. Once I’m sure my voice won’t betray me, I speak.

“My name is Octavian Kimura,” I say. “You never named me.”

There’s a long silence. I turn back, and she’s standing there looking at me with her head tilted to one side.

“And you never told me your true name,” I add.

“Very few have ever known it,” she says.

“I’m your son.” I swallow past the burning tightness in my throat. “Or did you think I was just a pet?”

She seems unimpressed by my jab. “You were a kit-fox.”

“I’m not a kit-fox anymore.”

“I can see that.”

I circle closer to her. “When were you planning on naming me? And telling me the truth about why we were in Hokkaido, and who my father was? Why can’t you tell me now?”

“You tell me,” she says, “why you need my name. And my blood.”

I take a slow breath and let it out again. “Shizuka, the myobu, said that’s what she needed for my naming ceremony. Along with the name and the blood of my father.”

Yukimi folds her arms. “And you trust this idiot Shizuka?”

I shrug. “Despite being a myobu, she’s tried to help me much more than you ever have.” But I think of the donation Tsuyoshi gave to the shrine, and I grimace.

“You know nearly nothing,” Yukimi says calmly.

“Through no fault of my own,” I say.

I glance at the fruit on the ground, then pick it out of the snow. It’s bruised but unbroken.

“Tell me what this is,” I say, “at least.”

“Anburojia.”

I blink. “Ambrosia?”

“That’s what we call it. I’m sure scientists have given it some other name, something Latin, but they haven’t discovered what we have.” A smile touches Yukimi’s eyes. “The anburojia fruit tastes incredibly bitter to everyone who does not have magic. For those who do, it’s a sweet delicacy that enhances our power.”

“Enhances.” I grimace. “I don’t do drugs.”

“It isn’t illegal, and it isn’t poisonous.”

She has no reason to give me anything dangerous. Does she?

Yukimi curls her hand around mine, closing my fingers around the fruit. Her eyes meet mine, and beneath their phosphorescent glow, a confusion of emotions tangle.

“Will you try it?” she says.

She isn’t crawling into my head and puppeting me to eat the fruit. She’s just… asking.

A frigid wind gusts through the air, blowing her hair across her face like black ink across white paper. My eyes stinging, I raise the anburojia to my lips and take a bite.

Flavor floods my mouth. Anburojia tastes the way harps sound, glimmering on my tongue like gold. I shut my eyes and hear a groan escape me. I suck the juice from my fingers and bite deeper into the anburojia. My teeth hit the pit of the fruit and I gnaw away its red flesh, devouring every last shred of it.

“Delicious,” Yukimi says, “isn’t it?”

I nod and swallow again, the taste of the anburojia lingering on my tongue. “I don’t feel any different.”

She laughs, then, and it catches me so off-guard I flinch.

“Maybe I need to eat more,” I say, my taste buds aching.

Yukimi shakes her head and takes the anburojia pit from my fingers. She tucks it into her pocket. “I have no more with me. These fruits can be difficult to obtain.”

I frown. “You said they weren’t illegal.”

“And they aren’t.” She turns away from me and starts walking. “Let’s go. There’s a lot of night left.”

“Where?”

Yukimi throws a glance back at me. “Nowhere and everywhere.”

I run after her, excitement shivering through me. Her ears have sharpened into foxy points, peeking through her disheveled hair. She seizes my wrist and marches through the illusory wall. This time, I pass through without a hitch.

“I have a favorite alley,” she says.

I arch my eyebrows. “For shapeshifting?”

Yukimi says nothing, but when she looks away, I glimpse what might be a smile. She lets go of my wrist and strides ahead without looking back, like she’s not afraid of me running away—or she’s so confident that I will follow her.

Of course I do.

Her favorite alley smells strongly like mold and rodents, but it’s only a few twists and turns away from the Sisters’ Lair. An old wooden cask stands in the corner of the alley, smelling faintly of sake. Yukimi slides the top aside, removes her leather jacket, and tosses it into the cask. She starts kicking off her boots.

“Wait,” I say.

“Wait?” She drops her boots into the cask. “Don’t worry. Nobody but kitsune even know this cask exists. The most you have to worry about is rats nibbling at my illusion.”

A twisting has taken residence in my stomach, and I clench my hands to keep them from trembling. “I haven’t done this since I came to Japan. Shapeshifting, I mean.”

Yukimi looks back at me with fox eyes. “You are a kitsune.”

“Only half,” I say.

“Half is enough.”

“But Shizuka, the myobu—”

“Did she tell you not to become a fox?” Yukimi tugs her sweater over her head. “Or are you too afraid?”

“No.” To both of her questions, actually. I take a deep breath and try to beat my anxiety. “But you saw me on the roof, that night before I ended up in the hospital.”

“That’s why I gave you the anburojia.”

“But—”

“Tavian.”

Hope darts through me like a bright bird. That’s the first time she’s called me that, in person, and not in a dream or some strange illusion. If I were a fox right now, I’d be dancing from paw to paw, my ears pricked, waiting for more.

“You can’t wait any longer,” she says.

Yukimi walks barefoot to me, wearing only jeans and a tank top in the winter air. Goose bumps dot her arms—she is vulnerable, after all. She places her hand in the middle of my chest, shuts her eyes, and pushes. Heat rushes outward to my fingers and toes, and I stagger back with a gasp. My skin is glowing, fading.

“What did you do?” I say.

She smiles, her teeth feral, and turns away. Her red pelt cloaks her skin as she shucks away the last of her clothes and slings them into the old sake cask. She stretches her arms, her fingers reaching as if she can claw the stars from the sky.

In a flash, Yukimi shrinks into the shape of a fox.

My breath comes ragged in my throat. A shudder ripples through me, and I drop to my hands and knees. My hands reshape into black paws, and my spine arches as it shifts. I grit my teeth and strain against the transformation.

Yukimi watches me, her head held low, her eyes burning.

I can’t do this with my clothes on. I kick off my shoes and unzip my jacket and jeans—and I’m not going fast enough; I’m losing to my shifting body.

“I don’t think I can—” My words choke off as my throat changes.

My pulse races until my heartbeats become uncountable. I black out, my thoughts erased by a blissful agony, a euphoria of pain. I scream—and it’s the howl of a fox.

Slowly, the pain fades with every heartbeat. And my heartbeat, thudding a fast rhythm, isn’t faltering. I crack open my eyes. I climb to my feet and look at myself.

I’m not dead. I’m a fox.