Chapter 27

Yukimi seems to have trouble swallowing. She sets down the can of beer and gives me a sideways stare. “I was young and stupid. He fell for me, and I let him. Is that enough?”

“You let him?” I say. “Even though you’re… you know.”

Yukimi blinks, her face uncomprehending.

I draw in a breath, then hold the air tight in my lungs. “Aoi strongly implied you’re a lesbian. So I didn’t have a clear idea how you and Akira met, and all that…”

Ozuru glances up from the grill. “Lesbian?” He laughs.

Yukimi gives him a death-glare. “Go back to cooking.”

My face burns. “Is this not public knowledge?”

“It would be,” Ozuru says, “if it were true.”

Yukimi sighs, and the corner of her mouth twists. “I usually date women, but I have dated some men as well. Akira was one of the lucky few. Or unlucky few, I suppose.”

Ozuru leans over the grill. “Akira? You mean that Matsuzawa guy?”

I sit up straighter. “You knew him?”

“Yeah, I met him.” The oni slides bacon-wrapped asparagus off a skewer and onto a plate, then gives it to Yukimi. “Kind of liked him, before I knew better.”

“Oh, really.” I lean my elbows on the counter. “Tell me more.”

Yukimi savagely tears a hunk of yakitori with her teeth, her eyes locked on Ozuru.

“Uh…” The oni scratches his chin. “I don’t know much else.”

I narrow my eyes. “You’re not saying anything because Yukimi is glaring at you.”

“The Matsuzawa family isn’t chitchat material,” Ozuru says darkly.

I hold my hands up in the air. “Fine. If you’re too scared of a dead man to talk about him, I won’t ask questions.”

Ozuru’s chest swells like that of a rooster faced with an enemy. “Listen, kit, I know you’re trying to piss me off so I’ll start blabbing about Akira, but that’s something you should ask Yukimi about. She knew him better than anybody.”

“I know,” I say nonchalantly. “She knew him really well.”

Ozuru lowers his voice, his gaze on Yukimi. “Out of curiosity, how much did you tell the kit?”

“Not much.”

“Is he staying with you?” Ozuru says. “And your roommates?”

“Yes.”

“The Sisters,” I say, “I know.”

Yukimi glances sharply at me. “How much did that myobu tell you about the Sisters, anyway?”

I take a plate of chicken yakitori from Ozuru. “Enough.”

Yukimi growls, and I can’t hide a grin. I can be just as evasive. Like mother, like son.

“You sure he’s not spying on you guys?” Ozuru mumbles.

“He’s my son,” Yukimi says. “So no, I don’t think he is.”

Ozuru’s mouth drops, his tusks on full display. “Your son? What the hell—are you pulling my leg?”

“No,” she says.

“And is Akira—?”

“Yes.”

I raise my eyebrows at Yukimi, my heartbeat thudding. “So have you decided to tell everybody?”

She gives me a look. “Like you haven’t been.”

I narrow my eyes. “Just Aoi.”

“Well, Ozuru would have guessed sooner or later. I trust him to keep his mouth shut.”

Ozuru manages to stop gawking. “So that’s why you left.”

Yukimi sips her beer. “I went to Hokkaido. Not too far away.”

I take a bite of chicken, savoring its tender juiciness—but it’s not as delicious as the information I’m hearing right now. I try to look as inconspicuous as possible.

Ozuru flips a row of skewers, steam hissing from the grill. “So I assume there was no sick grandma up in Hokkaido. And you were doing something else for six years.”

Yukimi laughs harshly. “You thought I was so devoted? Of course there was no grandma.”

“So you lied,” I say. “To keep me a secret.”

Her eyes glint dangerously. “You were better off a secret. If the Matsuzawa family knew you had been born, you would have been better off dead. I had to hide you.”

Ozuru lowers his voice further. “But didn’t Akira look for him?”

Yukimi shakes her head and tears off another hunk of yakitori.

“When did he die?” I say, with a hopeful look at the oni.

Ozuru shrugs.

Yukimi pats her mouth with a napkin. “Before Tavian was born.”

“Tavian?” Ozuru arches his eyebrows. “That’s his name? Why did you decide on that?”

“I didn’t name him that,” Yukimi says.

“You didn’t name me anything,” I say.

She sighs. “You weren’t old enough.” She sips more beer.

Ozuru lifts a skewer from the grill and gnaws on a sizzling piece of chicken, never mind that it’s blazing hot. “I had no idea you and Akira were that close. Or that you two had a baby. Shit, Yukimi. I would’ve never guessed you’re a mom.”

“Me neither,” I say dryly. “We parted ways when I was six.”

“Oh?” Ozuru says.

Yukimi grabs my wrist, her claws pricking my skin. “Watch it.”

I pry her fingers off me. “It’s the truth.”

“More beer?” Ozuru says, clearly trying to defuse the tension.

Yukimi drains her can and reaches for another. Frowning, I look away. I don’t think alcohol is going to do anything useful. If anything, it will feed the anger coiled inside me.

I’m going to have to ask my father—Akira—for his version of events. It gives me a twisted feeling of satisfaction, a perverse thankfulness, to know that even when he’s a ghost I can still talk to him. Do I want to know how he died? He must have been a yakuza, since he was a Matsuzawa, so it must have been violent.

Without his blood, you may use his bones.

I shudder and twist away from my food, my stomach souring, and scan the restaurant. The breakfast crowd has thinned a bit—just a young couple in the corner, whispering and giggling over their food, a wrinkled old man devouring his yakitori, and a little girl with pink barrettes in her hair. No, she isn’t a little girl. I know her.

The temple maiden from Ueno. Junko.

I slide off my stool. If anyone asks, I can say I’m looking for the bathroom. But in truth, I’m meandering toward Junko as casually as possible. She’s not eating anything, just taking quick, nervous sips from a glass of water. When she sees me coming, her face turns beet red and she starts to stand.

“Wait,” I whisper. “Junko, it’s me.”

“I know,” she says, her voice so high-pitched it’s almost squeaky. “But you’re with her.”

“It’s all right,” I say. “She—”

“Who’s this?” Yukimi’s voice sounds too loud in my ear. “Your girlfriend’s come looking for you?”

Junko’s face becomes a deeper beetlike shade.

“She’s not,” I say.

“Then who is she?” Yukimi looks sideways at me, her eyes shifting from black to amber.

“Someone I met earlier,” I say with a shrug. “At a temple.”

Junko nods and stands, bowing quickly toward Yukimi. “Excuse me, but I have to leave.”

“Temple?” Yukimi’s nose twitches as she samples the air. “Interesting. I didn’t think a myobu would dirty her paws by stepping into a restaurant like this.”

Junko keeps her face downcast, but I see her eyes flash. “I know who you are, nogitsune.”

“Oh, do you?” Yukimi blocks Junko’s path. “Have a seat.”

The miko sits, her shoulders stiff. She folds and refolds a napkin, her fingers twitchy.

Yukimi leans closer, her hands flat on the table. “Who are you?”

“Nobody,” Junko says.

“Hey,” I say, “let’s not interrogate people over breakfast.”

Yukimi ignores me, her gaze intense like she’s scented prey and is just waiting for it to crawl back out of its burrow. Junko’s fingers keep folding the napkin, creasing it, turning it over—origami. She’s crafting an illusion. This should be interesting.

“We nogitsune are nicer than that,” I say. “Right, Okāsan?”

Yukimi’s gaze flinches toward me, like I knew it would. “Is this that myobu you talked about earlier? Shizuka, or whatever her name was, who knew so much about us?”

“What,” I say, “you don’t know her? She seems to know you.”

Yukimi gives the myobu a cold glare. “She’s clearly a spy.”

Junko tugs on the corners of her napkin and it becomes square in shape. She brings it to her mouth and blows into it, inflating it into a perfect, tiny paper lantern.

“Oh, how clever,” Yukimi says. “Is that a gift for—”

A glow sparks inside the lantern. Junko lifts the origami above her head, her eyes squeezed shut, and smashes it on the table—a blinding flash explodes.

A few people scream, and shouts go off like scattered aftershocks. I can’t see anything but white, my eyes aching. I hear Yukimi swearing and a chair scraping on the floor. I blink fast, my vision returning in fragments: the chair—the man—the oni—the door. I stumble toward the door and shove it open.

Shoes slap on the road, growing fainter.

“Wait!” I shout. “Junko!”

The footsteps stop.

“Tell Shizuka!”

The footsteps start again, faster.

A hand latches onto my elbow. “Did you see which way the myobu went?” Yukimi says.

“No, I can’t see anything,” I say, which is mostly true.

“Damn,” she growls. “I should have known better than to have fallen for such a simple trick—but it’s so simple I wasn’t thinking of it. That little myobu… how do you know her?”

“Like I said, I met her at a temple. She’s not Shizuka.”

“Don’t hide anything from me,” Yukimi says.

I take a deep breath and count to ten. I have the urge to tell her she’s the master of hiding things. My eyesight comes back almost completely and I meet her gaze.

“She’s just a scared miko,” I say. “She probably thought she could win points by spying on us.”

“On the Sisters,” Yukimi says.

“Are you that paranoid about the myobu?”

“Yes.” She stares down the road. “You have no idea.”

“Well, fine. Be paranoid. But I’m going to finish my breakfast.”

Yukimi glares at me, trying to hide a flicker of amusement in her eyes. “You can’t eat if you’re dead.”

“I don’t intend to die.”

Ozuru marches from the restaurant. Out here, he’s even more huge than he looked like inside. “What the hell happened back there?” he bellows, spit flecks flying.

“Then again,” I mutter, “we might die right now.”

Yukimi grins and claps the oni on the biceps. “Don’t worry, Ozuru. We’re fine. Just a myobu spy, but the mere sight of me scared her away. They’re sending little girls now.”

“That was a pretty big illusion for such a little girl,” Ozuru says.

Yukimi’s grin sours. “Maybe.” She forces her mouth into a smile again. “Ozuru, now that we’re out here, let me ask you a question. Do you happen to have any fruit on the menu?”

“Fruit?” Understanding dawns on the oni’s face. “Oh, yeah, I do.”

I arch my eyebrows. “Is this the fruit I think it is?”

Yukimi laughs, her eyes a bit wild.