Chapter 29

It’s dark in the room when I wake. My sleep was nothing more than time lost. I don’t remember any of my dreams, if I had any, and fatigue still drapes me like a heavy blanket.

A shadowed woman stands over me, her eyes yellow.

I sniff the air, catching Yukimi’s scent, and my muscles unclench. “What time is it?”

“You have a watch,” she says.

So she’s going to be cold again.

I look at my watch and hit a button to make it glow. 8:53 p.m.

“You overslept,” Yukimi says. “Night fell hours ago.”

“I was tired.”

She walks out of the room, her boots clicking in the hall. “Let’s go.”

I climb to my feet and try to rub away the sleep clinging to my eyes.

“Are you hungry?” she says.

“Not particularly.”

Yukimi slips a golden-white fruit from her pocket. The anburojia glimmers in the dim light, haloed in its own coat of fuzz. I suck in my breath, drinking in its exotic scent. I remember the last time I ate anburojia, and how craving-sick I felt afterward, but I can’t help wanting to sink my teeth into the fruit.

“So we’re running as foxes again?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“After we call my grandparents,” I say. “Remember?”

“We can stop at a pay phone along the way.”

I scrutinize her face, but she’s better at hiding her expressions than I am at reading them.

Yukimi rubs her thumb along the skin of the anburojia fruit. “You need to build your strength. It’s no wonder you’re so weak, living so long as a human among Americans.”

I arch my eyebrows. “Am I not Japanese enough for you?”

“No.”

Ouch.

She presses the anburojia into my hand. “Take it. Save it for later.”

I close my fingers around the anburojia, the fruit’s flesh cool and soft against my skin, and tuck it into my jacket pocket. “How much later?”

But she’s already walking away.

We leave the Lair on foot. A few stars try futilely to glimmer to life above, their glow outshone by the glare of Tokyo. Ragged clouds droop overhead, dripping slushy rain.

True to her word, Yukimi leads me to the nearest metro station. I duck into the porcelain-tiled underground, my heartbeat thumping, and look for a sign identifying our location. Shin-Nakano Station. On the Marunouchi Line. I don’t remember where it goes, just vaguely recall it snaking like a red serpent across most of the map.

The sound of an approaching train echoes down the tunnel.

“Hurry,” Yukimi says, her footsteps staccato on the tiles.

I jog after her. We’re on the platform leading out of town, toward the edges of Tokyo. Away from Akasaka.

The train slides from the tunnel with a metallic whir. The brakes whistle and the doors chime open. We climb onto a car, our heads bent against the glow of fluorescent, too bright after the darkness. Yukimi slips on a pair of sunglasses and looks straight ahead. The passengers ignore us, and we them. We slip into the gloom of the tunnel.

In this place between places, I stare at my reflection. Bruises shadow my hollow eyes. My hair hasn’t seen a comb for who knows how long and it spikes in every direction. I look like I could be a runaway, or homeless. I wonder what would happen if I managed to find a police officer. Would they even believe what I told them?

One stop. Two stops. Three.

I nudge Yukimi’s arm. “Where are we going?”

“To the end of the line.”

“We don’t need to go that far for a pay phone.”

“Yes, we do.”

Judging by the hard line of her lips, she’s not concerned about the pay-phone call. She’s trying to find a place safe for foxes, far from the territory of the yakuza and their dogs.

The metro’s brakes squeal. “The next station is Ogikubo.”

I peer out the windows. We’re above ground now, the tracks running past stores that aren’t nearly as flashy as the ones downtown, the skyscrapers not reaching quite as high.

Yukimi touches my shoulder, nudging me from the metro. We cross the tracks and head down a narrow street bordered by stores selling ordinary things like eggplants and magazines and plastic trinkets. It doesn’t feel like a dangerous part of town, but Yukimi still walks briskly, making eye contact with no one. She turns down a side street and walks in the shadows of patchwork houses stitched together.

I follow in her shadow, the slushy rain sticking in my hair. I already know that there’s no pay phone out here, not where she’s taking me. I can see trees ahead through the buildings, a place where we can shift into foxes and I can forget why I even came.

Or I could make my escape.

We reach a river, the water dark and glistening in its concrete constraints. Yukimi paces along its edge, the wind unwinding her scarf so it spirals behind her. I slip my hand into my pocket and tighten my fingers around the anburojia. As a fox, I can run faster. As a fox, I can slip into the night and lose Yukimi, then return to Akasaka.

“It’s cold, isn’t it?” Yukimi says. “My teeth are chattering.”

“Well,” I say, “at least we’ll be warmer in our fur.”

She laughs, giddy, as if she’s already eaten the anburojia. It’s easy to laugh back, to pretend like I’m also excited by the idea of slipping into my fox-skin and forgetting my humanity.

I walk a little faster. “Where are we going?”

“To a park farther down the river.”

The bare branches of trees spiderweb the sky, and we leave the street behind for paths in a park. The river flows between artificial banks paved with cobblestones like fish scales. I find some stairs carved out of the stones and follow them to the water.

“I guess we don’t care about clothes,” I say.

Yukimi shrugs. “Hand them to me, and I’ll hide them under that tree.”

I’m not too thrilled by the idea of stripping naked by the riverside when the air feels like it’s well below freezing, and when my kitsune mother is watching me, waiting.

I slip the anburojia from my pocket. “Let’s eat.”

Yukimi raises her anburojia to the sky as if making a toast, then bites the fruit. Red juice dribbles down her chin, and in the starlight, it looks like blood. She watches me, her eyes already foxlike. I hold her gaze as I eat the anburojia, every bit of fruit, then lick my fingers clean. She smiles, her teeth curving downward into fangs.

I take off my clothes mechanically, like I’m going to shower in the locker room at school. I bunch my things together and hand them to Yukimi, not looking at her face, noticing out of the corner of my eye that she’s already naked, already more fox than woman.

Ready, I stand over the river, looking down into my rippling reflection. My hair falls into my eyes, shadowing my face. I tilt my head to one side, and for a moment I look like Akira.

My mouth curls into a thin smile. “Here we go.”

I shut my eyes and clench my jaw and tense all my muscles—and it happens in one swift rush, human to fox. I yawn, my tongue curling, and stretch leisurely, like I’m warming up for a little jaunt. Yukimi yips behind me, impatient, and I face her.

She’s pacing at the top of the bank, her ears swiveled toward me.

I bound up to join her. She touches her nose to mine for a second, but I turn away, trying to make it look like it was an accident. I don’t want her to touch me, don’t want her to have power over me.

But the taste of anburojia still lingers in my mouth.

We trot along the river, weaving through the trees, dodging the puddles of light beneath streetlamps. My nose twitches at the elixir of scents stirred by the night air—pines, rain, the slow-moving green wet smell of the river—and exhilaration dazzles my mind. My paws thud on the sodden grass, claws dig into the dirt, legs drive me onward.

Mice. There have to be some juicy little mice around here…

I trot farther from the river, lured by a promising scratching noise. There, between the roots of that tree. I cock my head, one paw raised. A whiskered nose peeks out from the hole. I pounce, my legs stiff, paws poised to trap the creature—but it darts underground.

Behind me, Yukimi makes a sniffing chirp. Laughing at me.

I turn to growl at her, and thinking about laughter—something so human—shakes my thoughts so they fall back into place. What the hell, Tavian? Mouse hunting? It’s time to run.

The fur along Yukimi’s spine spikes. She’s looking straight in my eyes.

Does she know?

I let my mouth hang open, my tongue lolling, and pad toward her with a loose gait. Nothing to worry about. I nudge her shoulder with my nose, then leap away playfully.

And she falls for my lie.

Yukimi relaxes, and I bound away. She runs after me like this is a race and she can beat me. I let her pull ahead of me, but I focus on the gray speckling her muzzle, the way her left hind leg moves stiffly, like she cut her tendon once and it healed imperfectly.

I’m faster than her. She just doesn’t know it.

I explode from a lope to a sprint. When I hurtle past her, I catch the look of surprise in her eyes. I’m leaving her behind, leaving the river behind, plunging into the dark maze of alleys. I skid to a halt in the middle of the street and glance back.

Three blocks behind, Yukimi runs after me, her breath steaming the air.

My chest tightens, and I don’t know if it’s from the exertion or from looking at her. I want to go back, to pretend like this was all a game, that I would never leave her… the way she left me.

She pauses, panting. She thinks I’m coming back.

I reveal nothing on my face as I turn away from her and keep running. My breath ragged, I push my burning muscles harder. I swerve between parked bikes, leap over hedges, squirm under fences. My legs quiver, their energy almost spent.

I duck under a parked car and look back.

She’s gone.

I don’t know which way I’m going, where I’m supposed to be. I point my nose in the direction I think is Akasaka, the direction I think is away from the Sisters—and most of all, Yukimi.

I’m free.

Then why does it feel like I’m wearing a straitjacket?

I need to breathe. I trot into an alley outside a bar, panting with my head down, my throat burning something fierce. Maybe I should change back, to hell with the nakedness, and find a pay phone—but I don’t have any money, of course. Maybe Yukimi was actually going to help me, after we spent some time running as foxes, together.

God damn it. I squeeze my eyes shut, but of course foxes can’t cry.

A drunk staggers out of the bar and unzips his pants, then sees me. “Hey, kitsune! Give me a kiss!”

He can’t even tell I’m not a vixen? Well, male kitsune are rare—

The drunk lunges for me, stumbles on his loose pants, and almost falls on me. I leap nimbly out of the way. He swears loudly, then starts crying, big gulping sobs. Disgusted, I disappear into the shadows of the street. I could really screw that guy over if I wanted to. He should know better than to harass a fox. At least he wasn’t an inugami.

I’ve got to get out of here. It’s late; it isn’t safe.

Did that drunk have tattoos? I wasn’t looking, but there might have been something on his neck. I wonder which territory around here belongs to the Kuro Inu—and Zenjiro Matsuzawa.

And you are his only grandson.

I start moving again, trying to outrun that thought. I run along a main road, ignoring the way passersby stare and point, looking for some obvious landmark that will get me out of this maze.

There! That has to be a metro station. Which line?

I hover at the edge of the street, waiting for the traffic light. The light changes, and the wind shifts.

Bringing with it the unmistakable stink of dog.