Chapter 37

Blood red leaves drip into frostbitten air. Brittle grass crunches beneath my feet. I walk along a gravel path lined with wild chrysanthemums—white chrysanthemums, for the dead.

The trees hiss in my ears. What is your name?

“Tavian,” I say.

What is your name?

I try again. “Octavian Kimura.”

Your name? Your name? Your name?

My ears ache from all this echoing, and I cover them with my hands. There’s something wrong with this forest… it feels empty, when I know there should be someone here.

“Where are you?” I call.

A gust of leaves swirls through the trees and coalesces into the shape of Shizuka in a crimson kimono. She glides to me, her eyes glowing amber, the wind stirring the fur of her tail.

“You are not ready,” she says.

I shake my head. “I am.”

“You should not be here.”

Frowning, I advance on her and touch her arm. It crumbles into leaves, and Shizuka disappears into the wind. I back away, staring at my hands, not knowing what I did wrong.

Farther into the trees, I hear a familiar man’s voice.

“Where is it?”

I push deeper into the forest, my footsteps nearly silent.

“Nowhere,” a woman says. Yukimi.

Ahead, a thicket of dry grass sways in the wind, taller than my head. I drop down and press myself low to the ground. Beyond the crosshatching of grass, ragged black hair flies in the wind. I crawl nearer on my hands and knees, my hands crunching dead leaves.

Yukimi and Akira stand opposite each other. Her face looks creased by exhaustion—but not the permanent creases of age, and no white streaks her hair. He wears a mud-flecked suit and his shoulders sag with fatigue, but his black-eyed stare never leaves her eyes.

“I know you hid it,” Akira says, his voice taut. “It. A boy or a girl?”

Yukimi stares at him with a perfectly blank face. “A boy.”

“Let me see him.”

“No.”

Akira lunges toward her, and in one swift motion grabs her wrists. “You can’t hide him from me forever. You thought you could come here to Hokkaido, and I wouldn’t follow—”

“I knew you would follow,” she says calmly. “Let go of me.”

“Tell me where you’ve hidden him. Yukimi, it’s freezing out here. You can’t leave a little baby outside in this weather.”

“Let go of me.” Her eyes glisten. “You’re hurting me.”

Akira’s grip tightens around her wrists. “No.”

Her eyes flash orange, and she clenches her hands. White light seeps between her fingers. Foxfire.

“Stop.” He shakes her so hard her head jerks back. “Not on me.”

“I will,” she says through fangs, “unless you let go of me.”

Slowly, deliberately, Akira peels his fingers from her wrists. Even from here, I can see the red marks on her skin. My heartbeat pounds in my ears, and I feel the urge to hurt him.

“I know he’s here. I know my son is here.” Akira’s voice cracks.

“You want to take him back to Tokyo,” Yukimi says, and it isn’t a question. “Back to Zenjiro.”

“Zenjiro is his grandfather,” Akira says. “He will be safe with his family.”

“And I’m not his family?” she says, a mild expression on her face.

Akira’s nostrils flare. “You aren’t fit to be a mother.”

“And you’re fit to be a father?” She laughs, harshly. “Delusional.”

He slaps her, knocking her head to the side. “Don’t mock me.”

Wind blows Yukimi’s hair slantwise across her face, hiding her expression. “I wish things didn’t have to end this way, Akira. I wish you could remember how we used to be together.”

“Where is he?” He steps so close they almost touch.

“I will never tell you,” she says.

Akira’s face twists into something ugly, and he lunges. She seizes him in an embrace, her lips meeting his, and kisses him so fiercely he freezes in his tracks. Tension dissolves from the muscles in his shoulders, and he leans into her arms—slumps into her arms.

Yukimi steps to the side, and Akira falls to his knees.

My breath snags in my throat. I creep nearer to see what happened—but Yukimi’s eyes glitter with wildness, and I don’t want to get too close to her, or the bloody blade in her hand.

Akira speaks in a strangled voice. “You… bitch.”

She looks down at him. “Don’t let those be your last words.”

He falls onto his side, then rolls onto his back, clutching the wound between his ribs. Tears slide from his eyes and cling to the curve of his jaw before dropping onto the leaves.

“You…” He gasps. “You broke my heart.”

“I know,” she says.

Akira tries to reply, but he coughs, blood bubbling from the corner of his mouth. He’s shuddering violently now.

Yukimi kneels beside him. “I loved you,” she says, “Akira.”

He reaches for her, his fingers bloody, and she slides her fingers into his and holds his hand until his arm falls, limp, beside his side—and he must be gone, because he’s not blinking anymore. She sits beside him, silent tears creeping down her face.

“Goodbye,” she whispers.

Then, with her hands still covered in his blood, she climbs to her feet and walks into the grass. I stalk after her, my heart beating so fast I’m not sure it’s beating at all. Yukimi crouches over a thin rivulet of a stream and washes the blood from her hands.

There’s a whimper in the grass.

She bends, paws away a tangle of leaves, and picks up a tiny, gray-furred kit too small to open its eyes. It paws blindly at the air, squirming, and she holds it close to her breast.

“We’re safe now.” She kisses the kit. “Kogitsune.”

A choked cry escapes my throat.

Yukimi looks up, and I scramble away backwards.

I can’t let her see me. I can’t let her know what I’ve seen. That I know the truth. That she killed my father.