Mist swirled around me and knit itself into a shape. It was hard to look at, brighter than fire. I shielded my eyes and squeezed them closed, but the light from the thing still burned my skin.
The snake-demon squealed in panic.
I heard words, perhaps not with my ears. They were slick and oily, seeming to slide into my mind, chuckling with delight at their own evil.
Ah, it’s been a long time. Laughter that made me cringe. I haven’t had a good fight in too many years. Shall I take care of this snakeling for you?
I managed to nod, my eyes still shut tight.
Easily done. And then, little one, we’ll see …
There was a shriek, and a grinding, splintering crash.
Now look. I will not harm your eyes.
Cautiously I peeled my hand away from my face and opened my eyes.
He was beautiful, my demon. He had soft, shadowy wings and a samurai’s two swords. He had a cat’s sleepy golden eyes. He had Ryoichi’s soft, gentle face.
Ryoichi’s face?
And then the demon laughed, again, and flesh peeled and fell from the face to reveal moldy bone underneath. I bit back my scream. I would not cower. If this thing wanted my soul, it would take it. But it would not have my honor as well.
I heard a voice in my head again, and it was not the demon’s. It was an instructor’s from long ago, a man whose name I’d never known.
Never throw your last knife.
With the hand that was not holding a pearl on a chain, I reached inside my jacket to draw the second knife I’d stolen from the kitchen. The skull facing me grinned even wider. What did I think I’d do to a demon like this with a knife meant for scaling fish?
I turned the knife toward myself, resting the point just below my breastbone, where the ribs came together.
Was it possible that the empty eye sockets of the skull had widened?
One quick thrust. That would be all it would take.
When a samurai took the honorable path to ending his own life, a companion usually stood by with a sword to quickly strike off his head. But a ninja was not likely to have a friend close by to end her suffering. I’d have to wait out the minutes until my soul escaped with my blood.
But once my soul was in the underworld, I doubted that any demon could fetch it back. From the way this one was hesitating, it doubted as well.
Oh, no, not yet, the skull said, grinning at me.
The face rebuilt itself, and to my shame, I flinched. My hand twitched, the knife pulled away from my skin, and I took a step back without realizing it. When my foot came down on a chunk of broken pottery, I fell in a clumsy heap.
Now it was Madame who peered down at me, disgust on her face. She tipped her head to one side, considering what to do with such a useless girl. Not yet, she told me. Your soul … it isn’t quite finished. I look forward to seeing what becomes of it.
And she was gone. I sat there, dazed, in the middle of a ruined banquet hall, my knife in one hand, a pearl necklace in the other. I pulled the chain over my head and tucked the jewel away inside my jacket, fingering the thin gold ring.
Lord Yoshisane was getting unsteadily to his feet, holding up his black sleeve to blot the blood that was dripping down his cheek. On the other side of the room, Saiko, on the floor like me, pushed her hair back from her face and stared.
Between us lay the charred body of a man in a deep brown kimono, his soul devoured a long time ago.
It all took a considerable amount of explaining. Luckily that was Saiko’s task, not mine. Lord Yoshisane, once he’d grasped that the demon who had so rudely interrupted his banquet was truly gone, had quickly and quietly taken charge. His startled guests were bidden farewell. His brother’s body, what was left of it, was removed. Servants were ordered to set the hall to rights. Saiko was whisked away to make it clear to him why we were in his castle, how we had gotten here, why his family treasure was in the possession of a young, grubby, tired, and female ninja, and incidentally, what had become of his nephew.
I was brought to another room to wait.
This time I was not in a cell. I had a small, windowless room to myself. There were fresh, clean mats on the floor and an elegant piece of calligraphy on a wall. But I thought that, if I tried to leave, I was likely to find out that this was also a prison.
I could have gotten out anyway. I’d been twelve years old the last time a lock had defeated me. But I found I didn’t want to try. I had been running for—how long? It was impossible to remember. Since the night I’d crept into Ichiro’s room and knelt by his bed with a knife?
Or since a time long before that?
Enough. I’d reached my destination. I thought I would stay here for at least a few hours.
Besides, servants kept entering and bowing and leaving food on the low table beside me, and I discovered that I was ravenous. Confronting a demon, or two, seemed to leave me shaky and hollow inside. I ate salmon and sea bream with sharp ginger, rice, pickles and radishes, melon and pear and fried cakes both sweet and savory. I drank cup after cup of tea, but let the wine sit untouched. I might need my wits about me later.
It turned out that my wits did not help me much.
I had lifted the last sweet cake to my lips when the door slid open and Lord Yoshisane came in. Behind him was Madame Chiyome.
The cake plopped back to the plate, but my chopsticks stayed poised in midair.
Like a pot with a tight lid, Madame looked serene but she was bubbling with rage. I could tell by looking at her smile. And there was no one in the room but me to be her target.
“Bow, child,” she said mildly. “This lord will think I have taught you no manners.”
I dropped my chopsticks and pressed my face to the mat, although every inch of skin on my back prickled as I made myself so vulnerable.
Then I rose to my knees as Lord Yoshisane settled himself on the mat beside the table and gestured for Madame to do the same.
One exit to the room, behind him. I doubted I could reach it. And even if I did, what then? How far would I get in a castle where every servant and soldier and samurai would be hunting me down?
If you get free, don’t come back, Masako had told me. I’d done the first, but not the second. I’d be back at the school by nightfall. And I’d never get a second chance to escape. Madame would see to that.
She was a ninja, too.
“My niece, Saiko, has told me a remarkable story,” Lord Yoshisane was saying politely to Madame. “Wine? Please, honor me by tasting a little.” Madame took the cup with her eyes still on me. “It is, hmmm, surprising that these two were able to come so far, and bearing what they have borne. Two girls. I would not have thought it possible.” He poured his own wine and rolled the small, smooth cup gently between his palms. “Some of the credit must go to their teacher, of course.” He gave Madame a little bow. “Still, I must say it again. Remarkable.”
He set the cup down without sipping from it and turned to me. “You could, of course, simply hand the pearl back to me. One little cut with a knife, and you would be free of the burden. But I don’t imagine that would be to your liking. No, I thought not.”
“You could be made to, girl,” Madame hissed suddenly, leaning forward, her eyes as cold and unblinking as a snake’s.
Yes, I could be made to hand the pearl over. I had no doubt. If Madame preferred not to kill me herself, she had no shortage of hired knives. It could be quick if she felt merciful.
I could not remember a time when Madame had felt merciful.
“I would not dream of putting you to such trouble simply to retrieve a family bauble,” Yoshisane told her politely. “No, indeed. Instead, allow me to take a problem off your hands. How much would you ask for such a rebellious and troublesome agent?”
Madame was more startled than I was.
“You wish to hire Kata? For a mission?” Madame covered the surprise on her face with a smile. “Well, she is one of my most skilled girls, of course, so the fee—”
“Of course,” Yoshisane replied. “But—forgive me, you misunderstand. I do not wish to hire her. I wish to buy her. She would be permanently in my service.”
“Well.” Madame sipped rice wine and patted her lips dry. “Well. It’s hard to estimate the value of a girl like Kata. Years of training, you know. She’s been in my care since she could barely talk. More like a daughter of my own than a pupil. So difficult to put a price on that.”
“All mothers, sadly, must part with their daughters one day,” Yoshisane said with sympathy. “Even such a disobedient daughter as this one. She actually ran away from your house, did she not? After failing entirely in her first mission?”
“Failing?” Madame laughed. “To bring your cherished niece and nephew to safety? To protect them from every threat? You call that failure?” There was not the slightest hint in her voice or on her face that two of those threats had been in her pay and under her command.
“But it was not what she had been hired to do,” Yoshisane pointed out. “If my brother was not unfortunately—mmm—unavailable, I believe you’d be returning his fee to him. Perhaps we should consider what he gave you to be a down payment on Kata’s services to me.”
More laughter. “I hardly think—”
“No,” I whispered.
For the first time since they had started their bargaining, they both turned to look at me.
“You wish to return to the school?” Lord Yoshisane asked, his eyebrows rising slightly.
“No.” The word came from my mouth a second time, husky and faint, like the speech of a ghost.
I didn’t want to go back, not at all. And here was Saiko’s uncle, offering to keep me and the pearl I owned out of Madame’s clutches. What kind of a fool would object to that?
If you get free, don’t come back, Masako had said.
She had not said, If you get free, stay free.
But that might have been what she meant. And it was what I wanted.
Not to be bought or sold like a sack of rice. Not to be a knife in someone else’s hand. To be free like a village with no warlord, like a band of thieves who rode where they chose. Perhaps even like a monk who had finally found a worthy opponent, even if that opponent was himself.
Madame’s hand against my cheek knocked me sprawling. Before my head cleared, she had a handful of my hair and her face was inches from mine.
“Do you think you have a word to say here?” she hissed. Lord Yoshisane was courteously pretending that he could not see or hear us. “You are worth something, girl. But that does not make you important.” She dropped her voice even further. “And every word out of your mouth now lowers your value. So let there be no more.”
She wrung my hair tightly and let me go.
“A very troublesome daughter,” Yoshisane commiserated. “Do let me relieve you of such an encumbrance.”
“I will not deny that she needs a firm hand.” Madame smiled graciously. “And that will of hers—exasperating, to be sure, but such an asset on a mission. As you know yourself, Lord Yoshisane. Or she would not be sitting here.”
I knelt, staring numbly at the hem of Yoshisane’s robe while they bargained. The silk had a subtle pattern of diamonds within diamonds woven into the cloth itself. When they were done at last, Madame left the room on Yoshisane’s heels, nearly preening herself with pride and pleasure. They both walked past me without a glance.
I had value, certainly, as the heavy coins in Madame’s purse proved. So did a finely crafted sword or a rare poison. Those things had no will, no mind, no heart. And clearly, neither should I.
The next cell they took me to in Lord Yoshisane’s castle had a thick futon already unrolled on the floor, a soft silk quilt, and new clothes, since mine had all been taken from me.
Normally a ninja, locked up, would have several secret tools or weapons. But Madame, of course, had supervised the search, and Lord Yoshisane’s men had taken every weapon I had left in my pockets. In fact, they had taken my pockets themselves, as well as the clothes they belonged to. It was the easiest way for Madame to make sure I was defenseless.
They’d only left me two things. One was the pin for my hair, after Madame had given the stick a quick twist to be sure it actually was a hairpin, and nothing deadlier.
The other was the necklace around my throat, with its single pearl in a ring of gold. Why would Lord Yoshisane bother taking that from me? He’d bought it, and me along with it. We both belonged to him now.
The room even had a window; they were that sure of me. After I’d put on the new trousers and jacket, I slid the screen open and looked out at the sunset, and then down onto a sheer stone wall that led to the moat below.
I turned my head and looked up toward the roof.
It was mildly unpleasant to be dangling by my hands from slick ceramic tiles above a long drop to a deep moat, but I was not there for long. With my bare toes on the edge of the wooden window shutter, I was able to give myself enough of a push to hook a heel over the roof’s edge. Then it was easy enough to heave myself up onto the tiles and crawl over the roof’s peak. The drop down to one of the inner courtyards was nowhere near as harrowing.
By the time I got to the castle’s kitchen, there was only one servant still awake there. She was willing to take pity on me when I wept and whimpered that I’d gotten lost and my new mistress would surely beat me for taking so long to return to her. Through yawns, she told me which room to look for. I bowed in humble thanks, scurried out of the kitchen, and found a handy pile of firewood that gave me a boost back up onto the castle’s roof.
I felt safer here, well away from the eyes of Lord Yoshisane or anyone who worked for him. It was easy enough to walk the roof tiles, imagining that I was following the servant’s directions through the corridors below. When I found myself standing on top of the room I’d been searching for, I lay down and reached over the eaves. Sure enough, a window.
I longed for my knife or my sharp steel rod or anything that would have cut the paper screen silently. But since I had nothing, I fished in the darkness for a broken bit of roof tile and flung it hard at a nearby tree. As I’d hoped, the tree exploded with startled, squawking birds, and their racket covered the noise I made when I punched my fist through the window.
Saiko heard me, however, and was beside me as I swung in. “Kata, are you mad? What are you doing?”
“Looking for you, of course.” I dropped to the floor.
“Why didn’t you just come to the door?” she asked, bewildered. “Honestly, Kata, I think you like climbing over roofs and down walls.”
“And he’d just let me wander around the castle, of course.”
“Who would?” Saiko had been fumbling with a lamp. Now a spark had been struck and the wick was burning in its bowlful of oil, a tiny pool of brightness in the dark room.
“Your uncle.” I snatched up that garish red-orange kimono and used it to cover the window, so our light would not be seen outdoors. “The one who locked us in?” I prompted, and Saiko only stared at me.
She stepped over to her door, slid it open and shut, and lifted her perfect eyebrows—she’d had a chance to pluck them. “Why would anyone lock me in?”
“Because they want us—want us to—” Thoughts were tangling in my head, words on my tongue. “To serve them. He bought me. Your uncle. From Madame. Saiko, he owns me now.”
“And me as well.” Saiko had knelt gracefully beside her futon and gestured for me to do the same. “He always did. Or Uncle Hikosane owned me, or my father. Ichiro is the only boy, but I am the only girl. Do you know how many arguments I’ve listened to over who I’d marry? Whether they’d use me to turn an enemy into an ally, or an ally into family? Do you think any of them ever thought once of consulting me? Kata, listen.” She leaned forward a little, and I saw a light in that lovely face I had never seen before.
“He owns you, but he needs you,” she said, her voice low, her body tense as a bowstring. “He needs both of us. There are bandits in the hills. Lords on his borders who’d love to take his land and his peasants. The territory of two dead brothers to control. He needs what you can do for him. Information. Assassination. And I can help. Maybe I can’t fight, but I can do other things. You would be surprised to know what I can do.”
I heard Madame’s voice in my head. Do you know the right moment to peer out from behind a fan? Can you catch a man’s attention with one glance? Could you keep his eyes on your smile and off your hands?
“Think of it, Kata. He won’t be able to do without us. He won’t own us. We’ll own him.”
I shook my head.
“What?” She was all sweet concern. “Kata, this is the best either of us could hope for. What more could you want?”
“Freedom,” I said weakly. “Don’t you—Saiko, don’t you want to choose? Who you’ll fight, and when, and what you’ll get when you win?”
She laughed. “Who gets to choose?”
I thought of Ryoichi. Of Otani, his smile flashing in the firelight. Of Tosabo.
“Oh, Kata.” She might have read my mind. “Do you want to be free to be a peasant in a hovel? A bandit in a cave? That’s just the freedom to die.” She lifted both arms, graceful as a dancer, and spread them out to the darkness around us. “You’ll live in a castle. Have a warlord dancing to your whim. What better freedom is there than this?”
She’d made her choice, then. I made mine. I blew out the lamp and went swiftly to the window, pulling the kimono down.
“You’re truly leaving?”
“I’m leaving.”
“How will you get out?”
“What do you care?”
“Wait—no, Kata, wait. Listen. You don’t have any tools. Are you going to climb the wall with your fingernails? Listen.” She was beside the window now, a gentle hand on my arm. “There’s a door in the outer wall. No one knows. It leads to a tunnel under the moat. You can get out that way. You’ll be safe.”
“How do you know about it?” I asked suspiciously.
In the darkness, I heard her gentle laugh. “Ichiro and I played all over this castle as children. There’s not an inch of it that I don’t know. There’s a shrine in the garden. The door is in the wall behind it. Covered in vines, but it’s there; you’ll see it. Good fortune, Kata. You’ll need it.”
I paused with one leg over the sill. “You’ll need more than I will. Good fortune, Saiko.”