THREE

I could hear the soft, rapid footfalls of the two dogs on the earth. “Easy, now, easy,” I whispered, slipping my hand into my belt.

There were the bits of sea urchin, wrapped in rice to keep them safe, that I had filched from dinner. (It had been Goro’s dinner, and not mine, of course. Goro was not a man to waste fresh fish on a servant girl’s dinner, even a servant girl who’d saved her master’s property, and maybe his life, by her aim with a teapot.)

I dared not raise my voice; Taro and Chujiro might have been lazy, but they were by no means stupid. If I or the dogs made noise, they’d investigate. I’d have to hope that my own scent, and that of the food, would reassure the animals.

I felt two cold, wet noses nuzzling eagerly at my outstretched hands, two warm tongues licking. I stroked soft ears and rubbed furry necks. The dogs didn’t have names; they were not pets. But I called them Brown and Black, and I’d taken care to make good friends with them. In their minds I was no stranger, no threat, and no reason to bark.

I flung another handful of food on the ground and left the dogs nosing the dirt as I crossed the garden.

I didn’t run; there was no need and not enough light, either. I stayed on the grass, away from the gravel of the path, and soon I was picking my way, still barefoot, through rows of cucumbers and radishes. At the end of the garden was the hedge, and in the hedge was the hole I’d made behind the shelter of an exceptionally leafy burdock plant. Each time Goro sent me to weed or water or pick what he needed, I’d scrape away a handful or two of dirt or break off twigs that would block my path. Now I paused to tie my sandals on before I slid headfirst into the hollow I’d made between the bare roots and the prickly branches. Careful not to crush the precious package inside my jacket, I wriggled my way out of Master Sakuma’s household.

Slowly, in no hurry, I stood to my full height, brushed bits of dirt and bark off my jacket, and breathed out. For the first time that night, I relaxed enough to notice the weather—the damp air, the clouds that covered the moon and deepened the darkness, the mist that brushed the skin on my face with little pinpricks of chill and carried with it a hint of salt from the sea.

It was too dark to run, so I jogged easily down the street. There was no great need for haste. It was only the hour of the rat, and half the night was still to pass before dawn broke and Master Sakuma would wake to learn that his servant girl and his secret treasure were both missing.

I felt the last traces of Raku the drudge slip away, falling from me like scraps of a snake’s discarded skin. My shoulders shook off their furtive hunch; my gaze lifted from the packed dirt of the road to scan the lanes and buildings ahead of me. I had been Raku for two months, ever since Sakuma’s former servant girl had been given a surprising gift of money by a stranger in the marketplace and told to go back to her village and buy herself a husband. It felt good to move like myself once more.

I crossed the city’s wide main avenue, which began at the harbor and ran all the way up the city’s highest hill. Along it were the mansions of the city’s rich and powerful. The higher on the hill their mansions stood, the richer the families were. Highest of all, of course, were the Takedas. This was their city. They’d rule the tides if they could.

But as if to remind them that they could not, on the very top of the hill was the shrine to the dragon god Ryujin. He was the one who sent the tides in and out twice each day. Even here, at a distance from the water, my ear could still catch the soft growl and sigh of waves advancing and retreating against the coarse pebbles of the shore.

A little farther, I reached an arched bridge over the river that, like a slow-moving snake, coiled lazily among houses and streets. Inside my mind I consulted the map of the city opening up like a long scroll, and I skirted the pleasure district, the only place where people were likely to be stirring. From there I could hear scraps of laughter and broken song. Dressed as I was, I’d have drawn too much attention from musicians and actors, courtesans and customers, if I’d ventured into their space.

I jogged down a street of simple shops, their goods taken in, their shutters closed for the night. Even here, I had to be careful. There were voices around a corner up ahead. I slowed and stopped, listening to a high-pitched giggle and a deeper answer. A man and a woman, coming this way, carrying light to spoil my friendly darkness.

I backed into a side street just before the pair turned the corner. He wore the two swords of a samurai and had a lantern in his hand, as well as a round straw hat pulled low over his face. No warrior wanted to be recognized on his way to or from the pleasure district, especially with such a woman clinging to his arm as she wobbled a bit on her high wooden clogs.

If her elaborate kimono and her pretty face did not announce that she was a courtesan, her hair, gathered up to expose the slender nape of her neck, made it perfectly clear. And she was a particularly brazen one, to be out on the street with a male companion.

I had guessed the two of them would continue along the wider street. To my dismay, however, they turned down the same lane I had chosen for concealment. I’d knelt against a hedge, where my dark clothes and blackened face should have turned me into nothing but another nighttime shadow. But a shadow cannot defeat light.

The woman was singing now, her voice blurred by wine; the man was laughing; they were passing within ten feet of me. The pool of light cast by the samurai’s lantern bobbed a few inches from my left knee, and I silently slid my knife from its sheath. A knife against two swords was no fair fight, but add surprise to that knife and the odds came considerably closer to even.

Luckily, I did not need to try those odds. The couple continued on their unsteady way and turned into a narrow alley between two houses. I waited a moment to be sure that they were truly gone before I sheathed my knife and got to my feet.

Carefully, I checked my mental map of the city. It wasn’t easy to find the way among winding streets and alleys, even in broad daylight; I had to be sure I didn’t take a wrong turn.

This street held craftsmen’s homes: cobblers and potters, a basket weaver, a man who made clogs and another who sold combs. One building showed the dim light of an oil lamp through a screen, with a shadow cast on the rice paper. Someone was working late. The hunched figure behind the screen rose and stretched, as if to ease an aching back.

I turned away. Time to keep moving. As I did so, I heard a soft sound behind me, something between a pop and a crunch.

The sound of a paper screen breaking. I spun around.

The light from the house I had noticed earlier was brighter now, because two or three panels of the paper screen had been broken. And coming toward me, outlined against that light, was a shape on two legs—but not a human shape.

Oh, no. Not here, not now …

My knife was in my hand as I backed up carefully, putting distance between myself and the thing approaching me.

The creature should have been awkward, balanced on two legs, but it was not. Lithe and muscled, as tall as my shoulder, it stalked toward me, lamplight brushing soft gray fur. It let out a soft, hungry meow.

Two tails waved, helping the thing keep its balance. Its ears were flattened, its whiskers swept back; the green-gold eyes were narrow and hungry. A double-tailed cat, a neko-mata.

I’d been pleased to have finished my mission, to be out in the night, to be done acting like a timid and stupid servant girl to fool stupider men. And so I’d gotten careless. How could I have forgotten to be on my guard at every moment? Had I let myself believe that there was nothing in this darkened city more dangerous than I was?

Careless. I’d pay for that carelessness now.

The neko-mata faced me and the corners of its mouth pulled back in a snarl. Its teeth were half the length of my longest finger.

“Mine,” it whined, an unnatural sound, human words forced out of an animal’s throat. “Mine, mine …”

Its back legs flexed as it drew itself together to leap.

A cat will stalk a mouse for long minutes before it finally closes in for the kill. But the last dash and pounce happen as quickly as fire moving from twig to twig. I threw myself facedown just as the neko-mata jumped, and it passed over me, its back claws brushing my hood. Rolling, I came up in a crouch to see the cat land, whirl, and leap again, all in a single movement.

The beast was too fast. I could not dodge again. I barely had time to throw both hands out—one gripping the knife, one ready to grab—and fling myself backward as it hit. We tumbled across the dirt; the neko-mata was on top. Had it somehow grown bigger in the air?

Its front claws jabbed into my forearms, which I was using to keep the thing away from my throat. The back legs were coming up, ready to disembowel me. Neko-mata always craved human flesh. This one would be happy to feast on my intestines—after it had gotten what it had attacked me for.

I got my knee up and kicked hard, connecting with the creature’s rib cage. It yowled. Other cats answered from behind hedges and fences and shutters, along rooftops and alleys, and I realized that we had an audience. Had every feline in the city come to watch me die?

Well, if they had, they were going to be disappointed.

My kick threw the neko-mata off. It flopped gracelessly on its back, caught off balance for a moment, and I leaped upon it.

I avoided the head, with the snarling mouth and needle-sharp teeth. I ducked away from the claws, which slashed the air beside my face, snagging a hank of hair. I took aim at the tails.

A double-tailed cat was a thing of magic and menace. What would it be if it had no tails at all?

I sliced. Warm blood sprayed. The neko-mata shrieked. And it shrank under my hands like a doll that had lost its stuffing, so that two seconds later an ordinary house cat raced tailless down the street, yowling in anguish. The watching cats screeched their dismay.

More lights were beginning to glimmer behind paper screens as I rose, checking with my tongue to be sure that the jewel I’d taken from Master Sakuma’s pouch was still in place inside my mouth. It was. Someone not far to my left slid a shutter open. Voices rose.

“What is it?”

“Fire?”

“Thieves?”

“Is it bandits?”

I could not be found here in my dark clothing and soot-smeared face, splattered with blood. I ran for a house that was still dark, jumped, and in a moment was on the low, thatched roof. Several cats were ranged along the ridgepole above my head. I looked up, drew back my lips to show my teeth, and hissed; they scattered in panic.

I followed their example. It was not hard to move from roof to roof, hurdling the gaps between houses. I jumped over an alley and glanced down to catch the pale face of the courtesan I had seen earlier lifting toward me as I flew through the air over her head. Beside her in the lantern light, lying facedown, was the body of the samurai, which she had been stripping of weapons and valuables.

I followed the rooftops for as long as I could, easily outpacing the clamor and confusion behind me. When at last I was forced to jump down, I found myself in a street of simple but prosperous homes—hedges neatly trimmed, roofs freshly thatched, small gardens with beds of moss and carefully spaced boulders under artistically pruned trees. It was too dark to see any of this at the moment, but that didn’t matter. I knew what was there.

I walked up to one such garden, knocked at the gate, spoke briefly to the man who had been waiting, and was allowed inside.

Entering the house, I strode along the earthen passage that ran straight from the front door to the back. To my right was the raised platform where the owners of the dwelling lived and slept; I heard someone there sigh irritably and turn over. But the sleepers were used to midnight comings and goings, and no one opened an eye or lifted a head. They were paid well not to.

Just before I would have stepped out the back door, I paused, laid my hand on a panel of the left-hand wall, and pushed. It swung silently inward, and I stepped into the dark hole that had been revealed.