Nothing about her had changed in the two years since I had left her school. She still held herself perfectly straight, yet not at all stiff. Her hair, white and gray, was gathered loosely at the back of her neck. Her kimono was gray, too, sober in design, rich in material. The heavy silk flowed like water about her, beginning to move a moment after she took her first step, continuing to swirl a moment after she came to a stop by my cage. Her eyes were alert and pitiless as she studied me, crouched behind bars.
In the past two years, I’d thought, more than once, that Master Ishikawa had taken me on because he could see that I was not afraid of him. Perhaps that had intrigued and impressed him. Very few people could meet the most notorious thief in all the coastal provinces without quailing.
Master Ishikawa did not know that I’d spent twelve years of my life in a school run by a mistress who made him look like a kindly grandfather. Who could fear the worm once she’d faced the dragon?
Fuku had followed Madame into the barn. Madame gave me another careful, narrow-eyed look, as if I were a horse she was thinking of buying, and she had no intention of being cheated. Then she nodded once to Fuku, who bowed and departed.
That girl had improved in self-discipline since I’d left Madame’s school. Something else to keep in mind.
“You have a decision to make,” Madame Chiyome said.
I did? I was a prisoner in a cage. Prisoners did not usually get to make decisions.
“My client will be here to speak with you soon,” Madame went on. In the warm, stuffy dark of the barn, her voice had an odd quality, so clear and calm I felt as if I should be able to see by it, as if she’d lit a paper lantern with her words.
I’d known that Madame would not be taking me back to the school where I had grown up under her sharp eye. I had no place there anymore. Was she going to return me to the man she’d sold me to? I’d escaped from his castle and his service the very night she’d taken his string of gold coins into her hands.
“You have something in your possession that belongs to her,” Madame went on.
Madame’s client was not the warlord I’d briefly belonged to, then. I felt coldness gather at the base of my throat and around my heart.
“You can return her possession freely, or you will be killed. That is your choice to make.”
It wasn’t much of a choice.
“It’s Saiko,” I said, my voice a husky rasp, my mouth still sore from the gag. “Saiko is your client.”
I didn’t need to make it into a question. Madame didn’t treat it as such. From her face, you would not know that I’d spoken.
“I am telling you this now so that you can think over what you will do,” she continued. “And I will add one more thing for you to keep in mind. This is simply a mission for me. For my client it is more than that. She is not one to accept being robbed of what she feels should be hers. If you choose death, it will not come quickly.”
She turned, her kimono swirling like a whirlpool. Fuku was there to slide the barn door open and to close it after her.
Rubbing my fingers together to warm and loosen them, I slipped a hand inside my jacket to untie the cords that held a pocket shut. Inside the pocket was the object Saiko believed I had stolen from her.
Carefully, I drew it out and held it cradled in my hands.
A pearl encircled by a band of gold the width of a thin willow twig, it nearly glowed in the dimness, even pulsing a little as if with its own eerie heartbeat. Whoever had searched me while I’d been unconscious had not taken this. They’d only been looking for weapons; perhaps they had missed it. Or, more likely, Saiko had given orders that anything valuable in my possession should not be touched. As far as she was concerned, the fewer people who knew the pearl existed, the better.
The little white orb looked simple enough, valuable perhaps, but nowhere near worth the heap of jewels I’d glimpsed on Master Ishikawa’s table. Nowhere near worth the trouble of kidnapping me and dumping me at Saiko’s feet.
But of course the pearl wasn’t what Saiko wanted, not really.
What she wanted was the demon’s soul inside it.
I rolled the jewel lightly between my fingertips, feeling the cool smoothness of the pearl, the slick softness of the gold. Did I imagine a faint, deep chuckle, like stone grinding on stone, almost too distant to hear?
Hurriedly, I stowed the pearl away in my pocket once more, tying the cords tight.
I’d been the guardian of the pearl for two years now, ever since Saiko’s little brother had thrust it into my hand, the silk-white surface of the jewel warm with his own blood. In that time, I’d made four wishes, calling on the power of the demon trapped inside.
Each wish had brought that demon a step closer to freedom.
Since I’d escaped from the warlord who had owned me—who happened to be Saiko’s uncle—I’d never made a wish. I’d kept the pearl safe, and slowly its tendency to call forth ghosts and demons wherever I went had died down. Oh, now and then something was stirred to wakefulness and hunger by the presence of the demon in my pocket—a kappa lurking in the shallow water beneath a bridge, a ghost moaning from a well, the neko-mata last night. But those stirrings were rare, and becoming rarer. I’d thought I had the demon in check.
There were two wishes left, or perhaps one. And once they were gone, the demon would have its freedom.
It would also have the soul of the last person to make a wish.
I’d heard the demon in my mind. I’d seen the forms that it could take. And I had no wish at all to set it loose upon the world or to hand it over to Kashihara Saiko.
For a time we’d been … certainly not friends. Allies, perhaps. At least twice she’d saved my life. I’d come fairly close to trusting her.
That had been a mistake. But not as serious a mistake as underestimating her.
Saiko had depths to her that made Madame look shallow. Whatever happened, I could not risk letting her get her hands on this pearl.
I could spend a fifth wish. I could free myself from this cage. But if I did that, there was a good possibility I would free myself from my soul as well.
So I made no wish. I had another ploy to try first. It had already been set in motion—at least I hoped so. To see if it would work, all I had to do was wait.
I spent the next day in the cage and was fed twice more. Another night fell, and Saiko did not arrive. Apparently I was being given time to make my choice.
Before the cracks in the barn walls began to brighten with daylight for a second time, someone pushed the door open again, just enough for a slim body to slip through. Footsteps, very nearly silent, padded toward my cage. Something was set down on the ground. The footsteps retreated and the door closed once more.
I put a hand through the bars and groped about for the object that had been placed there. My fingers touched a soft, quilted bag with something slender and hard inside.
Lockpicks.
It is quite awkward to kneel inside a cage and open a lock on the outside. Total darkness does not make it any easier. I was glad I’d had a very good teacher.
Once I’d gotten the lock undone, I crawled out of the cage, stood, and stretched. Oh, the relief of a straight spine! Then I made my way to the barn door. It had been left open a crack. I put my ear to it and listened.
I heard a thump, like a stiffened hand meeting a solid mass of flesh and bone. Then a heavier thump, like a body falling to the ground. A voice from the other side of the door spoke my name, so quietly that even a termite dozing in its hole would not have stirred. “Kata?”
“Tomiko?” It was half a guess—it was hard to be sure of an identity from muffled footsteps and a single whispered word. However, it seemed that my guess was right, since the speaker on the other side of the door did not correct me.
“Hurry. It’s almost dawn.” The door eased open again. Tomiko took my arm and guided me forward. I stepped over a crumpled body that lay on the ground.
The sun had not yet risen, but the darkness was starting to lighten. Instead of swimming in a pool of black ink, we were wading through a swamp of gray forms in a gray mist. Tomiko had planned her route well, as I’d expect of any student of Madame Chiyome. My bare feet felt the trodden earth of a stable yard, then the plowed furrows of a field. Soft grass, ankle height, came next, and after that firm earth again—a path.
By the time we reached a clearing, there was enough light that I could see a figure rise from where it had been concealed under a ridge of stone. My hand moved instinctively toward where my knife should have been, even though I was quite sure I knew who this was and that she was no threat.
“Kata. Thank every god.” Arms reached out to take me in a quick, tight embrace. “Oh, I was worried.” Masako pulled back to touch my face with gentle fingers. “Are you hurt? Badly?”
I shook my head.
“You have somewhere for us to hide?” Tomiko’s voice came out of the dimness at my left.
“This way.”
My old schoolmate led us swiftly along an overgrown path. As she walked, she kicked apart an arrow made of three sticks on the ground and later knocked over a few rocks that had been piled into a tower, so I knew she’d been here before and marked her trail.
I wondered if she’d found a cave for us, or was heading deeper into the forest, but she’d planned better than that. Her path took us down a muddy slope. At the end of that slope a quick little river ran. A boat was tied to a sapling that bent and bowed with the strength of the tugging current.
At first both Tomiko and I huddled in the bow, kept from view of prying eyes by a rough cloth cover, while Masako steered the boat downstream. As hours went past and the day lightened, however, she eventually used her paddle to steer the boat to one side, and we felt it bump against a soft bank. “You can sit up now,” she said quietly.
Tomiko and I shook off our cover, relieved to draw in breaths of fresh air and move stiff muscles. Masako had taken us under a willow tree, the dangling leaves and drooping branches making a shady shelter. Through their screen, I could glimpse a dense green growth of alders along the bank. Mist was rising off the river with the damp warmth of the morning.
Masako had tied the boat to a root that arched up out of the water. She smiled broadly, reaching this time to hug Tomiko, who blinked in surprise and sat stiffly in her embrace.
“You did wonderfully,” Masako said, letting her go. “Here, you must both be starving.” From the bottom of the boat she picked up a bundle wrapped in a large, square piece of blue cloth. The cloth was a bit damp, but the baskets inside were dry. Masako pulled the lid off one and handed out balls of sticky rice. I bit into mine hungrily, discovering a salty piece of dried fish in the center. Tomiko took a small bite and chewed thoughtfully.
“Jinnai found me the same day you’d been taken,” Masako told me, her fingers busy with the knot of a second bundle. I nodded. I’d hoped he would; I’d certainly paid him well enough to get word to Masako if anything should happen to me. But of course, you could never be certain that an ally, however well paid, would keep up his end of the bargain.
It was something all three of us had been taught at Madame’s school. Trust no friend farther than you can see her. Trust no ally for more than you’ve paid him.
“One of the gatekeepers remembered an oxcart leaving in the dead of night, so it wasn’t too hard to follow you,” Masako went on. She’d pulled the bundle open by now and spread it out on her lap. I smiled.
A deadly little knife in a sheath. A black silk cord that could be tied around a waist. A set of narrow metal bars, some with pointed ends, some with hooks, some hammered into flat shapes like tiny shovels. A simple hair ornament whose stick could twist open to reveal a wicked sliver of a blade. A few small ceramic jars, their mouths sealed shut with wax. Flint and steel and a tinderbox. Finally, several strings of cash, the brass and silver coins threaded together by a cord through the square holes in their centers.
Masako had known exactly what I would need.
“Then I just had to find the boat and get word to Tomiko,” she explained as I set about strapping the knife to my forearm, securing the pin in my hair, distributing the other tools among various pockets of my jacket, feeling all the while like a turtle crawling back into its shell. I never felt like myself unarmed.
Tomiko swallowed the mouthful she’d been slowly chewing. “Masako made me a promise,” she said, as I slipped some of the metal rods into a narrow pocket along the seam of my sleeve. “In your name.”
Tomiko dropped her eyes to the food in her hand, but did not take another bite. “Right now I’m a runaway. If Madame finds me—”
“Madame will spend the day searching every field and hollow and storehouse around that farm,” Masako said briskly. “And that will give us a start.”
“A short one.” Tomiko applied herself to eating as if she’d suddenly remembered an unfinished job. “I want what was promised to me.”
“Now?” I took a second ball of rice. Working for Master Ishikawa, I’d gotten fairly used to regular meals. My empty stomach felt like a well with no bottom.
“I think there’s a good chance you won’t be alive to give it to me later,” Tomiko answered.
Masako frowned. But Tomiko hadn’t spoken harshly. She was merely calculating odds. We all did. It was part of our training.
Hidden in a panel of embroidery on the left sleeve of my jacket was the loop and hook that kept a secret pocket shut. I opened the flap and slid out what I kept inside—two rubies and an emerald with a dark, cloudy flaw at its heart.
The jewel Fuku had knocked out of my mouth hadn’t been the only one I’d taken from Master Ishikawa. It was a pity, I thought now, that I hadn’t added that stone to the ones in this pocket, but I’d been afraid so many objects in there at once would make a noticeable lump.
Not nearly as noticeable, in the end, as a jewel bouncing across the floor mats, but there was no way to fix that now.
I handed all three stones to Tomiko. Even with the emerald’s imperfection, it was a valuable hoard. Enough to buy a ninja. I knew, because I’d bought several.
“That could pay for passage across the Inland Sea,” I said as Tomiko examined the jewels critically. “Or you can go back to Madame and bargain for your freedom, and she’ll let you be.”
Tomiko snorted. “Or she could keep the jewels for herself and put me in a cage, like you.”
Masako shook her head, and her loose hair swept across the collar of her plain cotton kimono. “I don’t think she would. She’s honored every bargain Kata’s made with her.”
“Until now.” Tomiko tucked her jewels away into a hidden pocket along the hem of her own jacket.
“Madame didn’t come after me because of the girls I’ve bought from her,” I said. “She did it for a client.”
Masako and Tomiko turned their faces toward me.
“For Saiko.”
Tomiko’s fingers paused on the fastening of her pocket. Masako drew in a slow breath. A ripple rocked the boat under us, and the leaves of the willow flickered in a breeze.
Then Tomiko finished what she was doing and patted the pocket smooth. “In that case, I’m leaving now.”
“Tomiko.” Masako stirred and put out a hand. “You don’t have to go, not so quickly. You can come home with me. My husband won’t mind. And I can find some work for you to do. Listen—you have choices now. You don’t have to be what Madame made you. What she tried to make all of us.”
Tomiko looked genuinely astonished. “What else could I be?”
Masako’s slow smile spread over her wide, plain face. “Anything. That’s the amazing thing, Tomiko. That’s what Kata bought for me. For Ozu and the others. Now for you. You can be anything.”
Tomiko’s forehead only crinkled in further bewilderment. “What else would I want to be?”
Masako hesitated, glancing at me. But I had nothing to add. Tomiko’s choices were her own now—not for Madame to dictate, not for Masako, not for me.
“You don’t understand …,” Masako began.
“I understand that Madame will never rest until she’s delivered Kata to Saiko. And I don’t plan to be caught in the middle.” Tomiko slid herself deftly out of the little boat, barely causing it to rock as she stepped to the bank. “Good fortune to you both. You’ll need it.”
Before she pushed aside the willow leaves, I spoke. “There’s no debt between us?”
Tomiko touched her pocket briefly. “None.”
She slipped through the leaves and was gone.
“She could have stayed,” Masako said in dismay. “I would have taken care of her.”
I smiled. Only Masako would think that a girl who knew at least thirty-nine ways to end a life would need her tender care.
“But she’s right, you know, Kata. Madame will be searching for you. We need to find a way to keep you safe.”
“We need to keep the pearl safe from Saiko.”
“Very much the same thing. She found you once, Kata. Where can you hide this time?”
An idea was stirring in my mind. I closed my eyes to see it better, and a picture danced behind my lids—wavy blue lines on a sheet of paper that, somehow, meant the same thing as the heave and slap of heavy, cold water, vast distance, the tang of salt, and the kiss of chilly wind.
“There’s nowhere in the world, Kata. There’s nowhere she won’t go to find you.”
“I think the world might be bigger than we knew,” I told her.