“They came just after you left,” Chiyo said, the three of us running toward the palace.
I shoved open the main gates, charging through the shadow guards, who evaporated at my touch. I knew from the footsteps behind me that Tsukuyomi was hurrying after me, but I didn’t have time for him anymore.
“Where are they?” I said, spinning around in the lobby when Neven didn’t immediately appear. “Tell me!”
Chiyo flinched, bowing at a ninety-degree angle. “The throne room,” she said. “We tried to keep them in the west wing, but they’re rather—”
I took off running.
I couldn’t feel my legs as I sped down the hallways, my whole body filled with a strange numbness, save for my heart thundering in my chest, so painfully loud that I was sure the whole palace could hear it. I tripped over my sandals and kicked them off as I crashed around a corner, yanking up handfuls of my skirt so it wouldn’t get in my way. My servants pressed themselves against the walls to let me past as I tore through the labyrinth of hallways.
Neven is here, I thought. Only a few doors stand between us now.
I felt light, like I’d been buried alive for the last ten years and only now had clawed my way back to the surface. Finally, this nightmare would end. I could finally give Neven the safe and quiet place I’d wanted for him since we first set foot in Japan. I could stop stealing human hearts and try to be a goddess instead of a monster.
The sound of shouting drew me to the throne room. Without hesitation, I slammed the doors open.
My shadow guards were restraining a man and woman in the middle of the room, their clothes and skin dripping with darkness like black paint, a pool of it on the floor around them, bleeding toward the open doorway. The man elbowed the guard and spat out a curse in a voice that wasn’t Neven’s. I would know his voice anywhere, but this one was low and cracked and bitter and not my brother’s at all.
It’s not them, I thought.
My brother was a teenager and his Yōkai was a child. My guards knew this, and yet they’d dragged two adults into my palace. All of the hope I’d felt moments ago evaporated, leaving behind a hollowness so vast and hungry that it swallowed up everything around it—the words from my lips, the tears from my eyes, even my racing heartbeat, which was now so slow that I wondered if it was beating at all. How stupid I’d been to think that Neven would just waltz out of the darkness without my help.
I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see the strangers anymore. The last of the adrenaline faded away and I felt like the ruins of an ancient city crumbling to dust. I gripped the edges of the doorway so I wouldn’t fall to my knees, my hands trembling against the wood frame. I turned around just as Chiyo and Tsukuyomi finally caught up to me, pausing a careful distance away when they saw my face.
“How dare you,” I whispered.
Chiyo shrank back at my voice. “Your Highness?”
“How dare you!” I said, grabbing Chiyo by the shoulders. The language of Death slithered past my tongue, my shadows winding their way around Chiyo’s throat. “You know what my brother looks like, Chiyo! You’ve seen him! Is this a joke to you?”
“Your Highness, please!” Chiyo said, pulling a muddy, circular object from her sleeve. “He was carrying this, so I thought—”
I snatched the object and dropped Chiyo to the floor. She coughed and gasped as I scrubbed away the tar of deep darkness from the object’s surface.
It was a silver-and-gold pocket watch.
There were teeth marks on the outside, and though the glass inside was shattered, the hands still turned. This is Neven’s clock, I realized, cold shuddering up my spine. I thought Hiro had thrown it away ten years ago. How could these strangers have found this?
“Ren!”
I turned around just as the man sank his teeth into one of the shadow guards, tearing out a piece of darkness and spitting it at my feet.
“Ren, tell them to stop!” the man said.
He’s speaking English, I realized. A language no one had spoken to me in a decade. And how did he know my name?
I held up a hand and the guards tightened their grips on both the man and woman, forcing them to still where they knelt on the ground. The woman stared at me with wide eyes, while the man panted and scowled, spitting out more inky darkness onto the floor.
I sank to my knees in front of him, the bitter cold of the deep darkness bleeding through my skirts. Though his eyes were bloodshot from the sting of night dripping into them, they glowed a distant blue, then flashed green like the changing hues of a rushing river. I reached out a trembling hand and combed the slick darkness from his hair. It splashed to the floor, revealing streaks of white blond hair.
“Release them,” I said, my voice trembling.
The guards evaporated, freeing both the man and woman. The man stared at me, and even through all the dirt and darkness, the signs of age that didn’t make sense, I knew.
“Neven?” I said, the word so quiet that no one but another Reaper could have heard it. I was so afraid to speak his name out loud, afraid that he would say “no” and all the weight of Yomi’s darkness would crush me. There was so much that I didn’t understand, but even without his glasses, he had those same eyes that I’d known for over a century.
I reached out to wipe more of the sludge from his face. I had to see more, had to be sure.
He slapped my hand away.
The sound shattered the delicate silence of the room. Chiyo gasped and the guards forced his hands behind his back, but I could only look at him as he stared back at me with so much sun-hot anger.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, each word grated out through clenched teeth.
I blinked, unable to speak. He looked so much like Neven, but his gentleness was gone. I turned to the woman, who lay still beside him. Her features were unfamiliar, but I could still remember the same moon-bright eyes of the Yōkai who had ruined my plans ten years ago. This had to be Neven and Tamamo No Mae.
“What happened?” I asked. “Why are you older? You look my age.”
He pressed his lips together, glancing around the room as if looking for a way to escape. He squinted, probably trying to make out shapes without his glasses. For a moment I thought he would refuse to speak to me.
“How long has it been?” he finally said.
“Ten years,” I said, my voice cracking.
He scoffed. “Only ten?” he said. “I used up more time than I thought.”
His clock felt cold and heavy in my hand. Had Neven and the Yōkai hidden out in stopped time for a reprieve from whatever chased them in the deep darkness? All this time, I’d thought that Hiro had destroyed the clock, but Neven must have managed to grab it before he was thrown into the darkness, and it had likely saved his life. But at what cost? For him to look my age, at least a century had to have passed.
I wanted so badly to hug him, but if he wouldn’t even let me touch his face, surely he’d push me back. After ten years of waiting for this moment, he was still so far away.
“Let him go,” I said to the guard. He released Neven, who winced and rolled his shoulders.
There was so much I wanted to say to him, but where could I even begin? My poor, sweet brother who had given everything for me, who I thought I’d killed, had finally come back to me. No words could express all the things I had to tell him. I love you more than the universe, more than I could show you in a thousand lifetimes.
“I’m sorry,” I said, tears caught in my throat. “Neven, I’m so sorry.”
He stared back at me like I’d slapped him, his features sliding into a deep frown.
“Do you think your words mean anything to me now?”
His eyes burned brighter and brighter blue, like the hottest molten iron, and my breath caught in my throat. I deserved Neven’s wrath, but I hadn’t expected it. The Neven I knew was kind and forgiving.
“Do you truly think that’s enough?” he said, his voice rising. “I spent centuries in darkness after you promised me...” His voice trailed off, tears streaking through the sticky tar on his face. “The other Reapers used to tell me to ignore you. They said that standing by you would ruin my life, and they were right.”
My heart, already slow beating and cold, stopped entirely. My lips went numb, unable to form words.
“I left my home for you,” Neven said, “I would have died for you, Ren. But I’m glad I didn’t, because you wouldn’t have done the same for me.”
“Neven,” I whispered, every part of me petrified where I knelt in the pool of darkness. This was wrong. All of this was wrong. I was supposed to hug Neven and never let him go again. The nightmare was supposed to be over. I could finally keep him safe, and we could live together in Yomi like we’d planned a decade ago.
“And where is he now?” Neven said. “Your fiancé, who was so much more important to you than me.”
I shook my head. “Gone,” I whispered, the only word I could manage. “Neven—”
“Good,” Neven said. “I hope you sat alone in your darkness every day since I left.”
I closed my eyes and prayed that I would wake up, that all of this was some horrible dream and I was back in London, where I would be reaped for my crimes. That would have been easier than this. I had imagined a world where I was alone forever, suffering for my mistakes. I had imagined a world where the shadow guards brought back Neven’s body, and I drowned all of Yomi in darkness to feed my endless grief. But I had never imagined a world where Neven didn’t love me anymore.
My sweet, kind, and gentle Neven was gone. Finally, he understood how it felt to carry so much anger inside of you that you wanted to drown the whole world in night. I had always wanted him to be more like me so I wouldn’t have to apologize for my sharp edges or feel so monstrous when juxtaposed against his kindness. Finally, my wish had come true.
He stood up and walked past me. For a moment, I thought he was leaving me and I whirled around to grab onto the hem of his kimono or his ankles or his shoes—anything to keep him from walking away. But he didn’t head for the door. Instead, he grabbed Izanami’s katana from its hook above my throne, moving with more speed and grace than I’d ever seen before as he tore it down from the wall, the display hooks clattering to the floor. The guards swarmed him, but halted the moment he brought the blade to the back of my neck.
“Stay back!” he said to the guards. The Yōkai was the only one who didn’t back away at once, her eyes flickering between me and Neven.
I should have been scared that Neven wanted to hurt me, but all I felt was the hot sting of blood where the blade scored my skin and a cavernous expanse of darkness unfolding inside of me, swallowing all the world’s cold black oceans and starless nights and colorless mornings.
“You promised me,” Neven said again, but this time his words were wet with tears, his hands shaking with the weight of a god’s sword, scraping lines into my neck as it trembled against my skin. “You promised not to leave me in the dark.”
Tsukuyomi took a step forward from the doorway, like he was about to interfere.
I turned just enough to look up at Neven, his face still streaked with darkness.
“Do it,” I said.
Neven tensed, the blade stilling. Tsukuyomi froze.
“What?” Neven whispered.
“Do it, Neven,” I said again, closing my eyes. “If it’s what you want, then do it. Please.”
I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to find out where the damned souls of Reapers and Shinigami went after Death. But if I had truly hurt Neven this much, then I deserved whatever punishment he saw fit.
“Your Highness!” Chiyo said.
“Do not interfere!” I said, making all the servants cower. “That’s an order!”
Chiyo looked between me and Neven, paralyzed by my command. I closed my eyes again, tears dripping hot onto my hands. I remembered when Neven had first been born, when I’d realized I didn’t have to be alone anymore, when he’d stood up for me against the other Reapers, when he’d followed me across the sea. He’d given me all the love in the world, and I’d thrown it away. Of all the horrible things I’d done, betraying Neven had been the worst. I deserved a fate worse than his, worse than Hiro’s.
The longer he waited, the more that fear started to curl its cold fingers around my heart. I would never go to heaven, if such a thing existed. Maybe I would burn in eternal fire, or maybe I would be nothing at all, unmoving and unbreathing, frozen in nothingness for eternity. I started to shake, feeling like Neven had stopped time and was keeping me locked in this moment before death for all of eternity, wondering when the blade would fall, when my whole world would go dark and never light up again.
The blade clattered to the floor beside me. I looked up as Neven took a few halting steps backward, looking at me like I was more horrible and fearsome than any Yōkai. He wiped tears from his eyes, then grabbed Tamamo No Mae’s hand and hauled her to her feet, storming toward the door.
I held out a hand, my shadows rushing across the floor and slamming the door shut.
He spun around. “I let you live, so you keep me trapped down here?” he said, slamming a fist against the door.
“Neven,” I said, my whole body still shivering, “there are Reapers aboveground looking for me. They could capture you and use you as bait.”
“So we’re going to be your prisoners?” he said, his face red, veins standing out in his neck. The Yōkai winced at the tight grip on her hand but said nothing.
“Neven, they’ll kill you!” I said, the sudden volume in my voice startling him back against the wall. For a single moment, the anger left his face. I turned away before it could come back.
“We’ve been in the darkness for centuries,” Neven said, his voice softer now. “I won’t stay here any longer.”
I turned to the Yōkai, who still hadn’t said a word. She didn’t look angry like Neven, yet her round eyes focused vacantly on me, like I was a motion picture and she wasn’t actually in the same room, just watching me from another world.
“I’ll take you to sunlight,” I said, tearing my gaze from the Yōkai. “I’ll be there in case any Reapers appear. But it’s night in the human world right now. So please, Neven, stay here. Just for tonight.”
We watched each other from across the room like strangers trying to make sense of each other. Neven finally nodded.
“Chiyo,” I said, looking to her because it was easier than looking at Neven. Instantly, she stood at my side. “Show them to the guest rooms. Take care of them and give them whatever they ask for.”
Chiyo bowed, first to me, then to Neven and the Yōkai. “This way,” she said.
I did not watch them leave. I could only listen to their footsteps growing quieter down the hallways, the servants filing out.
Tsukuyomi approached me, but I only stared at the floor.
“Please leave,” I said. I didn’t have the energy to explain anything to him right now or hear his unsolicited thoughts.
But instead of speaking, he picked up Izanami’s katana, wiped it clean on the immaculate white sleeves of his kimono until they were stained black, then set it back on its hooks. He picked up another object, wiping it off as well, and knelt before me, offering it to me in the palm of his hand.
It was Neven’s clock, now shining silver once more.
I reached out and took it from him, his fingers startlingly warm as they brushed mine. I cradled the clock close to my chest.
Tsukuyomi rose to his feet, offering me a hand. “Goddesses do not kneel in puddles of deep darkness,” he said. But unlike when he’d first come to my palace and his words reeked of condescension, now his voice was gentle.
“Goddesses do not do many of the things I have done.”
“You might be surprised,” he said. “But kneeling here is beneath your dignity.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I let him pull me to my feet anyway. Was this how Tsukuyomi had felt when his sister threw him down to Earth? It was all too easy to imagine being ripped from the sky and tossed down like a shooting star, all my flesh scorched off in the atmosphere, all my bones turned to dust on impact.
“What did you do?” I asked.
Tsukuyomi paused, but the look on his face told me he knew exactly what I meant.
“There was nothing to be done,” he said. “I went back to the moon, because that is who I am, and that is what the world requires of me.” His words were perfectly even, so impassive that I knew they couldn’t be real.
But he was right. The world required many things of me as well.
I left Tsukuyomi and headed to my room, where I could finish my mourning in private, feeling as though the world had broken into one thousand sharp pieces.
One hour later, I knocked on Neven’s door. How strange it was to knock on doors in my own palace, when in the past I’d simply burst into any room and demand that its occupants leave.
It wasn’t Neven who answered, but Tamamo No Mae.
I could see my own silhouette reflected back in her round, black eyes, like two pools of ink. When I’d last seen her, she’d been a child, but now she could be my age. She looked less like the duckweeds she’d been named after and more like the chrysanthemums that grew around the palace lake, regal and exquisite, perfect in their symmetry. She had a face that could start wars and bring great kingdoms to their knees.
“Thank you for letting us stay here,” she said. Her words were like poetry. Surely no one had ever spoken Japanese as sweetly.
“Where is my brother?” I said, ignoring her comment.
“In the bath,” she said, nodding to the room behind her. “He let me go first.”
“Didn’t Chiyo give you separate rooms?” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Yes,” the Yōkai said, “but Neven said you might kill me if he left me alone for too long.”
I sighed, pressing a hand to my forehead. “I’m not going to kill you, Yōkai.” Neven already hated me, and hurting his only companion wouldn’t help my case. Besides, if she meant him any harm, it would have been easy enough for her to kill him in the century of deep darkness and blame it on a monster.
“I know,” she said, shrugging. “But boys aren’t always very smart.”
She wasn’t wrong. My thoughts drifted to Tsukuyomi, still hovering somewhere in the palace.
“I also wanted to thank you for taking me from my village,” she said.
My skin went cold. “What?”
“When I was a child,” she said, “I remember that I was going to be sold to the yakuza, but it was your idea to take me away.”
“You remember that?” I said, wincing at the thought of Hiro spearing her grandmother with a katana. “Why are you thanking me instead of being angry that I sent you to the deep darkness?”
“Because I know you didn’t mean for us to go there,” she said, her voice light, as if centuries in darkness had truly not mattered that much to her at all. “Besides, Yōkai can see what’s inside people’s hearts. I know what’s in yours, Ren.”
I forced myself to stand still, to not recoil. How could a Yōkai know what was in my heart when I didn’t know myself?
“You don’t fool me,” I said at last. “I know what you are, and what you’ve done.”
I expected her to get angry at me, for fox ears to tear from her scalp and fangs to descend as she ripped a bite out of my throat. But instead, her lips pressed into a crooked line, her posture drooping like a sunless flower.
“In all of my past lives, I was raised as a prize, or a whore, or a weapon,” she said. “No one ever cared for me. I could see it in their cruel hearts. But, for the first time in thousands of years, I met someone who wants nothing from me.”
She paused, glancing over her shoulder toward the bathroom, then lowered her voice.
“I cannot change what I’ve done,” she said, “but in this lifetime, I am not the same. There is no place for that kind of hatred to take root. Neven has shown me nothing but kindness.”
I narrowed my eyes, but the Yōkai just stood there like a wounded puppy, her eyes too round and sad. It could all be an enchantment, of course, but if there was anyone whose love could soften even the cruelest person, it was Neven.
Before I could answer, Neven stepped out from the bathroom, dressed in a white kimono like what Tamamo No Mae wore, his hair wet. I was amazed again at how much taller he was than before, but still far too thin, like time had stretched him upward but not outward. His white blond hair had grown too long, falling over his eyes. He could pass for my older brother now. But even though his features were the same, the look in his eyes, the earnestness and innocence, was gone.
“Mikuzume?” he said, squinting at the scene in front of him. That was the name Tamamo No Mae’s grandmother had called her, the one Neven had always insisted on, probably because that name didn’t carry the weight of all the kingdoms she’d destroyed. “What’s going on?”
“I’m going for a walk,” the Yōkai said. “I want to see the murals.” Then she slipped past me without a word, skipping barefoot down the hallway.
Neven blinked at her sudden departure, gaze sliding over to me. His eyes were probably narrowed because he couldn’t see well, but I still hated being the focus of his glare. I would have to tell Chiyo to get him new glasses.
“I can feel you judging me even if I can’t see your face well,” he said, turning away and grabbing a towel. “She’s still a child to me, Ren, even if she doesn’t look like one anymore. She’s like my sister.”
You already have a sister, I thought. But I said nothing, stepping inside and sliding the door shut behind me. I took Neven’s clock from my kimono and set it on the table by the door.
“Your clock,” I said quietly, unsure how much he could see without his glasses. He hummed in acknowledgment but didn’t turn around.
“I came to tell you about the Reapers,” I said. It was easier to pretend this was a strategy meeting or a business transaction, because to Neven I was only a host and not his sister. “Some of them are in Japan, killing my Shinigami. I’ve enlisted the help of the god of storms and seas, but I need to do a task for him first.”
“Okay,” Neven said, still facing away from me as he ran a towel through his hair.
I started to step forward into the room, but thought better of it.
“I probably won’t have time to come back here every night,” I said.
“All right,” Neven said.
“I need to know what you want.”
Neven froze, finally turning around. “What?”
“I need you to be safe,” I said. “You can stay here in Yomi with my guards, or you can come with me and Tsukuyomi, where we can watch and protect you.” Selfishly, I prayed he’d choose the latter. I didn’t trust my shadow guards who had already thrown him to the deep darkness once. The only one who could watch over him, who would lay their life down for him, was me. And more than that, I didn’t want him to leave again, even if it meant both of us would be in danger. Just like before, I was selfish. I wanted Neven with me at all costs. The idea of him slipping away while I was gone was unbearable.
“I went without your protection for years,” Neven said, his words bitter but his face merely exhausted. “I learned to slay monsters with my bare hands even in total darkness. I don’t need you.”
“You know how dangerous High Reapers are, Neven,” I said, ignoring his words so I wouldn’t start crying in front of him. That was something to think about later, when I was alone.
Neven sighed and nodded. He was the one person in Japan who didn’t need to be convinced of the true danger of Reapers. While he’d likely survived for so long in the darkness because of his clock, he had no advantage over a High Reaper who could turn time more skillfully than him.
“I don’t want to keep you trapped here, Neven,” I said, “but you can’t just walk around Japan when the Reapers will use you to get to me. Unless...” I trailed off, and for a moment all I saw was a horrifying image of Neven on a ship sailing away. “Unless you wanted to go back with them?”
Neven hesitated, and I wished that I was standing on soft soil so the shadows could drag me down and I wouldn’t have to hear his answer. But this floor was firm and unyielding and I had no choice but to stand and wait.
“You’ve seen Reapers here,” he said at last. “Was Father among them?”
My mouth felt too dry, my throat full of sharp rocks. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Neven still wondered about Ambrose, even after he’d called him a coward in front of the High Council. While I thought of Ambrose as a dark stain on my life that grew fainter over the years, to Neven he would always be his father.
“No,” I said, the word coming out harsher than I’d meant it to.
Neven nodded like he’d expected that answer, staring at the wall. After a moment of silent thought, his shoulders fell. “Even if I wanted to go back with them, I don’t think they’d let me bring Mikuzume.”
“You would bring her back to England?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
“She has no home, after what you and Hiro did to her village.”
I winced. I’d been referring to her history of enchanting emperors and overthrowing governments, not her lack of family. What would she do to the poor queen if set loose in England?
“She’s not a danger,” Neven said, like he could read my thoughts. “I spent centuries with her, Ren, I would know. Even as a child, she protected me.”
I shuddered, imagining what she would have protected him from.
“What happened?” I said quietly. “What was the deep darkness like?”
Neven went very still. He was no longer breathing, his eyes a dull blue-gray that shifted slowly, like ice melting.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, closing his eyes. When he whispered, his voice sounded just as young as I’d remembered.
I hesitated before my next question. I shouldn’t ask, but if Neven and the Yōkai had survived the deep darkness, perhaps they weren’t the only ones. My mother had been cast into the darkness as well.
“Did you see anyone else there?” I said. “Any Shinigami?”
He shook his head. “No one.”
The disappointment was sharper than I’d expected. I learned of my mother’s death a decade ago. It wasn’t supposed to matter anymore.
“So what do you want, Neven?” I asked. “Do you want to stay here or come with me?”
He turned toward me, looking vaguely in the direction of my face.
“I spent centuries in darkness,” Neven said. “I won’t stay there any longer.”
“Okay,” I said, a warmth filling my chest. Neven was finally back with me again. And though he was angry with me now, he had a soft heart. Over time he would come to love me again, and we’d have the peace we’d been chasing for so long.
“But once the Reapers are gone, I’m leaving.”
My stomach dropped. I scrambled for excuses but found none. Once the Reapers left, there was no reason to keep Neven here. Other than the fact that I wanted him here, but what I wanted didn’t matter to Neven anymore.
“Oh,” I said, unable to even pretend it was okay, that any of this was okay.
I stood there, just in front of the doorway, with so much I wished I could tell him. That I was prepared to eat every human heart in Japan if it meant he’d come home safely, that I’d spent years becoming a monster because I loved him and how could that not matter to him at all? Neven had come home, but my brother hadn’t.
I watched his back as he resolutely looked away from me, and for the second time that day, bitter tears stung my eyes. Gods don’t cry, Tsukuyomi had said.
“Is that all?” he said.
I swallowed, afraid my next words would come out teary and weak. “I’ll have Chiyo find someone to make you new glasses,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said, the words so formal and distant that I wanted to scream.
I turned toward the door, even though walking away from Neven again felt like saying goodbye forever, as if I’d wake up in the morning and he’d be gone.
“Who is he?” Neven said before I could leave. “The man who was with you.”
I paused, silently grateful not to have to leave yet. “You mean Tsukuyomi?” I said. “He’s the moon god, Hiro’s brother.”
Neven shot me a deeply unimpressed look, somehow more condemning now that he was older.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “He was sent here to help me stop the Reapers, and his father won’t allow him to leave.”
“If you really wanted him gone, he wouldn’t be here.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but no words came because Neven was right. But he didn’t understand that it wasn’t Tsukuyomi I wanted here with me.
“I don’t understand,” Neven said, “why, after everything that happened with Hiro, you’re so willing to trust his brother.”
“He’s here because he’s useful to me,” I said. “That’s all.”
Neven frowned, turning away from me and lying on his side.
“You can make the same mistake a thousand times, Ren,” he said. “But this time, I won’t take your punishment for you.”