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“You’re going to fix this.”
I slammed into Sakurako’s study in a high temper. And when the old woman tried to hide behind her book this time, I ripped the object out of her hands and flung it across the room. Elle would have been horrified at the way the book landed spine up, pages crumpling beneath the cover. But I was grimly satisfied to have broken something that didn’t live and breathe.
“So you found Kaito.”
“Is that your only answer? About a man who can’t even feed himself, who just lies there staring at the ceiling with no life force left for you to harvest?”
I wasn’t actually asking, but Sakurako answered anyway. “Yes. It was a shame, but necessary. And, no, it cannot be fixed.”
Necessary. Sakurako’s cold acceptance of her underling’s vegetative state forced the air out of my lungs and I found myself sinking into the nearest armchair. My own rage was abruptly extinguished, the future yawning out before me like a dark tunnel with no end.
This is what I’d signed on for when I traded my future for Kira’s. I had no grounds for complaint when I’d offered myself up as Sakurako’s apprentice without requiring a single reassurance on her part.
And Sakurako must have smelled the regret I drowned in because her voice gentled when she spoke to me. “Granddaughter,” the old woman said quietly. Then, when I failed to respond, her voice sharpened. “You will not be as weak as your mother. If you can’t handle the truth, then I will train your sister instead.”
“We had a deal.” Now the fire was back in my veins and I had to cling to my temper to prevent myself from leaping across the desk and strangling the old woman.
“We did. And if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain then I see no reason to hold up mine.”
My magic was a mere pinprick compared to my grandmother’s, but for one split second I considered blasting her with everything I had and hoping it would wipe her off the face of the earth. But the likelihood of failure rose before me along with the specter of Kira’s lost innocence. So I forced my voice to harden as I returned to business instead.
“I’m here, aren’t I? And I understand that Oyo needed to be prevented from continuing what she was doing. But couldn’t you have harvested a little bit of energy from each member of your honor guard rather than draining Kaito dry? Can’t you push power back into him from his friends?”
Now I was just grasping at straws, but Sakurako provided me more leeway than I’d expected. She sighed, and for a second I thought she might regret her own actions. “That’s not how big magic works,” she started. Then her subsequent words turned that supposed empathy into a lie. “Kaito’s life is a small price to pay for keeping the werewolf packs from restarting their vendetta against all kitsunes. The sacrifice was necessary and I’d do it again tomorrow. When the time comes, so will you.”
No. Just—no. I refused to accept that the ends justified the means when it came to stealing the life of an innocent. I refused to think that Sakurako would expect me to take part in similar atrocities as my own magic grew.
All I managed to say aloud, however, was: “That’s inhuman.”
“Yes, it is, granddaughter. Because we aren’t humans; neither one of us is. Instead, we are kitsunes. And expedience is what we do best.”
***
I TORE THE LIBRARY apart in search of another solution. There had to be a way to embrace my heritage that didn’t involve vampiric energy harvests and questionable moral choices.
But there were so many books and they were all so disorganized. It seemed highly unlikely I’d find the answer in a single night.
Still, I gritted my teeth and dipped into histories of kitsune lineages, lesson plans for advanced magical techniques, and picture books clearly intended for soon-to-be foxes. All the while, Gunner’s tether twisted and tugged at my stomach, like a bloodling puppy who didn’t understand why he was being ignored.
“There has to be a compromise,” I murmured, laughing grimly as I realized how closely my words mirrored Elle’s sentiments when I chose to leave Gunner behind. She’d been wrong then and I was wrong now...and yet I still had to try.
So I read and skimmed and climbed tall ladders searching through books on the upper levels. And sometime long after midnight I must have fallen asleep in the midst of my research because gnarled fingers once again shook me awake.
“Stay...” I started my morning mantra, only to be interrupted by Sakurako’s belated explanation for Kaito’s fate and my own apprenticeship.
“My child, I do this to protect you.” Her voice was scratchy, reluctant, as if she expected to be rebuffed before she finished what she’d come here to say. “I wish I’d done the same for your mother. It’s my own fault that she’s dead.”
And something about the older woman’s admission made me want to wrap her up in a blanket and hug her to my chest. This was, after all, the mother of my mother. My own flesh and blood.
“Sobo,” I murmured, using the pet name I hadn’t even thought since being blackmailed into trading places with my sister.
“Granddaughter,” she answered, her bones creaking as she lowered herself down onto the ottoman on which my feet rested. “This is a difficult situation for both of us. But please know how glad I am to have you here beside me. It’s a lonely life, being a kitsune. Less lonely since you arrived to make my house into a home.”
I was still half asleep, but in that moment I could imagine Sakurako as a young woman. Could guess how her own mother or grandmother had indoctrinated her into their beliefs, how she’d had no more choice coming to terms with her heritage than I did with mine.
If I stayed on my current road, someday I’d do the same thing to my own daughter or granddaughter. Someday I’d rip the rug out from under my offspring’s feet and watch innocence fade from her dark-irised eyes.
Then this hypothetical descendant would repeat the maneuver for the sake of her own daughter or granddaughter. And on and on the wheel would turn until it was sad-eyed foxes all the way down.
Which is why I did it. Used the information discovered in the hundredth book but rejected as too awful to contemplate.
Scrabbled at my waist without looking downward and yanked at the first tether my fingers came in contact with.
Materialized a shard of pure magic...then thrust that disloyal dagger directly into my grandmother’s heaving breast.