The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(36)

She ripped off another bite of fish with her teeth, then slapped the remains on her worktable.

Something about her indifference cut through me, like an iron poker jammed straight through my stomach. I clenched my burning hands into fists to try to stop it, but it was no use. The light surged from my hands, and all three of the red lanterns above her shop burst into flames.

Hayashi jumped back and Neven threw himself to the ground, shielding his face from flying sparks. All around us, the dead hesitated in their paths and turned toward us, drawn like moths to the sudden brightness. Hiro waved his hand and instantly extinguished the flames, leaving behind only scorched black strips of paper and a cloud of smoke, the mask shop now dimmer than the rest of the street.

Hayashi turned to Hiro, her face twisted into a scowl.

“Is she trying to ruin my business, or is she just incompetent?” she said, extinguishing some errant sparks by pounding her fist onto a display table.

“I’m sure it was an accident,” Hiro said, looking between us like he couldn’t decide who was more dangerous. “Ren, your powers are still developing, aren’t they?”

“Excuse me?” I said, crossing my arms.

“I mean, how old are you? Two centuries? Three?”

“Nearly two,” I said. “How did you know that?”

“See? Her powers haven’t settled yet,” Hiro said, turning back to Hayashi.

“She needs to be house-trained,” Hayashi said, her tone still bitter, but her eyes no longer murderous.

But this time her insult didn’t register, for I was too distracted by what Hiro had said. Because of the delicate nature of time, a Reaper’s powers didn’t really develop unless they received advanced training. But apparently, a Shinigami’s powers grew with age, and outbursts of light like this seemed to be excusable in that stage.

I thought back to the exploded streetlight in London that had ruined everything, how I’d suddenly been unable to control the light that I’d always wielded so easily. Could I have prevented it if I’d known? If anyone had been there to help me, would I even be in Japan right now?

“And why, exactly, haven’t you taken them to an Overseer yet?” Hayashi said.

I tensed up. Hiro was meant to take us somewhere? I looked to Neven, but he was busy examining all the different masks on the walls. I’d forgotten that he didn’t understand much Japanese.

“They’re not human or dead,” Hiro said.

“Obviously, but they’ll deal with them all the same,” Hayashi said. Then she pulled a mask down over her face.

She was no longer a beautiful woman, but a red-faced beast with sloped black eyebrows, golden pupils, and a long beaked nose. When she spoke, her lips moved with the mask, as if it had become part of her face.

“You don’t need to play guardian angel,” she said. The mask had altered her voice as well—still her own, but deeper and raspier. “You should take them to a Shinigami who’s actually practicing. It’s their responsibility, not yours.”

Hiro turned away from Hayashi, but I suspected it had less to do with the mask than her abrasive words.

“She is a Shinigami,” Hiro said, gesturing to me. “She doesn’t need to be watched by one.”

“Except for you?”

Hiro sighed, then reached back into his basket and tossed another fish to Hayashi, who snatched it from the air with one hand, lifting her mask and taking another wet bite.

“Don’t worry about Shinigami business,” Hiro said. “We’ll be going now.”

“Neven,” I said, the sternness of my voice making him jump and hurry away from the mask he was about to touch.

Hayashi laughed and pulled a fox mask from the wall, then slipped it over her face.

“Come back soon, travelers!” she said, this time in English, as we walked away. Her voice had become high-pitched, the sound of a mosquito buzzing in my ear. “I have all the masks in the world. You can be anything you want!”

Almost anything, I thought.

“Lovely friend,” I said, as soon as the woman was out of earshot.

Hiro sighed. “Hayashi is rather...traditional. She’s from my hometown. She died a few centuries—”

“What do you want?” I said, grinding to a stop in the middle of the road. I didn’t care about the tragic backstory of the woman who had just insulted me to my face. I didn’t care to know what redeeming qualities she had when she’d made me feel smaller than a speck of dust, and yet Hiro was defending her. “Why are you helping us?”

“I... I don’t want anything,” Hiro said, eyes wide. “I just wanted to help—”

“Do you think we’re fools?” I said. “Do you think we came here all the way from England through sheer idiocy?”

“Of course not,” Hiro said. “Ren—”

“You’re breaking the rules by escorting us,” I said. Neven tensed behind me at this new information. “Why would you do that?”

“I...” Hiro grappled for words, looking desperately between me and Neven as if one of us would save him. Whatever deception he’d been weaving was rapidly unravelling. I should have felt relieved that my intuition had been right, and that we hadn’t followed him any farther than here. But instead, a hollow darkness opened in my stomach as he floundered for words. I’d wanted him to conjure up magic lies that explained his behavior. Something about him made me want to trust him, but I wouldn’t follow him against all logic.