The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(37)

“It’s really not a problem for me to help you,” Hiro said at last, shoulders slumping because even he knew that was too little too late.

“It’s a problem for us,” Neven said. He set his hand on my shoulder, as if showing Hiro that we were a team. Neven had probably been waiting patiently for this moment, relieved that whatever girlish enchantment I’d been under had dissolved. But I didn’t want to be on Neven’s team at that moment. I didn’t want to be with anyone at all.

“Goodbye, Hiro,” I said, sliding out of Neven’s grip, away from Hiro, away from everyone. I’d come too far to lose everything to an enchanting river spirit.

A hand gripped my sleeve.

“Wait,” Hiro said.

I turned around, but Hiro was staring at the ground and not me, fingers closed around my sleeve.

“Please,” he said quietly, “let me explain.”

I looked to Neven, who had his clock in one hand and his arms crossed. I stood beside him. “All right.”

Hiro dropped my sleeve. “I wanted to deliver you to Izanami,” he said to the dirt road.

I frowned. “Why?”

“I thought she might reward me for bringing one of her children home,” he said, his words growing quieter with shame.

“Izanami is not my mother.”

“Yes, yes,” Hiro said, waving his hand dismissively. “Biologically you’re not, but all Shinigami are like her children. We exist because of her.”

“I thought you didn’t like her,” Neven said, “so why are you so eager to deliver us to her?”

“It’s not quite so simple as liking or disliking her,” Hiro said. “She denies me the title of ‘Shinigami’ and the only way to restore it is by earning her favor. She’s the only one who can give me what I want.”

“And why, exactly, aren’t you a Shinigami anymore?” I said.

Hiro closed his eyes, hands falling to his sides. The ghostly glow around his skin dimmed until he no longer looked like a prince of nightmares but a tormented human, the same as corpses after I’d torn out their souls and left them still and hollow in their beds.

“You asked me why my foot looks this way,” he said at last. “Izanami asked the same thing when I was a child. ‘How could a Shinigami, a creature made of moonlight and stardust, look so broken?’ That’s what she said to me.”

He hung his head lower, eyes open but unseeing. “My condition was worse back then,” he said. “She sent me away to be raised by humans. They took care of me and treated me like their own children. I know that I can work like all her other Shinigami, but she won’t even let me in her palace, much less speak to me.”

He looked up, staring at me with startling intensity. “I’m no fool,” he said. “It will take more than escorting you there for her to restore my title. But maybe it would be a start. I have to try, Ren. So please, let me do this.”

Hiro no longer resembled the carefree river spirit we’d met in the shallow waters. I thought of the mournful song he’d sung as he’d rowed us across the waters, how it had chilled my blood with the rawness of its beautiful anguish. I no longer had to wonder where that sadness had come from. I could hardly blame Hiro for not telling us the whole truth all at once, when it was something so personal. I too knew how it felt to want something more than anything else in the world.

“Okay,” I whispered.

Neven went rigid behind me. “Okay?” he said.

“You want to take us to Izanami, and we want to go there,” I said to Hiro. “I don’t see why we can’t both get what we want.”

For a moment, Hiro didn’t move. Then his eyes closed and his lips curled in a gentle smile. The weight of his worry lifted off him, his skin glowing brighter than before. He bowed deeply and took my hand, surprising me again with his warmth.

“You don’t have to worry,” Hiro said, this time in Japanese. “I will look after you, Ren of London. I promise.”

“And my brother,” I said.

Hiro nodded. “As you wish, though I think he would prefer it if I didn’t.” He straightened his stance. “The palace is this way,” he said in English.

We rejoined the crowd, tight in a single-file line. Neven refused to look at me, no matter how I tried to catch his gaze. I knew he wasn’t pleased with my decision, but I didn’t expect him to understand. Hiro’s motivations would never make sense to someone like Neven, but that didn’t mean they were lies. Neven understood so little of the nuances of being unwanted.

Hiro led us to the outskirts of the market, where the lights grew dimmer. Beyond their glow, the world turned inky black, heavy and viscous. There was no slow transition into the darkness, just a steep drop into the void.

Hiro hung his lantern on a hook at the border of the darkness.

“There is no light allowed at Izanami’s court,” he said.

I remembered the story of her origin, when Izanami’s husband had shone a light on her and seen her rotting corpse, setting off the chain of events that led to the creation of Death for humankind. The rule made sense, all things considered.

Neven finally turned to me, eyes sickly green with alarm before he remembered to be mad at me and turned away. I took his arm, and he pretended the touch was unwanted for a few seconds before his muscles relaxed.