The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(42)

“What did she say?” Hiro said.

I looked down at the tablet in my hands and ran my fingers over the deep scratches, trying to decipher them. But it was hard enough to read Japanese even in good lighting, and I didn’t recognize some of the characters that Izanami had written.

“She gave me an assignment,” I said. “If I complete it, she’ll accept me as a Shinigami and let me and Neven live in Yomi.”

Hiro’s hands reached out, becoming clearer as he drew closer, as if he’d reached from underwater and broken the surface.

“May I?”

I slid the tablet into his hands, explaining to Neven what had happened as Hiro examined it. When my explanation was finished and Hiro still stared at the tablet, I grew unsettled.

“Hiro, do you know these Yokai?” I said.

“I know of them, but I don’t know them,” he said, lowering the tablet. “I have met many Yokai, but never these three.”

“And is there a reason for that?” Neven said.

Hiro handed the tablet back to me, his expression blurred by the darkness. “They have killed Shinigami.”

I swallowed, thinking of all the horrific Yokai I’d read about as a child and which ones I’d soon have the privilege of meeting. If they were capable of killing Shinigami, they had to be much scarier than the ones we’d seen in Yokohama.

“And Izanami expects Ren to kill them,” Neven said, crossing his arms. “Ren, don’t you think this is strange? Reapers aren’t meant to kill.”

“Izanami isn’t asking me to be a Reaper,” I said, my nails biting into the wood tablet. “Wouldn’t you do whatever Ankou asked of you?”

Neven said nothing.

“Is this even possible?” I said, turning to Hiro. “Has Izanami given me an impossible mission just to get rid of me?”

For a moment, Hiro didn’t answer. The dark fog had cleared slightly, and once again he was the only thing I could see with clarity. The icy sternness of his expression was so different from his usual brightness.

“I don’t know,” he said at last, “but does it really matter?”

I frowned. “How can it not matter?”

“I don’t know your story, Ren,” Hiro said, “but I can assume that someone like you doesn’t end up in Yomi unless she has no other choice.”

Of course, Hiro was right. I might die trying to become a Shinigami, but what was the alternative? To live among humans who treated me just as badly as the Reapers? To hide away and live in isolation?

“Tell me who they are,” I said, holding the tablet out to Hiro again.

He moved next to me, fingers tracing the scratches. No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t see words but only the claw marks of a rabid animal.

“Yuki Onna,” Hiro said, pointing to the top line, “the Snow Woman.”

His finger moved down another line. “Iso Onna, the Sea Vampire.”

Finally, the last line: “Tamamo No Mae.”

When Hiro didn’t offer an explanation, I turned to him. “Who is she?”

He shook his head, finger drifting away from the tablet. “I don’t want to lie to you.”

“So don’t.”

“I don’t think I should tell you.”

I wanted to yell at him, but something in the graveness of his expression sobered me.

“You will tell me eventually,” I said.

He nodded. “When it becomes necessary.”

I gripped the tablet in both hands and stared hard through the murky darkness at the names of the souls I would soon destroy. I would secure my place as a Shinigami and build a home for myself and my brother in Yomi, where we were both safe. And then I would find my mother, even if Death herself wanted to keep her from me.



Chapter Ten


Hiro led us away from the court and back into the sea of darkness, promising to find us an inn for the night. Neven clung to my right arm while I clutched the tablet in my left and followed close behind Hiro, weaving deeper and deeper into the endless black.

As the extravagance of the palace and throngs of worshippers faded away behind us, the world dissolved into nothing but dirt roads and night sky. For a while, we walked down the endless path to nowhere under a sky of infinite nothing.

Gradually the road narrowed and I sensed buildings on either side of us—walls of paneled wood and heavy thatched roofs. The wood dampened the noises of people inside, filling the darkness with formless murmurs in all directions. The houses, already hazy to my new senses, swirled together in their infinite sameness. Were we actually moving forward, or just walking forever in place?

Hiro whistled the same song that he’d hummed as he rowed our boat to Yomi, lonely and gentle. The notes echoed up into the great cathedral of darkness overhead.

“What is that song?” I said.

Hiro stopped whistling, looking over his shoulder.

“It’s a siren song, actually,” he said. “I’m luring you to your death.”

“Funny.”

Neven found it less amusing and took out his clock preemptively, forgetting that Hiro could see him in the dark.

“It’s what you’re both thinking,” Hiro said. “No offense taken, truly. But I promise there’s no need to clobber me to death with your pocket watch.”