The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(43)

Neven dropped the clock in surprise, barely catching it by the chain before stuffing it in his pocket.

“You’ve threatened me with that watch quite a few times, Neven,” Hiro said, smiling over his shoulder. “Is that the Reaper weapon of choice? You’ll use it to bash my teeth in?”

“I...it wasn’t a threat,” Neven said, fingers tense around my arm. “Just a precaution. They’re time turners, not weapons.”

“Could I see?”

Neven said nothing, lips pressed tightly together.

“I’ve overstepped. My apologies.” Hiro bowed dramatically even though Neven couldn’t see it. “Are they made from the bones of Englishmen? What makes them so special?”

“Just silver and gold,” I said when Neven made no attempt to answer.

Hiro hummed in acknowledgment. “Could I have a demonstration of this fantastical time-turning?”

“That’s not possible,” Neven said.

“Please?” Hiro said, clasping his hands together in front of his chest as if praying. “I can offer you something in return.” He turned around and pulled one of his fish from his basket, waving it in front of Neven, who couldn’t see it. “Have you ever seen fish dance?”

“As tempting as a dead fish circus is, we don’t play with time,” I said.

Hiro nodded, tossing the fish back in his basket. “All right. Very professional. Maybe I’ll get a demonstration while you’re killing those Yokai.”

“You mean you plan to accompany us?” I said, my pace slowing.

Hiro laughed. “You want so desperately to get rid of me?”

“This is not a small favor that you do for strangers out of kindness,” I said, coming to a stop in the road. “This is dangerous. You said so yourself.”

Hiro sighed and nodded as if he’d been expecting this.

“I know you two are brave, or you wouldn’t have come this far,” he said, “but you don’t know Japan, and you don’t know the Yokai. I worry that if I let you go off on your own, you’ll never come back.”

I thought back to Datsue-ba and wondered if my skin would have been hanging off her tree had Hiro not come. When I’d imagined traveling through Japan, the image in my head had always been me and Neven and only the two of us forever. But now I could see Hiro walking beside us, whistling his siren song and telling jokes and passing out fish, as if he’d been there all along.

The image made my skin prickle the way it did when Ivy was tracking me, as if at any moment the sky was going to collapse and crush me to dust. Not because I found Hiro suspicious, but because I didn’t, and that alone was cause for alarm. Neven was the only person I could trust. I’d learned that lesson a thousand times over, but some stupid, weak part of me wanted to trust Hiro anyway.

“Do you really intend to take us all over Japan?” Neven said. “Don’t you have other duties?”

“You mean as a fishing spirit?” Hiro said, tilting his head. “It’s nearly winter. The lakes will freeze over soon.”

“How does a Shinigami even become a fishing spirit?” I said, pressing a hand to my temple and rubbing hard, as if I could erase every worry in my mind through sheer force.

“By growing up in a fishing village,” Hiro said, shying away from our interrogation. “As I said, I was raised among humans. I’m not trying to deceive you.”

“Why would you go so far to help us?” Neven said. “We’re strangers.”

“It’s not for you,” Hiro said, frustration finally cracking through his patient expression. His whole body tensed, the darkness simmering like hot oil around him. Then his shoulders drooped and his skin went dim, his face growing hazy in the darkness, as if he was drifting farther away.

“If it’s what the Goddess wants, then I have to be a part of it,” he whispered. He looked up, not at me or Neven but at a fixed point in the hollow darkness. “I have a chance to help her with something of importance. Maybe it will start to change her mind about me. Maybe she’ll keep me out in the darkness forever. I don’t know, but I have to try. I’ve spent so long locked outside in the dark.”

For a moment, the three of us stood in the empty darkness with only the sounds of our breaths and a distant wind. Hiro’s form had grown dim and blurry, as if he was wrapping himself in a blanket of darkness. The night had become physically heavy on my shoulders with the weight of Hiro’s anguish. It tasted of soot on my tongue, crawling down my throat and filling up my lungs. I too knew how it felt to be crushed under the weight of the entire night sky.

I didn’t know if Neven could feel any of those things. I was sure he already resented me for letting Hiro take us so far without properly asking him about it, and I wouldn’t compromise our entire journey unless he agreed.

I was about to tell Hiro that we’d discuss it in the morning, but Neven spoke first.

“I think,” Neven began, his voice small in the darkness, “it would be helpful if you came with us.”

Both Hiro and I turned to Neven in surprise.

“I mean, if Ren thinks it’s all right,” he added, kicking at the dirt road. He must have felt us staring at him, but he refused to look at either of us. Hiro’s eyes had gone so wide that one would have thought Neven had offered his hand in marriage. What had changed his mind so suddenly? I nearly dragged Neven aside to make sure he hadn’t sustained a head injury in my absence, but it took all of three seconds for me to understand.