The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(64)

Hiro grabbed my arms and hauled me back onto the rock. As I held up the skirts of my kimono to climb up, the veins in my ankles throbbed and flashed a shade of deep red, just like my hands had done before.

“What was that?” Neven said, standing a careful distance away as Hiro knelt and inspected the water. It did not boil at his touch as he scooped up handfuls of murky black sea.

“Did it hurt you?” Hiro said, looking up.

I shook my head. “I don’t know why this keeps happening.”

“This has happened before?” Neven said, frowning.

I winced, realizing I’d never quite gotten around to telling him.

“A few times,” I said, looking away. “Just some plants that withered too quickly.” And Yuki Onna, I thought, but that would be even harder to explain now, and I knew from the tight set of Neven’s jaw that he was already angry.

“You didn’t think to mention this earlier?” he said.

“There were more important things happening,” I said. “It’s not that significant, Neven.”

Neven scoffed, and Hiro kept digging around the tide pool.

“This isn’t typical of Reapers?” Hiro said.

“No.”

Hiro pulled a starfish from the water, its back a bright orange and the tips of its legs a deep violet.

“Would you please?” he said, holding it out to me.

I had an idea what Hiro was thinking and didn’t really want to do this in front of Neven, but he would be even angrier if I still tried to hide things from him now.

I reached out and took the starfish. Instantly, all the color vanished from its skin, its arms twitching as it turned bone white and then hung limply over the sides of my hand.

Hiro took the starfish back without comment, his face gray. He kissed it and set it back in the ocean with a quiet apology. “Ren, this may be a problem.”

I bit down on the inside of my cheek to stop myself from shouting, Of course it’s a problem! Didn’t I have enough problems already? The Death that spread from my touch must have had something to do with the Reapers crossing out my name in Ankou’s book, but I’d prayed that whatever this was, it would fade the farther I got from England. Killing plants and starfish with my touch was the least of my concerns, and easy enough to avoid. But Yuki Onna had started turning to ash just from trying to take my heart and had melted so easily at my touch, so whatever it was, it was starting to affect higher beings as well as lower ones. I didn’t like not knowing what would follow, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t very well go back to England and ask Cromwell for clarification.

I turned my head at the sound of footsteps on the rocks. Neven was walking in the opposite direction, balancing carefully as he stepped over a small boulder.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“For a walk,” he said without turning around.

“Neven, don’t be ridiculous. We’ll stay together.”

He stopped walking, his shoulders stiff. “No.”

The word hushed the restless rumble of waves, forcing the waters to recede. This was how Neven spoke as a Reaper, not as my brother.

“I need a moment, Ren,” he said. He wouldn’t look at me, so I couldn’t see the color of his eyes to know if he was sad or angry or scared.

But he didn’t wait for my response. He stormed off down the shore, vanishing in the black and unsteady terrain.

I sighed. The waves spilled across the rocks, gently sloshing over my toes. Hiro set a hand on my back but said nothing as we watched Neven go.

“Follow him,” I said to Hiro. “Please.”

Hiro looked down at me, his fingers tense on my back. “But what about you?”

“I’ll be all right,” I said, turning to face Hiro and gesturing to the knives in my sleeves, “but Neven’s not really a fighter.”

Hiro’s lips turned down and he pulled me into a gentle hug, my chin resting on his shoulder. I held my breath in surprise, rigid as stone in his grip and praying he couldn’t feel how my cold and slow-beating heart had suddenly doubled its pace. Perhaps I was meant to do something with my arms other than let them hang limp, but before I could decide, Hiro pulled away.

“Be careful,” he said.

“Neven will hear me if something goes wrong,” I said. “Reapers have good hearing.”

Hiro squeezed my arm for a moment before his hand fell away.

“Hurry,” I said.

He nodded and turned away, following Neven’s path across the shore.

I turned in the opposite direction, facing away from the sun, where shadows cast the rocks in an even darker shade of black. I stepped over the jagged cuts of stone and steadied myself as I descended the uneven terrain. The sound of waves grew louder, the air a few degrees cooler, the sharp smell of salt clearing my mind.

I sat down on a smooth rock and looked up at the pale sky. Just for one moment, these few minutes I had by myself, I wanted to be neither a Shinigami nor a Reaper, but just a girl who was very far away from home. I imagined that I was back in London, when autumn made the whole world gold and the nights smelled of charcoal and there was at least one small room where I was safe and my brother loved me. I didn’t know what to do to bring Neven back to me, and I especially didn’t know what to do about Hiro.

Ever since that strange moment on the shore just before Maho arrived, it was hard to look at Hiro without feeling like my heart was beating too fast. Hiro was supposed to be a tool to get me to the three Yokai. He’d help me, I’d help him impress Izanami, and that was all there was to it. I didn’t want to be one of the foolish women in the humans’ penny romances. I couldn’t afford to be distracted by something as finite and pointless as attraction.