The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(70)

“And what about you?” he said, wiping his hands off on his pants.

The fire turned the flat black in Hiro’s eyes to warm amber, and suddenly I wanted to tell him everything. I think Death is eating me from the inside out, I wanted to say. I think one day it might break out and obliterate everything.

“I’m fine,” I said, looking down at Neven.

“You’re good to him,” Hiro said.

I frowned. “If I were good to him, he wouldn’t be here.” My tone left no room for debate. I didn’t want to talk about what Neven deserved. “Didn’t you say you had sisters?” Hiro seemed like such a free spirit, I had trouble imagining him linked to anyone the way I was to Neven.

Hiro stared into the fire for a long moment before nodding. “Yes, but they weren’t Shinigami. They were the daughters of the human couple that raised me. There was no blood relation, and they’re long dead now.”

The words grew quieter toward the end of his sentence. He cleared his throat and thrust his hands near the fire.

“Can you not meet them in Yomi?” I said.

Hiro’s fingers twitched, a slight grimace curling one side of his mouth. “You have to be rather quick if you hope to find someone in Yomi. It holds all of the dead, expanding infinitely into the darkness. By the time I figured out how to return to Yomi on my own, centuries had passed. I suspect they’ve moved to the outskirts, since I’ve never been able to find them in the city.”

“Centuries,” I repeated. “Just how old are you?”

Hiro smiled and shook his head. “I’m an old man.”

“You look my age,” I said. “You can’t possibly be over three hundred.”

“I’m flattered,” he said. “I take good care of my skin.”

“Six hundred?”

Hiro laughed, clapping a hand over his mouth and glancing at Neven to make sure he was still sleeping. “Let some things go unsaid,” he said. “I don’t want to scare you off, thinking I’m too old for you.” He shot me a leering glance across the fire that I thought might have been a joke, but my face flushed and I looked away all the same.

“How long do Shinigami even live?” I said. “If you’re as old as you say, it can’t be the same as Reapers.”

“Usually quite a long time.” Hiro shrugged.

“Do you intend to deflect all my questions?”

He shook his head. “I don’t mean to be vague, but I don’t know the answer.”

“You don’t know how long you live?”

Hiro shook his head. “Shinigami live in proportion to the population of Japan. If the population increases, more Shinigami can be born. If it decreases, the weakest of us begin to die off.”

“And how can you die?”

Hiro looked at me oddly for a moment, then smiled. “Oh, the tables have turned. You want to murder me now?”

I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t mean you, specifically.”

“I’m not sure if I should tell you all my secrets,” Hiro said, pretending to lock his lips with a key.

“Will you answer my question or not?”

“As you wish.” He leaned back against the wall and crossed his legs. “We can die many ways. A nice sharp twist to my neck would finish the job. As would an arrow to my heart. Or perhaps if you connected a heavy rock with my skull enough times, that would suffice.”

I paused, searching his face for signs that he was joking. “But who can kill a Shinigami?” I said.

“Anyone. If you were to plunge one of your knives into my heart right now, I would die.” He spread his arms open, exposing his chest. “Now’s your chance.”

“In England, only superior creatures can kill a Reaper,” I said, ignoring his theatrics.

Hiro hummed and nodded, letting his arms fall to his sides. “Then it’s essentially the same.”

“How is that the same? Anyone can kill you.”

Hiro shook his head. “Anyone can try to kill me,” he said. “Only a superior creature will succeed.”

“But...” My head spun. “That means Yokai are more difficult to kill than Shinigami. Aren’t we superior creatures?”

Hiro laughed. “Don’t tell Maho I said this, but Yokai are base creatures. Strong but not particularly smart. They need to be hard to kill, or humans would wipe them all out. There are thousands of Shinigami, but there is only one Iso Onna. Or, there was, until you came along.”

Hiro smiled, like me wiping out a rare Yokai was something to be proud of. And maybe it was, but it was hard to feel anything but shame with Neven half-conscious in my lap.

“Your eyes look different,” Hiro said, leaning closer and tilting his head to the side.

I looked away, wanting to hug my knees to my chest for warmth but not wanting to look like I was cowering from him.

“Ren,” Hiro said, the word so careful and soft that I knew he was broaching something difficult. “When I blinked, back in the sea, the water turned black. Your eyes were black, too, not just the irises, but the whites of your eyes. And your veins...” He took my hand, tracing the faint silhouette of blue lines under my skin. “What’s going on?”

I looked away, letting hair fall over my face. Cromwell’s words echoed in my head from my final day in London that felt like a lifetime ago.