The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(85)

I stopped walking. Neven bumped into me, jostling the Yokai.

“What do you mean?” I said.

Hiro shrugged. “Izanami doesn’t allow other Shinigami to associate with me,” he said.

I thought back to the Shinigami in the hotel hall who had struck Hiro, and his hesitance to meet the presiding Shinigami of Yahiko.

“Do you really think I would forget you so easily?” I said. Hurt bled into my words, but I couldn’t hold it back. Neven looked between the two of us with confusion.

Hiro shook his head. “It’s not a matter of what you want, Ren. When you work for Izanami, you follow her orders. You won’t have a choice.”

Something that might have been tears or darkness or vomit rose in my throat. Just how much would I have to sacrifice to be a Shinigami?

“You didn’t think to mention this until now?” I said.

Hiro looked away, over the fields. “Would it have made a difference?”

I bit my lip to hold down whatever wretchedness was trying to claw its way out of me. The happy ending I’d imagined in Yomi would never exist outside of my dreams, now ruined with images of Hiro rowing back across the river alone, humming his sad lullaby. I saw myself as the Shinigami in the hotel, striking Hiro to the ground while he lay there and let me.

“Izanami might change her mind when I tell her how you’ve helped us,” I said.

“It may soften her heart, if she’s in the right mood,” Hiro said, “but she hasn’t made me any promises as she has with you. I’m preparing you for the most likely outcome.”

“Isn’t that the reason you helped us?” I said. “To persuade her?”

“At first, yes,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Then other things became more important.”

The heat that I’d tried so hard to suppress rushed to my cheeks. In the distance, the villagers began to venture into the rice paddies, lanterns and scythes held overhead.

“I trust you’ll put in a good word, as you promised me,” Hiro said. “I have hope, but I’m an optimist, not a fool.” Then he turned back to the horizon. “We should keep walking,” he said. “The villagers are coming.”

“I’ll convince her to take you back,” I said.

Hiro glanced over his shoulder, but wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You’re kind, Ren.”

He gestured for us to keep walking, but I stood firmly in the dirt. “You deserve to be a Shinigami.”

Hiro sighed and turned around, his face tight with impatience. “Ren,” he said, “she thinks I’m incapable. I don’t think she’s even seen me stand.”

“But you can!” I said. “If she knew what you could do with the ocean, or a bow and arrow, she—”

“She’ll never know!” Hiro said, hands curling into fists and eyes wet. He spun away from me, looking back up to the sky with a shuddering breath. “None of it matters,” he said, “because she’ll never know.”

Then desperate words bubbled to the surface and spilled out my throat before I could think twice about what I was offering: “So why don’t we show her?”

Hiro’s shoulders tensed. He turned to face me again, his expression blank.

“Ren?” Neven said warily.

“Come with me to see her,” I said, stepping closer to Hiro.

“The guards won’t let me in the palace,” he said. “You know that.”

“We’re time turners,” I said. “You really think we can’t get around that?”

Neven yanked my sleeve. “Ren,” he said.

“I couldn’t ask that of you,” Hiro said, looking down at the soil.

“I want to,” I said. “You’ve done so much for me. Please, let me do this for you.”

Hiro looked up, his eyes finally meeting mine. “You would do that for me?”

His words from last night replayed in my mind: I would do anything for you. Would I do anything for Hiro? I wasn’t sure. But this much, I could do.

“Yes,” I said.

Hiro took my hand, and for a moment I thought he might kiss me, even with Neven and the Yokai standing there. But instead he just held my hand tight, his eyes a shade of black more brilliant than the sky of stars above us. No one had ever looked at me with such affection, as if I was something other than a wretched creature of Death.

“Ren!”

Neven’s voice made the dead trees quake and crackle, echoing across the fields. His livid eyes spun a thousand colors, his face bright red. The Yokai clung tighter to his shirt while the villagers in the distance looked around in confusion at the disembodied sound.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, the words ground out and stiff.

“Neven,” Hiro said, “I—”

“I said I need to talk to Ren, not you,” Neven said. He pointed into the distance. “Walk ahead of us.”

“Neven,” I said, darkness fizzling in my fingertips. “You can’t just—”

“It’s all right,” Hiro said, holding up a hand. “I’ll keep heading north. I’ll wait for you by the station.”

He gave my hand a gentle squeeze, then turned and walked toward the horizon, pulling his cloud of darkness with him.