The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(89)

But that wasn’t possible. I shook my head to clear the thought, ignoring how Neven raised an eyebrow. It must have been a false memory, for why would my mother have sung to someone she would later give away?

“What does it mean?” I said, staring out across the emptiness.

“You would have to ask Izanami,” Hiro said, but his voice sounded too light and far away, and something told me that he knew the answer.

He began humming again. This time, the Yokai stayed silent.

We moved through the town center, the lights slightly dimmer than I remembered. As we left our lanterns at the edge of the darkness and headed once more toward the shrines, Neven latched on to my arm with his right hand and clutched the Yokai with his left. His touch weighed me down like an iron shackle on my sleeve.

Beyond the light of the town, a cool ocean of night swirled around us, every breath filling my lungs with bitterness. The darkness grew heavier as we walked deeper into it, trying to drag us down to the dirt as if warning us not to go any farther.

We’d agreed that I would stop time once the palace guard opened a portal, in order to let all of us pass through unnoticed. I would have preferred to leave the Yokai outside and as far away from Izanami’s knowing gaze as possible, but Neven refused to leave her alone and I’d promised I wouldn’t abandon him, which meant all four of us had to go inside. Once again, I was risking everything because of Neven’s bleeding heart.

Finally, we stood at the edge of the gardens, where the dirt gave way to the cool tiles of the palace courtyard. I held my breath and waited for the guard to appear, but he didn’t come.

“I’ve come to speak to Izanami,” I said into the darkness.

But no one answered. I turned and looked back at the hazy forms of Hiro, Neven, and the Yokai. Neven hugged the girl to his chest and stared uneasily into the darkness, while Hiro met my eyes but offered no suggestions.

I turned and took another step toward the palace.

Something buzzed in my ear. I swatted at it, but the sound only intensified. The darkness swirled into a thousand gnats, swarming around my face, trying to crawl into my ears and mouth.

I spit them out and tried to fan them away, but all at once they fled and converged into the shape of the guard. The vaguely human silhouette loomed over me in a deeper shade of night than the surrounding darkness, pulsing and swirling at the edges.

“I see you’ve returned,” he said.

“I’ve finished my task,” I said, picking at my ears, which still itched with the phantom sensation of bugs. “Take me to Izanami.”

I expected him to step back and open a portal in the darkness for me, but he vanished as soon as the words left my mouth.

Then the Yokai shrieked.

I spun around as she slapped at the slithering darkness that pulled her hair, crawled over her arms and wrapped around her torso. Neven held the girl at arm’s length, rigid with panic.

“Stop that!” I said, yanking a blanket of deep darkness over the Yokai. The shadow reluctantly withdrew, unable to swim through an even darker black.

“What a lovely child that you’ve dragged so unkindly into the darkness,” the guard said, reforming into a humanlike shape before me.

“I need to see Izanami,” I said again, standing between the guard and the Yokai. I forced my voice to sound untroubled, as if her presence was inconsequential. I didn’t want him paying attention to her, or worse, asking questions. Already, I was starting to regret bringing her with us. What if the guard told Izanami that we’d brought a child to Yomi? He might be ignorant, but Izanami wouldn’t be.

The guard had no face to speak of, so there was no way for me to guess his thoughts. His silhouette ebbed and flowed for a long moment, then he took a step back and tore a hole in the darkness.

“Step inside,” he said, pulling back a curtain of night.

Neven stood tense, looking in my general direction and waiting. Hiro gave me a soft smile, which somehow reassured me more than any words could have.

I pulled out Neven’s clock and froze the courtyard. Though there was no visible change in the total darkness, I could sense the freeze from the silence, the whole world holding its breath. I touched Hiro and then Neven, whose touch woke the Yokai, and all three of them slipped through the portal. Once they were safely inside, I released my hold on time, cast one last look at the guard, and entered the darkness.

The world flipped and the night pulled at my hair and teeth as if examining me. Its ghostly hands shuddered under my skin and caressed every bone, spreading chills wherever they touched. Finally, the darkness spat me out on the floor of a wooden hallway. I must have been outside Izanami’s throne room once more, for the air crushed down with the weight of stone, even stronger than the first time I’d visited.

Hiro, Neven, and the Yokai lay in an undignified pile on the floor, struggling to get up against the crushing pressure of Death. At the whirring sound of the portal beginning to close, I shoved Neven and the Yokai against the wall and stood in front of Hiro, yanking a curtain of dense darkness over the three of them just as the shadow guard stepped through, the portal sealing behind him.

He didn’t spare a glance in our direction, just slipped under the cracks in the door to Izanami’s throne room like spilled ink.

I let out a tense breath. We did it. We’d all made it into the palace, and I was only moments away from standing before Izanami again, from finally getting what I’d wanted my whole life.