“This isn’t the plan!”
“I’m doing it. I can make it look like an accident.”
“Shinji, no!”
“Death to the Serpents, Bo. Death to them all.”
The rasp of brass on brass, an arm snatched from a clawing grip. A whispered plea overscoring rasping bellows, the clunk of a bulkhead door, heavy boots stomping into the dark. Bo standing in the gloom, glowing eyes downcast as he slammed his fist into the wall.
“Shit.”
*
Knife pressed to forehead. Yoritomo’s face looming overhead in the lantern light.
“But I think no other man should want for it either…”
Pain.
“No!”
Kaori lunged upright in bed, drawing her wakizashi from beneath the pillow, face slick with sweat despite the chill. She blinked, chest heaving, searching the gloom for her attacker. But he was dead now—long dead in the shadow of the Burning Stones. Killed for the Black Fox’s murder. The Stormdancer’s revenge.
Her own forever denied …
A faint knock at her door, a silhouette outlined in the rice-paper window. She rubbed her eyes, dragging her hair over her face. What time was it? Monkey’s hour? Dog’s?
“Kaori.” Maro’s voice.
“What is it?”
“A radio message. A transmission.”
“You can’t take it yourself?” she hissed. “Gods above…”
“He asked to speak to you personally. And alone.”
A frown in the gloom. “Who is the transmission from?”
“I am uncertain. But he claims to be Isao…”
*
Kin descended the service ladder, the space so narrow his skin rasped against the walls. Dropping down the last few feet onto a suspended walkway, he looked out over the engine room.
A wide space, ringed with iron gantries and ladders, a transmission block big as houses, the engine thrumming with the power of a thousand horses. The deck beneath his feet swayed with the Earthcrusher’s gait, shock absorbers only partially compensating. Kin surveyed the room, stricken with déjà vu. Blinking in the chi-lantern light, staring at the glittering skins of the Artificers working below, struck to the heart with a single, burning thought.
I have been here before …
“Fifth Bloom Kin.”
Do not call me Kin. That is not my name …
Kin turned, saw an Artificer on the gantry behind, red eye aglow. He looked to the small sigils marked beside the mechabacus, denoting the Guildsman’s name.
“Brother Shinji.”
The Shatei bowed. “You are here for inspection?”
“Forgiveness. I’m early, I know.”
The Guildsman nodded. “I thought we might commence with the gear train? We will have a good view of the transmission from the upper walkways if you wish to see?”
“Very much so.”
The Artificer bowed, motioned him forward. “After you, Fifth Bloom.”
“My thanks, brother.”
Kin turned and clomped along the walkway.
*
Kaori closed the radio room door, locked it behind her, sweat-slicked from the climb. The listening posts were positioned up the mountainside south of the Kagé village—the better to escape magnetic interference. She’d covered the distance at a run, heart hammering, hair tangled about her face. Sitting at the radio table, she snatched up the microphone.
“Isao?”
The boy’s voice was edged with static, dimmed with distance. “Kaori.”
“What did you give my father on his last birthday?”
A pause, crackling with white noise. “Atsushi and I carved him a flute of kiri wood.”
“What was the first tune he played?”
“Well, he tried to play ‘The Ronin’s Daughter.’ But he was so awful, I wasn’t quite sure. And then I got drunk and sat on it. Accidently, of course.”
Kaori’s heart ached at the memory, even as she smiled. “Gods above, it is you. How can this be? We thought you’d been killed when they took my father…”
“Are you alone, Kaori?”
“Hai.”
“Are you sure? Look in the corners. Listen. Do you hear a clock ticking?”
“You mean the spider drone that Guild bitch Ayane let loose up here?”
“… You found it?”
“And destroyed it. Would that I could have done the same to her.”
“Izanagi be praised. Well done.”
“How is it you still live? You were supposed to be guarding my father during the Kigen attack. If the Guild took him, they should have taken or killed you too.”
“Kin did kill me. He stabbed me in the back. Atsushi and Takeshi too.”
“What—”
“At least as far as Ayane was concerned…”
*