Night fell with no sign of her fellow conspirator, and her hopes began to fade. Unless she’d been discovered, No One would have found some way to get word to her. If she was compromised, she was probably in a torture cell right now, trying to keep Michi’s name from spilling into the air along with her screams.
All around her, she could hear wedding preparations underway; servants running past her doorway, raised voices, distant music. She peered through her barred window, saw great amulets of red silk strung from the garden balconies, cooking smoke billowing from the kitchen doors, the children of some Fushicho noble playing with wooden swords in the garden. Would the Kagé let this happen? Would Yukiko? Surely they were on their way? In Kigen already? And she knew nothing of their plans.
Blind. Deaf. Dumb.
Gods, I feel so helpless.
She was trying to unscrew the bolts in the ceiling with her bare hands when she heard the tickticktick of a drone above her head, traversing the narrow spaces that had once been just another hallway to her and her fellows. She tried picking the lock on her door to no avail. And finally she punched the doorframe, bloodying her knuckles, pacing her room like the tigers imprisoned in the palace grounds. Breath heaving. Heart pounding.
“Burn slow,” she whispered. “Burn slow.”
But she couldn’t. This was the moment everything hung in the balance. Not just the fate of the First Daughter, the Tora clan, Kigen city. This was the future of the entire country. The wedding would give new life to the dynasty that had enslaved Shima to the chi-mongers. Another monster on the throne. Another century of slavery, death and suffocating smoke.
She crouched in a corner, banging the back of her head against the wall, her hopes breathing their last. No One wasn’t coming. She’d been discovered. They were undone, here, at the eleventh hour. Fists clenched. Mouth dry. So far away.
And then came a knocking at her door.
She looked up at the sound of a key in the lock, smoothing the hair from her face, wiping frustrated tears from her eyes. She stood, gritted her teeth, ready to go down fighting as the bushimen seized her. As good a place as any to die, she supposed. But they’d never take her alive. On her feet. Not crawling. Not falling. Never.
Never.
A figure stepped into the room, nodded to the bushimen outside, closed the door behind him. Smile upon his face. A large package in his arms.
“… Ichizo?”
“Hello, love.” He held up the package; a long box of scarlet card, set with a white, silken bow. “I brought you a gift.”
She blinked. Standing motionless. He was dressed in a beautiful blood-red kimono embossed with roaring tigers. His hair was swept up in coils, pinned at his crown with four long golden needles, chainsaw katana and wakizashi crossed at the small of his back—a new luminary of his clan, arrayed in his finest. A golden breather was strapped across his mouth and jaw, fashioned like the maw of a snarling tiger. But the eyes above it were soft with concern.
“Have you been crying, Michi?”
“No, my Lord.”
“You look upset.”
“What are you doing here?”
He proffered the box, and she took it into her arms as if it might burst into flames.
“Open it.”
She looked at him for a long moment, mouth dry as grave soil. She was conscious of the iron keys at his obi. The chaindaishō at his waist. The bushimen outside the door. Placing the package on the bed, she untied the bow. Inside was a radiant j?nihitoe gown; twelve layers of beautiful scarlet and cream, embroidered with small tigers and tiny jewels, a broad obi of golden silk to match his own.
“I was hoping you would attend the feast tonight,” Ichizo said. “As my lady.”
Her gaze drifted from the dress to his eyes. “Why?”
“Because I love you, Michi-chan. With everything inside me. Every part of me.”
She simply stared, mute and unblinking.
“I brought you something else,” he said. “Just in case.”
He proffered a smaller box, no bigger than the palm of his hand. As she took it, she heard something rattle inside. Even before she opened it, she knew what it was; pulling back the lid and tipping it into her own hand. A saucer, filled with blood-red wax, set with the impression of her room key.
No One had failed.
“We found this in your accomplice’s home, along with a palace servant’s uniform.” There was no anger in Ichizo’s voice, just a wounded, wilting sadness. “I need only say the word and the bushimen outside will step in here and drag you back to Kigen jail.”
“So do it.”
“I do not want that, Michi-chan.”
He stepped forward, put his hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes. “Your plot is undone. But I can protect you.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I love you. Godsdamn me for a fool, but I do. And I look into your eyes and know some part of you loves me too.”
“I…”
“I am a good man, am I not? Have I ever treated you ill? Done anything but care for you? Even now I betray my oaths, my very blood to keep you safe. I love you, Michi.”
Too good to be true …
“I don’t believe you,” she said.