No. I heard nothing, saw nothing. I’m just another exhausted laborer trying to survive.
I lay on my mat and tried to sleep despite the hammering of my heart. In too few hours, I would work again, earn more coins, get closer to the impossible sum I needed to enter the House of Petals, and whatever was coming—whatever attack the hooded figure had spoken of—I prayed it wouldn’t interfere with my purpose.
I prayed it did not kill me before I found him.
Chapter 19
Kaneko
My eyes opened to pre-dawn darkness. The faintest hint of light touched the paper screens, turning them from black to deep gray.
A figure stood in my doorway.
“Sakurai?” I sat up, confused. He had never come to my chamber in the morning. That was Hana’s time. Her role. “What—”
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, then he crossed to where I sat and kneeled beside my mat. In the dim light, I could see his expression was serious and focused, but not unkind.
“Give me your hand,” he said softly.
I hesitated, then extended my right hand.
He reached behind my head, slipped his hand beneath my pillow, retrieved the golden coin and set it onto my palm.
My breath caught. He’d seen. He knew. Hells, he even knew where I kept the damned thing. I looked up at Sakurai, and understanding crashed over me like a wave.
“You,” I whispered. “You’re—”
“One of many.” The silhouette of his head nodded. His voice remained low, barely above a whisper. “We are the eyes and ears where soldiers cannot go, where questions would be noticed.” He gestured to the coin. “By holding it now, by not refusing it, you signal your acceptance.”
Holding it? I already had my own coin. Iwasholding it.
“This, if you accept it, is yours,” Sakurai said. The whites of his eyes were a focal point, two pinpricks reflecting what little light there was in my chamber.
“I thought . . . I said the words last night.” I was confused. Why was Sakurai asking me to repeat my vow?
“Yes, you did, but saying them once in the heat of the moment is not the same as making a true pledge. You must be certain.” His tone was gentle but certain. “You also decided the moment you kept silent about what you witnessed, the moment fear for your beloved outweighed fear for yourself.” He paused. “And you were right to choose. Refusal would not have freed you. It would only have made you useless. And useless things are discarded.”
The truth of those words sat heavy in my chest.
“My answer hasn’t changed with one night’s sleep.” I stared down at the coin. “What do I do with this?”
“It is yours, your token of service to the Divine Son of Heaven. But you must keep it hidden, always. Show it to no one, save in the most dire of times, when only the Emperor’s blessing will save you. To the outside world, we do not exist. Wemustnot exist.”
I nodded, a stiff, awkward gesture, then shoved the coin back under my pillow. Sakurai’s eyes crinkled with amusement.
“You will want to find a better hiding place,” he said, barely containing a chuckle.
“Right,” I said, eyes darting about the room. “I’ll do that—”
“Later,” he said. “Now we begin in earnest. I am your contact, your thread. Any information you gather comes to me, and only me. Trust no one else. If something happens to me, you stay silent and wait. Someone will come eventually.”
“What if—”
“No questions, not yet. We have limited time before the house wakes, and you have much to learn.” He shifted his weight. “This morning, you will learn our first and most important skill, especially for one serving beneath this roof: how to extract information through conversation. How to make powerful men forget to guard their tongues.”
“Forget to guard—?”
“Be still and watch.”
