“What do you mean?”
“Your training has been narrow,” he said. “Focused on one purpose, one role, but there are other ways to serve, other skills you must now learn.” He moved to the door. “Tonight, when the house sleeps, I will return. Be ready.”
“Ready for what?”
He paused at the door. “To become more than you are.”
Hana arrived with morning tea and lessons. I went through the motions, but my mind was elsewhere. Hana noticed, of course, and commented that I seemed distracted.
I blamed it on poor sleep. It wasn’t entirely a lie.
In the afternoon, I served drinks in the common area. I smiled and poured sake for men who looked at me with hunger I had long ago learned to ignore. One held the bearing of a military officer. I thought I recognized him from Sakurai’s description—the one coordinating supply lines. He sat with companions, drinking heavily, complaining about bureaucratic obstacles and delayed shipments despite sitting in the center of a pleasure house surrounded by nearly naked men and women where his every word could easily be overheard.
I moved closer and refilled his cup. When he glanced up, I asked light questions the way I had been trained, but he was careful. His reply was vague, and I had no way to press without arousing suspicion, no intimacy to loosen his tongue.
The intelligence was there—right there—and I couldn’t touch it.
That evening, Haru and Esumi came, their first visit in a week. We ate together behind screens in the common room to maintain our performance, chatting quietly as old friends might. They asked about my day and seemed genuinely interested in my answers, though little worth discussing had occurred.
When we moved into a private chamber, Haru told a story about his childhood tutor that made me laugh. Esumi demonstrated a card trick that seemed like magic. For a few hours, I was simply Kaneko, not a courtesan, not a spy, just a boy sharing space with people who treated him like he mattered. When they left, Haru squeezed my shoulder and said, “Sleep well, Kaneko.”
I wanted to tell him, to explain that his kindness had complicated everything, that protecting me had also made me useless to his father—to his throne—but I said nothing.
Then I waited for darkness.
Sakurai’s knock came after midnight.
I opened the door to find him holding a bundle of fabric.
“Put these on,” he said.
I unfolded black clothing, similar to what Sakurai now wore, to what the woman in black had worn. The fabric was light but strong. Moving with me, it made no sound. When I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized myself.
It was the clothing of shadows.
“Come.”
Sakurai led me through corridors I had walked a thousand times but which felt different now, somehow unfamiliar, as if wearing these clothes changed the house itself. We wove through storage rooms, into servant passages, to a small door hidden behind stacked crates that swung wide on hidden hinges.
Night air rushed in, carrying the aromas of growing things from the park, as we slipped out into the darkness. The park was empty at this hour. Sakurai moved across it with absolute silence, his steps leaving no sound on the gravel paths. I tried to match him, but my footfalls crunched and scraped, impossibly loud in the quiet.
He stopped and turned.
“Walk on the balls of your feet. Roll each step. Test the ground before committing your weight.” He demonstrated, his foot touching down with such control it made no noise at all. “Again.”
I tried. The gravel shifted under my weight, grinding and crunching.
“Again.”
We crossed perhaps ten paces before Sakurai made me return to the start and try again.
And again.
Slowly, gradually, I learned the feel of it—how to test, how to roll, how to move without sound.
“Better,” Sakurai said finally. “But still not good enough. We will practice this every night until silence is as natural as breathing.”
We moved on, reaching the far side of the park, where Sakurai looked up at a building before us. Like the House of Petals, it rose three stories, its walls textured with wood and stone.
