The memory hit me fast.
I was a kid again. Maybe six or seven years old. Standing in my father's study while my mother stood beside him.
The Fox had a gun in his hand, and he was checking the barrel.
Once done, my mother held out her hand.
Palm up.
Finger extended.
Then, the Fox took a small blade and pricked her fingertip.
Blood welled up, bright red against her pale skin. My mother didn't flinch. She just pressed her finger to the top of his gun and smeared her blood across the metal.
"For protection," she'd said. "And power."
The Fox had smiled at her. Not warmly. But with the kind of satisfaction a man gets when something he owns performs exactly as expected.
And then he'd gone to war.
The irony wasn't lost on me even as a child. My father spent years downplaying my mother, insulting her lineage and treating her like she was beneath him.
But he would never go to war without her blood on his guns.
Never.
I looked at Hiro. He'd been standing next to me that day in the study. Younger than me. Quieter. I'd assumed he didn't remember.
But clearly, he did.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
I looked at it. "Enter."
The door opened and three servants filed in carrying large and black ceramic vases. Each one was filled with fresh white roses. The blooms were full and open. The petals were bright against the dark stems.
I tensed.
The first servant placed a vase on the side table near the window. The second moved toward the dresser. The third headed for the nightstand next to the bed.
White petals.
My vision tunneled.
The dream crashed into me without warning—black water at my waist, chrysanthemums breaking the surface, white petals pressing into my skin, dissolving into my tattoos, stems punching between my ribs, roots threading around my heart.
White swallowing black.
White replacing me.
White blooming from the splits in my skin.
My chest seized. My throat closed. The room smelled sweet and wrong. "Get these flowers out of here!"
The servants stared at me and froze.
"Now!" My hands were shaking. I fisted them at my sides.
