Koichi jerked his chin at the boy. “Ryuichi’s in danger.”
Masaru snorted at the ridiculous declaration. “If he’s breathing, he’s in danger.”
“I know, but I’m thinking this might not be the best place for him at the moment. If we have a spy...”
This would be a good place to trap them. The drunken sot had a point, and Masaru should know—he’d come to this school to wait for Ryukage’s brat.
All this time, he’d known that if he was patient, the gods would deliver the Kage-taro into his hands.
And so they had...
But Masaru wasn’t the traitor. At least not yet.
If you have a brain, you know what you need to do.Emotions were for the weak. They were dangerous. Compassion was for fools.
Or the dead.
You made a promise to the Ryukage...
Torn between his oaths, he suddenly had an idea. One that could solve all their problems.
Yeah...
Hopeful for once, he carefully laid Ryuichi’s head on the pallet and vanished.
Koichi gaped as Masaru abandoned them.Seriously?“It’s like that, huh?” But what did he expect?
Loyalty had waved bye-bye to Masaru a long time ago. Then again, it wasn’t exactly Koichi’s friend either. If he had any sense, he’d run too.
Luckily for Ryuichi, he had no sense.
So Koichi prodded the boy out of his slumber. “Hey, pain in my rear... time to wake up. Face the next thing that wants to eat you.”
Yawning, Ryuichi stretched and looked around like the young boy he was. He rubbed at his eyes with his fists. “How long was I out?”
“Just a few minutes, I think. Anyway, we need to leave.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think you’re safe here. There’s a spy in our ranks, and until we know who it is...”
The boy seemed even more confused than normal. “Where will we go?”
“I have friends in the mountains. I think we’ll be safe there—or, at least, safer.”
Ryuichi didn’t like Koichi-sensei’s tone. At all.
It was as creepy as the shadows that now seemed to watch him, as if they had a mission. Which made him wonder...
“Can they speak?”
“They?”
Ryuichi gestured toward the images around them on the walls. “The shadows.”
Koichi turned a gimlet stare toward the darkness that held the outlines of everything surrounding and challenging them. “You want the truth, or the answer you want me to tell you?”
Well, that wasn’t helpful. “You like to frighten people, don’t you?”
