“I see you found the famous moss pavilion,” Takkan said, brushing off leaves clinging to the benches. “No wonder I couldn’t find you, hidden in the back of the garden. I thought you would be in the kitchen, but Chiruan says he hasn’t seen you since yesterday.”
He’d been looking for me? My brow pinched, but I still didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge him. I pretended to focus on my cranes, trying to signal that I wanted to be alone.
“This was supposed to be a teahouse,” Takkan went on, “but Mother gave up on the idea. Now it’s a good place to do some quiet thinking—or practice singing where only the birds can hear.” A wan smile. “Orfoldsome birds. Will you make a wish once you have a thousand?”
I swallowed hard, answering his question only in my thoughts. By now, I had probably already folded well over five hundred. In the beginning, my goal had been to make a wish. A silly, fanciful wish. Now I knew better than to depend on old tales.
No, I folded them for myself. It’d become a habit of mine, to give my hands something to do and make me feel a little less lonely when Kiki was away, spreading word about me to my brothers.
Though I didn’t respond, my silence would not deter Takkan. He searched in his knapsack for a sticky rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves and twine.
My head lifted.
“You always reach for these at dinner,” he said, unwrapping one. I recognized the dumpling as my handiwork; the twine was crossed in all the wrong spots, pinching the leaves too tightly. Much as I liked it, I still hadn’t mastered the dish.
My stomach growled, mutinying against my resolve to ignore him. I redoubled my attention on my cranes, not even looking up as he offered the dumpling again.
Kiki rustled from inside my basket of cranes, crawling to my elbow and biting my arm.Eat, Shiori.
I’m not hungry.
Not hungry? After all the trouble I take to find him and bring him here? He almost saw me!
You led him here?I pretended to brush snow from my sleeves.I thought you would tell me to ignore him.
When have I told you that?She bit my arm again, as if that would knock sense into me.You conjured me out of hope, Shiori. Do you think you can break your brothers’ curse in despair? Go, go spend time with him.
“What are you keeping there in your sleeve, Lina?” Takkan asked good-naturedly. “If it’s cakes, I’ll take this dumpling back.”
My resistance melted, but mostly because I was hungry. I accepted the dumpling and devoured it in three bites, the sticky rice clinging to my teeth as I chewed. I wiped my mouth and let out a contented sigh.
“Tea?”
No.I’d only allow myself to be bribed once.
I crossed my arms, looking up. Takkan was eating a dumpling too, and a canteen of tea was on the bench beside him.
He looked different today. Instead of his armor, he wore a long navy jacket I’d never seen before, crossed at the collar, with buckwheat-colored trousers and a thin black sash. It made him look less like a stiff-backed sentinel, more like someone I would have wished to be my friend. I wondered if he thought of us as friends.
“I would have come to look for you earlier,” he said suddenly, “but I’ve been away with the sentinels—hunting for wolves.”
I crumpled the dumpling leaves in my fist.Wolves?
“We found their den,” said Takkan. “The others have concluded that they were merely wolves, nothing suspicious—and certainly not part of a coordinated attack by Lord Yuji and his allies. But I am not so convinced.”
Pulling down his hood, he took the step below mine. He spoke very quietly. “You were with me, Lina. Did you notice anything unusual about the wolves?”
I pursed my lips tight, relieved that he had seen it too.About one of them, yes. The smallest one with the yellow eyes.I reached down to my ankle, indicating that he’d worn a gold cuff.
“I saw it,” murmured Takkan, “and I can’t stop thinking about it. Lord Yuji’s ally has an enchanter named the Wolf—one that’s bound to him by an amulet he wears.”
Enchanters, I remembered Seryu telling me, were sworn to serve whomever possessed their amulet.
“When I brought it up with the others,” Takkan continued, “they thought I was out of my mind for thinking…for thinking there was something strange about the wolf we saw. For thinking that it could have been—” He hesitated.
Magic?I traced over my palm.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Magic.”
