Hasho lifted my chin to wipe my tears. “And if you’re sent away, far from home, who will watch out for you, little sister? Who will keep your secrets safe and make excuses for your mischief? Not I.” He smiled at me, a small, sad smile. “So be good. Please?”
“I’m already going to be sent far away,” I replied, twisting from him.
Falling to my knees, I picked up the scraps of paper my stepmother had flung onto the floor. I held Kiki close to my heart, as if that would bring her back to life. “She was my friend.”
“She was a piece of paper.”
“I was going to wish her into a real crane.” My voice faltered, my throat swelling as I glanced at the pile of birds I’d folded. Almost two hundred, but none had come alive like Kiki.
“Don’t tell me you believe the legends, Shiori,” said Hasho gently. “If everyone who folded a thousand birds got a wish, then every person would spend their days making paper sparrows and owls and gulls—wishing for mountains of rice and gold, and years of good harvest.”
I said nothing. Hasho didn’t understand. He had changed. All my brothers had changed.
My brother sighed. “I’ll speak to Father about your coming out to the Summer Festival when he’s in a more charitable mood. Would that make you feel better?”
Nothing could make me feel better about Kiki, but I gave a small nod.
Hasho knelt beside me and squeezed my shoulder. “Maybe these next few weeks with Stepmother will be good for you.”
I shrugged him away. Everyone always sided with her. Even the servants, though they might call her Raikama behind her back, never had anything ill to say about her. Nor did my brothers. Or Father. Especially Father.
“I’ll never forgive her for this. Never.”
“Shiori…our stepmother isn’t to blame for what happened.”
You are, I could almost hear him saying, though Hasho was too wise to let the words slip.
He was right, but I wouldn’t admit it. Something about the way she’d looked when she’d heard I met a dragon left me cold.
“It can’t be easy for her, being so far from her home. She has no friends here. No family.”
“She has Father.”
“You know what I mean.” My brother sat beside me, cross-legged. “Make peace with her, all right? If anything, it’ll make things easier when I ask Father to let you out for the festival.”
I gritted my teeth. “Fine, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to talk to her.”
“Must you be so petulant?” Hasho prodded. “She cares for you.”
I faced my brother, taking in his creased brow, the twitch of his left eye. All signs he was truly exasperated with me. Quietly, I said, “You don’t believe me, do you? About the dragon.”
Hasho waited too long before answering. “Of course I do.”
“You don’t. I’m sixteen, not a child. I know what I saw.”
“Whatever you saw, forget it,” he urged. “Forget Kiki, forget the dragon, forget whatever it is you did to make all this happen.”
“I didn’t make it happen. It just happened.”
“Make peace with our stepmother,” Hasho said again. “She is our mother.”
“Not mine,” I replied, but my words trembled.
I had thought of her as my mother, once. Years ago, I’d been the first to accept Raikama when Father brought her home, and back then, she had been fond of me. I used to follow her everywhere she went—she was so mysterious I wanted to learn everything about her.
“Where is your scar from?” I had asked her one day. “Why won’t you pick a name?”
She’d smiled, patted my head, and straightened the sash around my waist, tying it into a neat, tight bow. “We all have our secrets. One day, Shiori, you’ll have your own.”
Magic. Magic was my secret.
What was hers?
CHAPTER THREE
I hated sewing. Hated the monotony of it, hated the needles, the thread, the stitching, everything. Not to mention, I pricked myself so many times the maids kept having to wrap my fingers until they were thick as dumplings. I almost missed my lessons. Almost.
The days crawled by, slower than the snails that clustered outside the papered window screens. I embroidered crane after crane, spending so much time on them that they began to haunt my dreams. They’d peck at my toes, their cinder-black eyes glittering, then suddenly turn into dragons with pointed teeth and mischievous smiles.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the dragon—and the expression that crossed Raikama’s face when Andahai had mentioned him. Like she wished I had drowned in the lake.
Who knew what went on in my stepmother’s head? Like me, she had little talent for embroidery, but unlike me, she could sit and sew for hours. Sometimes I’d catch her staring vacantly at the sky. I wondered what she thought about all day. If she had any thoughts.
I ignored her as best as I could, but when I made mistakes in my tapestry, she’d come to me and say, “Your stitches are uneven, Shiori. You’d best redo them.”
Or “That crane is missing an eye. Lady Bushian will notice.”
Bless the Eternal Courts, her remarks never required a response, at least until today. Today she visited me with a strange request:
“The gold sash Lord Yuji gifted you to wear for your betrothal ceremony—do you know where it is?”
I shrugged. “It must have fallen into the lake with me.”
My answer didn’t please Raikama. She didn’t glower or frown, but I could tell from the way her shoulders squared that it wasn’t the answer she’d wanted.
“When you find it, bring it to me.”
I lied that I would. Then she left, and I promptly forgot about the sash.
* * *
The morning of the Summer Festival, adults and children alike sauntered along the imperial promenade, clutching kites of every shape and color.
I longed to go. Today was the only day that Andahai let loose, that Benkai wasn’t busy training to be a commander, that Reiji and Hasho weren’t stuck studying with their tutors. Even the twins, Wandei and Yotan—who were different as the sun and moon and always argued about everything—never argued on festival day. They came together to design and construct the most brilliant kite. All seven of us would help, and when we flew it across the sky, it would be the envy of everyone at court.