Kae welcomed the anger that heated his blood as he walked along the covered walkway at the rear of the palace. At least it was beginning to extinguish the painful desire that had plagued him earlier.
Catching the rustle of silk from the shadows, Kae slowed his gait and placed his hand on the hilt of his katana. He sensed the follower closing in and spun, unsheathing his weapon as he did so. Instinctively he began his swing high, aiming for a beheading, and just barely stopped short of slicing off the top of Crown Prince Mutsuhito’s head.
Kaemon dropped his arm to his side then fell to his knees, bowing forward. “Forgive me!” He looked up when he felt the prince’s slender hand touch his shoulder.
“I could demand that you commit seppuku, cousin.”
“And I will, my Lord.” He reached for the tanto tucked into his belt. The prince stopped him.
“If you slice your belly, then who will be my friend and talk with me when I can’t sleep?”
Kaemon relaxed and settled back on his heels, tucking away the tanto and replacing his katana in the saya.
He made a show of thinking. “Hmmm, perhaps your grandfather, Nakayama-sama? Or perhaps his friend Katsura-san?”
The prince made a most unpleasant face, and Kae couldn’t hold in his smile. Mutsuhito laughed and sat facing his cousin.
“You are my only true friend, Kaemon. Everyone else is always telling me how I must behave, and how I may talk, and what to eat and what to wear, and they make me practice my writing over and over and over until my fingers hurt.” He reached out to touch Kaemon’s hand. “You’re the only one who treats me as a friend. You’re the only one who lets me run and laugh.”
“You’re a good friend to me as well.”
“Will we always be friends, Kaemon?”
“Always,” Kae said sincerely. He grinned. “I heard a joke in Shimabara the other day…”
* * * *
The mirror could still be in that secret passage.
That was the thought that haunted Emmi’s mind the entire next day. She hoped that one of the duties she eagerly accepted from Shinjuku-san would take her back to that hall where the entrance to that secret passage lay, but none did. As the day wore on, she grew more agitated about it.
She needed that mirror. But how to get it? She couldn’t go sneaking around the squeaky-floored private residence halls without a reason, and she doubted that her princely ‘friend’ was going to make an appearance any time today.
What could she do?
She was helping sort the guards’ laundry when she remembered the maid who she was on sorting duty with had been one of the ones who kept stealing glances at Kaemon.
“Akiko, does Nakagawa-sama come to visit every day?”
The girl sighed wistfully. “No, sometimes we don’t see him for weeks.”
Lovely. She so did not have weeks. Her attention was drawn again when Akiko sighed a very long sigh.
Akiko picked up a familiar brown haori. “This is his,” she said, tracing the outline of the crest on the back of the garment.
Realizing that Akiko was staring at her, Emmi dismissed her remark with a wave of her hand, picked up another haori and began to examine the inside of the sleeves as she’d seen Akiko do. There was a folded piece of paper in the sleeve of the next garment.
“What do we do with this?”
Akiko shook her head. “Those men. I don’t know how they get around Kyoto with the way they forget their papers.” She gestured to a small box on a shelf to the left. “Put it there with anything else you find. Shinjuku-san will go through them later and return them to their owners.” She giggled softly. “It’s too bad that Nakagawa-sama didn’t leave anything in his jacket.”
Akiko held Kaemon’s haori up to her cheek one more time then tossed it onto the pile of things to be washed.
Emmi wasn’t sure if she should be bothered or amused.
* * * *
Later that evening, Emmi walked alone in the garden adjacent to the Shinjukus’ quarters. Emmi wondered if she might be able to go in search of the mirror when who should appear behind her but the devil himself.
His velvety voice reached out and caressed her from behind. “I could have been another assassin. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Emmi stopped walking and turned. Why did he have to look so damn good in the moonlight? Or any light…
“I heard that the patrols have been increased.”
“Then you don’t need a chaperone?” he asked with that oddly appealing lost little boy look in his eyes.
“I do if he can chaperone me back to my mirror.”
“I can’t.”
Emmi folded her arms across her middle and gave him a hard look. “Why not? I need that mirror to get home. You know I do.”
“How can that get you home? You are a demon from the other world, aren’t you?”
Emmi lifted her hands in frustration and walked away. “Will you stop with the oni business already? I am the same as you, except I’m from the future!”
Emmi gave Kae a dirty look when he grabbed her shoulder and spun her around to face him.
“Future?”
“I told you that yesterday, remember?”
Kaemon placed his free hand on her shoulder as well. “When in the future?”
“Two thousand and sixteen,” Emmi said softly. “Around a hundred and fifty years in the future.”
“One hundred fifty,” he muttered. “Will everyone in Japan speak the gaijin tongue then?”
“A lot will be able to as a second language. I’m not from Japan. My parents are—were—third generation Japanese Americans. My ancestors left Kaga after—” Emmi stopped short and lowered her head.
Way to go, Em-chan.
Kaemon tilted her head up with a tender prod of his fingers. “They left Kaga after what?”
“After Takehito had a falling out with his brother,” Emmi said, omitting the fact that the brothers’ disagreement was a result of the fourteenth Lord Maeda publicly aligning himself with the rebels’ side after the battle of Toba-Fushimi in 1868. Her ancestors’ defection was yet another death knell for the Tokugawa.
Kaemon considered what Emmi said for a long time, but thankfully he didn’t question her for more details. He dropped his hands to his sides and began walking. Emmi went with him.
“So, will you go get my mirror from that passageway?”
“It isn’t there.”
Emmi stopped and grabbed his sleeve. “What do you mean it isn’t there? Where is it?”
“I gave it back to Aneko. It is rightfully hers, and she wanted it.”
“Who the hell is Aneko?”
“She’s a
tayuu
in Shimabara.”
“You’d better go get it.”
“I will not.”
“Then I will,” Emmi said, whipping around and hurrying back toward the castle.
Emmi yelped when Kae grabbed her by the obi and spun her around. “You will not go to Shimabara.”
Watch me
, Emmi fumed silently before pulling away and going back inside.
* * * *
Emmi tossed and turned for what seemed like hours on the futon in the small room she shared with the twins. She had to get that mirror. “But how?” Emmi whispered to the darkness a moment before realizing that the shorter of the twins, Chidori, was looking at her. Emmi motioned for her to go back to sleep then turned on her side facing away. Within seconds, her conscience started fighting with her desire to get home.
She can help. She has to know a way out!
I don’t want to get her in trouble
!
Sure, the Shinjukus are nice, but if this girl breaks some major house rule because of me, she’ll be the one to suffer!
The mirror is your ticket home.
Home.
With a lump in her throat, Emmi turned back over. Chidori was still watching her. Biting the inside of her cheek to distract herself from her nagging conscience, Emmi motioned for the girl to come closer.
“I have a favor to ask,” Emmi whispered. “I need to get something of mine that was lost. It’s in Shimabara, but I don’t know how to get out of Nijo without anyone seeing me. Do you know a way?”
The girl nodded.
Emmi took hold of her hand. “I don’t want you to get in trouble. You don’t have to show me if Shinjuku-san will punish you.”
“I can show you. I want to help my new friend.”
Some friend you are, Em-chan, possibly getting her in trouble with the people who saved her from being a hooker for life.
Emmi did her best to silence her nagging conscience. She didn’t belong here. She needed to get home before it was too late. Still, she couldn’t do anything that might hurt this trusting little girl. Emmi sighed and turned on her back.
“Never mind. I can’t ask you to do this.”
Chidori tugged her yukata sleeve. “I will help. Hurry. I will not be punished.”
Emmi caved. She put on the hakama she’d worn the other day and tied her hair up in a ponytail, hoping to be able to pass as someone’s servant again. She dashed into the laundry sorting room, took two identity papers from the lost and found box, and tucked them into her sleeve.
Her mind was nearly numb with fear, but she followed Chidori through the maze of darkened corridors and through the moonlit gardens until they came to a small gate overgrown with weeds. Chidori opened it and gave Emmi a gentle shove out.
Though Emmi was sure her heart was pounding loud enough to be heard all the way to Osaka, Emmi took a deep breath and headed in the direction Chidori had indicated while an old school friend’s words echoed through her mind.
‘
It’s easy to get into a premiere, girlfriend. Anyone can get past the velvet rope. It’s all in the attitude. All you gotta do is walk into the place like you belong there…
’
Emmi took a deep breath and kept walking as though she knew exactly where she was going and what she was going to do once she got there. Emmi tried not to notice a guy using the space between two buildings as a bathroom and forced herself to look away from the kids robbing a drunk. Emmi stepped aside quickly and averted her eyes when a squad of Shinsengumi ran past chasing three bloodied men.
She walked like she belonged here, and when, off in the distance, the huge gates to Shimabara appeared, Emmi kept walking like a servant in search of an errant master. She even ignored the gruff command that came from somewhere to her left.
“You there! Stop!”
“Boy! Show us your papers!”
Emmi froze when she heard men drawing their swords.
Holding her hands out to her sides to show she was unarmed, she turned to face them. They wore matching headbands and breastplates with a kanji that Emmi couldn’t make out in the center. This must be one of the other patrol groups who acted as police in Kyoto.
“Papers. Now,” the meanest-looking one demanded.
Emmi dug in her yukata sleeve and produced one of the two she’d taken. She handed it over, hoping her look was one of an honest citizen being unjustly detained.
The man looked at the paper and his expression grew even meaner. He threw it at her. “Do not toy with me, boy! Show me your papers or die!”
Oh great. What had she grabbed? Emmi pulled the other papers from her sleeve and handed them over as calmly as she could. Unfortunately, this didn’t seem any better.
“You do not look like a forty-five-year-old retainer from Edo in Kyoto for a meeting with the new Shoshidai.”
“It’s my master’s paper. He took mine by mistake. I was trying to find him and give it to him.”
“So you have no papers?”
“The Shinsengumi know who I am,” she blurted. “You can ask Vice-Commander Yamanami-sama or Captain Harada. He knows me.”
Emmi breathed a small sigh of relief when the men conferred, though she was not pleased when the leader had two of the others grab her by the arm and drag her off toward Mibu.
The guards at the Shinsengumi compound gate said that Vice-Commander Yamanami was away, but Vice-Commander Hijikata was in and would handle the matter.
Hijikata was in his quarters with Saitou Hajime, the captain who’d beaten up those rude prisoners, and another man that Emmi didn’t know. Hijikata and Emmi exchanged looks of mutual loathing as the other police types explained the situation and handed over the papers she’d filched.
“I am acquainted with this lowly person,” Hijikata told the men. “Leave the young fool and go on about your business. I will see to it that this matter is taken care of.”
Hijikata fell silent and remained that way until the other cops were gone. He cleared his throat then handed one of the papers to Saitou.
“I believe this haiku refers to you, Hajime.”
Emmi’s heart skipped a beat when the intimidating captain growled under his breath and tossed the paper to the floor. She couldn’t help but look at it.
A smell in the air
people walking past me gasp
Ah, my fundoshi.
Great. Just great. She’d gotten two of the fiercest swordsmen in Japan to hate her without even trying.
“As amusing as that bit of poetry may be, Maeda-dono, your possession of this identity paper, which is clearly not yours, is a serious matter. Explain. Now.”
Screw formality, Emmi thought as she went from the kneeling seiza position to one a bit more comfortable with her aching legs to the side. “I borrowed it. I just borrowed it from the lost items box in the laundry room at Nijo Castle. I was going to put it back when I returned there, I swear.”
“Why were you in the laundry room at Nijo?”
“Kae—Fujiwara-san left me there after I was questioned.” Emmi paused. “I was questioned and released from any official investigation, I might add.” She valiantly managed to hold on to her “velvet rope attitude,” cleared her throat, and continued to meet Hijikata’s cold gaze with one of her own. “All I wanted to do was get to Shimabara. I lost something there and I need it back.”
“What? Your virginity?” Hijikata asked with a leering grin.
Saitou and the third man laughed.
Emmi scowled. “I lost my uncle. We were last together there, and I’m afraid something may have happened to him.”
“His name is?”
Shit. Think, Emmi, think
. “Yamauchi,” Emmi said managing to translate Jake’s last name into its components hill and house. “Yamauchi Mamoru,” Emmi added, pulling the Mamoru out of some recess of her brain that equated the word “protector” with Jake.