The snows have hushed Kōgakkan’s grounds. Students hurry across the quad, tucked tight into their coats, heads down. Umbrellas dot the outdoor areas like winter flowers. Inside, students shake snow from their hair and brush the icy flakes off their shoulders. And everyone comments on the strange depth of the December cold.
Despite my sense of foreboding, the day feels unremarkable. One class drags its feet by, stumbling into the next. My teachers blare on. Students take dutiful notes around me. On days like this, it seems crazy that everyone around me remains so blissfully unaware of the dangers barreling toward us.
There are days I wish I was like them, and days I’m glad not to be.
After school, Shiro waits for me outside homeroom, where Hotohori-sensei asked me to stay behind to discuss my grades. Rather than lecture me while I remain in my seat, she and I lean against her desk, staring out at her empty classroom. While all my teachers are excellent, I sense that Hotohori-sensei really cares about me as a person.
I’m worried about you, she says.
You always seem tired these days, but today, the burden seems greater than usual.
I’m concerned your grades may slip if this continues much longer.
Is there something I can do to help you, Fujikawa-san?
I wish I could tell her what’s going on in my life, but honesty won’t help either of us. She’s right that I’m tired all the time: if I’m not at school, I have a sword in my hand. If I’m not training with Roji, I’m working on learning my mudras with Shiro or Goro. If Shiro and I aren’t out looking for shinigami, I’m holed up in my bedroom doing homework.
As much as I try not to complain about my situation, I’m exhausted. Plain and simple.
When I emerge, Shiro’s leaning against the wall outside, alone. He looks up at me. “Everything okay?” he asks, twitching one of his ears.
“Okay enough,” I say. Hotohori-sensei wasn’t wrong to pull me aside—my grades have inched downward, though not by much. I’m fighting hard to keep my head above water, so it doesn’t help to have my failings pointed out. Then highlighted. And underscored.
We head down the stairs. “I don’t know how you stand it,” Shiro says, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Day in and day out, listening to someone blather to you about things you should already know.”
“What do you mean, things I should already know?” I ask as we head out the door into the quad. The world feels chilly as an icebox. An arctic wind blasts the school grounds, and I button my woolen peacoat against the cold. “I mean, I might be good in school, but it’s not because I already know these things.”
“Humans,” Shiro says with a tsk, shaking off the cold. “I don’t know how your kind have survived so long without inherited memories.”
“We have those,” I say smugly. “We just call them stories.”
“Yeah, but you aren’t born with those stories in your head,” Shiro says, sidling a little closer, blocking me from the worst of the wind. “I remember things that happened to my ancestors. The stuff they knew. Mathematics. Languages. History. Art. We . . .”
But he trails off, his eyes widening. He’s looking at something on my shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, glancing down.
A white moth alights on my peacoat. It opens and closes its wings, the tips of which are frosted with ice crystals. Its fuzzy body looks soft to the touch, its antennae bushy as tiny pipe cleaners. It has a little white furry ruff around its head, as if outfitted for winter.
But I know better—moths hibernate through Kyoto winters.
This isn’t a living moth.
The sound of steel against scabbard rings through the courtyard. I look up.
The Shinigami in White stands inside the school gates, blocking the main exit. Her moths spiral around her in a snowy cyclone, terrible to behold. She’s still clad in her white kimono, but it’s accentuated with a white fox fur ruff. Shiro sees the fur and curls his upper lip.
She sees Shiro’s expression and grins. “A gift from Tamamo-no-Mae, General to Shuten-doji the Endless,” she says, stroking the fur. “Though I should like one in red as well.”
“What do you want with us?” My voice is little more than a terrified whisper.
“You know what I am here to do,” she says, lifting her sword. She levels the blade at my chest. “I have been commanded to take your life. I am sorry to do so before your appointed time, priestess, but I must do as my master commands.”
“Apology not accepted,” Shiro says with a growl. Shoving his palms forward, he performs an impressive set of tuts, summoning a glittering, brilliant torii gate made from light. Strange runes twine in ribbons around its hashira poles. Before I can ask Shiro what’s going on, he grabs me by the hand and plunges us through. The light settles over my skin, crackling and popping till it renders me translucent as a ghost.
“Fox invisibility.” The Shinigami in White sniffs, scanning the courtyard with eyes as sharp as knives. “How utterly predictable. You may be able to hide from me, but you’ll never be able to escape. Not for long.”
We’re . . . invisible?
Shiro presses his hand into the small of my back, ushering me toward the school. The Shinigami in White dashes to the place she last saw us standing, swinging her sword in an arc. The blade whistles through the air, making the snow flurry around her. I shudder to think what it would do to my flesh.
“Where are you, little birds?” she asks in a lilting, patient voice.
The Shinigami in White blocks the only way out of the school. There are doors out the back of the building, but to use them, we’d need a key card from one of the school’s staff members. If we want to escape, we’ll have to lose the Shinigami in White in the warrens of Kōgakkan’s hallways.
Shiro must agree. He pauses a few feet away from one of the school’s large, double-wide doors and tuts a mudra I don’t recognize. In an instant, the air in the courtyard seems to detonate, blowing all the doors to the school open with a loud metallic bang!
We sprint inside. The Shinigami in White scans the courtyard, trying to ascertain which of the doors we went through. Shiro takes me by the hand. I follow him into the school.
“How long will the invisibility last?” I whisper.
“A few minutes, if we’re lucky,” he says, looking for an open classroom. “I’ve never used my invisibility magic on two people before. I doubt we’ll get out in time—the school is well-fortified. We should hide and call the others.”
We jog down a hallway, finding every classroom locked for the day. Desperate, I try the door to the teachers’ office, relieved to find it open. We slip inside. The office is empty, except for old Araki-sensei snoring over her desk. She startles awake as the door clicks behind us, her glasses askew, a bit of drool drying on her chin. I’d laugh if our lives weren’t in danger.
While she gets up to make coffee, Shiro and I sneak to the back of the room, passing the other teachers’ desks. We step into the coat closet at the back, careful not to make a sound. The dark closes around us. Shiro and I tuck ourselves behind a large cluster of flags in the corner, and under a set of moth-eaten, musty winter coats. Neither of us dares speak, but Shiro’s hand finds mine in the dark. He squeezes tight, and I squeeze back.