Yumi froze in her writhing, then lifted her head. The only thing close to blinding in the teahouse was the gentle glow of the paper screens. She whirled on Kuro. “Liar!”

Kuro raised his hands in case she decided to follow through her accusation with her fists.

“You’re the liar,” Ren snarled.

Thank the deities, Kuro had finally smashed Ren’s hard head through the barrier. He now understood.

“I didn’t collude with the Night Parade,” Ren continued.

Oh, that. Kuro sagged.

“How dare you say that I did.” The more Ren spat, the more his face contorted until he did a very good impression of a snarling guardian dog. If the snarling guardian dog had tears in the corners of his eyes. “How dare you. As if I would — my family died. My mother, my sisters. Demons murdered them. They ate parts of them. And you — you accuse me of murdering them!”

Oh. Ren hadn’t mentioned that detail. Kuro should have guessed, but he’d thought the Imperial family’s bodies too sacred for that, even as Kuro had believed in his gut that Ren had been eaten. Not even Kuro could be completely cunning all the time.

“You—” Ren’s ability to speak broke in half-garbled sounds. His whole body shook. Kuro smelled drops of blood, Ren gouging half-moons into his palms from clenching his fists so hard.

But Yumi, far from attacking, sagged. Her eyes dropped away from Ren’s exposed chest to the mats, and when she looked up again, she looked Ren in the eye. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“You should bow to a Sun Prince,” Kuro said. He couldn’t help mocking Yumi’s own tutelage before the onmyouji had delivered him to Ren.

She refrained from giving him a dirty look. Her knees crumpled, and she fell into a graceful bow. The kind of bow she’d tried to beat into Kuro’s head, but he was too rough for. “Please forgive me, Your Highness.”

Well, that was half of the equation. Kuro breathed out. An unnecessary half, a possibly dangerous half, but he wouldn’t turn his nose up at an ally. So long as she believed Ren hadn’t orchestrated the attack, and so wouldn’t tattle to her brother.

Ren deepened his breath and blinked away the tears. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t know,” Yumi murmured, still bowing.

“Now you do,” he said. “Is that really what they think of me?”

“T-they…” Yumi stuttered, like when the samurai had hassled her.

Kuro winced. After all the smooth berating and insults she’d thrown at him, he’d forgotten about that.

“It’s okay.” Ren knelt, and with two gentle fingers, brought Yumi’s head up. They paused, looking like a scene in a kabuki play. This would be the part where Yumi fell head over heels in love, and so would Ren. Blah, blah, blah — gross.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Kuro stuck out his tongue. Except Yumi was a pervert, and Ren didn’t like girls. The thought made Kuro unreasonably happy.

Ren continued, “You couldn’t have known your brother deceived you.”

“My brother—deceived—” she choked on the words.

“Obviously he arranged to assassinate me behind Uncle Gorou’s back.”

Yumi wrenched herself away. Lovey dovey moment finished and erased. “My brother acted in the best interests of the empire.”

“He’s a power-hungry commoner.”

Yumi gasped. Kuro raised his brow, but Ren shrugged the comment away.

“He is not,” she said. “If anyone is deceiving anyone, it’s the Shogun deceiving my brother. He must have faked evidence of you meeting with the Night Parade.”

Fair enough. The Shogun had set up the onmyouji to take the blame if the assassination plot was discovered.

“My brother is doing everything he can to keep the Night Parade at bay,” she continued. “He’s spending his own life to maintain the Western Barrier. The barrier the Shogun arranged to break.”

“Uncle Gorou is a hero,” Ren snapped. “He defeated the Demon Lords and reunited the empire. Your brother is a sycophant. He made a deal with Kuro to kill me. To kill my family.”

“On the Shogun’s order.” Yumi’s voice was colder than a Snow Woman’s.

“Did you hear the order yourself?” Ren asked. “Or do you eat up every lie your brother spits at you?”

She hissed, raising her fists.

Before she made her violent tendencies as clear as her lust, Kuro interrupted, “Rejoice. You’re both right.”

Both humans jumped in their skins, then swung their white eyes and flaring nostrils in his direction.

“The Shogun and onmyouji both masterminded this attempt,” Kuro said.

Their eyes darkened, glaring at him for daring to interrupt.

“You can’t be that naive.” Kuro thrust out his hands, pleading for human sanity. If such a thing existed. “It’s obvious.”

“It’s very obvious that you’re involved,” Ren said.

“I didn’t want to kill anyone.”

Ren and Yumi glanced at each other and nodded. Apparently, the only villain they could agree on was Kuro.

Kuro shrugged his shoulder. Who cared what they thought of him. Winning a popularity contest wouldn’t keep Ren safe. Neither did winning this argument. In the end, it didn’t matter if Ren believed him. What mattered was getting Ren out of the city to somewhere safe. As if safe existed in the forests and mountains these days.

“—because I need him,” Ren finished, hand slicing the air.

Kuro raised his head. They’d been talking while he’d lost himself in thought. Bad move. Stupid move. The kind of move that ended up with him skinned for a fox scarf.

“Without it in the way,” Yumi flicked her eyes to Kuro, “the Shogun will have one less weapon to use.”

“Uncle Gorou isn’t—” Ren inhaled through his nose. “We need him. Unless you don’t care that the Night Parade roams the empire, unchecked and unchallenged.

“By your Shogun,” Yumi muttered.

“Wait!” Kuro exclaimed before they devolved into a spat again. “Wait, wait, wait. Bad idea.” Ren wanting to run off into the sunset on a fool’s quest was bad enough. He didn’t need Yumi spurring him on with her idealism to boot.

“The fox is right,” Yumi said.

Or perhaps she wasn’t as big a fool as Kuro had taken her for.

“We need to find out who colluded with the Night Parade first,” she continued.

“Of course,” Ren said.

Kuro rolled his eyes. “Yes, please fling around accusations again as if that will solve anything. Perhaps whoever drops from exhaustion first will be the one in the wrong.”

“We need evidence,” Ren said without a single glance at him, as if Kuro hadn’t spoken at all. At least Kuro still rated a ‘he’ instead of an ‘it’.

Evidence was the one thing that Kuro was short of. The Shogun and onmyouji had both made their intentions clear, but real evidence that neither Ren or Yumi would claim was fake… “No, we need to get you out of the Capital. Away from all the assassins.”

“Based on evidence, my brother can’t be involved,” Yumi said. “He really thought you were colluding with the Night Parade.”

“Aspersions and feelings aren’t evidence,” Ren said.

“But actions are.” Hands on her hips, Yumi puffed up her chest. “At this very moment, my brother is hunting down every demon in the Capital.”