Of the three, only Kuro knew the trail up to the castle, just as he knew that not all of the shadows hid fangs and not all of the branches concealed claws. But some of them did, and he’d never know which ones before it was too late.

Ren and Yumi were blissfully ignorant, intent on overtaking the last prisoner train. Supposedly, that would make everything all right – until the Night Parade descended upon them.

After leaving the bridge, the kitsune and tanuki returned to their normal form and scampered back to the Capital, wishing them good fortune and lying that they didn’t need the spirits’ help.

And it wasn’t fully a lie, since the narrow mountain path crushed the Undesirables in so close that all the samurai could see was a mass of heads and limbs. The Undesirables were too busy glancing between the forest and the samurai in fear to give them away as Kuro, Ren and Yumi pretended to be shackled to their chain.

The Moon God journeyed across the sky. Maybe, maybe. Maybe they’d be too late. Maybe the train wouldn’t make it there in time. Maybe they’d be spared.

But no such luck. The samurai drove them hard, whipping any stumbling Undesirable into motion. They’d even thrown open all the fortress gates guarding the mountain path. At each, Kuro strained his ears for the crash of a demon attack, but all he heard were pants and groans. The mountain was silent.

Limbs shaking, they reached the main castle resting upon the summit.

The castle had been built by humans during the Warring Demon era. The Demon Lords had typically built their castles on the plains, confident in their battle prowess they wouldn’t be attacked. But the humans had been sort of clever, even if they’d had to work extra hard. They’d hauled stone and lumber up the mountains to make their castles impossible to siege by foot while providing ample warning against flying demons.

After the Shogun had brought peace, the mountain castles had been abandoned to rot. Kuro had huddled within their walls until the rumble of his stomach forced him to descend.

The castle had been fixed recently. Plaster had been reapplied, rotten planks replaced, and the pickets replaced. Behind the lattice protecting the gate house, samurai shifted like phantoms.

“We have to move, now,” Kuro warned them.

Ren nodded. He released the chain swam through the humans. But another train blocked them from the slope. Ren tried to duck underneath the chain, but the humans were forced forward, and Ren wasn’t quick enough. He was pushed toward the gates.

Kuro tried to dodge around the humans to get to Ren. To drag him through the chain if necessary. But more and more humans pressed behind them, pushed forward by the samurai’s yells and the points of their swords.

They were swept through the first gate, and churned immediately to their left, as if a tsunami carried them.

Wood moaned as the samurai closed the gates. Kuro caught Ren’s collar, and Yumi was already trying to move to the gates, but as they reached the threshold, the gates slammed shut.

“Get away from the gate.” An arrowhead slipped between the gatehouse lattice above them, aimed at Ren.

Kuro and Yumi held their hands up, and shifted back. It didn’t matter. The gate was closed. The wall was even more impenetrable.

“Damn it,” Ren cursed, striking the wall.

“Oi, bastard!” the same samurai yelled.

Every tendon taut, Ren threw up his hands and backed away.

“Why don’t they want us touching the walls?” Kuro caught Yumi teetering on her toes, looking over the crowd. “What do they think we’ll do, climb them?”

Impossible for a human. The fortress walls rose up six times the height of a human. The stone had been lain so smooth it would be impossible to find a hand grip. And even if he managed to scale those, Kuro would still have to climb the even smoother plaster walls topping them.

The far side of the bailey appeared no easier to escape. It should have led to another gatehouse and an inner bailey, if the samurai hadn’t built a new wall out of bleached stones topped by a platform. The main keep rose above everything, its three stories the tallest point on the mountain.

Yumi shook her head. She pointed a finger halfway up the wall. “There’s a barrier.”

Kuro squinted. Along the wall, a spiderweb-thin sacred rope was draped.

“What’s the point of that?” Kuro held his hand out to the wall, not touching but close enough that he should have felt the spiritual power pushing back. “It’s not even active.”

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Yumi worried her lip between her teeth.

He cocked a brow. “We’re sure the Shogun wants to kill the demons, right? Not give them a thank you banquet?”

“Maybe it’s not completed?” She furrowed her brow, following the rope around. “But the gate’s closed. It should be active.”

“It’s a trap,” Ren said. “The barrier isn’t meant to keep the demons out. The barrier is to keep them in.”

Kuro shuddered, looking around them. The humans packed the bailey. There was no place to run, no place to hide.

“Trapped with the humans?” Yumi hugged her arms around her belly. She looked like she was about to throw up.

Kuro took several steps away from her, just in case. When the demons descended, they’d be caught inside, a pandemonium of blood and screams and pain. “I can probably jump over the ramparts in my fox form. Possibly with you still clinging to my neck.” He didn’t like those odds, though. It would be too easy for them to slip off, even if they agreed.

But they had to. Coming up with a fool plan to save the humans in the safety of the Capital was one thing, but being confronted with the realities of the upcoming slaughter had to have given them misgivings. Kuro could deposit them in a safe place, and then start his real mission.

Ignoring Kuro, Ren swept his eyes over the stone, the gatehouse, and the plaster walls. Kuro followed his gaze. The samurai had retreated. That couldn’t be good.

“Demon!” someone on the far end of the bailey screamed. Heads swung to and fro, and the rising heartbeats deafened Kuro as he fought to tune them out. The screams spread as they stared at the top of the wall the three of them faced.

“We have to go,” Kuro said. “Quest failure.”

“We can’t,” Ren said.

Kuro gritted his teeth. The humans crammed into each other, as they attempted to obey their instincts to run with only spare inches to move. He turned on Yumi. “Fine. What’s the next step in your plan?”

“Next step?”

Kuro did not like the sound of her confusion.

“I don’t — there was no next step,” she said. “The next step was to get here and find some way to stop them.”

“Are you kidding me?” Kuro wanted to beat his head, but settled for clenching his jaw. “This is why I should make the plans.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“Run.” But neither would allow him.

“We erect the barrier,” Ren said.

They both turned to him. Kuro blinked. “What?”

“We erect the barrier,” Ren said. “The onmyouji must have built it so he could activate it once the Night Parade descended. If we activate it now, the demons can’t get in.”

That was brilliant. Of course. Kuro whirled on Yumi. “Well?”

She glanced between Kuro and the wall, backing up. She had the room to do so, since the humans pressed away from that wall. Idiots, the safest place would be where the three of them stood, since the demons wouldn’t immediately see them.

“Yumi,” Kuro said again.

“But how?” Yumi asked.

Kuro strode forward and smacked her in the shoulder. She punched him back in the cheek. The physical blow was weak, but her spiritual power bit into skin and bow, forcing him to stumble back. He jerked his hands at her, silently asking if she was still oblivious.

“But…” She looked around her.

“If your brother can do it, so can you,” he said. “You’re as strong as he is.” By raw power.

“But I’ve never had any training. I wouldn’t know… I mean, I’ve never done it myself.”

“Do you know how your brother does it?”

She nodded, but her eyes were widened and her face pale.

“Then do that!”

“But,” she said, “it’s different. Usually his barriers complete when the circuit is completed.”

Kuro smacked his face, using the slight pain to remind him to focus and not to try to bite her in the leg. “Then what about not usually?”

She hesitated.

“He would keep it simple,” Ren said. “He’d need to raise it in less than a minute.”

“How do you know that?” Kuro narrowed his eyes. Ren had been dismissive of the onmyouji in his throne room, but with Ren’s fascination with the supernatural, he might have summoned the onmyouji to learn more.

“Logic,” Ren said.

Yumi bit the tip of her thumb. She looked up at the rope. “I need a lift.”

Ren gestured for Kuro to stand on Yumi’s right, as he positioned himself on her left. Ren braided his fingers together, creating a stirrup. Kuro hurried to follow suit. Yumi worried her lip, but she placed her foot in Kuro’s hands, her hand on his shoulder for balance, and then hopped up into Ren’s hands. They lifted her up. She was very light for a human.

She stretched up, pressing her flat hand to the wall just under the lowest part of the rope.

Kuro swore.

“I think… I think it’s close enough.”

“Um…” Kuro looked behind them. The almost full moon sent a shadow of a flying serpent over the human crowd. “Hurry.”

“Don’t rush me.”

Kuro groaned in his throat. They were on a deadline.

“I think — I think if I just press spiritual power into it—”

“Don’t lecture us,” Kuro snapped. “Just do it.”

Yumi glared down at him. He jerked her foot to remind her to focus.

She concentrated on the wall, holding both hands up and flat under the ofuda. Kuro felt when she started, a sudden spark of spiritual power. His muscles shook, and his instincts told him to run before she slammed it into him. He forced himself to stay still, even when the power built until it was visible to him. Blue light arced like lightning, racing along the walls.

He wrenched eyes away to distract himself on the humans. No one looked away from the top of the wall to what Yumi did. Very few would be able to see what she did. He glanced at Ren, but he stared beyond Yumi.

A serpent muzzle appeared over the wall.

“Not to rush you…” Kuro started.

He didn’t need to. The barrier caught the energy, just like sparks on kindling. He felt as much as saw the barrier light up.

The serpent screamed. It dropped out of view, hitting the ground outside the walls with an earthshaking bang.

The next demons thudded against the barrier with flashes of bright blue light. Eyes squeezed shut, Kuro tried to cover his ears with his shoulders.

The thuds stopped.

Yumi relaxed in Kuro’s hands. “I — I did it,” she whispered.

“You did,” he replied, biting back the additional remark that it was about damn time. She couldn’t have cut it closer if she’d actually tried.

The mood of the humans shifted away from terror to confusion and caution.

Sandals thundered so loud that even from across the bailey, they cut through beating wings and a thousand human breaths and heart beats.

Kuro opened his eyes. Samurai archers manned the loopholes. The Shogun and the onmyouji ascended onto the platform above.

Then the impossible happened. The onmyouji lost his smile.

“Yumi!” he yelled. “What have you done?”