Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
“Let’s see.” I leaned closer. “The nameplates aren't identical.”
Hiro checked them out too. “Correct.”
“Yuki's is beautiful—elegant brushed brass with clean calligraphy.” I narrowed my focus. “Hina's matches Yuki’s more. Same brass, same style, yet much more professional and precise like the person was bored and finished quickly.”
“I can see that.”
“But Mami's nameplate is art.”
“Hmmm.” Hiro stepped closer to it. “Yes. I see that too.”
The brass had been hand-carved with delicate cherry blossoms wrapping around the letters. The petals looked three-dimensional, like they might fall off if I touched them. The script itself curved with more care and attention.
Someone had spent hours on Mami’s nameplate just to make sure it was special. If it were her, that would make complete sense. If it weren’t. . .well that would tell us a whole lot more to the story of these Scales.
I studied the cherry blossoms. "Who did the nameplates?"
"Sako."
Oh shit. That’s interesting.
I turned to look at Hiro. "Is Sako close to them?"
"He is. He was young too when he came into service and they would all sleep in the servant quarters."
"Are they more like siblings or has there been some steam with Sako and one of them?"
Hiro's expression shifted—something between sympathy and resignation. "I think that Sako is in love with Mami but Mami. . ."
"Is in love with Kenji."
He nodded.
My chest tightened. I looked back at the nameplate—at all those hand-carved cherry blossoms that Mami probably walked past every day without noticing. "Why do you think Sako loves Mami?"
"Same age, so they spent the most time together when the others would go off and do different things. Also. . .he would come to her defense most of the time if she ever got in trouble." Hiro's jaw tightened. "Once he took a beating for her from my father."
"What did she do?"
"When they were both ten, Mami had tried to run away. She wanted to go back and live with her sick mom." He sighed as if that memory made him sad. "Right when my father was about to hit her, Sako jumped between them and said that it was his fault and that he'd told her to run.”
“So then what happened?”
“The Fox beat him in front of Mami. Made her watch."
Oh God.
"So. . .you think your father believed Sako?"
"No way. He just did it because he knew that Mami would feel like shit as she witnessed the beating, and Sako would become resentful for taking the beating and may never stand up for Mami again."
I stared at him. "That's fucked up to do that to kids."
"Being fucked up is my father's specialty. Psychological warfare. Especially with children. Still. . .Sako would later continue to jump in the way and take beatings for her.”
“Seriously?”
Hiro frowned. “Yes.”
I considered that. Mami had watched a boy her own age get beaten for trying to protect her. Had probably carried that guilt ever since.
Guilt that deep doesn’t fade, it fossilizes. Becomes a shape a person grows around. And someone like Sako—who learned love through pain—would be loyal long after that loyalty stopped being logical.
And Sako, he had loved her enough to lie, to take the punishment, to carve cherry blossoms into brass thirty years later even though she'd probably never look at him the way she looked at Kenji.
My mind started spinning through possibilities.
If Sako loved Mami—had loved her for decades, unrequited—would he help her spy? A man who'd taken beatings for a girl wouldn't suddenly stop protecting her at forty.
Or maybe I had it backwards. Maybe Sako resented Kenji. Thirty years of carving cherry blossoms into nameplates while she painted dragons in tribute to someone else.
Either way, if Mami was the spy, Sako was involved. Devotion or resentment—both roads led to the same place.
I looked at that nameplate again and those cherry blossoms. “So. . .this is just a guess before entering the rooms but. . .if Mami is the spy, then, Sako is involved somehow.”
“Sako can’t be an option.”
I snapped my view to him. “Why not?”
“It would destroy my brother.”
“Then, let’s hope Mami has nothing to do with this.” I took a breath and stepped toward Yuki's door—the oldest.
A sudden thump sounded above us—directly overhead.
My head snapped up.
For one stretched second, neither of us breathed.
Then silence returned, heavy and waiting, as if the entire suite were holding something back.
“Don’t worry.” Hiro got closer to me. “You’re protected.”
For some reason, I thought back to Goldilocks. In that story, Goldilocks ran before the bears could catch her. But something told me the bears in this mansion already knew I was here and were plotting.
Fuck. What have I gotten myself into?
Chapter thirty-seven
The Hidden Dragon
Nyomi
I reached for Yuki’s doorknob, fingers barely brushing the metal when Hiro’s hand came down over mine—firm, controlled, and stopping me without force.
“Wait, Nyomi.”
I looked up at him just as he stepped in front of me. He didn’t raise his voice or make a show of it, but something in the air shifted. The hallway felt narrower. The air cooled. Hiro was no longer the man explaining nameplates and childhood dynamics.