So Toshi sat on the stump-platform at the edge of Michiko-hime’s riding lane, the Taken One nestled safely against a tree nearby. They had at least taken his advice and not tried to move it. The three elders, Pearl-Ear, and Michiko had all climbed atop the fallen log that bordered the training lane to listen. Pearl-Ear made introductions, Toshi bowed to the venerable foxes, and he told them (with several minor omissions) about his experiences over the past few days.

  When he was done they simply stood and gave each other meaningful stares. Michiko looked grim and determined as she watched her teacher. Pearl-Ear in turn waited for the elders’ reaction, and so Toshi stood watching his hosts watching each other.

  “I don’t think you understand the urgency here,” Toshi said to Sharp-Ear. The little fox was always nearby. He seemed to have taken a personal interest in minding the prisoner. “A day, two at the most, and we’re all in the same trouble I left in the east.”

  Sharp-Ear continued to stare at Toshi intently, but he answered quietly. “I daresay you’re right. But they didn’t get to be elders by being fools. Give them a chance to consider the options.”

  “What options?” Toshi hissed. “It keeps saying, ‘release me.’ Where’s the mystery? It wants out, I say let it out.”

  “It’s not that simple. There’s your credibility to consider.”

  “It is that simple. That thing’s alive; everyone can see it. If you were frozen solid, you’d want someone to crack you loose, right?”

  “Sadly, I speak from bitter experience. Yes. I did want that when I was frozen and I would want it again.”

  “Sure you would. What else could they possibly be considering?” Toshi peered up at the silent elders. “Are they considering? It looks like they’ve forgotten why they’re here.”

  “Be quiet,” Sharp-Ear snapped. “Or show more respect. You came to us for help, remember?”

  “That’s because I thought you would know what to do. You don’t know any better than I do.”

  “So what? Even if that’s true, what do you propose? Shall we give it back to you and send you on your way?”

  “That’s a start. If you foxes want to sit and contemplate its true nature, be my guest. Just don’t make me wait around to watch.” He looked up into the sky.

  “We have decided.” The elder in the center of the trio spoke. Toshi remembered her name as Silk-Eyes.

  “This,” she pointed at the Taken One, “is a living thing. Everything else is mere speculation.”

  Toshi called out, “That living thing ‘speculated’ three orochi into piles of salt.”

  Silk-Eyes smiled patiently. “You left snakes and came back to salt. That does not mean the entity is responsible.”

  “Of course it does. I also think that because it keeps asking to be released that means it wants to be released.” He turned angrily to Sharp-Ear. “I thought you said they weren’t fools.”

  “Calm down, my friend.” Silk-Eyes offered her hands to the other elders, and they formed a chain. “We will attempt to communicate with the entity. Her voice is already known to us. We only need to make ours heard.”

  “‘Her’?” Toshi said. “If you say so. Look, what you’re proposing is not a bad idea, but it’s not the right idea. In the east the Taken One called out for ‘her’ father. She sent up a signal, and O-Kagachi answered. He appeared and moved much faster than he has before. And I know because I’ve seen him in action twice. How many times have you seen the great spirit beast manifest?”

  Sober silence was the only reply.

  Toshi nodded. His voice was calm and rational. “She wants to get out. Help me figure out a way to let her out before she calls O-Kagachi here. Do you understand? He’s coming here anyway, but if the entity gets anxious, she will bring him here in a heartbeat. If we give her freedom, she can decide when, where, and if he finds her. She can go to him if she wants.”

  “With respect, Toshi Umezawa, we would rather understand the consequences of our deeds before we perform them. Lately a great deal of misery has arisen from ill-considered action.”

  “You’re talking about the daimyo,” Toshi said loudly. He had finally caught Michiko glancing away from Pearl-Ear and he held her eyes as he spoke. “Konda wronged this being and the entire spirit world when he stole her. When he trapped her like this. That blasphemy is the main reason the spirits became hostile and the direct cause of the Kami War. If we don’t redeem that terrible act … if we don’t right that wrong, we are no better than he who committed it.”

  Michiko nodded almost imperceptibly before turning back to her sensei.

  Sharp-Ear suddenly spoke up beside Toshi, startling him. “The ochimusha has a point,” the fox said. The crowd that had gathered muttered in surprise, and Sharp-Ear added, “About the danger, I mean. O-Kagachi followed the entity to Eiganjo and broke the fortress walls. He followed it to Minamo, then to Jukai. We have every reason to expect him to follow it here.”

  Silk-Eyes dropped the other elders’ hands and folded hers into her sleeves. “Are you suggesting we simply bestow some degree of animation upon her and leave her to her fate?”

  “No, elder.” Sharp-Ear shifted uncomfortably. “But I do think we should explore both courses. While you and the other elders reach out to the entity, others can devise a way to free her from that stone shell.”

  “A capital idea. Will you agree to lead the inquiry into releasing the entity?”

  “I shall, elder.”

  “Splendid. And we shall proceed as I’ve outlined. We hope that our efforts will make yours less complicated. There is much the entity could tell us, if we knew how to ask.” Silk-Eyes turned to Pearl-Ear and muttered something Toshi couldn’t hear. Then the three old foxes bounded easily to the ground and took up kneeling positions around the Taken One, their hands clasped together.

  “This audience is complete,” Pearl-Ear said loudly. “The elders wish to be alone with the entity, so everyone apart from the guards should withdraw.”

  Toshi turned to Sharp-Ear. “Am I free to go?”

  The little kitsune made a great show of thinking it over. “I suppose so,” he said. He carefully took the arrow off his bowstring and tucked it into his quiver. “I also suppose someone should thank you for bringing the entity to the elders. They’re probably the only people in the world who wouldn’t try to profit from it, you and I included.” He bobbed a quick bow to Toshi. “Thank you, ochimusha.”

  Toshi shook his head. He pointed at Michiko-hime atop the log. “I didn’t bring it to the elders. I brought it to her.”

  Sharp-Ear instantly became more alert, his eyes clear and his muscles tensed. “Really? What for?”

  “You know what for. They’re bound; they’ve been bound since birth. They both came into this world at the same time and as a result of Konda’s actions. I figured all she’d have to do was touch it and something important would happen. We’d know what to do from there.”

  “That sounds like your usual plan,” Sharp-Ear said. “Rush in, kick things over, and see what breaks.”

  “What a penetrating wit you have.” Toshi sneered. “I suppose I’m not allowed to go near the disk while the elders are staring at it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Can I talk to the princess?”

  “If she’ll have you. Even then I’m going to stay within earshot.”

  Toshi cocked his head. “Afraid I’ll make off with her again? Not a chance. There’s no one worth ransoming her to anymore. Konda doesn’t care, and you lot have no money.”

  “I changed my mind,” Sharp-Ear said. “You can’t talk to her.”

  The crowd milled past the platform stump, chattering excitedly. After Pearl-Ear gave instructions to the guards watching Toshi, they lowered their weapons and joined the rest of the soldiers forming a protective cordon around the elders and the Taken One.

  Toshi watched until the last soldier was as far from the stump as he was going to get. Then he said to Sharp-Ear, “I can go?”

  “You can go.”

  “And I can talk to the princess? She did say she’s still my boss.”

  “If she’ll talk to you and you both stay in plain sight, yes. But don’t try anything.”

  Toshi leveled his bright green eyes at Sharp-Ear and made his most serious and reliable face.

  “Trust me,” he said.

  An hour later Toshi caught up with Michiko by the training lane as the princess moved away from the village.

  “Michiko-hime,” he called. As the statuesque beauty turned, Toshi noticed the princess’s companion Riko attending. Damn. The student girl would just complicate things.

  The princess bowed. “Hello, Toshi. I was hoping we’d get a chance to talk.” She presented Riko. “You remember my friend Riko from Minamo Academy?”

  “Yes.” Toshi met the smaller girl’s angry eyes. Riko was attractive, in a petite, academic sort of way, but she looked like an akki whelp next to Michiko. Plus, she also clearly hadn’t forgiven Toshi for kidnapping Michiko, or punishing Choryu, or one of the myriad other terrible things she’d seen him do.

  Toshi bowed to Riko. “A pleasure, as always.” Which was the complete opposite of the truth—Riko had been grateful to Toshi when he’d pulled them all out of Minamo, but that was the only time he could recall her not glaring at him with hate in her eyes.

  “Would you excuse us, Riko?” Toshi bowed again. “I would like to talk to Michiko-hime in private.”

  “No,” Riko said. She folded her arms, the fingers on her right hand tickling the bow slung over her left shoulder.

  “Riko,” Michiko said. “As a favor to me.”

  The student archer looked anxious and Michiko said, “We will stand in the clearing over there. If anything happens or you lose sight of us, you may come running.”

  Visibly unconvinced, Riko said, “I will be watching you both.” She pushed past Toshi and then turned around, folding her arms. Michiko beckoned Toshi to join her and they strolled amiably toward the clearing.

  “I appreciate what you tried to do today,” she said. “The elders are cautious, perhaps overly so, but they will not let anything bad happen.”

  “They can’t stop this bad thing.”

  “No. But I agree that they have to try reaching the entity before we decide what to do next.”

  They approached the clearing. Toshi stopped walking and said, “Do you? Because during the trial back there I could have sworn you agreed with me.”

  “It wasn’t a trial,” Michiko said.

  “Forgive me. I misspoke. Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Did you agree with me? That we have a responsibility to set the Taken One free.”

  The princess hesitated. “Yes. I wish to help atone for my father’s crime. It will take years, perhaps decades of hard work, but the first step must be to return what was stolen.”

  “Can you make them listen to you? What kind of sway to you have around here?”

  She laughed a sad, musical laugh. “Not much, I’m afraid. In Eiganjo, I was a prisoner. In Towabara, I am a princess. But here, I am treated no better than a student, and not a very advanced one at that.”

  Toshi frowned. “You matter more than that. You are connected to that stone disk somehow. I was just telling Sharp-Ear how you two are sisters, in a way. The entity … she kept trying to reach out to me, but I was afraid and didn’t know what to do. If you reached out to her, I think she’d respond.”

  Michiko nodded, her eyes far away. “I did sense something between the entity and me. But I assumed it was just my imagination, a feeling of … what we were shown about the night of my birth.”

  “Also the night of her birth,” Toshi said. “There is something between you two. I think if anyone should be trying to reach the Taken One, it should be you.”

  “I would like to be more involved. I feel a great sense of personal—”

  “Then be more involved. Pearl-Ear can deny you nothing. Sharp-Ear would crawl over hot coals to bring you a bowl of rice. And Riko … I think she’d do anything twice to see you smile.”

  Michiko shook her head angrily. “This flattery does nothing to—”

  “It’s not flattery.” Toshi leaned in close, nose-to-nose with the princess. “It’s strategy. If you want to do things you know need to be done, you do them. If your room is on fire, you put it out or you leave. You don’t ask for permission. You don’t wait for approval. You just go.

  “I say this village is your room and the Taken One is a very big fire waiting for a spark. Don’t let the elders stop you from doing what’s right, what needs to be done. All you need is one chance and you can make a difference. Ask Pearl-Ear and Sharp-Ear to ask the elders. The Taken One has reached out to us, but only you can reach out to her.

  “Go,” Toshi said. “Go to her and listen. Talk. I’ve spent more time with her than anyone … except your father. I know she wants someone to stand by her. Someone who isn’t me, or the daimyo, or anyone else she’s met so far. I wasn’t good enough.” He shrugged. “You might be.”

  For a moment Michiko seemed younger, more vulnerable, as she had when Toshi had first met her. She opened her mouth to speak.

  “For a lowlife, lying thug,” Sharp-Ear’s voice rang out, cutting off the princess and echoing across the clearing, “you’re almost eloquent.”

  Toshi closed his eyes wearily.

  The little foxman tumbled out of the leafy branches high overhead, landing solidly on the tips of his clawed toes. Sharp-Ear leaned under Toshi’s chin and peered up into the ochimusha’s face, waiting for him to open his eyes. When he did, the kitsune said, “Told you I’d be listening.”

  “Sensei,” Michiko said, “Toshi and I were having a private conversation.”

  “Business,” Toshi corrected. “We were talking business.”

  “You were talking her into doing something you want her to do.”

  “No. I was trying to find out what she wants to do.”

  “And if either of you asked me,” Michiko flared, “I would answer, because I am in fact standing here with you.”

  Sharp-Ear bowed. “Forgive, Michiko-hime.”

  “If you had asked, Sharp-Ear, or waited for me to answer when Toshi asked, you would know. I do think I should help communicate with the Taken One. Everything Toshi says makes sense.”

  “I agree.” Sharp-Ear bobbed a quick bow. “You are tied to the entity, princess. I do not dispute that. But it could very dangerous to interact with it. You could be like the opposing poles of a magnet and naturally repel each other.”

  “I am willing to face the danger. For my people, for all Kamigawa, and to expiate my father’s sins, I would gladly give my life.”

  “That is truly noble, Michiko, but rash. You must do as you see fit, but also trust the elders. They are wise beyond human understanding.”

  “That is very patronizing, Sharp-Ear. It is the quality and the content of a life that creates wisdom, not the duration.”

  “Again, my apologies. I know you do not need a chaperone or a nursemaid or even a tutor any longer. But you do need good advice. It’s something all leaders need. And before you respond to this almost-eloquent fellow, my advice as an actually eloquent fellow is to seek other counsel.”

  “Like who?” Toshi scoffed. “You?”

  “Me,” Sharp-Ear said. “And Riko. And above all, Lady Pearl-Ear.”

  Toshi cocked his head. He could hold his own in an argument against Sharp-Ear, but he could never convince the princess if both brother and sister opposed him. He needed to act quickly.

  “The dour frump?” Toshi said. “What do we need her for?”

  Sharp-Ear growled darkly. “The dour frump is my sister.”

  “Oh.” Toshi shrugged. “What do we need her for?”

  “When people like us are certain we’re in the right,” Sharp-Ear said, “we need people like her to verify. She’s better than us, you see. If she agrees with us, we might actually be in the right. Also, if she agrees, she’ll help. And she’ll make sure the fewest possible number of people suffer in the process.”

  Toshi narrowed his eyes, appraising the sly little fox with new respect. “You’re on our side, aren’t you? You think she should talk to the Taken One now.”

  “I do. But I also think that everything that comes out of your mouth is suspect. Even when what you say is true, it’s not reliable.”

  Toshi blinked. “Now that’s eloquence. But if we agree, why are we arguing?” He turned to Michiko. “In the end, it’s ultimately up to you, Princess.”

  “We are arguing,” Sharp-Ear said, “because you seem to be encouraging Michiko to behave like a lowlife ochimusha thief and somehow sneak herself in or the entity out for this attempt at communication. I, on the other hand, am encouraging her to consult with her lifelong friend and mentor, my sister, who is often dour but has never been a frump. If Pearl-Ear agrees, we will petition the elders again. They may yet allow Michiko her chance.”

  “If Pearl-Ear agrees,” Toshi echoed. “She didn’t agree back on the big log when we were discussing it. What makes you think she’ll agree now?”

  “My sister is overawed by the elders, especially in person. But she is far more reasonable and pragmatic on her own. I have convinced her to go along with far more frivolous plans in the past. And, as you said earlier, Pearl-Ear can deny Michiko nothing.”

  “You’re both doing it again,” Michiko said coldly. “Talking as if I weren’t here.”

  Toshi said, “Speak up then. What are you waiting for?”

  Sharp-Ear bowed. “We are both talkers, the ochimusha and I. But now we will listen. What do you wish to do?”

  Michiko looked from Toshi to Sharp-Ear and then back. “I will attempt to communicate with the Taken One,” she said. “But I will do so only with Pearl-Ear’s support and the elders’ full knowledge.”

  Sharp-Ear grinned triumphantly at Toshi. “Good. Then we’re all agreed.”