There’s a narrow alcove that’s close enough to the clan to hear orders, but far enough away to make us feel alone.

It’s a hideaway we’ve used for years, not a secret by any stretch of the imagination, but a space small enough no one else ever bothered squeezing themselves into it. It’s where Yorri keeps the odd little treasures he collects, things no one else in the clan has any reason to want or need. He used to store them in the doseiku dorm, but the other trainees kept mistaking his projects for misplaced junk. It’s all safer here.

“Sit,” he says once we’re settled into the familiar space. “Do you want one braid, two, or many?”

“Two.” He kneels behind me and cards his fingers through my damp hair, pulling the short strands tight. My eye catches on an unfamiliar shape, something that looks like a tangled mess of scrap metal the size of two closed fists. Did he make another puzzle?

I reach forward, trying not to move my head. Catching one of the metal pieces with the tip of my fingers, I drag it closer. The pieces are interconnected in a pattern a lot more complicated than the last puzzle he created. I couldn’t solve that one. This one looks impossible.

Yorri’s nimble fingers quickly separate my hair, plaiting it into a pattern that lies tight against my scalp. I can’t ever re-create his braids; they’re almost as complex as his puzzles.

I idly turn his creation over in my hands, but my mind isn’t focused on untangling the linked metal. Tyrroh’s words and my own worries are taking up too much space.

“You’re quiet,” he says a few minutes later. “Even for you.”

I run my thumb along one of the puzzle’s curved edges and shrug.

Yorri has always been different. His hands and his mind are as quick as a lightning strike, but when he has a weapon in his hand, something holds him back. He’s slow to take advantage of a moment of weakness or a mistake. He never seems to understand how to predict that moment when his enemy’s guard is down and he can strike a killing blow. He leans toward mercy, and mercy has put him flat on his back staring at the tip of a sword more times than I can count. Mercy is weakness. Hesitation means death. He cannot give in to either if he means to make it through the trial as a nyshin.

No matter how much I want to, the herynshi isn’t a fight I can save him from. Everyone enters alone, and the rank they’re placed in is based entirely on their merit. For doseiku who’ve already found their power, it’s our chance to impress the Miriseh with our skill and control. The Miriseh push those who haven’t past their own limits, giving them one last chance to escape the drudgery of life as a yonin, but the chances are good that if a doseiku walks into that ordeal with no power, that’s exactly how they’ll walk out of it.

The thought forms slowly, trickling into my head in bits and pieces until I’m holding my breath at the idea. Stupid and dangerous.

Yorri secures the end of the second braid and moves to sit against the opposite wall, watching me carefully as he does. His head is cocked and his stare intense. It’s a strange to think that we were never supposed to know each other like this—blood-siblings aren’t usually placed in the same nursery. We’re close enough in age that we trained and learned and practiced together for most of our lives. I’ve watched over him as best I could since he looked at me when he was five years old and told me, with absolute certainty, that I would be one of the kaigo council members one day. Since the day one of the yonin nursemaids smiled at me and said, “You take very good care of your brother.”

Your brother.

Yorri had been mine—the first and only thing that had ever belonged to me more than the clan—and I promised to protect him; I swore it on blood before I knew how tightly those vows bind. Now, imagining life without him opens a sinkhole in my stomach, leaving me gasping and hollow. Now, he’s the only thing that I value above what’s best for Itagami. Above the future position in the clan I’ve imagined for myself since I first learned the legends of the Miriseh.

They came to us from Ryogo, from the haven we all ascend to when death finally takes us. For centuries the immortal Miriseh have protected and guided us, passing on their wisdom and showing us how to live honorable, loyal lives to earn a place in the afterlife. They gave up paradise to lead the clan, so in return we do what we can to serve them.

Now I’m actually contemplating risking our lives and a dishonorable death. I’m risking our chance at Ryogo just to hope that he won’t have to face the herynshi disadvantaged.

“I’m in.”

His voice is so low and his lips so still that, for a second, I’m not sure he spoke. Then one of his eyebrows rises; he’s waiting for a response.

“In what?” I ask, my voice just as quiet.

“Whatever trouble you’re planning.”

“How do you know I’m planning anything?”

The corner of his lip quirks up. “You may be able to hide it from everyone else, but I know you, Nyshin-ten Khya. I know that look.”

“It’s a bad idea. Dangerous.” I look at him now, needing to know he’s marking my words.

“And it might not work. It might not be worththe risk.”

It definitely won’t be worth it if it doesn’t work.

“I already said I was in. You can’t change your mind now. Besides, if you’re willing to risk trouble, then it has to be trouble that’s worth getting into.” Even in the dim light cast by the oil lamps I recognize that look. Merciful my brother may be, but he’s still my brother. Our stubborn streak runs deep and strong.

Groaning, I drop my head back until it thunks against the stone behind me.

After a moment I meet Yorri’s eyes. He relaxes and smiles.

“You’ll conveniently forget you said that as soon as I try to drag you into my plans.”

“Probably,” he agrees easily.

“Rot-ridden pest.” I shove his legs away with the flat of my foot, but I can’t erase my smile.

“Show me how to solve that ridiculous puzzle before I lose patience with you and leave.”

Yorri rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning when he takes the puzzle from my hands and starts explaining how he pieced it together. It’s comfortingly familiar, something we’ve done together ever since we were kids, but it’s not enough to stop the thoughts and plans and fears spinning in the back of my head like a tornado. My brother is so lost in his explanations that it doesn’t seem like he notices my tension.

But that’s why I have to push him. I can’t let him walk into the herynshi without magic, or he’ll walk out of it as one of the yonin. He’ll never rise through the nyshin ranks, following me higher until we can take our blood-parents’ places on the kaigo council.

If I don’t find a way to trigger his magic, I’ll lose him to the undercity. Our lives will diverge, and that gap will eventually become impossible to bridge.

I cross my arms, tucking my clenched fists out of sight. Listening to Yorri verbally disengage the various pieces of his puzzle, I focus on my own challenge.

One moon. It might not be enough time, but, Miriseh bless it, it’s all the time I have.