Chapter 7: The Cook's Knives

Tomoe was dressed and out in the yard before the chair reached the gate.

She did not wake Shiori.

She stood in the snow with her braid half undone and her knife roll on her back.

She watched the lanterns come up the last stretch of path.

Two porters set the sedan chair down in the drift.

The silk curtain was pulled aside, and Genzo Mori stepped out in a fur-lined jacket with his gold tooth shining.

Behind him a younger man carried a lacquered box.

"Kisaragi." Genzo looked around the sagging gate and the broken fence. "I'd heard you'd gone to a bad place. I didn't know how bad."

"It's eleven days. You said eleven days."

"I said if you didn't come, I'd come to you. Here I am."

He took the lacquered box and opened it, and drew out a paper with a red magistrate's seal.

"This says you copied my recipes and left with them. Theft of a trade secret."

"A fine of two hundred silver, or three years' contract in my kitchen."

"They're not your recipes."

"They're written on my paper, in my kitchen, by my cook."

"I wrote them down with the date," Tomoe said. "My notebook is older than your restaurant's lease."

"A cook's notebook." Genzo smiled. "And who's going to read a cook's notebook, Kisaragi? The magistrate? The Council?"

"Anyone who asks."

The smile thinned.

"You should come down," he said, more softly.

"You've got a gift. It's wasted on a hermit's kitchen. Come back, and I'll put your name on the menu. In small letters."

"I'd rather be ashes."

"That's a shame."

He raised a hand, and the two porters stepped forward from the snow.

They were large, thick-armed men, and one of them was uncoiling a rope.

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