Chapter 12: The Garden Party

Fumika showed Ibuki the note at supper.

He read it twice and gave it back.

"I can't send regrets because your sister has bad dreams," he said.

"She doesn't write notes. She hasn't written me one in eight years."

"Then she's frightened."

He took her hand across the table. "So am I, a little."

"Then don't go."

"The pact says the lord of Kurai answers the throne."

"Then I'm coming."

"I know. It says with his wife."

The imperial gardens lay behind the palace walls, acres of raked gravel and pine and still water.

On midsummer day they were full of people.

Court ladies under parasols. Officers in white. Ministers in frock coats sweating through their collars.

Every clan of the Seven Shrines had come.

The newspapers had come too, with cameras on tall legs.

When Fumika and Ibuki walked down the gravel path the crowd parted for him.

A pavilion stood at the edge of the great lawn, hung with purple silk.

The Prince Regent sat in its shade. He was young and pale, in a white uniform with too many medals.

Genzo stood at his right hand in his white priest's robes.

He saw them and smiled.

"Lord Tsukimori. Daughter." He bowed. "Your Highness, my elder girl. The oni lord's wife."

The Prince Regent looked at Fumika's wrist.

Everyone always looked at her wrist.

"The Hinase cord," he said. "I've read of it. A pretty custom."

"She never takes it off, Highness," Genzo said. "She keeps her vows."

Kinue stood at the back of the pavilion in purple. She didn't say a word to Fumika.

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