INTERLUDE

Libra POV

The rain had started before dawn. By noon, the garden could no longer absorb it. Libra sat at the long table with the doors open to the storm. Her scales mask covered her face. In front of her lay transport dockets and an hour’s worth of corrections that should’ve been handled by a man two countries away.

The chair at the far end still rocked. She had folded a delivery card under its short leg in the spring and had never bothered to fix it correctly.

A large man in dark lamellar armour came up the steps through the morning rain. Water ran from the plates over his shoulders. He carried a long spear polished far more carefully than any working weapon required. Its strap bore the faded colours of an office that had stopped existing long before anyone in the room was born.

He leaned the spear against the wall but didn’t sit. Instead, he stood where he could see both doors.

“You’re early, Bishamonten,” Libra said.

Libra returned to the dockets.

A much heavier man arrived next with a square face and thick black beard. His body seemed built to occupy more space than any room intended to give him, and a small iron mallet hung from his belt, too ornate to be a tool and too heavy for anyone sensible to mistake for decoration.

He used two chairs to lower himself into one.

“Daikokuten,” Libra said, without looking up. “Your coat.”

He’d already dropped the wet coat over the corner of the table. Libra moved the papers out from under it. He didn’t notice.

A woman entered carrying a biwa beneath one arm. Her pale layered clothes were untouched by the mud outside, though the ends of her long dark hair were wet, and she sat with the instrument across her lap and began tuning it before anyone had spoken to her.

“Benzaiten,” Libra said. “The tea is beside Daikokuten.”

“Is it drinkable?”

“It’s tea.”

“Then I withdraw the question.”

Benzaiten poured herself a cup. She turned one of the instrument’s pegs and listened before returning it almost to its starting position. When Libra looked up again, a tall, narrow old man was standing at her left.

Nobody had seen him enter.

His robes hung loosely from thin shoulders, and his forehead rose higher than seemed natural before disappearing beneath a dark cap. His white beard was neat and pointed. He looked at Bishamonten by the wall for longer than the room accounted for, then studied Daikokuten for exactly the same amount of time.

“Fukurokuju,” Libra said. “Sit down.”

He sat without answering.

Another old man had taken the chair beside the doors. He was shorter than Fukurokuju and more heavily stooped, with a long white beard and a wooden staff resting across his knees. Small strips of paper had been tied beneath the staff’s metal rings. They moved whenever the wind entered the room.

His eyes travelled from one doorway to the other, then across the windows and the distance between each chair.

“Jurōjin,” Libra said. “You may stop measuring the room.”

“Five,” he replied. “So we’re waiting.”

A round, bald man appeared at the top of the steps as Jurōjin said it. His loose robe was soaked through, and a large cloth sack hung over one shoulder. He looked pleased by the weather rather than inconvenienced by it.

He put a hand on Daikokuten’s shoulder as he passed.

“Well, there goes my month.” He sat down. “How’s the leg?”

“Fine,” Daikokuten said.

“You said it was fine in the spring.”

“It was fine in the spring.”

“It was, yes. Then in June you,”

“Hotei,” Libra said.

Hotei found the tea.

“I was only asking.”

“You were beginning a story.”

“That too.”

He poured himself a cup and abandoned the rest of the sentence.

The last man wore a short waterproof coat that smelled faintly of salt despite the distance from the sea. His face was weathered, and the backs of his hands carried pale scars left by rope. A small fishhook made of gold was pinned inside his collar, where it was almost hidden.

He looked at the available chairs, then chose the one at the far end that nobody else had wanted. Rain slipped through the edge of the doorframe beside him.

“Ebisu,” Libra said. “You can move the chair.”

“I know.”

He stayed where he was. Libra straightened the dockets and turned them face down.

“Six weeks ago, something that belongs to us surfaced in the wrong hands,” she said. “The people moving it think they found equipment. Let them keep thinking that.”

She turned one docket over.

“By the end of the month, it will change hands in Japan.”

The room remained quiet.

“You will be in the room when it does.”

Benzaiten stopped tuning.

“The object belongs to us,” Libra said. “It has belonged to us since before anyone in that building was born. Bring it back. Don’t allow a description of it to appear on any list.”

Ebisu looked out at the rain instead of at the table.

“It crossed half a continent without us touching it,” he said. “Whoever moves first tells everyone else that it matters.”

Benzaiten adjusted another peg.

Daikokuten pulled his wet coat off the table and dropped it beside his chair, where it continued dripping.

Nobody answered Ebisu.

“Seven of us,” Jurōjin said. “For one crate.”

“Seven is what I was ordered to send,” Libra replied. “Attend separately. Nobody improvises until the item is outside.”

“And if the people in the room decide it doesn’t belong to us?” Benzaiten asked while lightly plucking a string.

“Then they decide that.”

“You know what I’m asking.”

Libra didn’t raise her voice.

“Nothing that has refused Mother has continued to exist. I’ve searched for an exception and found none. Everyone believes they’ll be the first. They believe it until the end. After that, there’s nobody left who believed it.”

Benzaiten considered this for several seconds.

She returned the peg to its original position and plucked the string once. It produced the same note she’d started with.

“Fine,” she said.

Jurōjin looked toward the garden.

“Does Taurus have anyone operating in Tokyo?”

“Taurus’s operations are Taurus’s concern,” Libra said. She set down her pen. “I wasn’t briefed on them, and I didn’t ask. Assume that nothing standing inside that building belongs to us.”

“Well,” Hotei said. “That’s reassuring.”

“It’s accurate.”

Fukurokuju looked down the length of the table and stopped at Ebisu. Whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself. Libra turned the dockets face up again.

“What is it?” Bishamonten asked from the wall.

It was the first thing he’d said since arriving.

“I wasn’t told.”

“You were told to bring it back.”

“I was told to bring it back. I asked what it was, and I was told again to bring it back.”

Libra let the silence sit for a moment.

“So either its nature doesn’t matter, or it matters a great deal. I’ve been doing this long enough to know which one it is.”

Daikokuten laughed, then stopped when nobody joined him.

“It’s inside a crate,” Hotei said. “We’ll know when we open it.”

“Nobody opens the crate.”

Hotei raised both hands.

“The thought has left me.”

“That’s everything,” Libra said. “Your arrangements arrive tomorrow. I want the job finished before the end of the month.”

They left in ones and twos.

Benzaiten wrapped her biwa before stepping into the rain. Jurōjin paused to tighten one of the paper strips on his staff. Daikokuten needed Hotei to move a chair before he could stand, though both men pretended otherwise.

Bishamonten was the last to remove his spear from the wall. He hadn’t moved from that spot since placing it there. Ebisu remained seated until the steps outside were clear.

“Seven is a bad number for a job,” he said. “It doesn’t divide evenly.”

“It divides into four and three,” Libra replied.

“That’s my point.”

He raised his collar and stepped into the rain. From the table, Libra could see the entire courtyard. Six of them crossed it together toward the gate. Their heads were lowered, and they moved at the same pace. Ebisu emerged behind them and took the path along the wall instead.

Nobody turned to check whether he was following.