Page 120 of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

He turned with a start to see Akane walking past. She’d stopped, staring at him. “Nikaro,” she said (lowly), striding toward him. “Where have you been? It feels like…” She frowned, seeing his face. “Have you been crying?”

He stumbled to his feet, knocking over the stack of rocks.

“Nikaro?” Akane demanded. “What have youdone? Where is Yumi?”

Unable to face those condemnations, he grabbed his sack of rocks, then turned and fled, running through the night.

A short timelater, Yumi’s attendants led her to the shrine among some floating trees, knocking together. Here, once more, Yumi hesitated. This was…familiar. Why was it familiar? She’d never been to this town before. She moved to a new one each night.

Her attendants halted, looking worried but not speaking, lest they shame her. So she continued forward. But again she was shocked, to see someone standing at the shrine.

“Liyun?” Yumi asked, stopping. The woman didn’t usually first approach until after Yumi had done her prayers and meditations. “Is something wrong?”

“I just wanted to let you know, Chosen,” Liyun said, bowing, “that we passed Ihosen and came here instead.”

“Ihosen?”

“The town we were going to visit? This is the next in line.” Liyun put her hand to her head. “I…can’t remember why we changed. I thought I should mention it.”

“It is, of course, wisdom in you,” Yumi said, bowing—though she mostly just felt confused. Why did Liyun think to inform her? The woman never mentioned other towns they visited.

“I wanted to tell you,” Liyun said, “that I might not be here later tonight to guide you. Go, do your service, and then have the attendants escort you to the wagon.”

“Liyun?” Yumi asked. “Protocol…”

“I know, Chosen,” Liyun said, bowing reverently. “Unfortunately, I’ve been called to do something else. I don’t fully remember what, but it is important. Someone must be…dealt with. So do your duty, and I will see you tomorrow.”

Yumi bowed. Then she rose and watched Liyun hurry away. What an odd interaction. Why—

Liyun paused, then glanced back. She looked like she wanted to say something, then cocked her head as if she’d forgotten it.

She was gone moments later.

Yumi realized she hadn’t been able to ask for the thing she wanted most. To visit Torio City for the festival. That would be…

Hollow? Why would she suddenly feel that to be hollow? She’d beenplanning to ask for that trip for weeks. Yet now she couldn’t muster the effort to care.

She decided that perhaps she was abandoning her selfish streak. At long last, she might be becoming the yoki-hijo that Liyun had always wanted her to be.

She knelt to begin her prayers. Content that, with effort, she might finally be able to serve with her whole heart.

Painter sat onhis floor, huddled in his blankets, staring at a stack of plates, cups, and utensils that Yumi had made a day before.

He pulled the blankets close because warmth felt right to him in a way it never had before. Because the last time someone had held these blankets, it had been her. Sitting with him. Watching the viewer and caringwaytoo much about the lives of fictional people.

Maybe,he thought,I can get a hion expander and go striking out in the shroud.He could hunt for those walls that circled her towns. And…and do what? Be surrounded and killed by nightmares?

He didn’t even know what her townswere. Masaka had said those walls were impenetrable, but Painter had apparently been living half his time inside one. He was so far beyond his depth that he couldn’t see the surface.

The scholar had been right. Painter didn’t haveany ideawhat was going on anymore.

Except that he had lost Yumi.

No. I won’t let it be forever.He stood up as an idea struck him. A very terrible idea. He followed it anyway and left the apartment, the sack of rocks over his shoulder and something special tucked into his pocket.

Nightmares often returned to the place where they’d last fed. Looking for another easy meal, perhaps. Or just working by instinct and following the same emotions that had led them to prey the time before. Painter gambled on this, and returned to the broken playground near the carnival.

Here he settled down to wait. Determined. And frightened, though more of what he might lose than of nightmares. So he wasrelievedwhen he saw something darkening the alley nearby.

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