Every day thereafter, Reiko went to the Mori estate for embroidery lessons. Lady Mori taught her how to sketch a design on silk and fill it in with colored thread. Reiko’s chance to explore the estate was when she went to and from the Place of Relief, but the estate was so heavily populated with servants and guards that she could never sneak past them. After five days, all Reiko had to show for her efforts was a silk square with lilies embroidered on it in crooked stitches, dotted with blood from pricking her fingers with the needle.

When she visited Lily at the teahouse and apologized because she hadn’t found Jiro, the dancer tried to hide her disappointment. “That’s all right,” Lily said. “I guess I never really expected to see him again.” Her brave acceptance of her loss made Reiko more determined than ever to rescue Jiro, or at least find out what had happened to him.

The sixth month came, bringing the wettest rainy season that Reiko could remember. She and Lady Mori sat sewing. Lady Mori worked on a large landscape panel, assisted by her ladies-in-waiting. Reiko hid her frustration as her thread snarled. She decided that this was the last time, and she must ask Sano for help despite her reluctance.

“My, it’s getting late,” said Lady Mori. “I believe we’ve had enough for today.” She set down her embroidery. “Will you do me the honor of staying for dinner?”

“That would be wonderful,” Reiko said, thrilled because night would be better for her detective work than day.

Maids brought in a lavish meal of sashimi, grilled seafood, dumplings, steamed greens, and sweet cakes. Wine enlivened the chatter between Lady Mori and her attendants. They grew loud, boisterous, and laughed at the slightest joke.

“Have some more wine,” Lady Mori said, her eyes feverishly bright from the liquor.

“Thank you.” Reiko held out her cup for the gray-haired maid to refill. She drank to keep up the pretense of enjoying the party. By midnight, the other women were too drunk to pay much attention to her, and she slipped out the door.

The rain had momentarily stopped. Smoke from a fire somewhere billowed in the darkness, veiling the wet air. Hazy lights shone through it. Reiko hurried across the garden. Trees dripped water on her and the wet grass drenched her hem and socks. She heard men talking in the distance, but she couldn’t see them through the smoke. Although not in immediate danger of being caught, she soon found that searching for a lost boy was harder than she’d anticipated.

The estate was vast, the mansion a labyrinth of wings connected to countless more wings. Lanterns shone in windows here and there, like glowing eyes. As Reiko circled buildings, two guards loomed suddenly out of the murk. She hid in a doorway, holding her breath until they passed. The house would be full of people, relatives of Lord Mori. Reiko didn’t dare intrude, and she doubted that he would quarter a boy prostitute with his family anyway. She groped through courtyards immersed in smoke and humidity, hazy and unreal. The odor of wet earth and drains filled her lungs. She evaded patrolling guards near the immense stables, where horses stomped and neighed. Dogs barked, and she fled to the martial arts ground. Ghost-warriors seemed to duel on the combat field. After some two hours, she realized the impossibility of exploring the whole estate by herself. Yet there remained one place that she most needed to see, the place where Lord Mori would most likely keep a nighttime companion.

If this estate had the typical layout, then the daimyo’s private chambers must be located at the center. Reiko navigated there by instinct. Fear drummed inside her. The private chambers would be the most heavily guarded section of Lord Mori’s domain, where a trespasser would be killed on sight, no questions asked first. She wished she could bring Lieutenant Asukai with her, but he was with her other guards in the barracks, and she had no time to fetch him. This might be her only chance to find Jiro, if he was still alive.

Ahead of Reiko towered a stone wall. A guard carrying a torch walked past it. She waited while his footsteps receded. Then she slipped through the gate. Some hundred paces distant, a building floated in the smoke, as if upon a misty ocean. Windows formed rectangles of yellow light. The eaves curved upward like dragon wings above the dark, gaping entrance. Reiko crept toward the building, around boulders that rose like reefs in fog, past a pond whose waters gleamed black and bottomless. At the entrance, the shadowy figures of two guards came into view; they conversed and gestured. Reiko thought she sensed someone else nearby, watching her. Her skin prickled. She almost lost her courage, when she heard a sudden, loud cry.

Shrill, human, and filled with pain, it pierced the quiet, vibrated the smoke. It resounded inside Reiko, evoking memories of nights she’d been awakened by Masahiro’s cries. This cry belonged to a little boy; she knew with every maternal fiber of herself. A boy was inside that building, and in distress.

She forged onward, aiming for the side of the building, away from the guards. She was almost there when two more patrolling guards suddenly materialized a few paces from her. She ducked under the veranda. From above her came more cries from the child, and fast, rhythmic thumping noises. She cowered in the dank, dark space while the guards’ legs passed by. Then she bolted out and climbed onto the veranda. She crawled across the wet, slick floorboards. Praying that the guards wouldn’t spot her, she huddled beside the lit window.

The child’s cries rose to panicky, desperate squeals.

Reiko took out the dagger she wore strapped to her arm beneath her sleeve in case she needed to defend herself. She poked it through the wooden grille that covered the window and cut a small hole in the paper pane. The noise inside was so loud, no one there would hear the blade rasping. She glanced furtively around her, but saw only dense, drifting smoke. She peered through the hole.

The cries abruptly stopped.

She was looking into a room in which lanterns suspended from the ceiling lit white chrysanthemums that bloomed in a ceramic vase in the alcove. Giant, gilded chrysanthemums adorned a black lacquer screen. A mural depicted naked men and small boys coupling, in various lewd positions and colorful graphic detail, amid more chrysanthemums. Reiko recalled that the flower was a symbol of male love because its tightly gathered petals resembled a boy’s anus. Then her attention riveted on the tableau in the corner of the room.

Atop a quilt-covered futon hunched a man that she presumed was Lord Mori, propped on his forearms and spread knees. He was nude and thickset; black hairs stippled him like bristles on a boar. His body heaved with fast, loud breathing. His mouth was open, his eyes closed, his complexion sweaty and flushed. A wine jar and cup sat on a nearby table. A small, bare leg and foot protruded from beneath him.

Lord Mori pushed himself upright. His penis was erect and gleaming wet. Where he’d lain on the futon was a naked boy, perhaps nine years old. His short black hair stuck up in a cowlick. Reiko couldn’t see his face; it was buried in the quilt. Her eyes widened with alarm at the red bruises around his neck. He didn’t move; he didn’t utter a sound.

Lord Mori smiled to himself, an ugly grimace of sensual satisfaction. He picked up a dressing gown and put it on. “You can come in now,” he called.

For one disturbing moment Reiko thought he was talking to her. Then a door inside the room opened. Two samurai entered.

“Get rid of him,” Lord Mori ordered. He had a voice so lacking in expression that it seemed inhuman.

The samurai bundled the boy into the quilt. Handling him as carelessly as if he were a sack of garbage, they carried him out of the room. Reiko turned away from her spy-hole, stunned because Lord Mori had apparently killed the boy during sex and had his retainers cover up the death.