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“Why?”

“I still hadn’t found my mate. I was already cursed.” A flash of rage passed in his eyes and then disappeared. “For a few decades, she was the only kindness in my life. During that time I lived as a samurai. I knew her husband.”

“The one who killed her.”

“Yes.” He sighed. "I was away on a mission. The Sato ancestor I guarded then rode north with his samurai on campaign. My curse dragged me with him. I was gone for a season. When I left, Oiwa was laughing in her kitchen, feeding me rice balls and scolding me for stealing her pickled plums." His jaw tightened against my temple. "When I returned, she was dead in the river and her spirit rose to tell me all that he had done."

My throat tightened.

"Iemon had not even given her a grave. So I gave her one." His fingers pressed into my thigh. “And then. . .I gave her the rightful vengeance she deserved.”

I quirked my brows. “You killed everyone?”

"Everyone. Iemon. The family next door. The servant who carried the poisoned cream. The doctor who sold it. The magistrate who looked away. One by one. In the dark."

I stared up at him.

"The city whispered that it was her. That Oiwa had come back from the river with her ruined face to take her revenge." The corner of his mouth lifted, but there was nothing sweet in it. "I let them believe it.”

“Why did they think it was her?”

“Well. . .some of those men and a few witnesses that survived saw her face that night." His eyes cut down to mine and glowed. "It was her face, cut off from her corpse. I’d asked, and she gave me permission. Then, my female form put it on and had her fun."

A chill ran through me so hard that my teeth clicked. “Why. . .would you do that?”

“They needed to think it was Oiwa. I wanted other men in the village to know what could happen if they did something so disgusting and murderous to their wives. A lesson needed to be taught.”

Holy shit. That was quite the lesson.

"And my friend Oiwa watched from the riverbank as I did it, smiling the whole time." He looked back at the grave. "She has never left. She guards my home. And I guard her grave. But we never thought her vengeance would become the most famous ghost story in Japan."

I should have been terrified.

Instead, my eyes stung, and the black heart on my chest ached with this deep, strange throb. Because I knew something about burying people. About a body deserving respect. About the dead who didn't get their rituals. And about wives who should be respected by their husbands.

“And. . .” I shivered. “What about the whole myth about actors, directors, and writers dying when they don’t come to get her blessing?”

“Anyone I care for should be properly respected. Therefore, if they don’t get Oiwa’s blessing and just try to make money off of her pain, then I will kill them in the shadows.”

“Wow. You are. . .quite the friend.”

“I take relationships very seriously, little witch.”

“Apparently you do.”

We passed behind the shrine to the place where I'd found him broken this afternoon. The stream trickled beside the stones. Nothing else was there. Only cedar, dark mountain, and mist.

Where are we going?

Yoichi stopped, lifted one hand from my thigh, and pressed his palm flat against the emptiness.

Just like that, the air rippled, and like a stone dropped into black water, the rings spread outward, and the forest peeled away.

Violet and old gold light bled at the edges, the same colors I'd seen spark around him this afternoon.

Then the air opened like a door and within the frame, a luxury condo peered back at me from inside.

Holy shit. He’s even more powerful than I thought.