The house of Inoki was cold and drear. Lamp oil and firewood had become precious commodities, not to be wasted. In the once-lustrous dining room, the family sat assembled about their meager meal in dim silence. The fine hangings and sculptures had long since been pawned for the most basic of necessities. Food and fuel.

The autumn breeze brought with it the winds of change. Sumire could no longer ignore the deepening chill within her heart. Like icy tendrils, her misgivings threaded through her, breaking at last into cold and outright dread. It had begun with the death of her long-ailing daimyo. Too many concubines, too many sons. Luckily, her

Long after Saitou had left, Hirokin remained ensconced in the quiet darkness of his study. It felt a close darkness to him now as he glared about. Yet he languished in it still. The bottle was empty. There was not a drop left. He cast it aside to the stones where it shattered and brooded

Under the dark surface of the water her pale, slender hands seemed to glow. As Sumire trailed her fingers before her, they appeared spectral to her, not altogether real beneath that rippling plane. How easily one’s clear view might become distorted. As the water stilled, she peered down at her own dim reflection. This silent

Even in the dark of night, the air was so hot and still it was stifling. Fanning herself before the open window, Sumire waited for the servants to finish filling the tub. When the door whisked shut behind them, she turned and peeled off her light silken robe, approaching the bath on padded footsteps. The

In the garden of the brothel house, the sakura trees were in full bloom. From the pleasant shade of her patio, Sumire gazed out. A soft smile graced her lips as she smoked from her slender little pipe. Watching the breeze ripple through the crenellations of pink and white petals, she felt the blossom of

She was taking down her hair when he entered the room. Combs and pins lay scattered about her on the table, on the floor. More than one of these he had given her—smoky dark sapphires dripping strands of diamond tears, blue-grey spinels wreathed in silver, to match the shade and luster of her eyes. It

“Well, Saitou-kun,” Kouseki asked, eyeing him nervously, “what do you think?” Saitou glared across the table where the broken instrument had been laid. Seated opposite him, Kouseki paled further. His pearl-white complexion became almost translucent with apprehension. Saitou could see the thrum of his pulse in his slender throat, the bright anxious gleam in his

From across the long hall, Hirokin met Kagome’s baleful eye. In the most perverse turn of events, the frigid stalemate between them had broken. The brief glance they shared was edged as ever, but a simmering heat now underscored it instead of the frost from before. It seemed she could not forget any more than