CHAPTER 102

"You really are slowing things down, aren't you?" The light was dim enough that he could just make out her face. "Not just diving right in?"

"No. Things with the queen got out of hand. If I'm going to see her again, I need to be ready for anything, and that means being thorough. That is, if you have time for me."

The lights flickered and came back on, and he saw the small grin on Sofia's face before it vanished.

"I suppose," she told him with a groan. "I'll see what I can find tonight and get you a headstart tomorrow."

"Thanks," he told her, then watched her go.

What had that been about?

The power flickered off and on for the remainder of the night. On his way up to his room, he saw that Dana had positioned herself in front of the locked door at the end of the hallway. The squad of rats was watching her in interest, and were splitting a plate of cheese and fruit between them.

When he went to see what Dana was doing, he walked past Yuki's open bedroom door and happened to glance inside. The kitsune was standing in front of a blank canvas. Her tails hung limp behind her, so he knocked.

"Hey," he said when she didn't turn around. "Can I come in?"

Yuki shrugged and let out a sigh. "Yeah, sure."

"Something wrong?" He walked into her room and looked around. He could tell where the room had been repainted, and noticed that a stack of broken canvasses sat in the corner.

She let out a grunt. "Yes. No. I don't know. I'm feeling restless is all." When she turned around, he saw that she wore a smock covered in different colors of paint. "Struggling to get some of these done."

"How so?" He pulled the door shut behind him. "I noticed you weren't at dinner."

"Not hungry." She sighed and sat down on her bed. "I'm struggling with some things right now."

"Like?"

"To start with, your dumb ass nearly getting killed." She said this with a slight growl that revealed her teeth. "And now that you're back, I just know that you're going to get into trouble again."

"Yeah." He sat next to her on the bed. "I'm really sorry I left you behind."

Her ears drooped. "Well, that's just it. Even if I had been with you, could I have made any difference? I honestly don't know. It's hard to put it into words."

"Try."

"For so many years, my only direction was to come home. I was a creature of rage. You know this."

He nodded. Yuki had almost killed him within seconds of their first meeting.

"Well," she continued, "after coming home, my only thought was to protect this place, and then to protect you. But right now? There's nothing for me to do except prepare. These paintings are a manifestation of my magic and my soul, but now my soul is restless. I've spent so many years fighting that I've forgotten how to hold still, to just live and relax. So while I was angry that you got hurt, now I'm angry that I have nothing to fight."

"I see." He threw his arm around her and squeezed. She rested her head against his shoulder, and he lifted his hand to stroke her hair. "When I was younger, my mom suffered a psychotic break. Growing up, she turned into this hateful, spiteful being that saw fit to torment me whenever she got the chance."

The kitsune nodded. "I've heard about it."

"Well, after she died, I went through a period of elation. My abuser was dead and I was free. No longer would I get cornered, yelled at, or even smacked around. There wasn't even any guilt on my part, I was finally free of the bitch.

"After a week or so, something changed. You see, I started hearing her in my head. She was so deeply ingrained into my life that she had left scars, not on my body, but my mind. What should have been a period of happiness and healing only served to throw me further down a hole. People told me I should be happy she was gone and to just move on, but it isn't so simple. I had spent so long living my life in a state of terror that it was easier to be stuck there than it was to climb out."

"So what did you do?" Yuki asked. She slid her head along his chest so that she was now in his lap, looking up at him. He moved his hand to the spot between her ears and stroked the soft fur there.

"Probably the hardest thing a person can do. I went to a therapist. Several, in fact. It certainly took me a while to find a good one. It's a hard thing to describe, but just because my problem was gone didn't mean that the past had faded away. I needed someone to guide me through the process of confronting my past and learning to heal from it."

"Did it work?"

He shrugged. "With varying levels of success. Naia did more for me than any therapist could. When she used her magic, I gained a certain degree of confidence I was sorely lacking. All of those little voices in my head that told me I wasn't good enough were drowned out by the part of her she left in me, and I'll always be grateful for it."

"I see." She shifted in his lap so that she faced away from him. "Sometimes, when I'm falling asleep, I see Emily again."

Mike rubbed Yuki's ears, but said nothing. Yuki and Emily had been romantically involved when his great aunt had succumbed to the shadow, and the kitsune's heart had been broken. It was a betrayal he was personally unfamiliar with, but he could almost feel the heartbreak in her voice.