The clothing was made of a stiff, starchy silk that practically crinkled when handled. It was all so loose that it fit him, though he was several inches taller than Yumi and far from her measurements.
He did notice that her own phantom clothing, now replaced, was darkened with the water seeping through from her skin. She hadn’t had a towel to dry herself. How had the water gotten her wet, then gotten her ghostly clothing wet?
He tried to think of an explanation, but once more began to feel strangely tired. As the women tied Painter’s bow, the odd sensation increased, accompanied by nausea. That heat from the sky…the heat from below…the layers of clothing…
It all came together in an otherworldly moment his body was not prepared to handle. Heroic or not, Painter swayed, felt his vision go dark, then fainted.
* * *
He blinked awake to the sound of pounding on a door.
Painter groaned and found himself on his futon. He shook his head, looking around his apartment. Strewn with clothing, a half-eaten box of cereal on the table, hion lights—teal and magenta—shining from the line outside his window, painting the place familiar modern colors.
It had been a dream after all?
The door continued to thump angrily. “Coming!” he shouted as the beating persisted. “I said I’m coming!” He shifted, sitting up, and put his hand to his head.
Yumi sat up from the floor beside his futon, dressed in a pair of his pajamas—the oversized shirt exposing her shoulder, the sleeves long enough that her hands barely stuck out the ends. Her hair was a frizzy mess, and she looked baffled.
He gaped, then reached for her. His arm passed through the edge of his short dining table.
Painter froze, then waved his hand through the table. He couldn’t touch it. Or the sock that was sitting on it for some reason. Or the pillow, or…
Yumi stumbled to her feet, knocking against the table, causing an old noodle bowl to rattle and one of the maipon sticks to fall off it and clatter to the wood. She glanced at it, then at her hands, then met his eyes with her own panicked ones.
Oh no.
Yumi was in the darkest place of dead spirits.
That was the only explanation for the strange hostile lights coming in through the window—not warm like the sun, instead cold and terrible. That was the only explanation for the chill air, particularly under her bare feet.
The door thumped and rattled. Some beast was out there. No, some terrible force from beyond life.
She must be dead. But if that was so, why was she so very hungry? She felt like she’d been weeks without food. Was that another part of the torture? Had…had she been taken to the cold skies, where the souls of the unworthy drifted? Was she forbidden the embrace of the warm earth below? Was…was she that bad a yoki-hijo? Had she failed the spirits that terribly?
Nearby, the hero groaned.
The hero. He was here. Hope surged. Was this part of their quest? She’d learned in the histories that many heroes traveled to the place of cold, frozen spirits. She tried to contain her terror and make herself feel strong. Perhaps this was what the spirits wanted. Maybe…maybe she wasn’t dead, but on their path?
The door pounded again, louder.
“Nikaro!” a voice shouted outside. “You answer this door!”
“Great,” the hero said （lowly）。 “It’s the foreman. Yumi…you’re going to have to answer that.”
“What?” she said, her voice going shrill.
“I can’t touch things,” he said, proving it by waving his hand through a table beside the strange altar he’d been lying on when they awoke. He then seemed to notice her confusion. “This is my room in my world, Yumi. Like I was in yours?”
“Your…world?” she said. “You live in the land of frozen souls? The land of the sky?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Are we dead?” she whispered.
“I…don’t think so. But if the foreman is forced to break in here, he might strangle one of us…”
The door pounded once more. “I can hear you talking in there!” the terrible voice shouted. Some kind of demon, perhaps half person, half animal. Yumi stepped back, and only then realized what she was wearing. Some kind of loose trousers and a buttoned shirt, made of a thick but soft material.
She gasped. You could see the exact shape of her— That and the curve of her—
“Yumi,” the hero said. “Look at me. Are you all right?”
“No!” she said. She glanced around again, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness— it must be night here, but what was that strange light?—she picked out things she hadn’t seen earlier. Wadded-up clothing on the floor. Unwashed bowls in piles on a counter. Refuse.
The hero…was a slob?
Well, of course he wasn’t. Heroes didn’t clean up after themselves. Servants did that. So his servants had grown lax in his absence. This was a small room. Surely this wasn’t his sole quarters. She leaned toward the window and glanced outside. There she saw a dauntingly dark sky. No stars at all. A grim nothing up above that felt eager to swallow her. But she was in some kind of large building.
A palace? It was certainly bigger than any building she’d ever been in before. Yet the street was lined with them. A dozen or more palaces in a row! Taller than steamwell eruptions. How did these buildings get so big—ten stories—without collapsing? How did they live without heat from the ground?
It’s the land of the heroes, she thought. Rules are different here. It was colder and darker than she’d imagined, but at least she probably wasn’t dead.
The door thundered again.
“Go,” the hero said. “Answer it and get rid of him.”
“I can’t answer the door like this.” She gestured to her outfit. “The clothing outlines my form! It’s so immodest!”
“Yumi, we were just taking a bath.”
“In the service of the spirits,” she said, increasingly frantic. “Ritual cleansing. That’s completely different!”
“He’ll see you as me,” the hero said. “Don’t you understand? Everyone looked at me and saw you. Now I’m the one that’s incorporeal. They won’t see you being immodest.”
It was…a valid point. So, trying to control her anxiety, shoving aside her famishing hunger, she stepped to the door and eased it open. Doing that for herself would have been a novelty if the situation were different. Now she barely gave it a thought as she found a giant of a white-haired older man on the other side. He wore thick trousers and a buttoned shirt made of some material she didn’t recognize.
He froze immediately, fixating on her. “What the… ?” He looked past her into the little room. “Well, slap me silly,” he muttered. “Would never have expected to find a girl answering Nikaro’s door…”
Yumi stiffened.
He saw her.
He saw her?
Painter groaned behind her. But this foreman seemed unable to see him, for he focused again only on Yumi. “Where is he?”
“Tell him I’m sick!” Painter said, sounding panicked.
“He’s sick!” she said quickly, then felt a stab of anguish at the untruth. Liyun would be disappointed in her.