“So,” he said, “is this what we’re going to do all day?”
“The spirits picked you,” she said. “And then they sent you to me. I have to believe that they were correct to do so. To accept otherwise is to accept that I was chosen for no purpose—and that is lunacy.”
“All right,” he said. “But that doesn’t tell us what we’re supposed to do.”
“We have to commune with them,” she said. “Which means you have to summon them. I can’t—not without being able to touch the things around me. We bring them to us, and maybe that will be enough to prove ourselves. Perhaps that alone will end this…association the two of us have been forced into.”
“And if it isn’t enough?”
“Then the first step is still to summon them,” she said. “So we can get some answers. Spirits who have been formed and dedicated to a service can no longer speak—or perhaps they choose not to. But newly summoned ones can; they respond when I make requests of them. Our best hope is to learn from them what they want of us.”
“Fine,” he said, leaning a little closer.
“Fine,” she said, leaning even closer.
A contest of pride, then. He leaned in a titch. She responded. Then he got just a hair’s distance from her, smiling, as there was no space remaining.
So she inched forward and stubbornly touched her nose to his.
Enveloping warmth.
Understanding.
A sharing of frustration, anger, confusion.
Connection.
Passion.
They both splashed backward, and Painter gasped. It was completely unfair how—
“Aargh!” Yumi shouted at the sky. “It is ridiculously unfair how…distracting that feels!” Then she looked at him, glaring still, and sullenly sank into the water down to her chin, covering herself as best as one could under the circumstances. She didn’t blink once as she did it.
“Don’t stare,” she muttered.
“Stare?” he said, turning away, feigning indifference. “At what? There’d need to be something worth looking at before I’d be tempted to stare, Yumi.”
Then, because he wasn’t actually a heel despite what saying those words implied, he felt guilty. He walked out of the pool, telling himself—and his blush—that he didn’t care if she watched him. Chaeyung and Hwanji approached, bringing him towels and clothing.
“Just don’t faint this time!” Yumi called from behind. “We have work to do today, liar.”
Yumi was daunted by the number of towns she’d visited but couldn’t name. She was a servant of the people of Torio; shouldn’t she be able to name the places she’d helped?
Yet she saw so little of them. Only their cold springs—or bathhouses, for those that didn’t have a spring—and their shrines and places of ritual. The different towns blurred together, interchangeable in her memory. At times she almost thought they could be the same town over and over—that she went to sleep and her wagon was pulled around in circles to give the illusion of motion before stopping right back where she’d begun.
She was ashamed of that thought, because the places were important and unique to the people who lived in them. Take this shrine, where Painter knelt today per her instructions. Most shrines were in gardens, with cold stone so the flowers could spin low to the ground.
This one was instead in the middle of an orchard. Nearby, trees drifted and bumped against one another, chained in place to keep them from floating off but given enough slack to always be in motion. The air was cooler than she liked, and the dim light of the sun behind so many branches reminded her of Painter’s world. However, this was a different kind of dimness: broken up instead of absolute, like sunlight made festive. The trees in turn were spangled with fruit. The celebration here was a quiet one.
Though the workers had been cleared out to give the yoki-hijo silence for her meditations, this was plainly a cultivated spot. Any fallen fruit had been collected before it could bake into sticky tar. People worked in here frequently.
Which meant the people of this town didn’t strictly obey tradition by setting the shrine off from commonly trafficked areas. She’d seen it before, and…well, a rebellious part of her approved. These people wanted their shrine near as they worked. There were spirit statues on the roof, created by a yoki-hijo to have no purpose beyond watching over the workers to give them comfort.
Why shouldn’t people adapt tradition to their needs? It was a dangerous line of thinking—so when Liyun noted the cultivated trees and the statues on the roof of the shrine, she frowned. Then, fortunately, she bowed and withdrew—leaving the yoki-hijo to her ritual prayers.
As Liyun retreated, Painter let out a long sigh. “Something’s wrong with that woman.”
“Liyun-nimi,” Yumi said, “is an immaculate warden. You will expunge such terrible ideas from your mind.”
“Why?” he said. “It’s not like I’m saying it to her face.”
“Thinking it is as bad,” Yumi said. “You are a yoki-hijo. You are better than such thoughts. You must be pure, not just in action, but in mind and soul.”
“But—”
“Complaining is for those lesser. Back straight. Head bowed.”
“I’m not a yoki-hijo.”
“Today you are,” she said, walking around him as he knelt in the open-sided shrine. “If you want to end this, you must do what I cannot. Beyond that, there are consequences—rarely implemented—for a yoki-hijo who cannot serve. We are in danger of provoking Liyun to extreme measures, which will make it impossible for us to accomplish our goals. So unless you want to be stuck like this forever, you need to follow the protocol and do what I tell you.”
He let out a long, annoyed breath. “Fine,” he said （lowly）。
Yumi nodded. During her bathing she had come to a realization. A reason why the spirits might have sent this seemingly useless person to take her place. Shortly they would test her theory. But first, meditation.
“Now,” she said, “you will say the proper prayers. Because you are new to this, we will say only the six that are strictly necessary.”
“Six?” he said. “How long will this take?”
“Half an hour,” she said. “Roughly.”
“A half hour of praying? But—”
“Do you want out or not?”
He grumbled, but as she began to recite the prayers, he repeated them. She wondered if perhaps she should be kneeling too. So she knelt beside him, hands laced in the pattern of reverence before her, head bowed. It would give him a good model at the least.
Was it the words or the heart that mattered in a prayer? Perhaps the spirits would accept his words and her heart.
The half hour was over in no time—saying only six of the prayers was novel, and barely felt like it was enough. But at the end Painter groaned as if she’d made him do something terrible, like carry his own luggage. He flopped to the side, and she decided to let him rest before making him—
“Hey!” she snapped. “Don’t close your eyes.”
“Just for a moment,” he said, his eyelids flickering.