“How dare you speak about our sovereign with such disrespect!” Mr. Zaki’s eyes went wide with outrage. “Get out before I report you for being disloyal to the crown!” He grabbed a metal spatula and lunged toward Sora.

She gasped and jumped back.

He slammed the door shut.

Tears welled and threatened to spill over. Broomstick, who had witnessed everything, wrapped his arm around her.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Prince Gin couldn’t have already made it here to hypnotize everyone. He and the ryuu have been busy in the Imperial City.” They hurried out of the main square and to the outskirts of town, toward the mountain. “There’s something bigger than us going on here.”

“You can say that again,” Sora said weakly.

Broomstick steered Sora out of the village. “Come on, let’s get you to your parents. I’m sure you’ll feel better once you’re home.”

Sora didn’t say anything as they started up the winding switchbacks. It hadn’t sunk in before that Prince Gin’s war machine could already have reached Samara Village, even though she knew what his goals were.

Then something else dawned on Sora. If this inexplicable wretchedness could affect the people in Samara Village, then it could reach up the mountain, too.

“Mama! Papa!” She started sprinting.

“Spirit, pace yourself,” Broomstick yelled from behind her. “Or at least let me get us some horses to help!” There was still a long way to go up the steep mountainside.

He had a point. But Sora couldn’t slow down. “I’m sorry, I have to go ahead. Meet me there!” She commanded the ryuu particles to lift her, and they whisked her up the switchbacks, leaving Broomstick behind in the dust.

Chapter Twenty

Her parents’ home perched on the cliffs above the glistening sea, serene and so removed from the smoke and noise of the village below it seemed possible that everything would be all right. The air was scented with damp cypress boughs, just as Sora remembered, and the steps leading up to the front door were swept clean. She made her way into the small courtyard, with its wooden path and well-tended garden of ferns and baby maple trees and river-polished pebbles, and paused outside the room to the right, Papa’s pottery studio.

He sat at his wheel, pumping the pedal steadily to keep the platform turning, oblivious to the fact that anyone was watching. He had clay on his mustache and a smear of paint across his cheek, and those details combined with the soothing rhythm of the pedal filled Sora’s chest with relief. All was well here. She’d been afraid for nothing.

“Hello, Papa,” Sora said softly.

His hands faltered at the sound of her voice, and the clay he’d been carefully working wobbled on the wheel, growing lopsided. He snapped up his head and glared at her.