Porsette

The first time Jin'en killed someone with a fishhook was on the eleventh day after taking over Daffodil's position.

The target was an import-export merchant. His surname didn't matter. What mattered was that he owned three smuggling routes, one of which sat squarely in the gray area between Red Letter and the Anomaly Management Bureau.

Inanna's exact words were, "He's too greedy. He wants to profit from both sides. People who get ugly about taking their share die ugly, too."

Jin'en staked out the old docks on the eastern side of Miguel District for three nights.

The place was piled with shipping containers during the day and became a paradise for stray cats and rats at night.

The sea breeze swept through the gaps in the docks, carrying the smell of salt and rust and chilling the back of his neck.

Jin'en crouched in the cab of an abandoned crane, his coat collar turned up and a fingerless leather glove on his right hand. That had been his own addition. Inanna hadn't required it, but Daffodil had always worn gloves on missions, and he felt he should have one, too.

On the third night, the target appeared.

A black sedan stopped outside a warehouse at the end of the docks, and three people got out.

The target walked in the middle. He had grown stout, his suit buttons strained a little, and he held a cigar in his left hand while talking on a phone in his right.

The two bodyguards behind him were burly, with bulges at their waists that made it obvious they were armed.

Jin'en had no intention of taking them head-on.

His Spatial Folding could put him directly behind the target, but once his rift opened at close range, everything within a one-meter radius would be shredded-including the two bodyguards.

That would cause too much of a disturbance and could easily alert any eyes that might be watching nearby.

So he had prepared a fishing rod.

He had picked up the rod at a secondhand shop in the Bridge District. Its tip was extremely slender, and he had sanded it down even further, bending a tiny barb at the end.

The thing didn't look like it had much to do with fishing, but it could do far more than a fishing rod.

Jin'en slipped soundlessly down from the crane's cab and moved through the shadows along the warehouse's outer wall.

Spatial Perception spread through his consciousness, clearly marking the target's coordinates-twelve meters ahead and to the right, moving toward the warehouse's side door.

He raised his right hand. The silver markings on the inside of his wrist glimmered faintly beneath his cuff, barely giving off any light.

Space folded before him for an instant. His body vanished from the shadow of the outer wall, and when he reappeared, he was at the corner of a shipping container three meters behind and to the right of the target.

Neither bodyguard noticed him.

The target still had his phone to his ear and was saying something about "that shipment arriving next week."

Jin'en drew the fishing rod from inside his coat without making a sound.

The tip reached forward. Under the control of his fingertips, space extended along the rod in an extremely fine rift, almost invisible to the naked eye, stretching from the corner of the container to the back of the target's neck.

Jin'en gave his wrist a slight flick.

The instant the rift closed, a pinprick-sized red dot appeared on the back of the target's neck. Before blood could even seep out, he had already pitched forward.

The bodyguards reacted a fraction of a second later, but by then Jin'en was no longer at the corner of the container.

He had folded back into the crane's cab and tucked the fishing rod inside his coat. Even his breathing remained steady.

The target didn't make much noise when he fell.

The two bodyguards crouched to check on him, frantically shouting, "Boss! Boss!" One pulled out his phone and started making a call, his voice distorted by panic.

Jin'en leaned against the cab's sheet-metal wall and glanced down at his right wrist.

The silver markings were quiet. The rift had opened and closed with that flick of his wrist, lasting no more than half a second from beginning to end.

"Not bad," he murmured.

It was already the small hours when he returned to the Scarlet Letter Mansion.

Jin'en entered through the hidden door in the side corridor, skirted the wall lamps in the main corridor, and went straight to his room to change.

He hung his coat in the wardrobe, put away the fishing rod, and took off his glove, leaving it on the desk.

He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his right hand for a few seconds, rubbing his fingertips against his palm. There was no stinging pain, nor that strange sensation of space being stretched.

What had Daffodil felt the first time she killed someone?

The question flashed through his mind and quickly disappeared. Jin'en wasn't going to think about it. Thinking too much was useless, and it could easily make the rifts disobedient.

He lay down and stared at the ceiling.

Inanna spent about three weeks recovering from her injury.

During those three weeks, she never left the mansion. She declined three charity dinners and sent her secretary to a foundation's ribbon-cutting ceremony in her place.

Jin'en knew she hadn't been idle. The light in her study stayed on into the early hours every day, and Unica came and went with documents. Occasionally, when Jin'en passed by, he could hear her on the phone inside, speaking in a very low voice about people and places he didn't recognize.

On the day Inanna returned to the training ground, there was a new, pale white scar below her left ribs, completely concealed by her coat.

"I've read your recent mission reports." She stood at the edge of the training ground, watching Jin'en get up from the floor. "Your work with the fishhook was decent."

"Decent."

"What score does decent mean?" Jin'en thought for a moment.

"Seven."

Inanna tilted her head, the corners of her lips curving.

"The first time Daffodil used a blade, I gave her a four," she said. "You're better than she was."

Jin'en didn't respond to that.

He knew Inanna's compliments usually came with a second half.

Sure enough.

"But you're slower than she was." Inanna turned and headed toward the stairs. "On her first mission, she took two days from scouting the location to making her move. You took three."

"I'm cautious."

"Caution is a good thing." Inanna paused at the stairs and turned her head to look at him, her red eyes dark beneath the lights. "But Red Letter's blade can't be too cautious. A blade that's too cautious won't come out when it's needed."

She left.

Jin'en stood in the training ground. The silver markings on his right wrist gave a faint twitch beneath his cuff.

He glanced down. The markings hadn't lit up, only twitched, as though in some instinctive response.

Five days later, Inanna brought home a little girl.

Jin'en was drinking water in the kitchen when he heard a noise from the front hall.

He set down his glass and walked out, just in time to see Inanna standing in the entryway. Two buttons on her coat were undone, and the wind outside had left her long, silvery-white hair a little disheveled.

Beside her stood a little girl who looked about seven or eight, wearing a short red cloak. Two pieces of fabric shaped like animal ears sat on top of the hood, and a red cross-shaped patch was sewn along its edge.

The little girl's hair was pale silver-white with a faint lavender tint, woven into two thick braids that hung over her chest.

Her eyes were large, their burnished-gold irises gleaming under the entryway lights as though coated in oil.

She clasped her hands in front of her, fingers twisted together and shoulders slightly hunched, looking as though she was ready to take a step back at any moment.

But Jin'en noticed her eyes.

Those burnished-gold eyes were surveying her surroundings.

Quietly and carefully, her gaze slid from the corridor walls to the ceiling murals, then swept from the furniture in the front hall to where Jin'en stood.

There was a composure in that gaze utterly at odds with her age.

Inanna rested a hand on the little girl's shoulder and gave her a gentle push.

"Go on in," she said. "This is your home now."

The little girl looked up at Inanna, nodded, then took two steps forward.

Her steps were light, her footfalls almost silent, yet each was steady, as though she had already planned her route in her head.

"What's her name?" Jin'en asked.

Inanna glanced at him.

"Porsette," she said. "Poinsettia."

Poinsettia.

Jin'en knew where that flower name belonged in Red Letter's garden.

Daffodil, scarlet sunflower, poinsettia-three kinds of flowers, three purposes.

Daffodil was a blade, and Broken Rainbow was poison. He still wasn't entirely clear on what a flower like poinsettia meant in Inanna's business, but he knew that when this girl was brought home, Inanna looked at her differently from how she had once looked at Daffodil.

When she looked at Daffodil, Inanna saw a blade's edge.

When she looked at Porsette, she saw a chess piece.

That evening, as Jin'en passed through the second-floor corridor, he saw Broken Rainbow sitting on the stair railing.

She had dug out those work pants that were always two sizes too big from somewhere. Her white hair hung loose, and her green eyes shone with startling brightness in the dim light.

She held a piece of string, knotted at both ends, winding it around her fingers.

Seeing Jin'en approach, she tilted her head.

"See her?" Jin'en stopped at the stairs.

"I did." Broken Rainbow wound the string around once, then loosened it. "Little Red Riding Hood."

"...What?"

"The one Mother brought home." Broken Rainbow hopped off the railing, her bare feet landing on the floor. "Wearing a red cloak, just like Little Red Riding Hood in the fairy tale."

Jin'en leaned against the wall and looked at her.

"What are you planning to do?"

"Nothing." Broken Rainbow tucked the string into her pocket, slipped both hands into her pockets, and looked at Jin'en with her head tilted.

"I just think it's pretty interesting. One look at that girl and you can tell she's the type to run."

"How do you know?"

"The way she looks at Mother." Broken Rainbow tipped her head, and a lock of white hair slid off her shoulder. "Like she's looking at a wolf."

Jin'en said nothing.

Broken Rainbow hadn't expected an answer either. She turned toward her room, then stopped after two steps and glanced back at him.

"If she runs, I'm the one who brings her back," she said, her green eyes curving. "Stay out of it."

"Why?"

"Because Mother didn't put you in charge."

Broken Rainbow left.

Jin'en stood in the corridor, listening to the sound of her bare feet on the wooden floor fade into the distance.

At the corner at the end of the corridor, a wall lamp flickered, then steadied.

He returned to his room, locked the door, and sat on the edge of the bed.

The silver markings on his right wrist rested quietly beneath his skin, unlit.

But he kept feeling that things wouldn't be peaceful today.

He couldn't say why. It was just a feeling.

Jin'en closed his eyes and sat leaning against the headboard without taking off his clothes.

He knew another flower was about to join Red Letter's garden. But he wasn't sure how long this flower would bloom.

Two in the morning.

A sound woke Jin'en.

It was very faint, like someone stepping on that loose floorboard in the corridor. He remembered its position clearly-on the unavoidable route from Porsette's room to the main staircase, at the seam between the third and fourth floorboards.

In all the years since Jin'en had arrived, he had always instinctively avoided that spot when taking that route.

He opened his eyes without moving.

Spatial Perception spread through his consciousness.

Porsette's room was empty.

There was a moving coordinate in the corridor, a very small one, slowly approaching the stairs.

Jin'en sat up without turning on the light.

When he opened his door, the corridor was dark.

The wall lamps had been set to their dim nighttime setting, their yellowish light only enough to reveal a few steps ahead.

The moving coordinate paused at the corner by the stairs, as though hesitating.

Then it continued downward.

Jin'en didn't follow.

He leaned against the doorframe and watched that small red figure disappear around the turn in the stairs.

The cloak's red became a blurry patch of darkness in the dim light, and the animal ears on the hood turned with her head.

She was observing.

Jin'en could tell.

Every step Porsette took was careful. She checked the floor before setting her foot down and glanced at the handrail's height and position before reaching for it.

He had seen that habit at the orphanage. It was something developed only by children who often moved around at night without wanting to be discovered.

But she had taken the wrong route.

Going down the main staircase meant passing through the front hall. Opposite the sofa there was a wall lamp, and its switch was connected to an indicator light in Inanna's study.

When the lamp came on, whoever was in the study would know someone had come downstairs.

Jin'en wasn't quite sure whether Porsette knew about that.

But just as Porsette was about to step off the last stair, a hand reached out from the shadows of the stair railing and pinched the back hem of her cloak.

Porsette went completely rigid.

"Where are you going?"

Broken Rainbow's voice drifted from the shadows at the turn in the stairs, languid and drawn out.

She had crouched there at some point, probably after Jin'en closed his door.

Her white hair looked almost gray in the dim light. Her green eyes were a little too bright, and the corners of her mouth were raised, her canines sharp.

Porsette's burnished-gold eyes turned toward her, and her expression changed twice within a second-first fright, then hastily suppressed panic, before finally settling into a quiet, docile obedience.

"I..." Her voice was very small, carrying a deliberate tremor. "I couldn't sleep. I wanted some water."

"The kitchen is on the east side of the first floor." Broken Rainbow looked at her with her head tilted, her fingers still gripping the cloak's back hem. "You're heading toward the front door."

"I got lost."

"You walked down the third-floor corridor twice just now, and you didn't take a wrong turn either time." Broken Rainbow stood up, a head taller than Porsette, and looked down at her. Her white hair fell across Porsette's hood. "People who are lost don't take the same route twice."

Porsette briefly pressed her lower lip inward.

It was quick, so quick that Jin'en almost missed it, but immediately afterward she resumed that timid look, her burnished-gold eyes wet as though she was about to cry.

"Big sister..." She looked up at Broken Rainbow, her voice as soft as though she were holding a mouthful of water. "I really was just-"