Disarmed, blind, and helpless, Sano realized that if things continued like this, he didn’t have a chance. He must gain control over the situation. The first thing was to get himself out of the Ghost’s trap. Sano crawled along the floor until he found a wall made of wooden panels. He groped across and up it until his hand met a groove. He inserted his fingers and pulled. The panel slid.

“What are you doing?” Kobori’s tone said that he knew Sano was changing the rules of the game and he didn’t like it.

Behind the panel was another, made of paper framed by mullions. Light glowed in streaks through it, just bright enough that when Sano glanced around he could see that he was alone in an unfurnished room. He slid open the panel. On the other side were rough planks, fastened over a doorway. The moonlight shone through the cracks between them: The house had been boarded up to keep thieves out. Sano pried at the planks with his left hand; his right hand and whole arm were still numb and useless. When the planks didn’t yield, he thumped on them.

“You can’t escape me,” Kobori whispered.

His voice moved closer, accompanied by legions of footsteps that echoed through the house. As Sano looked around in desperation, he saw a flimsy staircase built of wooden slats and poles rising from a corner. He lunged up it.

“Where are you going?” Kobori’s voice sharpened.

Sano reached the top of the staircase, which ended at a platform near the ceiling. He pushed up on the ceiling, and a trapdoor lifted. Either Kobori had forgotten to seal this exit or had thought Sano wouldn’t find it. Sano thrust his head through the opening, into moonlight and fresh, pure wind.

“Stop!” Kobori ordered, his whisper rising to a harsh volume. “Come back!”

With an awkward, muscle-wrenching effort, Sano pulled himself onto the roof. He stood on its rough, slanted thatch surface, massaging his right arm and hand back to life. The roof spread some two hundred paces long and half as wide, with humps over its gables. Above Sano loomed the top level of the house, its balcony, and the high, forested slope. Below him lay the roof of the bottom level, the valley, and the hills that fell away toward the dim, few lights of Edo. The moon rode low on its arc through the stars, but still shone bright. It wasn’t the best battlefield in the world, but at least here he could see the Ghost coming.

“You wanted me badly enough to break into my house,” Sano called down through the trapdoor to Kobori. “If you still want me, you’ll have to come up here.”

“If you want me, you’ll have to come back inside,” Kobori retorted.

A stalemate slowed time to a virtual halt. Sano flexed his arm and hand. They tingled as the numbness faded. He realized a fundamental truth about why the Ghost killed on the sly. It wasn’t just because he was good at dim-mak.

“What’s the matter, are you afraid to face me?” Sano called.

No samurai could stand to have his courage called into question. Kobori said, “I fear nothing, and certainly not you. It’s you who are afraid of me.” His voice issued through the trapdoor like poisonous smoke. “You hide behind your castle walls and your troops. Without them, you cower like a woman terrified of a mouse.”

“You hide in the darkness because you’re terrified to show yourself,” Sano said. “You sneak up on your victims so they can’t fight back and hurt you. You’re a coward!”

There was silence; yet Sano could almost feel the thatch under his feet grow hot, as if burning from the fire of Kobori’s anger. No samurai could tolerate such an insult. Kobori must come out and defend his courage and honor. But Sano knew better than to think the Ghost would pop up through the trapdoor for him to nab. He scanned the roof around him, eyeing the gables, expecting a sneak attack. He glanced at the roof below him. His instinct for survival told him to run while he had another chance. But his own courage and honor were at stake.

As he turned to look upward, a shadow detached from the balcony overhead and lunged down at him. He didn’t have time to dodge. Kobori landed on him. Sano’s knees crumpled under the impact. He and Kobori fell together with a crash. Kobori wasn’t a large man, but he felt heavy and hard as steel, all bone and sinew. He locked onto Sano in a crushing grip. They rolled down the roof. Sano saw Kobori’s face, teeth bared in a savage grin, eyes glinting, close to his as they rolled. He tried to dig his heels into the thatch and prevent himself from falling off the sloped surface, but he couldn’t halt his momentum. He and Kobori tumbled from the roof.

They plummeted through empty space. A roof over a balcony interrupted their fall. They bounced off it with a force that jarred Sano’s spine, then fell again, toward the roof of the mansion’s lowest level.

Grasping her knife in both hands, Yugao inhaled a huge whoop of breath. She swung the knife sideways above Reiko. Her features contorted into a fierce scowl. Terror entwined with despair inside Reiko. She cringed and flung up her arms to protect herself.

There came a loud, heavy thud on the roof over their heads. The room shook. Reiko and Yugao both jumped. Dust and bits of plaster showered down on them. Yugao hesitated, the knife still upraised in her hands, her scowl frozen on her face. More thuds, accompanied by scuffling noises, jarred the house. Yugao turned her gaze away from Reiko, up toward the ceiling, distracted by what must be a fight taking place on the roof.

Reiko thrust her hands against Yugao’s thighs and shoved.

Yugao went stumbling backward. Surprise changed her expression. She tripped on her hem, lost her balance, and fell on her side. “You sneaky little whore!”

Reiko leapt from her corner as she whipped the knife from behind her. Yugao scrambled to her feet. Howling in rage, she lunged for Reiko. Reiko gave up hope of capturing Yugao. It would be enough if she got herself out of the house alive. She ran for the door, but Yugao sprang into her path and slashed furiously at her. Reiko dodged, jumping sideways, ducking her head, as the knife carved wild swathes through the air and cut her robes. The fabric swished in tatters as she wielded her own knife, parrying Yugao’s slashes. Yugao moved so fast that there seemed to be a hundred blades whizzing around Reiko.

“You could have stopped him!” Yugao screamed. She struck with such ferocious power that every collision of their blades almost knocked Reiko’s out of her hand. “But you pretended not to see. You let him do it. You treated me as if it was my fault!”

She sliced through Reiko’s sleeve. Reiko felt pain sear her upper arm. She faltered. Yugao was a tornado of waving arms, flying hair, and foul curses. Her knife whistled past Reiko’s ear. Reiko felt warm, wet blood trickle down her neck.

“He was mine!” Yugao shrieked. “You took him away from me!”

Insane with fury, she chased Reiko around the room. In her mind Reiko saw the bloody footprints in the hovel. Yugao was reliving the night of the murders. She thought Reiko was her mother and sister.

“You let me kill him. Now you’re going to die!”