Page 65 of Between Ghosts and Gods

“Again?”

“I have more questions.”

Arun sighed. He really didn’t want to see the Pale Lady again. He’d had enough of speaking with demon lords to last a lifetime – or a death.

Chapter Thirty-Two Kasu

Kasu couldn’t keep up with the thoughts spinning through her head. The questions Sunan’s death had left them with were too big to ignore. How had Lady Camellia known that there was a lady from the heavens in the under-realm? How had Lord Cobalt known who to catch and put on the auction? No matter how hard Kasu thought about it, she could only come up with one explanation.

Sunan had come to the Pale Lady for help. The demon lord of the western quarter was the only one who knew about Sunan, and the reincarnation wheel, and the aura mask that should have kept Arun’s mother safe.

“You think the Pale Lady sold her out?” Arun seemed to read her thoughts. His dark eyes were no less piercing than when he was alive.

Kasu swallowed around the lump in her throat. “It’s only a guess, but she was the only one who knew your mother was in the under-realm and that she had an aura mask. Who else could it be?”

She wished she had something more comforting to say. His mother was dead. The reason he had come here was gone. She wished she knew how he was feeling – wished she had the courage to ask.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been in the under-realm as long as you have, but I’ve got the impression Lady Camellia and the Pale Lady don’t like each other.”

“You’re not wrong.”

Lady Camellia despised the plays the Pale Lady performed, and the Pale Lady … well, Kasu remembered the choice things she’d had to say about Lady Camellia the last time they had met.

A fool who puts her faith in all the wrong things. Amusing and pathetic.

“What will we do when we meet the Pale Lady?” Arun asked.

“We’ll talk,” said Kasu.

Both Arun and Ruo looked disappointed by that answer.

“I know we’ve been relying on her a lot. And she’s not the most dependable source.” As if they could trust what any demon in the under-realm said. “But now we know more than we did before. We have more questions too. I’m sure we can get some answers, real answers, from her this time.”

Arun still didn’t look convinced, but he followed her anyway. From the meat market, they traced the river’s path into the western quarter. The sound of music was the first clue that they had reached the theatre district.

“Little flower, dressed in red, blooming in obscurity.

Plucked from the earth, the young man pinned her to his breast.

To work he took her, and to rest – never did they part,

Until a war did shake the land.

Little flower, dressed in red, left alone to wither and rot –

When the young man returned, he cast her aside

And into the mud she sank.”

“The Song of Shusa’s Lover” drifted gently through the streets. The western district was quiet – far quieter than when the theatres had first closed. Now, even the teahouses and fortune tellers’ tents were empty. The vendors had packed away their wares, seeking livelier parts of the city to do business. Only a few stray musicians remained, along with the beggars lying in the street as their bodies slowly disappeared. Fishermen lounged on the riverbanks and demons prowled beneath the bridges, hoping to catch unsuspecting ghosts with their long arms and sticky tongues. A few stubborn pop-up theatres continued to perform General Shusa: Life and Love of a Loser God.

“When the war came to an end, the heavens rewarded him for his courage and might with a position among their ranks, but Shusa wished to see his love. Yet on his return, he found his town had been hit by plague. His beloved had been disfigured by disease. Now she was uglier than the cows he had once herded!”

There was no raucous laughter, no cruel mockery this time. Only silence greeted the end of the play. Ruo snorted, but stopped at the sight of Kasu’s disappointed frown.

“Where do you think the Pale Lady will be?” Arun glanced around the hushed streets.

“Dunno. Where do scary moth-antler-ladies hang out when they’re not doing anything?” Ruo asked.