The First Knot

Hibari keeps learning people by their hair, their hands, and the lies they pin to their heads. She makes wigs for kabuki actors and also reads warriors with the same sharp eye, because style says who they are before they speak. The strange number she sees above a person’s life makes court people even harder to trust, and too many of them carry that ugly mark. When Sae, a spear woman from the rival side, corners her over a missing family register and a stolen pass, Hibari wants nothing to do with her. Then letters start moving between them, and the words on paper become safer than the words in a room. The woman she calls an enemy knows exactly where to strike, and exactly when to stay her han...