“Maybe she’s one of the Ainu?” Shoko suggested with the dismissive tone of a woman who didn’t really care about the answer. It was obvious from the frown on Shoko’s face every time she was in the same room as Leda that she didn’t approve.

            Shoko was a matronly woman, though she’d never had any children of her own. She had worked for the Miyamoto family long before they had come to Sendai. She had watched over Bennosuke when he was just a boy, and when they were in private she would still sometimes call him by his childhood nickname of Ben-kun. When...

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