Sae didn't sleep well that night or the next, but her father had taught her to face her fears and commit to a course of action, so she dragged herself to Tokyo Station at dawn along with one suitcase. Even at this hour the station was alive with the noise of trains coming in and people stampeding to and from platforms, restaurants, and vending machine. And in the middle of that crowd was Akira, one hand resting loosely on a half-full luggage cart. His shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. Really, was there some "I shall look vaguely roguish and unconcerned with the world" clause in his book contract?

Then he turned and unconcerned was the last word she would have used it to describe him. His eyes lit up and a grin spread across his face. "Sae!" He rolled the cart toward her, almost-but-not-quite running. "I—good morning. I mean, I'm glad you're here. I thought you might have second thoughts. About the train. I figured Makoto twisted your arm."

She raised her eyebrows. "I guess it's obvious that I'm not the luxury vacation type. She thinks I should get out more. And she seemed to think you would like it."

"I think I would. I've been reading a lot of European genre fiction since, well, you know, and they sure did love their luxury trains. I wonder if I can get some pieces out of this." He flushed. "I'm starting to sound like Yusuke, aren't I?"

Her lips twitched. Cool and aloof artist he wasn't. Just like he wasn't the dangerous delinquent she had been terrified would corrupt Makoto. It bothered her, she realized. Her job was taking the measure of people so she knew how to persuade them in the best interest of her clients. And yet, she kept getting Akira wrong. "You sound like yourself. And I'd like to get to know you, not the boy with glasses he doesn't need trying to keep his head down."

He tilted his head to one side. His tongue darted out to lick his lips. He leaned forward slightly. "Is that so?"

Her mouth felt dry as a shudder coursed through her. He would have ripped your clothes off and had you right there on the desk if you'd let him. She hadn't been imagining it at the office. He was attracted to her. She was why he was talking too fast and fidgeting. How long had it been since she had made anyone blush? How long since someone had looked at her like he was looking now? How long since she had wanted them to? High school? University?

The brought her back to reality. She stepped back and crossed her arms. "More luggage than I was expecting." She peered at a small white box on top. "Is that a carrying case? You brought Morgana?"

Akira snapped back to attention and laid a hand on the carrying case. "He wanted to come. I think he's as excited about us going on vacation as Makoto." A small smile of his own. "Of course, that was before I told him he would have to stay in the crate." His voice dropped to a whisper and Sae had to strain to hear him over the din. "I'm going to sneak him out later."

"You most certainly are not!" she rasped. "I am not getting stranded in the middle of nowhere because some cranky old man saw Morgana running around the dining car."

Morgana hissed, and Sae froze. Sometimes it was easy to forget that the cat wasn't just a cat. "My apologies."

More meowing. "He says, 'I will not run around the dining car and a few other things I won't repeat. He picked up some colorful vocabulary from Ryuji."

"I..." What could she say to this animal that spoke like a teenager? She swallowed. He was another reminder that she was entering a world she didn't belong. He spoke but she would never understand him because she didn't wield the power of a Persona.

Because you're not one of the chosen ones, you mean?

No, she would not let that thing gain purchase in her heart again. "Just be discreet. Shall we go?"

"Excuse me," said a young, female voice. "Are you the Phantom?"

Sae turned. Behind her was a girl of no more than seventeen still in her school uniform and accompanied by a glowering woman who appeared to be her mother.

"Yumi, we have a train to catch and so do these people."

Yumi didn't seem to hear her. "You are! You look just like the scrapbook photos! I've got a whole collection! So cool what you did, taking on all those corrupt adults."

Akira shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground; he couldn't have been less cool if he'd tried. "Um, thank you. Just trying to help people who couldn't help themselves."

"You are a hooligan, that's what you are," said Yumi's mother. "Corrupting the morals of impressionable youth. If it were up to me, you'd still be in prison. I don't know what the public prosecutor was thinking. Probably seduced by that pretty face."

Something cold and hard washed over Sae. How many times was someone going to question her judgment and blame it on hormones? "I was thinking that Masayoshi Shido was the greatest threat to democracy Japan has ever seen and that a teenage delinquent, no matter how spectacular his crimes, was a much smaller threat. I was thinking that he served his time in juvenile hall, as determined by the courts. And today I am thinking that you shouldn't speak of things you know nothing about. Does that satisfy or is there something else you want to know?"

The woman gaped like a beached fish and Akira was staring at her. Sae willed herself not to flinch. It was the woman who spoke first. "Well, I never! Come along, Yumi!"

"If that's what you say for me," Akira said when they had gone, "I really hope I get a chance to watch you work in the courtroom."

"I'd think you had had enough courtrooms for a lifetime." Deep breath. In and out. "Does this kind of thing happen often?"

"Starstruck teenagers and their horrified mothers? More often than you'd think." His voice was tight and strained. "They don't usually bring you into it, though."

"I doubt I'm the first prosecutor to be accused of letting her libido do the talking." As if she needed more reminders of why this infatuation was a bad idea. It hardly mattered that there was no proof; any suggestion that she had ever been corrupt—and infatuated with a minor she had had in her power—impacted her effectiveness for those who needed her most. There were those who were brilliant enough to get away with those sorts of rumors, but Sae wasn't one of them. She cast about for any other subject to talk about. "Dashing phantom thief and author. Keep that up and you'll be invited to all the parties."

His features smoothed. "Can I get that on record? My mother nearly had an aneurysm when she found out that I didn't have a 'real' job lined up before graduation. So let's hope this book works out."

"Still need to take the big risk every now and again?"

"It depends on the stakes." Akira look at her with an unreadable expression. "Not when good people might lose." He straightened. "We're going to miss our train."

So together they headed toward Platform 21 where Sae got her confirmation that the owner of Seiya Express Railways, LLP. was perhaps insane.

It was a steam train. Or at least it looked like a steam train—surely it ran on electricity like everything else. A shiny black engine complete with locomotive stack and shiny red cars trailing behind with gold edging around the windows. Porters in red, black, and gold uniforms helped people with their luggage. She rested a hand on her forehead. Why had she let Makoto talk her into this?

But Akira's eyes were wide beside her. "Wow. This is, wow."

A porter approached them and bowed. "Allow me to assist you, sir, madame."

When he had boarded the train, Akira turned around and stuck out a hand. "Allow me to assist you, madame." Ah, there was the infamous Joker, roguish charm and devil may care. Really, he had to stop laying it on quite so thick. But she took his lithe, callused hand all the same and stepped into the car.

Inside was more luxury from a bygone age. Plush brown carpets and overstuffed red seats that were a deep crimson. Lights hung from the ceiling, a perfect mockup of what would have been used a century ago and every last inch of it speaking to money and power. Akira couldn't stop staring and Sae couldn't help herself. She took his arm and bent to whisper in his ear. "No heists."

He blushed again. "I would never—oh, you were joking."

"I do that sometimes, yes."

It took him a moment to answer. "I used to," he whispered.

Sae had no idea what to say to that, so they trooped silently into the sleeping car. The Seiya Express had spared no expense here either; her bed was narrow but the sheets were linen with a comforter that was as crimson as everything else she had seen. The bathroom was little more than a shower and toilet, but there was a small "parlor:" a desk, pull-out sofa and chair curtained off between the two bedrooms. Akira seemed fascinated by the sofa. "They have those on the night trains too, you know," she said.

"Not this nice," he said and at least he didn't have that faraway look on his face. "I do not want to see your expense account and this is over."

"Oh no, I paid for this personally. I couldn't justify this extravagance just for business. And since I'm about to become either the most famous defense attorney Japan has ever seen or one who will be laughed out of the bar, I might as well."

He crossed the distance between them and put a hand on her shoulder. Still warm. Was it some natural gift that he found it so easy to touch people? "That woman at the station… she... you're the best lawyer I've ever seen. I'm betting on famous."

His hand ghosted up her neck. Slowly, oh so slowly. Some distant, rational part of her mind was aware that she could back away, but she stood rooted to the spot. Blood thrummed as he brushed against her pulse point with his thumb until he was cupping her cheek. "Flatterer," she managed.

"Just the truth," he said, and Sae noticed with grim pleasure that his voice was as ragged as hers. One step to pull back. One step to lean in.

It was his turn to blink. "Sorry," he muttered. He dropped his hand and collapsed on the sofa. "Why don't you tell me about where we're going?"

Ah, yes work. The capital case that was the reason for this trip in the first place. "Our first stop is Port Island. More or less run by the Kirijo Group. Apparently there was some kind of experiment there years ago and then a mysterious illness swept through the school in 2009. Apparently all dealing with Shadows. Rumor has it that teenagers masquerading as a school club were deeply involved. One of the students died at the end of the school year. Most of the group has scattered to the winds, but the two leaders are still there. Including the head of the Kirijo Group herself."

"So, I've got to convince the head of a powerful and secretive corporation to tell me what she knows about something that shouldn't exist. Sounds like fun." He laughed softly. "Look, I made a joke after all. Nice to know the Joker isn't completely dead."

The train sped on through the morning light and they never left the sofa as Sae summarized what she had been able to find out about not only Apathy Syndrome and the rumored Dark Hour, but also the small town of Inaba and the strange murders that had seized it almost ten years ago: the first and genuine Detective Prince (both of them had flinched when she'd said that) and the young detective who had been murdering people under everyone's nose and would probably have stayed undetected if not for another group of students.

"That would be three groups of teenagers saving the world in a row," Akira said. "I wonder why it's always teenagers." He leaned back. "I mean, back then I thought it was because all the adults were corrupt or stupid. But now, well, I am an adult." He closed his eyes. "I hope that wasn't as good as it gets."

There it was again, that terrible pained vulnerability. Sae joined him on the sofa, their knees almost but not quite touching. "It's not. I was a miserable teenager. First in every class and student council president, but that doesn't always make you the most popular girl in school. You may have noticed that I can be a little abrasive."

"No comment. Part of your charm. So when was the best time?"

"After, well, after the Thieves." Fighting for what was right, away from the corruption of the prosecutor's office. Letting go of the bitterness and finally being able to love Makoto openly and unreservedly.

And yet, still weak.

"So no," she said as much to the Leviathan as to him. "Your life didn't end at seventeen."

"Thank you." He looked out the window as the countryside whizzed by under the light of the midday sun. "Want to check out the dining car? Probably a lot of terribly French and terribly expensive food."

"I'd love some." Anything other than this melancholy.

It wasn't the best plan he had ever had, in retrospect. It felt like every other passenger on the train had decided to eat lunch at this exact moment, so he and Sae ended up shoved in a table in the back corner. He darted in front of Sae and pulled out her chair. She raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

He was really going to have to stop doing things like that. He had been two seconds away from kissing her in the sleeping car. He'd read all about gallant warriors in school, about Don Diego de la Vega and Robin Hood and D'Artagnan. And, well, if he couldn't stop every groper on the train or every lousy father who abandoned his wife and son and then blamed her during the custody battle, he could be a gentleman. Except this was going beyond being a gentleman. He wanted to be something different to Sae, something she would remember. Or more.

More. Okay, admitting things was a good first step. He was ready to date again. He just had to find a way to do it that wouldn't involve the other girl turning into a joke. He made a mental note to let Morgana out as soon as possible and ask him. At the very least they could commiserate over hopeless crushes.

"Ex-cuse me, waiter-sama?" said the man at the next table. He was American or English, maybe forty or so with messy red hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a tweed jacket—and a dress shirt that was a truly amazing shade of mustard yellow. He balanced a Japanese-English dictionary on the table with a miserable expression on his face. "Let's see, how do you order port wine?"

Never let it be said that his gallantry extended only to women. He breathed an apology to Sae and approached the other man. "Need some help?" he asked in English.

"Oh yes, please!" The man looked like Akira had thrown him a life preserver. "I speak twenty-three languages; unfortunately all of them are dead. My colleagues promised me that most people here spoke English, but I think some of the nuance has been lost."

"No problem. Port wine, you said?" He ordered the wine and the other man looked so grateful that Akira couldn't help but blush.

"I am so sorry about this," the man said. "Normally, I stay in Cambridge and leave the field work to other people, but there were so many extraordinary paranormal incidents in the last few years, that I had to see for myself. This Dark Hour or Midnight Channel alone could be the greatest find in the history of parapsychology since Rhine!"

"Paranormal?" Akira choked out. His mind raced. Somebody else looking into the strange happenings and trying to prove them? It was either a wonderful coincidence or a horrible one. He checked himself. Or not a coincidence at all. Paranoia was an occupational hazard, but it also kept him alive. "And you are?"

"Where are my manners?" The man extended his hand. "Dr. Howard P. King, Department of Classics at Harvard and also proud member of the American Society for Psychical Research. And I get no end of grief from the former for the latter, believe me!"

"Right, the ghost hunter people." He had someone to Google tonight.

"Oh, not just ghosts. Paranormal activity of all kinds. And Japan has seen more than its fair share over the past few years. I was especially taken with the Phantom Thieves of Heart. And if one could ever prove that those confessions were supernatural in nature...but that would be too much to hope for." He leaned across the table. "Though I did hear that the prosecutor in the case had boarded the train. You wouldn't happen to know if it's true, would you? A Ms. Nye-jy-ma?"

"I have no idea." What would you say if you knew The Phantom Thief himself was sitting right across from you. "I really should be getting back to my friend."

"Of course, of course. But you know, this concept of persona that I keep running across is quite extraordinary. And the notion of some sort of cosmic battle between good and evil going on for millennia. Always fought with mortal champions. Usually people of no outward import at all. Shame about what happens to most of them, though."

"And what's that?"

"Some of them died, but then, people were always dying violently until quite recently. But the majority who've been touched by this conflict seemed to go mad. Auditory hallucinations—hearing voices. Taunting them with what they should have done."

Akira gripped the edge of the table. Auditory hallucinations exactly like he had. "Even if there were some truth to all this mumbo-jumbo, didn't you call it a cosmic war? Fighting in something like that is bound to mess you up."

"True. And it's not like I can speak to one of these participants. Not that a modern young man like you has any reason to be interested in my work. Although…" He finished out a business card from his pocket and handed it to Akira. Howard Philips King, Harvard University. "If you hear anything, please let me know."

Akira did his best to walk normally back to his table. "Sorry about that, but you won't believe what that American is doing here." He recounted their conversation. Sae's face remained impassive, but when he reached the part about hearing voices, her fingers tightened on her wine glass. "He wants an interview with you, by the way."

"I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint him. At least his story should be easy to verify. So, each of these battles against cosmic forces are what? Moves in some kind of shoji game?" She wiped her forehead. "Things just keep getting bigger and bigger. I'm starting to miss the days when a coup d'état was all I had to worry about. I don't suppose Igor ever bothered to verify any of this information?"

"We didn't really talk much, and I'm taking anything Yaldabaoth told me with a large grain of salt." He looked down. "You don't think it's true, about the dying and the crazy?"

"I don't think so, no. I don't know who the Wild Cards were, but Yu Narukami, Mitsuru Kirijo, and Akihiko Sanada are all very alive and successful. I understand Yu is married now. He and his wife are spending the summer in Inaba. He's on the interview list." Her voice softened. "How have you been the last few years? You were put through quite the ordeal. Some of that was my fault. Anything other than that general sense that your best years are behind you."

I worry that I didn't do enough, and there's a voice in my head telling me just that. Sometimes I want to change every heart in Japan so I can make things the way I want them. You make me feel okay again, but I don't know what to do about that. And any psychiatrist I tell this to will lock me up. "It's been rough, but I'm surviving. You?"

"It's been rough, but I'm surviving." She looked suddenly tired and far older. It occurred to him that King had said "those touched by the war" and not "Persona user" and that maybe he wasn't the only one at the table who was shellshocked. "We need to do something fun."

"Excuse me?"

"Apparently, I've been spending a lot of time brooding lately. And since this is supposed to be a vacation in addition to saving an innocent man, we should do something to take our minds off things."

"I don't think I'm quite ready to hit the bar yet."

"Me neither. But there's gotta be something we can do…" He'd spent every other day his junior year in the gym working off steam. Good practice for time in the Palace, but it had mostly been a healthy outlet for his desire to punch something. "This thing have punching bags? They have everything else."

Sae looked at him, confused. "No? I think I saw a ping-pong table in the lounge car but..."

"Perfect!" She didn't move. "What? Table tennis is an Olympic sport. Better than nothing."

"You want me to play ping-pong."

"Table tennis!" He managed as much of Joker's voice as he could and gave her a half-smile. "Unless you're afraid of losing, Ms. Niijima?"

For the briefest of moments, Akira was scared he had gone too far as Sae continued to stare at him. But then she laughed at him. Low and deep. A sound like water on parched ground. "You're going to pay for this. Loser buys dinner when we reach Port Island. And, as you may remember, I hate losing."

She did. He'd never known someone to work up a sweat playing table tennis, but Sae's skin shone bright and her eyes were gleaming and she kept him moving back-and-forth. Twenty minutes later, the score was still tied.

"I know where I got my reflexes, but what's your excuse?" Ball over the net to the far left corner. Sae caught it just in time. Damn, he'd thought he'd had her with that one.

"Took judo classes until work ate up all my free time." She rebounded to him. "More playing, less talking."

The score was 10-10. Both of them were breathing hard, and Akira's arms were sore in a way that shouldn't have been possible for table tennis. Sae's serve. Bounce, heading toward the left corner. He dived—and just missed. The ball bounced on his side of the table. Sae smirked, and Akira tried his hardest to glare at her. "You've got to win by two points. The rules!"

She laughed yet again, and Akira thought he would have happily lost by ten thousand points if only he could hear that sound again and wondered that he had ever thought her cold. When she got her second point a few serves later, he couldn't muster even mock indignation.

Later, they stumbled back to the sleeping car, laughing and faces flushed. He was pleasantly sore, all thoughts of Personas and cosmic evil a distant memory. Sae was still smiling. "Thank you. I haven't played that hard since…well, I don't think I ever have."

"You'll have to tell me what kind of drink you like." Her dark eyes were still glittering, and some of the lines had vanished from her face. If this were a movie, this would be the part where I kiss her good night.

"I will never say no to sake." She took his hand. "I need to review the file before tomorrow, but thank you." Their fingers twined together, and she squeezed. "For everything. Then and now." And then she was gone.

He slumped down on the edge of the sofa and pulled his laptop from his bag.

The Phantom wondered if it might have been kinder to let him die in prison. A good thief had an appreciation for his limits. "Your Highness, no one has ever been able to steal from the Imperial Palace of the Kitai." And many had tried. The Kitai had been enemies of the Koreni for as long as anyone could remember.

But the empress' terrible, beautiful expression never wavered. "Then you will be the first. Those documents must be removed if there is to be any hope of peace." Her gaze flickered almost imperceptibly. "If there's to be any hope for our marriage."

The Phantom tried not to flinch himself. Everyone knew that the empress must marry, and that a chance to bring this long war to an end was worth almost any risk. It wasn't as if he had any claim to her. But he hoped the Lord of the Kitai would appreciate that mind that was as sharp and cold as an ice blade. "I was already dead. I can think of worse things to die for than you."

"For all of us."

"No, Your Highness. I'm a thief. Were not very patriotic." He approached and knelt before her. "I'm doing this for you."

Her voice was soft. "Then you must do us—me-the honor of using our given name. I am Katsuki." The most beautiful and skilled of all. Perfection.

Akira woke to a warm ball of cat on his chest. "Morgana?" he murmured, surprised and sleepy. "What are you doing here?"

"I got tired of waiting for you to break me out." Morgana stretched on his chest and looked around. "This is way nicer than cargo."

"Do you want something? It's"—he looked at the clock—"six in the morning."

"Just the usual. A chin scratch, tuna, to know if my best friend in the whole wide world is still hearing voices."

"You worry too much."

"I'll take that as a yes." Morgana's tail swished. "This is seriously bad news."

"You said that yesterday. And if that American professor is even halfway right, it could be even worse than that." He sat up and told Morgana as much about Professor King as he dared. "But even if he is right, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do about it. It's not like Lavenza handed me a parting gift of How to Manage Your Sanity Now That You Are a Normal Human Being Again."

"I think you need to follow this investigation. Sae wants to know about past Persona users. You're about to meet some." The cat gave Akira his most threatening glare. "It wouldn't kill you to get out more."

"I think this qualifies as out."

"I mean with your friends. A girlfriend. Did you forget how your Personas got so powerful?" Morgana put a paw on his chest. "Social. Interaction."

"Akira?" Sae's voice came through the door. "Are you up? I was just about to call for breakfast. Do you want anything?"

"Social. Interaction."

You would not say that if you knew how I felt about her. But maybe Morgana had a point. Or maybe it was just selfish. "Some miso soup, thanks. Give me a minute and I'll join you."

He threw on his clothes and walked into the parlor. He had never seen Sae anything less than perfectly made up, but the woman on the sofa was rumpled with errant strands of hair. She'd just gotten out of bed. He tried to shut that line of thought down, but it didn't quite work. Sae in bed. Looking just like that. Maybe he really was going crazy. Then again, finding everything she did attractive sounded a lot better than demons.

Morgana looked between them once, twice. "I don't believe it," he whispered. "You've got a crush on Sae Niijima! Why didn't you tell me? Oh, Ryuji is going to love this."

Akira glared at him. "I can always put you back in that carrying case, you know."

"Do I want to know what he's saying?"

"Not particularly." He picked Morgana up by the scruff of the neck. "One second." Man and cat marched back to the bedroom where Akira deposited him on the floor.

Morgana hissed and swiped at him. "What was that for? Because I said you had a crush on Sae?" His eyes widened. "You do. You've got a serious thing for her. A 'be grouchy with the cat' type thing."

"Which you are not going to ever tease me about ever again."

"You were not this way about Hifumi." His voice was suddenly all sympathy. "She turned you down?"

"There hasn't been anything to turn down." He ran his fingers through his hair. "The answer would be no anyway."

"That does not sound like the cocky, risk-taking Akira I know. I miss devil-may-care Joker."

"He found out he couldn't live his whole life as a thief." It was one thing to risk his own livelihood if being a writer didn't pan out. It was another to tell Sae that she should risk her career when she had finally found a way of doing what she loved. "Joker is career poison. I don't want to hurt her."

"Oh man, you really do have it bad." Morgana rubbed against his legs. "It's not like it's completely hopeless."

"You don't think?"

"I'm still in love with Lady Ann. Now that's hopeless. You just need to find a way for everybody to get what they need. And not go crazy. That would be good too. Now go in there, be a good thief and steal some time with her. And save me some soup."

Akira smiled. Morgana was the most annoying cat in the universe—and the best. "Thanks," he said and scratched Morgana behind the ears. He couldn't live his whole life as a thief, but he could take this much.

The train sped on towards Port Island and whatever hope any of them had for answers.