The Heir of Seven Fires
He’s spent twenty-one years being told he’s half. Too Black for one side of the family. Too Japanese for the block. In South Philly they call him Tokyo. At his....
He’s spent twenty-one years being told he’s half. Too Black for one side of the family. Too Japanese for the block. In South Philly they call him Tokyo. At his mother’s table in Osaka they call him hāfu. Kage Hollis just laughs and keeps riding. Then his grandmother sends him down to her basement, to a cedar trunk she’s guarded his whole life. Inside: a cracked sword guard ringed with seven cowrie shells, and a family tree four hundred years old with his own name at the bottom. One drop of blood, and the floor turns to fire. Kage wakes up in 16th-century Japan, staring into his own face. It belongs to Sefu, a West African warrior who built a legendary house for the people nobody else wanted. Kage is home for the first time in his life. But he’s already seen how this ends: a burning castle, a brother’s betrayal, and seven clans who stole his family’s fire and built empires on it. Their heirs still own Philadelphia. One of them is buying his grandmother’s block. And a masked hunter with no heartbeat is following Kage through time. The Gate has one rule: you can’t change what already happened. You can only choose what you carry home. Seven thieves. One heir. And he was never half of anything. Samurai swords, time travel, buried family secrets and South Philly soul.