It all happens so fast. Kisa doesn’t even have time to open her mouth, to scream a plea to her goddess.

For in an instant, her body is sliding off the roof and she is for a perfect, brilliant moment, weightless and hovering over Seoul. But then gravity grabs her by the ankle and tugs her down, yanking her past rows and rows of gleaming glass windows all stacked upon one another, laughing as it hauls her toward the ground in a perfect swan dive.

Kisa closes her eyes.

It’s over soon enough.

—but she manages, through a force of sheer will, to stave off the inbound panic attack. She’s already made a complete fool out of herself in the elevator, and thinks she may die (again) of humiliation if she sinks to the ground and enters another comatose-like state of panic in front of her friends.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Kisa whispers to a stricken Hajun. “I’m sorry I let you think for so long that I jumped. It was—it was wrong of me, I shouldn’t have—” She breaks off as he lurches forward and envelops her in a hug, a warm embrace. Hajun’s trembling as he holds her tight. Face buried in his shoulder, Kisa clutches him close and holds back a torrent of tears as he kisses the side of her head.

“That’s—that’s why you don’t like it when people touch your back, or stand behind you,” he whispers. “Isn’t it?”

Kisa cringes in his arms. “Y-yes.”

“Why?” Hajun chokes out as he finally steps away, eyes pained. “Why did they…?”

“I don’t know,” she rasps honestly.

Hajun wobbles slightly on his feet, and Somi darts forward to help him. When the gumiho meets her eye, Kisa sees that Somi is also on the verge of tears. Something passes between the two women then, as Kisa remembers her ruined claws. Some sad solidarity between two dead women who met their ends through violence and unspeakable pain. Kisa feels a bond knot between them, an invisible force connecting them—almost like the Red Thread of Fate, but one of sisterhood.

Somi’s face crumples and Kisa knows that she feels it, too. Somi’s hand reaches out and takes one of hers, squeezing tight. “I’m so sorry,” the gumiho whispers, and Kisa knows she’s apologizing for much more than what happened in this lifetime.

Kisa wants to whisper back that Somi can tell her story, too, that Kisa will comfort her with as much fierce empathy as Somi’s showing her. But now, with Somi swaying unsteadily from drink, just isn’t the time.

One person has not yet spoken. The trickster god is deceivingly silent as he stands with his back against the night, but his green eyes glow like a predator’s in the darkness.

“Seokga?” Kisa asks quietly, letting go of Somi’s hand.