“Go, Somi,” Kisa urges, hair whipping in another dark wind. “I’m safe with him.” She knows it, deep within her bones. Deep within her soul. There is trust between them, perhaps an inexplicable sort, yet it is why he is the one she told about her deepest dream of Okhwang’s library, why it is him that she can fall asleep next to, why it is him that she will swim—nude, for the gods’ sakes—with in a spa.

No, Seokga will never hurt her.

The other woman looks distrustful, but reluctantly follows Hajun off the sundeck anyway, after one final concerned look over her shoulder. Kisa turns her gaze back up to Seokga. Her head barely grazes his chin. “You’re losing control.”

Illusions flicker in and out of sight, a miasma of bewildering visions. Low-hanging storms churn into formation, angrier than the one he conjured for her in the bedroom. Leaves fall from the sky, oranges and reds turning to dark ash as they hit the ground. A pair of wine-brown eyes—Kisa’s eyes—flicker within the storm clouds before vanishing a moment later, replaced by a red, nine-tailed fox that bounds through the leaves toward a new illusion…a stretching shadow monster that opens its maw and devours the fox whole.

A burst of rain-tinged wind lashes through the air as the storm illusion returns, sending Kisa stumbling back from Seokga. Between them, the clouds darken and thicken until she cannot see him anymore through the lashing wind, falling leaves, and the red fox—which has returned to scamper around the deck, laughing almost maniacally.

“SEOKGA!” Kisa screams over the thunder, not afraid for herself, but for her god. The red thread is shaking in panic. She can barely see the deck anymore: The floor has turned to the tops of city buildings, pinpricks of light in a dark sky. It’s as if she’s standing above a nighttime New Sinsi as she surges forward, diving through the storm, hands stretched out for Seokga…

But she never reaches him. Instead, she plummets into another illusion.

He’s sitting at a desk in a grimy precinct, hunched over a pile of paperwork. Kisa stands some length away, separate from the scene, yet feeling somehow…part of it. Seokga’s dark hair falls into his eyes as he concentrates, only looking up when polished-pink, oval nails curl around the edge of his cubicle divider.

“Good morning,” a woman greets cheerfully, waggling her fingers at him. She’s beautiful, Kisa thinks with an ache. Blown-out brown hair, slender curves, and angular wine-brown eyes that precisely match Kisa’s own. Hani, she realizes with a cold start. That’s—me.

“You,” Seokga snaps icily. “What do you want?”

Hani preens, batting her eyelashes. “Haven’t you heard? I’m your brand-new assistant.”