Seokga takes a shallow breath as he recedes deep, deep into himself—far enough that when the tiger shifts into Dr. Jang Heejin, he feels nothing. Cold. He has made himself cold, just as he did before his coup, during the days after his fall.

Seokga can see that her eyes, now without sunglasses, are stained with the same red as the tiger’s. But her vision seems to be perfectly fine as the old woman takes in the scene, mouth tightening.

“I should have realized what a liability you’d be,” Jang says, narrowing her eyes at Kisa, whose fear skitters down the red thread. “Was it the lotion I dropped? Or the journal you stole?” Her voice is so different from the one he has come to know. This nasally, pinched voice must be her true one. No longer does it remind him of Mago.

“Both,” spits Kisa venomously.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” is the sweet reply. “Everything that needed to happen already has.” Jang turns her eyes on Seokga. The woman has the audacity to fucking smile at him. “This wasn’t the way I wanted you to find out, dear. It must be an awful shock.” Her voice has changed again, becoming sweeter, more like his mother’s.

Seokga has suffered so many betrayals in his lifetime.

From his father to Hani, his story is a fractured mess of broken promises and lonely sufferings. This should not hurt as much as it does.

But oh, how it aches.

The hours spent in Jang’s office, confiding in her thoughts—emotions—he had never had the courage to share with anybody else. The time he broke down in front of her as he spoke of Hani’s death. The way Dr. Jang had pushed the box of tissues toward him. Session after session, growing to trust the voice that at times reminded him so strongly of his mother, Mago…All of it fake. Seokga feels the cold rain on his face and the unsteady ship beneath his feet, Hwanin sniffling in his arms, but he is not truly here. He is somewhere far away, alone in the ether.

“In about fifteen minutes,” Jang says when he fails to respond, “the ship will reach Bound God’s Pass. I’d like you to come with me, Seokga. Your father has wanted to see you for a long time. He misses you and what could have been.”

An ineo cackles and snaps her teeth toward Kisa’s ankles. She cries out, and that horrible sound is the only reason Seokga is able to pull himself up from the distant reverie he sank into.