Oh, no. Seokga well knows what follows from such a dramatic pose and curses his brother as a moment later a brilliant, bright white light engulfs the screen. Seokga winces, shying away and wondering why, exactly, Hwanin decided to protect himself against whatever was approaching with a harmless display of light. Panic, he seethes. Hwanin, the idiot, panicked. And in a knee-jerk reflex, he’d released his flashy divine light rather than reaching for one of his more useful powers.

What had made a godly emperor like Hwanin panic?

“H-holy shit,” breathes Hajun. The light slowly recedes, and there’s…nothing.

Nobody on the floor. No signs of a struggle. No heavily breathing murderer, splattered with blood.

Just…nothing.

The camera flashes white and black before going entirely black.

“As a former mass murderer, if you killed a rather tall man with divine powers,” Kisa says to Somi, “and you didn’t want to be seen lugging his body around a ship, how would you go about that? Hypothetically, of course,” she adds with a hasty glance at a seething Seokga. “It’s all hypothetical.”

The five of them are on the humid I-95 in the belly of the ship, having exhausted their eyes searching for any clues they might have missed on the monitors. Even after sifting through the other recordings, no new footage of Hwanin has surfaced. But he’d had to have been dragged through the ship, below the dozens of other security cameras. It doesn’t make sense.

Nothing about this makes sense.

Somi seems to be smothering a yawn. The gumiho is leaning wearily against Hajun’s side. He looks equally wary and shyly pleased. Somi looks as if she views him as a convenient doorpost upon which she can lounge. “I would chop him into little pieces and then put him in my pocket,” she replies.

“For fuck’s sake,” snarls Seokga, in no mood for games. “Answer the question.”

Kisa begins to pace. The harsh lighting makes her frown stand out on her small, heart-shaped face and highlights a subtle smattering of freckles across her scrunched nose.

“It’s getting late,” Hajun says with a frown, arm twitching as if he wants to wrap it around Somi protectively, but doesn’t quite have the courage yet. “We’re all tired.”

Chest tightening, Seokga slams his cane down on the ground. The resounding thud echoes throughout the hall. “We’re not done.” They won’t be until the murderer is found. Preferably by dawn.

“Hajun’s right,” Kisa quietly argues a moment later. “Hwanin needs to go to bed. And, I think, so do you. We won’t solve anything if we’re exhausted.”

Seokga spares a glance at his tiny brother. He’s nestled against Kisa, face pressed into the crook of her neck, asleep and whimpering softly. A flicker of guilt stabs through him. Oh, brother, he thinks, suddenly stooped with fatigue. It’s always one thing after another for us.