Trigger Warning: This chapter includes mentions of character death and suicidal ideation.

Present Day, Barcelona

I didn’t go back to the apartment. 

After reading every article I could find several times over, I wandered through the city until I reached a winding path up Montjuïc, following it to a spot with magnificent views of the city. My legs were burning by the time I reached the top of the mountain, the sun low enough in the sky to feel like a furnace against my back as I walked to the edge of the plaza and looked out over the port. 

Sitting down on a bench, I stared at the boats crossing the water, watching their slow motion movements and trying very hard not to think. I felt strangely numb, as if I was separated from my body and looking out through my eyes from a distance, an observer far away who wasn’t really there. I felt like I was in a movie, separated by glass and time and stored in digital fragments to be replayed somewhere else at a later date. This feeling had been building up inside of me all day, ever since my dream, but now it had fully taken hold.

I looked down at the blank screen of my phone, trying to figure out why no one had contacted me. If Yun Seo really was dead, then why was no one reaching out to tell me what had happened? Was I so far removed from their lives that it hadn’t occurred to them to tell me? Or were they trying to protect me and hoping that news hadn’t spread this far? Did they think I wouldn’t care? That I had moved on so completely that it wouldn’t matter to me if he died?

Just this morning I’d learned I wasn’t as over him as I’d thought, and now he was gone. He was dead. No matter how many times I thought the words, they refused to feel real. He’d driven his car off a cliff and into the ocean. He hadn’t lost control. He’d intentionally aimed for the guard rail and hadn’t touched the brakes. There was no sign of his body, but they’d identified his car in the water and a CCTV near the curve had captured the crash. I’d watched that video over and over, straining to see his face through the pixelated static, but all I could make out was a blur as the car tore through the railing and flew off into the air before disappearing altogether. 

The only reason I had gotten an alert at all was because I’d been keeping an eye on Yun Seo’s trial. As expected, the case had been going poorly for him and he was almost certain to end up in prison, putting an end to his revenge plans once and for all. I’d told myself to stop paying attention and had almost deleted the alert several times, but I couldn’t quite let go of my need to see the story through to the end, expecting all along that Yun Seo would do what he did best and turn the tables on his enemies at the last moment, claiming a decisive victory no one saw coming. 

I hesitated a long time before finally texting In Ho, but the poisonous lump in my gut had turned into a cancerous mass threatening to metastasize and I didn’t know how to slow it except by feeding it more information.

After starting and deleting a dozen different texts, I finally sent a simple question. Is it true?

In Ho didn’t respond right away, but the dots on the screen indicated he was writing so I expected a long reply. I was startled when all he sent back was two words: He’s gone.

I don’t believe that.

After another long pause, In Ho finally replied. I don’t know what to tell you. He took the easy way out.

I lowered the phone and looked out at the water again, noticing that the waves were glowing orange and red now as the sun sank toward the horizon. The concert must have started by now. The Hunt usually timed their concerts with the setting of the sun, a detail I’d always assumed was somehow important for their magic. I wondered if they’d missed me. Pehtra surely had. But she hadn’t called or sent a text. Perhaps she was being cautious, giving me space because of the way I’d left. I couldn’t blame her. 

Closing my eyes, I imagined I could hear their music wafting up from the valley below, carried by a breeze that made me shiver, long shadows swallowing me where I sat at the edge of the cliff. 

A cliff overlooking the water. 

I wouldn’t reach the ocean if I stepped over that edge, not like Yun Seo had, and I would have to scale a fence to manage it, but I would probably die if I jumped. I imagined what that would feel like, the air whipping through my hair as I fell, tearing it out of the tiny ponytail I used to hold it out of my face now that it had grown long and shaggy. I imagined hitting the ground, my bones breaking on impact. Perhaps my skull would shatter as well, ending my life and my pain in an instant. 

I thought of my father hanging from an extension cable in his own office. I hadn’t seen him there, but I’d imagined what he might have looked like many times. It was the kind of thought that haunted me late at night when I couldn’t sleep. Now I would have another image to haunt my dreams. A car flying off a cliff and into the sea. Had Yun Seo been awake when he hit the surface? Had he had a chance to regret his decision before water filled the car and then his lungs?

A thought suddenly occurred to me. Cars had doors, and Yun Seo could travel through doorways. Was it possible to use any doorway for his magic? Could a car door work as easily as one in a house? Was this all an elaborate ruse? A way to escape his punishment and wipe the slate clean?

I started searching for articles again, looking this time for more specific details about the crash, but it was too soon. They hadn’t retrieved his car yet, so it was impossible to know if any of the doors or windows had been open. I knew the pressure wouldn’t allow him to open them under the water, so he would have had to open it in midair. Had there been enough time?

Sighing, I put my phone down, knowing I was being foolish by searching for a way to explain away his death. Still, I couldn’t let it go.

I opened up my text string with Na Rae and tried to figure out how to ask my question. But how could I ask a question like that over text? And what if I was wrong? Would I hurt her more by asking?

I touched the button to call her before I’d fully considered the consequences, but once the call dialed through, I knew I couldn’t hang up without making things even worse. Lifting the speaker to my ear, I reminded myself to breathe as I watched the sunlight glitter over the water and waited for the phone to stop ringing.

“Sang Kyu oppa?” Na Rae said in my ear, her voice tight. I couldn’t tell anything from the way she sounded. She was too guarded. 

“I saw the news,” I said, my voice coming out rough enough that I had to clear my throat to finish the statement, repeating the first several words. 

She released a breath that quivered in the air. “I’d like to say I didn’t see this coming,” she said slowly, every word deliberate and clipped, “but I did. I didn’t think he would actually go through with it, but I guess I was wrong.” Her voice broke at the end and she took another breath, the sound muffled as if she had covered the microphone with her hand. Perhaps to hide a sob?

“You thought he might do something like this?”

“I thought it was a possibility.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe it. He’s not the type.”

“How can you tell?” her voice sounded thin now, insubstantial in my ear like a thread about to snap.

Gritting my teeth, I realized I had no idea. Other than the fact I had first-hand experience with the type. “Are you sure…” I asked finally, clinging to the small hope that had made me call her in the first place, but I hesitated before continuing. “Are you sure he’s really dead?”

“Oppa,” she said sharply, anger in her voice now. “He drove his car off a cliff. How could he possibly have survived?”

“Cars have doors,” I said, wincing as I said the words and recognized how crazy they sounded. “If he used his ability –”

“Stop,” she interrupted. 

But I couldn’t stop now that I’d started, watching myself from a distance without any control over my actions just like in the dream I’d had that morning. “Shouldn’t they have found his body inside the car? How could it have gotten out unless a door was open? And why would a door be open unless he used it to escape?”

“Sang Kyu.” She sounded angrier than I’d ever heard her before, her voice shaking with emotion. “He’s not coming back.”

A sob escaped my lips, catching me off guard. “I’m sorry,” I whispered finally, my lips trembling as I said the words.

“You don’t want to believe it,” she replied just as softly. “I understand. You haven’t been here. You haven’t seen how much he’s changed. How desperate he was at the end.” She paused and I wondered if she was crying, but I couldn’t tell for sure. Na Rae was too good at hiding vulnerability. Just like her brother. “The worst part is that it’s better than what could have happened. He’d been threatening to do far worse. I thought he might try to take the whole Gihoe Society with him before it was over.”

I thought about that, imagining him showing up at a society event and burning everything to the ground, just like his mother had done to his childhood home. “You’re right,” I admitted. “That sounds like him.”

“When I talked him out of it, I didn’t know I was talking him into this.” She paused again for a long time. 

“I should come back,” I heard myself saying into the silence. “For the funeral, at least.”

She didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Unless you don’t want me there.”

“Of course I want you here. I just hadn’t thought that far. We’ll have to have a funeral. That’s what happens next.” She sighed.

Wiping my tears away, I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you like this. You’re still in shock.”

“No, I’m glad you called, oppa. It’s good to hear your voice. I’ve missed you.”

Thinking about her mischievous smile and the way she could make me laugh without trying, I said, “I’ve missed you, too.”

There was a muffled murmur and she must have been covering the microphone again. Was someone else there? I hoped there was. She shouldn’t be alone right now. “I have to go.” she said. “There’s a lot to do.”

“I understand. Take care of yourself.” Swallowing all the emotion that kept creeping up my throat, I said, “I’ll see you soon,” and hung up the phone.

I felt like I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, so I concentrated on just breathing for a while, trying to remember how it was supposed to work. Was there something wrong with my body? I felt broken, the shattered pieces shifting around inside of me with every breath as if I really had stepped off the cliff and fallen to my death. 

I stayed on the bench until the sun’s glow faded completely, the city’s lights shimmering to life all around while the sky began to darken and sparkle with the few stars bright enough to compete. I hadn’t moved in hours and I wondered how late it was now, if the concert was still going on or if it was over and Edric was packing up alone. He’d be complaining about my absence even while claiming how he’d never needed my help in the first place. I wondered how disappointed he’d be when he found out I was leaving.

Hugging my arms to myself, I began to shiver even though the heat of the day had not entirely dissipated, the concrete still warm beneath my feet. It was probably nerves. I’d felt like this after my father’s death as well, incomprehensibly cold as if my body had forgotten how to retain warmth.

Footsteps crunched over the mosaic sidewalk behind me, but I didn’t turn to look. Whoever it was had nothing to do with me. Then I saw her walking around the bench and leaning closer, peering at my face with a frown. 

“Srček.” Pehtra’s voice was so soft, so gentle that it made me want to crumble. “What happened?”

Emotion welled up inside of me again like a flood. I wanted to ask how she’d found me, but then I remembered that she was magic. She could probably find me anywhere in the world without even trying. But that only reminded me of Yun Seo. He’d said the same thing. That he’d always know how to find me. But he’d never bothered to look.

I met her eyes, blinking tears out of my vision. “He’s dead,” I breathed, knowing she wouldn’t know who I was talking about or why it mattered that this person was no longer alive. This person I had thought I no longer cared about. Remembering the way I’d left in the alley earlier, how I’d walked out after talking about my father, I realized she would probably assume I was talking about him. That was fine. Because somehow my grief for my father was getting all tangled up with this new loss as if they were one and the same, a grief that kept growing and getting bigger and bigger until there was nothing left of me but loss.

She sat down beside me on the bench, sitting gingerly on the edge as if afraid she might scare me away if she got too close. I expected her to share some platitude, a scrap of wisdom that she thought would make me feel better, but she said nothing, simply sitting beside me in the darkness and staring up at the stars. 

The tears were rolling down my cheeks again as the well of sadness inside of me overflowed. I didn’t know how to make them stop. Just as I started to lean forward, looking down over the cliff's edge, she placed a palm on my knee as if to prevent me from tipping over. 

“Death is a constant companion when you’ve lived as long as I have,” she said, her usually cool fingers feeling strangely warm against my frozen skin. “Familiarity does not mean I welcome it. Death never gets easier to accept no matter how many people you lose, but a long life makes you look at it differently.” She turned to face me, her dark eyes reflecting the lights of the city, her dusky skin burnished to bronze. “I talked to you earlier today about change. My kind changes very slowly, but we can still see that death, more than anything else, is not an end. It is change, a transition.”

“A transition to what?” I asked, the words thick and heavy, sticking in my mouth as if they didn’t want to come out.

“No one knows. Not even me. But I believe it to be true.”

I startled myself with a laugh. It made my chest hurt as if I’d broken something else while making the sound. “You believe it to be true. Can something created from belief believe in something else?”

She smiled but didn’t respond, her fingers tracing absent patterns over my thigh. 

“And if you do believe in something, then what does that belief create?”

“Who knows?”

Closing my eyes, I shook my head. “I’m so tired.”

“Then rest. I won’t let you fall.”