Chapter Five
“Do not, under any circumstances, use this,” Hyebin said, holding out a pistol.
I stuffed my hands deeper into my jacket pockets and made no move to accept it.
Costuming had outfitted me and Hyebin in a slick black material that looked like leather but was designed to match the exact hue of night shadows.
The descendants had poured a lot of money into finding the color scientifically proven to be the least noticeable under Seoul’s streetlights.
It was reflective in photographs, blurring anything around it.
“I’m not firearm trained,” I said.
“That’s why it’s not loaded,” Hyebin said, pulling back the slide and showing me what I assumed an unloaded gun was supposed to look like—not that I would know. “But pretend it is, and don’t point it at anyone or I’ll kill you.”
“Why do I need an unloaded gun?” I said, crossing my arms.
“Protocol,” Hyebin said. “We log five people out on a neutralization mission, we check out five pistols. It’s not optional, Yang.”
Hesitantly, I took the gun from Hyebin. My palms were already too sweaty and I nearly dropped it, which made Hyebin grit her teeth and let out a pained sound.
The costumer had already clipped a holster into the front of my pants, which I’d naively hoped was decorative.
I looked to Hyebin hopefully, but she only rolled her eyes. “I’m not stuffing a gun in your pants.”
I tucked it in gingerly until it slotted into place, and Hyebin nodded in approval.
“Why do we need these?” I asked.
“Because,” Hyebin said, waving for me to follow her down the hallway. “You only get one chance to neutralize someone. If they get away, they know they can’t trust us anymore and they go rogue. We never see them again.”
“So you shoot them?” I said. The descendants hated coming face-to-face with bloodshed, so this seemed like a bizarre choice.
“Rarely,” Hyebin said. “But we keep our options open. The stakes are too high to not have a backup plan for your backup plan.”
I supposed that made sense. Rogues were almost impossible to capture because they weren’t afraid to play with time.
The descendants, on the other hand, were as conservative with their adjustments as possible.
That was why potential rogues didn’t simply get kicked out onto the street after a thorough mind scrub—anyone smart enough to actually succeed in betraying the descendants was too dangerous to set free.
Including Hana.
Hyebin pressed the elevator button and held the door open with one hand, waving me in.
“These missions can be a bit … intense,” Hyebin said, looking pointedly away from me. That was rare for Hyebin, who had no fear of prolonged eye contact. Half our conversations felt like a staring contest because she glared unblinkingly at me until I looked away in submission.
“In what way?” I said, shifting from side to side, the holster scraping against my stomach.
Hyebin stared at her own reflection in the mirrored walls, lips pressed tight together.
“We have close to a hundred percent success rate because we always have the element of surprise. We make the decision and execute it in the same hour, before the timeline refreshes, so the traitor never has the chance to know.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, sure there was more she wasn’t saying—none of that was surprising enough to make Jang Hyebin look nervous.
“We have to go before they’ve actually committed any crime,” Hyebin said, quieter. “That way they won’t be expecting us.”
There it is, I thought, the metal elevator walls suddenly cold against my spine. “So they won’t know why they’re being taken?” I said.
Hyebin said nothing, because Jang Hyebin didn’t answer stupid questions.
“Why not just convince them to change their plans instead?” I asked.
“That’s not possible,” Hyebin said. She finally turned to face me, but her eyes were strangely dim. “Once a traitor, always a traitor.”
Is that what everyone said about Hana? I thought.
That she didn’t deserve a second chance?
I looked away from Hyebin, this time not because I was wilting under her gaze, but because I couldn’t bear to look her in the eye knowing that she’d erased innocent people.
Once a traitor, always a traitor. What a joke.
The descendants were capable of wiping out entire species, saving continents, changing the moon cycles, and ending wars.
Of course they could change a single person’s loyalty if they cared enough to try.
Hyebin’s gaze snapped forward at the sound of footsteps.
“Sajangnim!” she said, bowing.
Sajangnim? I thought, bowing and shuffling behind Hyebin to make room before I could get a good look at who was approaching. Sajangnim meant “boss,” and there was only one person I’d heard Hyebin refer to with that title.
The shadow announced his arrival first, a cold bath of night eclipsing the doorway and then the whole elevator.
I held my breath as he entered—I’d heard legends that looking directly at a dragon could kill a human.
Each one of their scales told the story of a single human life, and all of that combined suffering would cause your heart to burst. Surely the boss of this branch was the closest to a real dragon I would ever get.
A young man in a black suit entered the elevator, ducking under the doorway.
All dragon descendants were tall because of our serpentine ancestors, but he was the tallest I’d ever seen.
He looked about Hyebin’s age—too young to be anyone’s boss—and had hair that glimmered silver under the elevator light like a polished pearl.
He caught my gaze as I rose from my bow, his eyes flashing gold.
Hong Gildong.
It was a fake name, of course—the Korean equivalent of John Doe—because the descendants most closely related to dragons had names that couldn’t be spoken in any human language.
“Sajangnim, this is my shadow, Yang Mina,” Hyebin said, gesturing to me.
I bowed again for good measure, even as his smooth, silvery voice said: “I know who you are.”
How? I couldn’t help thinking, but knew better than to say out loud. I didn’t like the idea of a powerful descendant like him knowing anything about me. He could squish me like a grape if he was having a bad day.
“All neutralizations require his explicit approval,” Hyebin explained.
That means that he approved Hana’s neutralization, I realized, going very still. Hong Gildong glanced over his shoulder at me suddenly, as if he could sense my racing pulse. I was standing in an elevator with someone who had known my sister and destroyed her.
Hong Gildong’s piercing gaze was the only thing forcing me to stay still, to take steadying breaths, to try to calm my racing heartbeat.
The elevator felt impossibly warm, my vision sparkling gold at the edges from the sudden surge of adrenaline.
I glared at my reflection in the mirrored wall, unsure how I still looked like a normal high school girl when inside I felt like a burning city.
Hong Gildong turned back to the elevator doors, and I let out a breath. He nodded at two high-level agents who ran to catch up. I’d seen both of them in the scrying room before but couldn’t remember their names. They bowed and slid into place on either side of Hong Gildong.
“It’s time,” Hong Gildong said.
Wordlessly, Hyebin pulled her arm back, and the elevator doors slid closed. She grabbed my hand and reached for the hand of the agent in front of her. They all held hands, except for Hong Gildong—the agent nearest him laid a gentle hand on his forearm.
Hyebin had told me that taking someone’s arm instead of their hand when sharing time magic was a sign of respect, and that I should never offer someone my arm unless my hands had literally been chopped off (and even then I should apologize profusely).
But of course someone like Hong Gildong commanded that kind of respect.
I couldn’t really imagine him holding hands with a subordinate.
Hong Gildong pulled out his yeouiju, and the elevator began to glow.
Light speared through my body.
I had only ever felt Hyebin’s time magic before, so I’d never realized that anyone else’s would feel different. But while Hyebin’s magic felt like stepping into a sauna, Hong Gildong’s felt like being flayed by the sun.
Centuries rushed through me in a single breath—I tasted glimpses of the dawn of Korea, golden palaces, dragons circling the moon in fluid arcs, starlight on my tongue, fire at my fingertips.
Then I was crushed into the dirt of a world at war, blood and silt breathing me in.
I was the skeleton of a city climbing with glass hands into the sky, black ribbons of road unfurling across dirt, nauseous voyages to sea, wordless secrets and broken bones and bright, blazing gold beneath it all.
The magic flashed in front of me like a passing train and then disappeared, leaving me breathless and squeezing the life out of Hyebin’s hand.
I barely registered the sound of the elevator doors opening.
Hyebin nudged me, and my legs moved automatically to follow the other descendants, but I couldn’t even feel my feet.
I stumbled after them into a mall, squinting under the fluorescent light.
I could hardly remember what year we were in, what year we’d come from, what we were doing here, as if I’d lived a thousand lifetimes in the single breath that Hong Gildong’s magic had run through me.
The other descendants moved in silence toward the exit.
They glinted between customers like minnows, smoothly evading humans so no one would be forced to move to avoid us, which would impact the timeline.
I focused all my energy on blending in with the other descendants, minding each footstep as if dancing an intricate ballet, just as Hyebin had taught me.
I couldn’t imagine the shame if I tripped into a human in front of Hong Gildong, who would surely never promote me if I couldn’t do something as simple as walk.