Another head appeared in the window, bringing with it the faint smell of dog to YeoWoo’s nose, which had become very slightly hairier to assist her in her classification.

  “That’s rude!” it said. “You can’t go around telling people they smell!”

  “You also smell,” YeoWoo said shortly. “Of dog. Why should I let you call me by Japanese names?”

  “Oh, sorry,” said the girl. “Calm down, Daniel. I’m the one who started it. Are you here to see Lord Sero?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come on in, then,” the girl said welcomingly. “Don’t mind all the people—we’re here as a bulk lot because we all wanted to be in on the wedding photos.”

  YeoWoo, who had been planning on coming in regardless, didn’t acknowledge the words by more than a short nod as she stepped up to the door. It was open for her when she reached it, and that seemed like a breach of security she hadn’t expected someone of Lord Sero’s ilk to be guilty of. Because she was curious about that, YeoWoo again allowed her nose to grow slightly longer and hairier in the split second between front landing and front hall, as she stepped over the sill.

  The myriad, perilous scents of varied and familiar—as well as unfamiliar—behindkind immediately informed her exactly why the door had been left open; it had been left open for her or anyone else who dared to breach it. Whatever came into this house couldn’t be as dangerous as what was already there—in number or sheer deadliness. The little dead girl had not lied about a bulk lot; YeoWoo smelt werewolf, zombie, the sharp ozone-tinged coolness of a revenant, the absolutely unmistakable spicy scent of vampire, and the usually cobwebby silken scent of fae. There were further scents, but YeoWoo had no words for them, and above it all—or perhaps through it all, or around it all—there was a difference to the feeling of Between itself about the house that shifted it slightly forward, or perhaps backward from the Between YeoWoo commonly interacted with. Here, Between felt like a person instead of a place between two realities where things from either could choose to be what they wished to be instead of conforming to one static form. The mid-century interior of the building looked as though it was very solidly exactly what it was, but YeoWoo was well aware of the various things shifting at the edges of her vision that gave the lie to the appearance of solidarity.

  YeoWoo snapped back fully into her human form, somewhat more shaken than she would have liked to admit, and turned a carefully blank face on the small, trollish maid who had appeared with a fresh rush of breeze that seemed to have contained itself to her person instead of proceeding down or up the hall as it ought to have done.

  “Lord Sero is in the back of the house,” said that little maid. There was a sprinkling of dandruff on her shoulders that sparked a memory in YeoWoo, confirming her first impression that the little female was a troll. “You can follow me.”

  She waited politely until YeoWoo gave a faint nod of agreement, then turned her back and led the way through the house toward the back along a hall that grew progressively longer until it became at least twice the length of the house that YeoWoo had seen from the outside.

  At least someone in this house had the need for a sense of self-preservation, YeoWoo thought, somewhat sourly. She didn’t appreciate the fact that the breeze seemed to keep pace with the little troll, and even seemed to reach back from time to time to tickle the lower hem and sleeves of her jeogori, as if testing her.

  It wasn’t, thought YeoWoo, who wasn’t easily shaken, as if she was unnerved. But if she hadn’t been exactly what she was, she certainly would have been. As it was, the experience left her very slightly on-edge and ready to fight.

  Her ears popped as they neared the end of the hallway, and YeoWoo wondered exactly how high they had ascended over the course of the walk. When she passed through a thin skin of Between that spread over the doorway the maid opened to her, she was able to see exactly how high: in the room into which she now walked, a full half was taken up by windows, through which she could see the city spread below and beyond in most directions.

  If YeoWoo wasn’t mistaken, this room was somewhere in another building—a much loftier and well-placed residence than the older building she had entered at street level—and in another part of Seoul. The room was large, with a massive couch and several bookcases taking up one end with a desk at the other—over which was spread several blueprints. Leaning on the edge of that desk and outlined against the large windows that went almost to the ceiling, was the likewise large, leather-clad fae she had come to recognise as Lord Sero.

  His hair was as white as her own, though it seemed to have a more blue-ish undertone than hers, and it was cut short. YeoWoo saw the fae’s blue eyes flick over her own hair as if acknowledging the similarity—or perhaps wondering how natural it was.

  YeoWoo’s hair was as naturally white as she understood Lord Sero’s to be—a change that had come with her loss of humanity—and she returned look for look.

  “I’m YeoWoo,” she said, bowing shortly.

  “I know who you are.”

  “I know who you are, too,” YeoWoo remarked. “I’ve always been taught that it’s polite to introduce myself regardless.”

  She thought she heard the little troll maid giggle slightly as she shut the door and expected to see signs of anger in Lord Sero’s face. She saw none.

  Instead, he said, “Lord Sero. I won’t say I’m at your service, but—”

  YeoWoo snorted very softly through her nose. “I wouldn’t expect that of the fae,” she said.

  “I imagine not,” Lord Sero said, after a very slight pause. “I would guess that you’ve had only bad experiences with fae so far.”

  “There aren’t many good experiences to be had with any sort of behindkind,” YeoWoo said. “But specific to fae, no; I haven’t had many good experiences. I’m only coming to you because I think you may know something I need to know.”

  “Why should I help you with anything?”

  “Why shouldn’t you?” countered YeoWoo, even though she was certain she knew the answer. She wanted that particular awkwardness right out in the open where it could be dealt with.

  “I don’t like the company you keep,” he said deliberately.

  “I’m not very fond of it either,” said YeoWoo bluntly. “But it’s necessary for now. I’m not here to talk about him, and I’m not here to advocate for him—I think the Steward should have been gotten rid of years ago.”

  “That,” Lord Sero said, with some grimness, “was not my decision to make.”

  “I didn’t think so,” said YeoWoo, who had seen the savagery with which he had gone after HimChan that night—the fury of having to leave Athelas in control and at large. “If knowing it will help you feel better, you might like to hear that he nearly died last night.”

  Lord Sero stared at her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Our housekeeper didn’t like the way he handled the investigation,” YeoWoo explained. “She made sure that he knew she didn’t like it. If you’re worried about him being kept in check—”

  “Are you offering to keep Athelas in check in exchange for information from me?”

  “No,” she said. “You can either give me information or not.”

  She lifted her chin a little bit and stared back at him. It was a bluff, of course: YeoWoo would have done and said rather a lot to get the information she wished to have. But she had a feeling that Lord Sero appreciated people being straight with him; and since she much preferred to be honest, herself, she simply looked at him and waited.

  Lord Sero’s eyes seemed to grow very slightly bluer, and YeoWoo felt that she had amused him—or that he had seen something he recognised in her. She didn’t much like the amusement, but since his next words were, “What do you want to know?” YeoWoo didn’t complain.

  “The Steward said something last night,” she said.

  “Don’t listen to things he says.”

  “I wouldn’t do so in general,” YeoWoo said, neglecting to mention that her current policy of believing nothing Athelas said was exactly because she had, to a certain extent, both trusted and listened to him until a couple of nights ago. “But what he said matches a conclusion that makes more sense the more I think about it.”

  “Even if it does, it’s probably not in the way you think it does.”

  “It doesn’t matter if it does,” YeoWoo said bluntly. “Because whatever he means by it, it’s still something I need to know.”

  Lord Sero’s eyes dwelt on her thoughtfully for some few moments before he spoke again, and YeoWoo allowed him to have his silence without trying to convince him of anything.

  At last, he asked, “What do you want to know?”

  “The body was moved,” she said. “The one found outside the wedding hall.”

  “Someone put it there from elsewhere?”

  YeoWoo chose to be devastatingly honest about that as well. “Yes and no,” she said. “The body was there in the beginning, in one of the rooms. I moved it to a different location because I thought it would be inconvenient if it was found there. Despite that, someone called me the next morning to let me know that it had been found at the villa anyway. Someone took the body from where I hid it and planted it in the carpark.”

  He sent another measured look in her direction. “Telling me that you moved the body yourself is something of a risk,” he said.

  “Yes,” YeoWoo said. “Now you understand why I haven’t asked Inspector Gu about this directly. Until now, I assumed that HimChan had done it, but…”

  “You think that someone wanted to implicate you in particular?”

  “Not at first,” she admitted. “But it seemed likely when…a few other things came out in the evidence.”

  “I’d like to know what those other things are,” Lord Sero said.

  “I’d like things to stay as uncomplicated as they currently are,” YeoWoo retorted. It was a calculated risk to tell Lord Sero that she had moved the body. It would be madness to tell him that a sliver of her clothing had been found clutched in the body’s fingers as well—a sliver of clothing that had been sent to the bride, SuYeol, by possibly the same person who had moved the body. “I’ve told you as much as I’m comfortable telling anyone. I’m simply looking for some direction when it comes to whether or not HimChan moved the body. I’d much rather think it was him, but…”

  “You’re worried because if it wasn’t HimChan, you don’t know who might have something against you?”

  “Lots of people have something against me,” YeoWoo said. “But if it really wasn’t HimChan, I’ve got a good idea of who might have done it. So I’d like to know whether or not he really did move the body.”

  “HimChan didn’t move the body,” said Lord Sero. “When I had him at bay, he told me that if I was coming after him, I’d better make sure I came after everyone who had a hand in the business. He said I should ask questions about who had moved the body around after he was done with it. I assumed he was trying to shift the blame or get some goodwill based on his usefulness.”

  “He said that outright?”

  “Outright and clearly.”

  “Did you put it in your report?”

  Rather deliberately, he said, “I did not.”

  YeoWoo looked at him suspiciously. “You’re an enforcer,” she said.

  “I didn’t think it worth putting in when I knew it would be redacted later,” he said.

  This was something closer to what she needed! “Who would have redacted it?”

  “One of the low level office people who could be blamed if needed,” Lord Sero said. “That’s the way it’s usually done. But I was given the impression that it would have been at the request of Elder Peregrine.”

  Fleas take Athelas, and fleas take Peregrine! thought YeoWoo savagely. She was surrounded by liars who did things to obstruct her without having the decency to do them to her face.

  Lord Sero seemed to understand the fulminating anger on her face. “You think it was the elder himself who moved the body?”

  “Almost certainly,” YeoWoo said shortly. “I just don’t know why.”

  “Elder Peregrine seems to like having everything in its proper place,” said Lord Sero. “That’s my impression of him.”

  “That was my impression as well,” she said. “But even if he does, why try to implicate me in something I had nothing to do with?”

  “Perhaps the elder has an idea of where your proper place is,” he suggested.

  “If that place is prison, he’s going to have to work harder to get me there,” YeoWoo snapped. It wasn’t that she wasn’t technically deserving of prison, by behindkind or human standards, but if she was going to be sent to prison, she’d much rather it be for something she’d actually done.

  “Perhaps he had reason to think that you actually had something to do with the murder,” added Lord Sero. “You might not have been as careful about moving the body as you thought you were.”

  YeoWoo considered that. “That’s something a gumiho like Peregrine would do,” she admitted. He was exactly the sort to see someone moving a body and move it somewhere more inconvenient in order to implicate them in the murder. It would probably seem righteous to him.

  If he had done so with that mindset, however, how had he justified stealing from evidence an easily identifiable piece of her sleeve, and then sending it to HimChan’s bride? For he must have done so if he was the one who had moved the body the second time. That was going beyond righting someone else’s wrong: it was deliberately implicating her when he had no solid evidence that she was the one who had actually killed the boy. Moreover, YeoWoo was quite certain that no one had seen her move the body.

  Peregrine had refused to help her find the gumiho she was seeking when she was under the threat of being arrested for the death of a human. YeoWoo had thought it a formality to assuage his idea of justice—had he actually considered her a suspect? That was something else she would very much like to ask Peregrine when she got the chance.

  Even if she had to storm his domain to do so.

  Occupied with these thoughts, YeoWoo bowed somewhat at random to Lord Sero and said, “I’ll leave you alone now,” or something of the sort as she turned to go.

  She had reached the door when Lord Sero said, from behind her, “I’d find someone else to work with, if I were you.”

  “You’re not me,” YeoWoo said bluntly, turning back to face him. “You’ve got the entire might of the enforcers and your house behind you. I’ve got myself and nothing else—I use what I need to use.”

  “Using Athelas is like digging your own grave with the shovel that’s going to hit you on the head,” said Lord Sero.

  “If I can use it to hit the other person on the head as well, I don’t really care,” said YeoWoo. It had been so long since she had had any kind of forward motion in her search that for a little while, it had been possible to pretend that she had matured enough to seek her revenge in a slow, cold methodical sort of way over the decades. This sudden influx of hope had dashed that impression into thousands of dazzling pieces that each urged her in the deeply buried and still molten core of anger, that tomorrow was too late—she had to start now, now, now.

  And as much as she had told SuYeol that revenge wasn’t worth it, revenge was all YeoWoo had left. Her humanity was gone, most of her line were dead, and she had no place with either her new people or her old. Both sides feared her for different but understandable reasons, and neither side thought of her as a safe representative of the other—or of their own.

  In the place of humanity, she would have blood, and in the place of family, she would have revenge.

  SUNLIGHT IN THE GARDEN

  Athelas was alive. He hadn’t quite expected to be when he woke up that morning, and for some minutes upon waking all he could think about was the fact that he seemed to have been unceremoniously dumped on his bed—upon which his shoes were still, to his distress, resting—and left to either live or die.

  That, of course, was entirely deserved and unsurprising; the astonishment was that he was alive to think about the matter at all. Therefore, Athelas allowed himself to think about it for a few minutes longer while he addressed the lethargy in his limbs with his peculiarly unsuited gift of healing; then he forced himself to sit upright in order to rectify the fact that his shoes were on the bed. This precipitated an unwelcome and irresistible urge to empty the contents of his stomach and sent him stumbling into the bathroom to alleviate the urge.

  When he had finished, the faint but lingering scent of mint that had been in Athelas’ mouth was gone, and he was regretting that fact. He washed out his mouth and wiped his face on the small towel hanging by the basin, with a grimace, then returned to the bedroom with rather steadier legs to divest himself of his waistcoat and roll up his sleeves.

  He had enough energy remaining after that exercise to straighten the bedding that his prone body had disturbed, and to brush at the place where his shoes had rested. That done, Athelas fortified himself with a deep breath to forestall any more unpleasantness of the gastric kind, and gently strolled downstairs toward the sunroom.

  He found the mint on the windowsill as he had remembered; and, pinching off two of the leaves to sit on his tongue for a moment or two, he tried to quell his rebelling stomach. When he had gained that mastery, he chewed the furry leaves slowly, feeling with some curiosity the relief that spread through his body as the freshness of the mint trickled down his throat.

  He stood where he was, allowing the process to have its way while he gazed around the room rather at random. It was while he was in the commission of this important task that Athelas realised the blue patch of colour that he had been unknowingly avoiding in the centre of the room was the familiar old blue teapot. It sat on a tea-tray that had been placed on the small table at which he had sat last night; it had around it a tea-cosy of the same shade of blue as itself and still steamed faintly from the spout. Beside it was his favourite teacup, sitting innocently on its saucer.

  Athelas looked at them both with narrow eyes for quite some time, swaying very slightly, then sat down in the armchair nearest the table to stare at the tea-tray for a little while longer.