Nearly inseparable after their shared discovery and near death experience, Amber and Seungho moved as one.  She couldn’t walk without assistance and he didn’t want to let her out of his sight so, for a time, he carried her everywhere.  Amber was in his arms when they made their way to the villagers to finally see the extent of the damage her father had caused.  Several houses were partially or completely destroyed and it was quite clear they the villagers themselves were frightened.  Jonghyun was still broken but when they got closer, Amber could see the pieces of the scythe were already starting to come back together again.  Thankfully.

                For a moment, she was almost jealous of his rapid healing ability, but then the feeling was gone.  He was a scythe after all; transformed from a human to an inanimate object for three years time.  She did not envy any of them this…  And though they had found the casting hall, she was still just as unsure about how to get out now as she was in the beginning.  But she did not let that show on her face.  Rather, she marveled at the houses as they evidenced the same magic of self-repair, slowly returning to normal.  And she focused on helping to clean Seungho up now that they were out in the open where she could find water and more cloth to help bind his wounds.

                Seated on a slightly warped chair outside one of the houses, she explained to the villagers what had happened and what they had discovered while she tended to Seungho.  The Lees helped her again by cutting several sheets into strips so she could fix Seungho like she had fixed herself when she’d first arrived.  Auntie Park relayed questions from the villagers on the ground and Amber answered as best she could while evading giving them anything direct about how to get home.  She didn’t know and telling them that would only dishearten them more.

                As she kept trying to avoid that bit of information, she looked at Seungho speculatively and understood he might well have been feeling similarly when he was withholding information from her in turn.  She brushed the backs of her fingers against his cheek in silent apology, unsure if he would understand.  He sighed in the back of his throat and closed his eyes, comforted by the contact all the same.

                When Jonghyun was finally better, Amber both apologized and thanked him in equal measure.  Without his and Youngwoon’s help, things might have ended differently.  He seemed a bit skittish about having been destroyed but he was able to stay near her and Seungho - who also nodded in gratitude - well enough.

                Amber encouraged the villagers not to go inside the castle for now, since it wasn’t safe and neither she nor Seungho knew what might set her father off again.  They agreed reluctantly and, when their immediate questions ran out, dispersed for the most part.  Amber wasn’t entirely surprised when her usual supporters stayed behind to keep them company.  Auntie Park rested near Youngwoon who was beside Hyoyeon and Hyukjae, and even Donghae and Jonghyun opted to stay.  The latter pair appeared to take on a defensive pose, slightly angled towards the castle as if waiting for something to happen.

                Warmed by the gesture, Amber finally turned her attention to Seungho’s poor, left hand.  When she tried to get a better look at it, he kept attempting to pull it away from her.  “Stop that,” she chided, grabbing on determinedly in a motion that caused him more hurt for a moment.  He growled with a slight baring of fangs at her, making Amber jump, but she snapped, “Seungho!”  Immediately, his ears laid flat against his head and he looked away.  “Just let me see,” she murmured with a gentle touch as she managed to pull his hand into her lap.

                Her father’s claws had punctured the back of the hand deeply, one of which had gone clean through.  Bones gleamed sickly through the divots in the other spaces and Amber’s stomach turned, but she didn’t look away.  Very carefully, she wet a new piece of cloth and started wiping around the worst of the injury.  “That was very brave of you,” she smiled, looking at his profile with a grateful smile.

                Seungho opened his mouth as if he wanted to speak and then sighed before writing on the ground instead.  You danger.

                “I was, but you put yourself in danger too.  You could have died,” she reminded him, very carefully dabbing around the wounds.

                He was still for a moment, thinking about how to answer, but then he nodded, wiped the ground clean and wrote anew.  Worth it to save you.

                A lump quickly found its way to Amber’s throat as she leaned over to read the words.  She frowned slightly, her brows knitting together while she pursed her lips.  “No,” she shook her head as she gently clasped his hand in hers, forming a protective cage around the wounds.  “Not to me,” she added, trying to swallow the lump.  When he looked at her with a searching expression, Amber her lips and went on.  “I already told you, Seungho.  I’m not letting you go again.  I won’t let you let me go again,” she stated firmly, defiantly.

                Almost as if she conjured the memory up intentionally, her final moments with Seungho the last time washed over Amber and she played them out in the blink of an eye in her mind.  Her hand holding onto Seungho’s.  Her desperate plea for him.  The look he gave her in response and the way his lips moved on the other side of the portal.  Slightly shaken by the vision, Amber blinked quickly and took a quick breath as she focused on him.

                With a shake of her head, she cleared and then tried to speak.  Her voice didn’t want to work at first, stopping and starting with uncertainty, to her embarrassment.  But she took a calming breath and tried again.  “You… um.  Back then, you said something to me.  Before we were separated,” she whispered, playing the memory over in her mind again.  “What were you saying?” she finally asked directly, waiting with bated breath for his answer.

                Seungho held very still as he looked back at her, searching her face with golden eyes that blinked slowly.  A shiver crossed over him once and he glanced down with a hint of sadness in his gaze.  You didnt know?

                Amber pursed her lips and shook her head, feeling unsettled as her stomach twisted itself into knots.  “I’m sorry.  Everything was happening so fast,” she tried to explain, searching her memory to make sense of the words.  They were familiar but could they be what she thought they might be?

                His ears flicked to catch her words but Seungho didn’t look up.  He focused on writing another response.  Wanted you to know.  The fact he was trying to spell everything out meticulously told Amber it was something important.  In case something hapened to me.

                The lump returned and Amber bit her bottom lip this time.  Even then, he knew he might get hurt in the casting.  And yet he’d chosen to stay.  “What did you want me to know, Seungho?” Amber asked in a breathless voice, trembling slightly when he finally chose to look up at her.  His left hand in hers was warm and grounding, else she might have floated away under the intensity of his gaze.  And when he answered her question, he did not look away.  Amber did, but only long enough to see what he was writing.

                Three words appeared on the ground in messy but understandable script: I love you.

                Amber pursed her lips together again and stared at Seungho with a storm of butterflies in her belly.  “But we were barely more than children,” she shook her head, a little scared of that information.  If he felt that then, what did he feel now?

                His focus shifted to wipe away the previous words, but he left the ‘I love you’ alone.  Around it, he scratched, You were all I knew.

                Still holding his left hand with hers, Amber raised the back of her right hand to and ducked her head.  She knew he came from a family of boys; she knew he was never as comfortable as Changsun the few times they went into town – the noble born boy had always stolen the attention anyway; and she knew he was always more comfortable around her.  Was it so hard to believe he might have come to feel so much for her during their time together?  “And now?” she whispered, raising her eyes up to meet his again.

                Seungho’s jaw clenched as he swallowed and reached down to draw a line under I love you.

                The confirmation set the butterfly swarm in motion again, making Amber feel even more unsettled.  Neither let go of their hands and neither tried to say anything else.  He simply let her think while she turned her feelings over in her mind.  She knew she’d always loved them both as friends.  There was no denying that.  She left the damp cloth in her lap and grabbed her necklaces in her right hand.  And for a time, she had loved Changsun as more than a friend – or at least the way he made her feel.  But there had never been any chance to think about what would have happened if things had been different.

                She’d been looking so long and so hard for her father because he was family.  And she had thought she was looking for Seungho for the same reason, but… might there have been more to it than that?  Unsure, she looked down at the wire strawman and hid it away again as she tried to think.  It was so hard to tell; to separate her emotions beyond the desperate need to find them.  The uncertainty of her own thoughts and feelings then made her want to cry and she might have, but a gentle squeeze of her left hand grounded her again, bringing her back to the present.

                Amber took a trembling breath and wiped at the corner of her right eye before she her lips and focused on Seungho again.  She didn’t know for sure what she’d felt for him when they were searching, but she knew what she felt now.  Mostly.  “I care for you, Seungho,” she promised, brushing her palm against his cheek tenderly.  “Very much.”  She swallowed and blinked quickly, having a hard time trying to explain it to him.  “I just don’t know the love you’re talking about right now,” she admitted, dropping her eyes for a moment.

                “Changsun and I…” she trailed off, unable to meet his gaze as the memories came back to her: the time they’d spent together; the nights in his arms; how the way he made her feel was different from the way Seungho made her feel now.  “I thought it might have been love, but I was wrong,” she sniffed, the fear that Changsun had been right creeping into her thoughts insidiously.  What if no other man would love her?  “I don’t know how,” she admitted in a thick, broken voice.

                Dirt scraped slightly and new scratching sounds appeared before Amber felt warm fingers against her cheek.  She looked up with teary eyes and saw Seungho looking at her with the same expression as before.  The corners of his mouth turned up and she saw the smile in his eyes as he tilted her head to look back down again.  A changed line was on the ground this time: I still love you.

                Amber laughed through her tears even as his fingers trailed down her neck to the gold ribbon and further still to press against the gift he’d given her years ago.  “Thank you,” she sniffed, leaning forward to hug Seungho’s head as she rested hers atop his with his hand trapped between them.  “For everything,” she added contentedly, turning her head to kiss the space between his ears.

                A gentle laugh rumbled through his body and he slipped free from her hold to place his hand on her waist and nod at her encouragingly.  With his right hand, he pointed at himself, gestured at the spot they were in, held up four fingers, and then pointed at her with another smile that was more fangs than anything else.  But Amber understood and she grinned back through half-blind eyes.  Copying him from earlier, she pointed at herself and then held up two fingers, more than glad they could be there for each other.  He squeezed her waist lightly and then moved as if to get up.

                Only then did Amber realize she hadn’t quite finished her task.  “Oh, wait!” she urged, holding on so he couldn’t slip away.  “At least let me finish wrapping your hand,” she laughed at herself, wiping away the last of her tears hurriedly.  She turned to find a new cloth strip and paused when she realized they still had an audience.  One that had probably been privy to their whole conversation.  For a moment, embarrassment threatened to overwhelm her until Auntie Park whacked her good calf with the pestle.

                “Ow,” she chirped, jumping in surprise while the other woman wrote on the ground.

                One step at a time.

                Amber laughed weakly again and nodded.  “Thank you,” she responded in a whisper, grabbing the strip of cloth so she could finish what she’d started.  None of what they just talked about would mean all that much if they couldn’t find a way to fix her father or get out of here.  She rather doubted those were the steps Auntie Park had in mind, but for the moment, it worked for Amber.

                Feeling slightly out of sorts from their talk, Amber nevertheless couldn’t help the blush that invaded her cheeks this time when Seungho carried her back inside so they could continue the search.  Sneaking quietly, they peeked into the outer hallway leading to her bedroom, and Amber had to stifle a laugh at seeing all the broken furniture stacked out in front of the doorway.  Seungho had created a blockade of sorts that would take her father at least some time to get through.  And if nothing else, there was no way they wouldn’t hear him.  Unless they were in the casting hall, but that was a worry for another day.

                Satisfied for the moment, they returned to the casting hall.  Admittedly, Amber was mesmerized by her mother for a little while, and Seungho let her sit and share the one-sided company for a bit as he began to poke around.  When she was ready to join in the search, Amber attempted to get to her feet on her own, determined to hop around on one leg if she needed to.  Unfortunately, she wasn’t half as steady as she wanted to be – the pain in her busted knee when it flopped around was terrible – and Seungho quickly came to assist her without being asked.  With some embarrassment, Amber was obliged to accept it though she was not used to needing that kind of help with anything…

                In the confines of the casting hall, they could speak freely without worrying about her father hearing them, so they talked often.  Rather, Amber talked a lot and Seungho gesticulated or grunted or made what communication efforts he could in lieu of having the ground to write on.  Frustratingly, there wasn’t much else that the last room could tell them; not without the assistance of a functioning Mage at any rate.  They generally knew what had happened and how it all came together, minus the part that Changsun had tampered with, but without magic at their command, undoing it safely would be problematic.  Seungho seemed more frustrated by this than Amber, and she was the one to insist that they take breaks when they worked too long or too hard.

                Though the ground was hard and uncomfortable, Amber felt most safe and secure next to Seungho against the glass that encased her mother.  It was like having the picture next to her bed but better.  And Seungho was soft and warm and happy enough to wrap his arms around her when she needed to rest.  She doubted he would admit it, but Amber thought the extended breaks did him well too.  His face softened in sleep where the pain of his injuries didn’t touch him.  And when she moved, for whatever reason, he shifted to accommodate her, even when unconscious.  It was very sweet and Amber wondered if she did anything like that in her sleep.

                They worked as a team: tirelessly, relentlessly, determinedly, to make some sense of things.  But even their combined hope could not make the miracle they needed happen.  The lack of results and the ever present fear in the back of their minds about Jongwoon kept them both slightly on edge whenever they took time enough to think about it.  In fact, the beast was the first thing that came to mind when Amber saw Seungho tense up with wide eyes and his ears flicking to and fro, like they had the first time her father had appeared.

                Then Amber felt the subtle, tell-tale sign of magic reacting and she immediately looked towards the doorway from the casting hall.  It was not framed by the mirror on this side but it did clearly show the trapdoor opening on the other, giving them a perfect view.  “Is it my father?” she whispered, watching Seungho carefully to see how he might further react.

                He looked at her with an uncertain expression, eyes narrowed under frowning brows, and gestured for her to stay there.  When she opened to argue, he made the same gesture again but with more force.  Frustrated, Amber subsided and watched him go instead.

                She couldn’t walk well but they had eventually bound her knee and found a piece of wood – part of a whittled down bedframe beam - to use as a walking stick so she could hobble along when needed.  Needless to say, Amber wasn’t completely immobile, but neither could she move quickly without Seungho’s help.  That did not stop her from making her way after him when he didn’t return soon enough for her liking.  No, she hadn’t learned to listen yet and she wasn’t going to start now when she would be trapped if something happened to Seungho anyway.

                As soon as she stepped through the mirror and adjusted to the feel of the magic seeping away, she jerked in surprise upon hearing another voice from down the stairs.  The sound was distorted by distance and reflecting off of stone but she thought it sounded somewhat familiar.  Amber stopped immediately and listened, feeling fear rise up when Seungho’s pained howl emerged soon after.  “Seungho!” she gasped, hobbling as fast as she could around the opening to tackle the stairs in a painfully slow process.

                She still couldn’t put any weight on her right foot which meant she had to sort of hop down each step.  It was a treacherous process at the best of times; when afraid for Seungho, it was nigh on impossible.  Gritting her teeth and hissing through them, Amber grimaced and then bit her tongue on a pained cry when she finally slipped.  The sole of her left shoe landed too far on one of the stairs and Amber fell backwards and to the side.  The angle of her landing cracked her elbow on a corner of one of the steps before she roll-slid down it the rest of the way.  When she hit the bottom after scraping her head against the open doorway, she couldn’t help the pained cry that escaped her.  Agony lanced through her knee and pain blossomed all over her body from the rest of the fall.

                Through the ringing of her ears and the roaring river of blood rushing through them, she was still able to hear the other voice yell something.  “Hey!  Get back here monster!” a man demanded, growing suddenly louder as if he’d stepped around something.

                Amber didn’t know for sure but a shadow fell over her and through teary eyes, she realized Seungho was there.  He tried to pick her up but with a panicked glance over his shoulder, he ducked low to cover her with his body as heat washed over them.  Seungho growled in pain while Amber screamed, holding onto him tightly.

                “Gotcha!” the stranger cried.  Seungho growled defiantly but Amber knew that voice!

                “Changsun!  Wait!” she choked, frantically flailing her arms from under Seungho to try and stall him.

                A surprised lull hit and then he responded, “Amber?”

                Internally, she breathed a massive sigh of relief but everything hurt and now that she was pretty sure he wasn’t about to burn them to a crisp, she felt it.  “Yes,” she groaned, curling around her busted knee as Seungho continued to hover over her defensively.

                “Don’t you hurt her,” Changsun warned the beast in a dangerous tone, taking a careful step closer.

                “It’s okay,” Amber panted, brushing Seungho’s arm with her fingers.  “Let him see.”

                Oh so reluctantly, Seungho shifted so that Changsun would be able to see her better.  “Amber!” he gasped, moving close enough to touch her carefully, though he kept a wary eye on the beast all the while.  “What happened?  Did that thing do this to you?!” he asked in concern, raising his hand with the warning glimmer of power growing above her.

                “Stop it!” Amber snapped, grabbing his blue robe and yanking hard, nearly dragging him down on top of her.  “That’s Seungho,” she groaned, clinging to the fabric as she hissed through her teeth.

                “What?!  Are you sure?”

                “Yes!”

                “Never mind,” he stated firmly, placing his hand on her shoulder as he surveyed the damage.  “You’re hurt,” he murmured and Amber felt power building again.

                “No,” she gasped, reaching up to stop his hand for the moment.  “No magic here.  Seungho, we need to go back up,” Amber grimaced, raising her head to look over at Seungho who was clearly agitated.  His golden fur was raised, fangs partially bared, and his tail continued to thrash behind him.

                “You need to be healed,” Changsun reminded her as if she hadn’t heard him.

                “Just listen to me!” Amber growled through her clenched teeth as she grabbed the front of his robe with her left hand and looked him in the eyes.  She could only pray that their ridiculous squabble hadn’t alerted her father already.

                He blinked in surprise, taken aback by the reaction, but finally nodded with a distrustful glance at Seungho in turn.  “Okay,” he agreed, reaching to pick Amber up in his arms.

                She ducked her head against her chest and tried to swallow the pain that attempted to spill from her lips.  “Show him,” she exhaled with a quick glance at Seungho.  He appeared torn for a moment but didn’t hesitate for long before he darted up the stairs and stopped at the top, waiting expectantly.

                Finally sensing their urgency, Changsun hurried after holding Amber close.  He couldn’t see his footing so it was harder than normal but he remained silent as he concentrated on keeping them both safe.  As soon as he reached the top, his head turned to eye Seungho and then his eyes grew wide upon seeing the mirror portal in the wall.  “Holy Mage power,” he whispered, swallowing in dumbstruck awe until Amber smacked his chest lightly.

                Seungho disappeared through the portal and Changsun nodded in understanding.  Taking a quick breath, he stepped up and ducked through, wincing preemptively as if expecting something else to happen.  But as soon as he was on the other side, he came up short with another dumbfounded look, his mouth hanging open.

                Amber saw his eyes trained on the glass dome, but then she noticed a burnt and still smoking Seungho nearby and her pain receded in light of his.  “Changsun,” she called firmly, snatching the Mage’s attention as best she could.

                “Huh?” he blinked, coming around much slower than she would have preferred.

                “We’re safe enough in here.  For now,” she added, looking over his shoulder nervously to see if her father was coming.  She hadn’t heard him but that didn’t mean he wasn’t trying something now that they were out of earshot.

                “What is this?” Changsun murmured softly as he moved to set Amber down with gentle care.

                “Magic,” Amber responded without hesitation, torn between being annoyed at his inability to focus and simply glad that he was here, even if he had tried to blow Seungho up.

                Her answer seemed to irritate him by the twitch of his eye, but Changsun held his tongue.  Instead, he moved his hands to Amber’s knee and shot an uncertain glance at Seungho.  “Are you sure it’s him?”

                “Of course I’m sure,” Amber grumbled, frustrated that he had to keep questioning her.  She looked over to Seungho herself and winced, hurting at the mere sight of him.  Changsun’s fire had burned off parts of his fur and his back was mostly red with black patches here and there.  The smell of burnt hair finally hit her and her stomach turned at the realization.  But she bit the inside of her cheek before she reached her hand towards him.  “Seungho,” Amber called softly, beckoning him closer with curled fingers.

                “Amber…” Changsun whispered a warning, still hesitant.

                “You hurt him,” she snapped back, turning her head to face him but leaving her hand suspended in the air.

                “He attacked me first,” Changsun grumbled under his breath.  Seungho growled at the answer with a wheezy breath.  “You did,” the Mage added petulantly.

                Amber groaned and closed her eyes when Seungho remained where he was, still bristling in pained offense.  “Enough,” she sighed, focusing her attention on Changsun.  “You said I needed healing so what can you do?”

                The direct question seemed to help focus him and Changsun smiled at her.  “This,” he nodded, moving his right hand over her knee as he whispered flowing words under his breath.

                They were familiar to Amber, but only as the vocalizations of the words she’d seen in books.  Her father did not often let her watch any castings, so the way the magic sounded as the words themselves turned to power made her gasp.  It felt very much as if a single thread brushed her knee before breaking into hundreds of tiny tendrils so that they could flow and swirl and wrap around her injury.  The recognizable sensation of magic humming vibrated against her skin and Amber inhaled as the pain bled away, dispersing into the air on warm winds of fading power.  She’d never been magically healed before; she hadn’t needed it.

                “Oh, Mage power,” she sighed, feeling a wave of tiredness hit her as she leaned against Changsun for support.  Amber felt immensely better, but she was strangely drained in the process.

                “It’s alright,” Changsun soothed, pulling his hand back so he could cup her cheek in his palm, making her look up to see him.

                “I know,” Amber blinked with some difficulty, her eyelids heavier than normal.  Changsun chuckled when she added, “Healing takes from both people.  I read that, you know,” she scoffed, brows furrowing as she focused on him for the briefest of moments.  Changsun’s smile was radiant as always and Amber was grateful for the familiar face, but she pulled away to reach for the beast nearby.  “Seungho,” she called once more, watching the ears flick back and forth while his golden eyes shifted to glance at her.  Changsun’s other hand pressed against her back and she turned to focus on the Mage.  “Help him too.”

                Changsun frowned slightly, the echo of uncertainty still lingering in his eyes.  But when Amber didn’t waver or look away, he sighed and nodded.  “Of course.”  Reluctantly standing up, he approached Seungho who turned to stare at him warily.  Uncertainty danced in the depths as well, but he didn’t try to move away.  “Easy,” Changsun soothed with his hands out as if he was calming a wild beast.

                “He’s not a wild animal,” Amber chastised him before clambering to her feet with a hiss as newly healed tendons stretched reluctantly.  She ignored them and moved to grab Seungho’s hand on the other side so that Changsun would have room to work.

                “You didn’t see him when I first got here,” Changsun couldn’t help but mutter, drawing Amber’s annoyed frown.

                “No,” she agreed with a slight nod, to which he quirked a satisfied smile.  “I saw him before, when he was more beast than man.”  Seungho’s fingers tightened around hers and the corners of twitched.

                Changsun shifted uneasily, clearly not sure how to respond to that.  “Anyway,” he forged on, finally taking a knee beside Seungho.  He raised his hands above the other man’s burnt body and started whispering under his breath again.  In a matter of moments, Amber watched the skin regrow before her eyes: red and black patches smoothed out into pink skin; darker color returned; and golden fur sprouted like wheat in a field.

                “Thank you,” Amber whispered when he was done, reaching her free hand over to grab Changsun’s wrist in appreciation while she held to Seungho’s hand with her other.

                “It was nothing,” Changsun shrugged with a knowing half-smirk.  At Amber’s skeptical raised brow, he waved his hand with a shake of his head.  “No, really.  It was much easier than usual,” he admitted, the honest flash of confusion enough to convince Amber he was telling the truth.

                “It’s probably the magic of this place.  Things heal quickly here,” she explained with a bemused shrug.

                She laughed when Changsun snorted at the possibility.  “I think you may need to help me understand what’s going on here,” he conceded.  “To clear things up as quickly as possible of course,” he added quickly.

                Amber did laugh then.  Leave it to him to try and save face in a situation like this.  “Of course,” she nodded along, feeling a real smile pulling at as she looked at him.  “It’s good to see you,” she admitted softly, looking down to check on the resting Seungho again, her face creasing in concentration.

                “It’s good to see you too, Amber,” he responded, laying his hand atop hers as they all caught their breath in the aftermath of Changsun’s arrival.

(a/n: Sorry for the delay!  The end of this update was giving me some trouble.  I'm not entirely satisfied with it but I do at least want to move on.  haha  And yes, Changsun has returned!  There is obviously some tension between the three so far but things are starting to work themselves out.  Well, you can see the hints of it anyway.  And we're also coming to the end of this story soon too.  If I'm right, we should be looking at 2 or 3 more chapters to wrap everything up.  I'm very rarely right about estimating story lengths so I don't know but we shall see!  If you have any thoughts or questions you'd care to share, I'd love to hear them.  Otherwise, thank you so very much to my readers and especially my subscribers.  You're all great and you have a knack for making my day!

I am curious though, does anyone have any thoughts on how this is going to end?  hehe)