When Jinki awoke, the sight that drifted to his eyes was not that of intricately woven tapestries of the young prince’s bedroom decoration. Instead, the Dream Walker raised a hand in natural reflex to block the glare of the sun from his sensitive eyes. Blinking away his disorientation, Jinki sat up from the spot he had been lying on, looking around.

  The courtyard? Did my spell fail? Hands fisted a handful of grass beneath his palms, feeling each individual smooth blade. His ears registered the quiet calls of morning crickets, eyes falling shut as he bathed in the warmth of the sun.

“It seems that this curse is stronger than I thought,” the Dream Walker mused to himself, rising to his feet as he dusted off the dirt that clung to his clothes. Of all the dreams that Jinki had the opportunity to ‘dive’ into, none of them had been so realistic and constructed in such detail. Whoever it was, the caster of this spell had definitely piqued his interest.

Depending on nothing but his vague memory of when he had entered the Palace a few hours ago, Jinki wandered freely around now that there were no intimidating guards posted in almost every inch of the palace grounds, watching his every move like a hunter waiting to tear into its prey.

Walking around with no destination in mind, Jinki eventually found himself deep in the palace garden. The aroma of freshly bloomed roses was overwhelming to his nose, sighing as he felt a dull ache of yearning for the comforting woody scent of the forest he called home. He was about to return from the way he came if not for the flash of gold he caught from the corner of his eyes.

It was the Prince. Even if it was a brief glance of the royal, even if the boy who sat under the apple tree with a book open on his lap looked no older than fifteen years, his cheeks rounder and blond hair more lustrous than he remembered, Jinki was certain that this was the person he had set out to find.

“Who are you, and why are you trespassing my garden?”

While the Dream Walker was deep in the recesses of his own mind as he scrutinized each and every detail and feature of the ethereal-like image of the Prince, the young boy had sensed the burning gaze on him, staring quizzically in return.

“I am Onew. I am a Witch.”

  Jinki had no idea what compelled him to introduce himself with such frankness. Perhaps it was the innocent curiosity and the lack of wariness in those shimmering sa