If Karina didn’t stop pacing, she was going to wear a hole into the floor of The Pigeon.

She was waiting. And logically she knew that navigating The Warehouse was going to be challenging, Winter and Yeji were going to have to be careful and cautious if they wanted to stay safe in there, but still, that knowledge did nothing to help the fact that Karina was waiting and she was tired of it.

She checked her phone again for the umpteenth time and glared at the barely moving clock on her lock screen. It had only been three minutes since she’d checked last. In that time she had walked her little path at least fifteen times and yet the white letters glowing up at her had the audacity to say that it had only been three minutes! It was rude. It was annoying. Karina checked her phone again.

“I’m sorry,” called a familiar voice, “But you really can’t...be...here.” Giselle, dressed in...something fancy, Karina was brooding too much to properly care or take it in, crossed her arms as she recognized her . “Karina! Are you serious!”

“Giselle! I...what are you doing here?” asked Karina lamely, forcing herself to stop her pacing for a moment.

“Oh no, you first.”

“Fine.” Karina tugged at her fingers nervously. “I’m here as...moral support for a friend who's here.” Christ, she was an atrocious liar. If Winter were here she’d have been able to come up with something. If Winter were here Karina wouldn’t have even been caught because they’d have been out of the Institute already.

Giselle looked unconvinced. “Really.”

Karina swallowed and forced herself to drop her hands. “Yes. Shin Ryujin? And Hwang Yeji too I guess, but since I was here I thought—”

Giselle arched an eyebrow. “You’d steal back your file?”

“No, actually I was going to remove my cot,” Karina lied, wondering where in God’s name her words were coming from. “For good, though Yeji should be here by now. I can’t exactly climb those stairs in this.”

“Right.”

Karina tried with a smile. “And why are you here?”

“I just needed a break, honestly,” sighed Giselle, sagging onto one of the desks. “They’re awful up there. You said Ryujin and Yeji are here? I wish I’d seen them.”

“Yes, but why are you here now?” Karina asked. “It’s a weekend. I’m fairly certain you’ve made your position on working past hours clear.”

“You can work late, Karina, just not all the time,” Giselle corrected pointedly. “You practically live here. And Dongwook makes the head of every department come to this stupid Ball. I don’t know why, but apparently, it’s a thing.”

“I doubt your predecessor ever went.”

Giselle snorted and unfolded her arms, letting them act as bracers against the desk as she leaned back. “True. You should see the way some of them look at me.”

“With fear and reverence?” asked Karina dryly.

Giselle rolled her eyes. “As befitting a glorified librarian. Did you need help with that cot?”

“I...yes,” stammered Karina, “but Yeji really should be getting here soon, so you don't have to—”

“It’s no trouble. Besides, it's an excuse to get out of these.” Giselle kicked her heels off, which made a satisfyingly heavy thump on the ground, and started to make her way to the nearest ladder to the catwalks with Karina in tow. “So how’d you reckon I get this thing down?”

“I’m not sure actually.”

“How’d you get it up here anyway?”

Karina shrugged sheepishly. “I just sort of pulled it up with one arm as I climbed?”

“So there’s not a ramp down these things then,” Giselle muttered, mostly to herself it seemed, as she placed a foot on the first rung.

“I don’t think BOA took wheelchair access into consideration when she made the catwalks.”

“That was rude of her .” Giselle put her hands in front of her on the ladder and paused a moment, considering. “I think I’m just going to push it down the hole.”

“What?” squawked Karina, but Giselle had already climbed the ladder with a speed Karina had been wholly unprepared for.

“It should be fine,” she urged, hoisting up the tail end of the cot and starting to push it towards the lip of the ladder. “It looks durable enough.”

“Giselle what?”

“It’ll be fine, Karina. Though I would back it up a bit.” Karina did so, though more on autopilot than as a conscious decision. There was a thunderous crash and then Giselle was next to her on the ground, beaming like a lighthouse. She clapped her on the shoulder. “See? Durable.”

Karina just sort of gaped at the cot lying face down and admittedly unharmed on the floor of The Pigeon. “I guess!” she sputtered out.

“So where are you putting this thing anyway?” Giselle asked conversationally like she had not just tossed it down a hole like a madwoman.

“I...just...Winter’s car I suppose.” Karina waved offhandedly at the door, eyes still on the cot. “It’s out back.”

“Winter’s here?”

Karina tore her eyes away to Giselle. “Yes, she came with us.”

“Hm.” Giselle furrowed her brow and appeared to be ruminating on something. “Fine,” she finally said. “If...I give you a file to give Winter can you promise to not be weird about it?”

“What do you mean?” asked Karina, definitely not being weird about it, completely properly masking her excitement like a normal person who was a normal amount of absolutely ecstatic at the prospect to do her job again.

“Never mind,” sighed Giselle, rolling her eyes. “Look, Winter’s been asking for this file for ages and I finally found it. I might as well give it to you now.” She handed it to her , and Karina could have sung.

“What file is it?” Karina asked conversationally, opening the file slowly, casually, like a completely normal and not weird person.

“#8312111. Normally I’d just give it to her Monday, but she’s been so bloody determined to find it I might as well hand it off to you.” She raised a brow at her . “Anyway, it’s for you, right?”

“What?”

“The report is from 1831, Karina, I’m not stupid. It’s related to the Go Jumong one, right?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “Thank you, Giselle. For this. And for your...help with the cot.”

“Yeah well, a month’s suspension might have been a little too much,” she said, waving away her thanks.

“No, it’s alright.” She looked down and spoke as quietly as she could manage. “Thank you.” It was more of an exhalation than proper words.

Giselle’s face lit up with amusement. “What?”

“Thank you, Giselle,” she said, loud enough to be heard. “You were...you were right. I may have been...slightly overworking myself.”

Giselle gawked at her . “Huh. I owe Ningning 10,000 KRW.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I should probably get back up to all that.” She looked up above them with a long-suffering sigh. “See you next week, Karina.”

“Right. Thank you again.” Giselle had already turned to go, but she flashed a peace sign at her as means of goodbye and Karina didn’t even roll her eyes. She just looked back down at the file she had clutched in her hands and began to read.

Karina had lost her (Ryujin’s) shoes a hallway ago but it had done nothing to temper the speed at which she was running towards The Warehouse. Grimoire. Of course the books were ing grimoires, ing cursed, because Karina would never be free of them. Lee Junki’s description of Go Jumong’s body was still locked in her brain, and the thoughts of Yeji or Winter like that, insides covered with thousands and thousands of blandly staring eyes, was fueling her to go faster than she had ever run before.

She had tripped, only once, on the long floor-length dress she had insisted on, and she had quickly bundled up the sides of it in tight fists and hitched up her skirt like a rambunctious character in an Austen novel. She probably looked ridiculous, but she didn’t care. She just needed them to be safe. Less than an hour ago she had been hoping that they would have already gotten the books, but now she was what, hoping they were lost? That wasn’t a very encouraging thought. Would that even be better? 

The door to The Warehouse looked like an airlock, but it was far less imposing, slightly ajar, and Karina slipped through it relatively painlessly. And that just left combing through The Warehouse until she found them, alive or eye-riddled or otherwise. 

Despite how it looked, there was actually an organizational system for The Warehouse, or at least that’s what Hyoyeon insisted. Supposedly, they were loosely grouped by what they did, Artifacts placed around like the worst Antique shop, some on display, some in ominous heavy black boxes. It was like a color wheel, Hyoyeon had said once to someone complaining about the disorganization. You can’t draw up hard borders, or you’ll lose some of the nuances of the colors. Spring green is called green, but it’s more yellow than anything else. But if you group all the greens, you’re cutting Spring green off from its yellow roots.

There was a general section for eyes and eye-related items, one for knowledge and knowing things, and based on the original report that was where their little group had decided the books ought to be. It was where Winter and Yeji had targeted their search, though whether or not they really were there Karina couldn’t say. Karina just started walking, and she hoped it was in the right direction. It wasn’t like there were any convenient signs in The Warehouse.

And so she ran. Past a closed cube of water with an inexplicably living goldfish swimming lazily inside, past a torch that’s beam was a void and so black it made Karina’s eyes hurt to look at it, past a black satin hat with part of what was unmistakably a human scalp still fixed to the bottom of it.

“Winter! Yeji!” She was running past a painting, expensive looking and bourque, that pulsated gently with a pale purple glow.

“Winter!” There was a short card table covered in dice of all makes and models, some chunky red plastic, some sleek gambling dice, some that looked burned at the edges though that might have been just the style the dice maker was going for. A bright yellow sticky note sat in the middle with the label “Bad dice; probably do something ed up if you roll them,” and Karina was sure as she passed them that Hyoyeon did not know it was there.

“Yeji!” A chair, old and clearly only valuable because of it, that Karina was sure someone sat in until she turned her head to look at it properly. 

And so she kept running, passed sewing kits and cups and toothbrushes and a too-large taxidermy goose wearing, for some reason, sunglasses, until—

“Winter!” There she was, Kim Winter, her partner, her friend, standing in the middle of an ornate handwoven rug. And, at least from a cursory glance, not covered in eyes. The eyes Winter did have, those lovely hazel things that crinkled at the corners ever so slightly when she smiled, were off though. Different. They were watery and blank. Karina rushed over to her . “Winter! Are you alright? Where’s Yeji?”

Winter barely seemed to register her words. When she spoke her voice was shattered and raw. “She...hates me…”

“What? Yeji? She doesn’t hate you, Winter.” Karina tried to take a step forward, raising a hand to what, comfort Winter? Or at least to try to do so, though it hardly mattered because as Karina extended a hand she met a strange resistance.

It probably shouldn’t have surprised Karina that it was not an ordinary rug.

It was ornate, yes, but more than that it was alive. Its border was eyes, numerous and ringing the border and moving, slowly moving around it, and intermittently winking smugly at Karina as it went. And that was all well and good, a touch odd maybe, but it didn’t hold a candle to the rug’s center. The center was fog, stylized and intricate, and it seemed to emanate from Winter, standing at its center, ghosting across the fabric in a gentle float. But that wasn’t what stopped Karina’s hand. 

No, that was the dust.

Dust, a proper cloud of it, surrounded Winter. It moved like the carpet’s fog pattern, all slow and gentle, but when Karina tried to reach Winter, tried to touch her , tried to comfort her , it rose like a vampire from a crypt and began to swirl around her , thick and firm and impenetrable. It stopped Karina’s hand where it was, and she was barely able to insert more than a fingertip into it before the dust pushed her back.

Winter didn’t seem to even notice. She was clearly crying now, tears cutting a streak down her dust-caked cheeks. “I’ve got no one…”

“Winter, don’t be absurd,” said Karina, glaring at the dust storm around her and trying again, this time managing up to the middle of her finger through sheer force of will. “This stupid rug’s cursed, remember? We’re in The Warehouse, everything here’s cursed. Yeji doesn’t hate you. And...and you’ve got me,” she added, letting her hand drop a moment and staring at the painfully unresponsive Winter. She looked down and cleared . “A—and Ryujin. And Dallie, and Ningning and Giselle. You’re not alone.”

“All I ever did was love her and she hates me.”

“Winter, what are you talking about?” 

The dust was swirling around Winter faster now, pushing Karina back faster than before. “I’m her daughter and she wouldn’t care if I died in here,” Winter croaked.

Oh. 

.  

“But I would, Winter,” said Karina. Dust be damned, if it was making Winter feel like that, Karina was going to get her out of here. She’d used a cursed vacuum to do so if that’s what it took. “I...you’re not allowed to die on me. We’ve survived worse than a ing rug!” Karina grit her teeth so hard they hurt and she plunged her hand into the dust maelstrom. It was an awful, laborious process; the dust was fast and firm and it felt like shoving her hand, then her arm into wet cement. But for a moment Karina’s hand grazed Winter’s arm. And the dust shoved her back quickly and with a vengeance so Karina almost toppled into a bloodstained fountain pen on an equally bloodstained pedestal.

But for a moment, there was clarity in Winter’s eyes. 

Winter’s voice trembled something awful. “U-unnie? Is that you?” 

“Winter!” Karina scrambled over to her and the dust cloud surrounding her . “Yes!”

Winter frowned and glanced around. “Unnie? Can you hear me?”

Karina’s continued reaching for her was rebuffed by the dust again and again, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was Winter,  body and face covered in dust and grime, expression scared and searching. “Yes, Winter I can hear you!” 

Winter raised a hand towards her , eyes still glassy and blank, face still fearful. “Unnie?”

A question. And there was nothing that could have stopped Karina from answering, not cursed dust or cursed rugs or the weight of the whole cursed universe. Karina’s hand went into the storm and in and in and in until she was in the storm itself. Her eyes stung but she didn’t let them close. 

“Winter!” Karina shouted through the wind, and dust streamed into her open mouth but she didn’t care, she just reached some more until she felt it. Felt her. Felt Winter’s hand in her, and when she did, when she felt that familiar warmth, albeit a little filmy from the filth, the world seemed to stop.

The dust froze in its hurricane spin and became once again what it had always been: dust. Just dust, and it fell back into the rug around them like the grimiest snow. And that was it. They had done it, Winter was here and whole and in her arms, Karina pulled her into a tight embrace. They stayed like that a while, Karina’s face smashing into Winter’s collarbone, arms wrapped around her middle, Winter’s head pressed into Karina’s hair clutching her back.

Finally, Karina pulled away more reluctantly than she had ever done anything in her life to examine Winter’s face. It was dirty and cold and tear-stained, but it was the most beautiful thing Karina had ever seen in her life. “Christ, Winter are you alright?” Karina cupped Winter’s soiled cheek in her own grimey hand and rubbed away a tear track with her thumb. “I thought I lost you to this thing. What happened?”

Winter leaned into the touch and closed her eyes. “The rug, it...I didn’t notice but I stumbled onto it and…” She opened them and her lips quivered. “It showed me things.”

“What sort of things?” Karina asked softly. She kicked herself, and added hastily, “I mean, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to I understand but—”

“No, it’s...alright. I guess I always knew it deep down, but it’s different when you’re seeing it.”

Karina’s voice was quiet, gentle, or as gentle as she could make it. “Seeing what?”

“My mother she—” Winter let out a mirthless laugh that turned into a sob.

“Winter…”

“It doesn’t matter. Not, right now. We’ve got to find Yeji.” Winter turned away and started walking.

Karina stumbled forward, still sort of dazed, and followed her . “R—right. Where did you last see her?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted as they passed an empty and broken picture frame. “We got separated and