The next morning, Jieun was the first one to wake up. It was rare for her to be the first one to be awake. Usually there was at least one other person awake when she got up. She noticed Taemin and Mino softly snoring while the cat was missing. She was about to call Taemin and Mino to wake up, but felt someone cover . Her eyes widened and met eyes with a cat-eyed creature.

"Shh," the man whispered.

Jieun stared carefully at the man's eyes. They were awfully familiar. She stared at it for a little bit longer until she finally recognized the man.

"Are you the cat?" Jieun whispered.

Minhyuk nodded. He gestured her to follow him deeper into the woods. She looked at Taemin and Mino for a second before deciding to follow Minhyuk.

They started to walk until Minhyuk believed that he was far enough from Taemin and Mino, but close enough to them so that Jieun wouldn't suspect anything. He stopped in front of a thick, broad tree. He pointed to the spot in front of the tree, silently telling her to stand there. When she did, he swiftly opened his claws and slammed it against Jieun's neck, choking her and barely letting her breathe. She tried to pry away his furry hand, but he only squeezed her neck more.

"The witch you talked about yesterday?" Minhyuk whispered in a low voice. "Which witch?"

I can't breathe! Jieun cried out in her head. She kicked her legs in the air as Minhyuk continued to choke her.

"Tell me!" Minhyuk hissed.

"St…S-Stop…choking…me…!" Jieun croaked out.

"I'll stop after you tell me the witch's name!" Minhyuk declared. "Was it Bora? Was it my witch?"

She wasn't able to think anymore. She only gasped and coughed for air.

"I won't help you until you tell me the name!" Minhyuk shouted.

"STOP!" Jieun choked out.

The choking stopped. Jieun gasped heavily for air and fell to the ground as Minhyuk released her. She coughed and tried to clear . Her blue face returned back to her milky skin tone. She looked down at the ground, trying to regain her vision. However, when she focused, she saw familiar red strings shooting out from her fingertips. She slowly looked up, noticing that Minhyuk was tied up and restrained just like Howon was when he was alive.

This again? she wondered. She got up carefully while Minhyuk stared at the strings.

"What is this?" he asked, hissing.

"I-I told you to you to stop choking me," she stammered. She wiggled her fingers, making Minhyuk fall to the ground.

"Is this some sort of defense mechanism?" Minhyuk asked. He laughed. "Very funny. As expected of the Galaxial Wish. Of course."

She pressed her lips until she heard foot steps coming her way. She turned and noticed Mino and Taemin standing a few feet away from them. They both stared at Minhyuk with hostile eyes. Taemin made his fist into fire while Mino had one eye turn completely to black.

"W-Wait!" Jieun stuttered. "Everything is fine! I'm okay!"

"You sure?" Taemin asked. He looked at the red strings. "This doesn't look okay."

"What is that?" Mino stared at the strings coming from Jieun's fingertips.

"I-I don't really know," she mumbled. "I mean, I've seen these before—"

"You have another set of powers?" Mino looked at Taemin. "I come from the same place she does, yet she gets two powers. What does that make me?"

"What do they do?" asked Taemin, ignoring Mino.

"I'm not too sure," Jieun murmured. "I had these with Howon before. It seems like it doesn't really do anything to me. It's not a defense mechanism. It just does something that prevents someone else from doing something."

"I'm lost and confused," Mino said.

"When I was with Howon, these strings prevented him from eating. It didn't prevent him from attacking me or anything else."

"What triggered it?"

"I don't really know," Jieun murmured. "Last time, Howon made a wish and I granted it. However, I didn't really do that to Minhyuk."

"Does it have to be Howon?" Taemin asked. "What if you granted a wish to someone else?"

"No one else asked for a wish publicly," Jieun said.

"Should we cut it off?" asked Mino.

"No. These things don't cut off," she told him. "They should disappear when it fulfills something for Minhyuk…"

"Which is telling me the name of the witch!" Minhyuk yelled. "Was it Bora?"

"We'll tell you if you help us get to the underground fight," Taemin said. He looked at the strings, then at Mino. "Let me know if these things do anything unnecessary, okay?"

"Like what?" Mino scoffed.

"Just anything," Taemin said. He turned to Jieun. "It doesn't sound like they're too much of a problem to you, right?"

Jieun scratched the back of her head out of instinct. Minhyuk yelped and was dragged according to the direction Jieun moved her hand. She bit her bottom lip, a bit sorry that Minhyuk would be pushed around if she wasn't careful with her hand movements.

"Well, it's not a problem for me. These strings make him incredibly light," Jieun explained.

Taemin nodded. "Okay. Let's keep walking. I don't want to arrive late and find that Myungsoo is dead."

Jieun dropped her jaws. "How could you even think that? You need to have hope!"

"Speaking of hope," Mino murmured. "Can I talk to you in private?"

Taemin raised an eyebrow. "Keeping secrets from me?"

"It's about home," Mino said. He glared at Taemin. "Remember, we're not from here. We both have intentions of returning home."

"Sure. If you can find this 'home' you keep speaking of," Taemin muttered. "I'll leave you two alone, but what about the cat?"

"I'll shut him up," Mino said, showing Minhyuk one of his black eye. Minhyuk quivered in fear.

"Can't you just shut me up, too?"

"You're against us going home."

"That's not true. I don't see why you came with that conclusion."

"Can you just leave us alone?"

"Okay, fine. I'll grab our stuff and be back here in a couple of minutes, okay?" Taemin said. He turned around and went back to the area they camped out.

Once Mino believed that Taemin was gone, he turned and started to search for something in his bag.

"You know how I mentioned about the books?" Mino asked. He took out a book similar to what Bora and Kyuhyun had. Jieun widened her eyes and tried to push it back into Mino's bag.

"Where did you find this? How could you bring it with us?"

"Relax, relax! I found it," Mino said quickly. "Actually, I had it since we were at Artem."

She looked at Minhyuk, who seemed shocked. "Y-You're not going to say anything, right?"

"You can read?" Minhyuk asked, shocked.

"Yeah," Mino said. He opened the page. "Anyway, I think—"

"You can actually understand the letters?" Minhyuk inquired.

"Yes," Mino answered. "I was just going to say—"

"Do you have some sort of charm on you? Are you insane?" Minhyuk questioned.

Mino scowled. "No, I'm just reading. Anyway—"

"Impossible. You can't be Enlightened without going insane. You can't possibly read all that," Minhyuk whispered.

"Can you be quiet? I'm trying to talk to her," Mino said, pointing at Jieun.

"This doesn't make any sense," Minhyuk murmured. "Unless…the book is fake?"

Mino and Jieun stopped to look at Minhyuk. They looked at each other before eying back at Minhyuk.

"What do you mean 'fake?'" Jieun asked carefully.

"The Forbidden Books are in high demand. People will literally put gibberish and claim that it's an original copy of the Forbidden Book. However, if they read it, they won't go insane," Minhyuk explained. "The only ones who can read the Forbidden Books without going insane are the Creator and his or her kind."

"Great. So I've been reading fake books?" Mino grunted under his breath.

"Unless you're the same kind as the Creator," Minhyuk whispered. "Bora knows how to differentiate what's a real copy or a fake one."

"Who's Bora?"

"The Captain of the Seventh Court," Jieun whispered. Minhyuk's ears perked up. "The witch." She turned to Mino. "Mino, that's the witch that kidnapped me. She told me that the Creator has blue and black gems or red and white gems, but I'm only aware that the Creator has gold and red gems."

"That sounds like my witch," Minhyuk said, smiling a bit.

Jieun turned and bit her bottom lip. "I…I don't know how to tell you this, but she…" Jieun closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath. "She's dead, I think."

Minhyuk's smile faded away. He looked at Jieun with eyes full of hostility and hurt. 

"What?" Minhyuk asked, his face crumbling even more.

"The Captain of the Sixth Court came with this arrow guy," Jieun continued. "He trapped her inside something that looked like paper? When he folded the paper, blood poured out of it."

"My witch died?" Minhyuk murmured. He gritted his teeth. "You didn't save her?"

"I couldn't," Jieun mumbled. "It happened all too fast."

There was a respectful silence between the three. Minhyuk looked around, feeling disturbed at the thought of Bora's death. He bit his bottom lip before biting it down too hard until it bled.

Mino and Jieun were about to say something until Minhyuk lunged forward, trying to grab the book. Jieun gasped while Mino grabbed firmly to the other end of the book, wrestling with Minhyuk for the sacred item. Minhyuk made his hand into a claw and scratched Mino's cheek. Mino cried out in pain and let go of the book, allowing Minhyuk to open it.

"What the hell?" Mino yelled, furious.

"W-What are you doing?" Jieun asked, shocked.

"I'll read! I'll read and turn insane! I'll die!" Minhyuk shouted in a shaky breath. "I-I can't live without my witch! Bora was like my family! She was all I had! I-I can't stay in this form for long without her! I can't be myself! I-I'm going to read! I'm going to read, turn insane, and die from insanity! I—"

Before his eyes landed on the first word of the page, a red string pierced through the book. Then, it started to wrap itself around the book and squeezed it until the book bursted into ashes. Minhyuk widened his eyes, and so did Jieun and Mino. The three stood awfully still, unsure of what exactly happened. 

"The book," Jieun whispered. "I-It's gone…"

Mino shot a glare at Minhyuk. "I didn't even read the entire thing, and you destroy it?"

"I didn't do it!" Minhyuk yelled. He pointed at Jieun's red strings. "She did it!"

"The strings have a mind of its own! I can't command it!" Jieun argued. "Whatever is going on, these strings didn't want you to read or go insane or die!"

"What the—So my fate is dependent on a few measly strings?" Minhyuk hissed and glowered at Jieun. "That's just ridiculous!"

"Mino, do you remember what you were going to tell me?" she asked, worried.

"I was going to say that we should start looking for this 'Creator' when we rescue Naeun and Myungsoo," Mino said. He sighed. "I just remember reading that the Creator is this god and that it might be a good idea to meet him or her. They might hold the key for us to get out of this world."

"Did the book mention any gems?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Not that I can recall."

Jieun and Mino groaned in distress while Minhyuk stared at them, clearly annoyed and angry at the situation. Taemin finally came back from the base with Jieun's bag and a few other supplies.

"Hey guys," Taemin said. He stopped and looked at the tense atmosphere. "Well, I guess this talk about 'home' didn't go to well."

"Forget it," Mino grumbled. "Let's go."

He began to march ahead, storming away. Taemin walked next to Jieun.

"What's up with him?" Taemin asked.

"Things happened," Jieun said, sighing. "How long will it take us to reach Myungsoo?"

"Not long," Taemin said. "In fact, you should be hearing—"

Not too far from them, they heard a loud scream. Taemin made a smile as he guided Jieun and Minhyuk to where Mino had gone off. A few minutes later, he stopped her and pointed below, where they saw a field of roses hiding a portal that was on the ground.

"What's this?" Jieun asked, awed.

"The portal to the Vampire Realm" Taemin said. "I think Mino fell in there already. We should go before they all his blood."

She nodded. "Anything I should know when I get down there?"

"Don't make eye-contact with the vampires and stay hidden," he said. "Oh, and the Vampire King is the Captain of the Fifth Court. The king was supposed to be this other vampire prince, but he decided to run off with this other creature who had some kind of magical blood."

"Huh," Jieun murmured, nodding her head. "Sounds like some cheesy story I read online six years ago."

"Anyway, I'll see you down there," Taemin told her. He jumped into the portal, joining Mino at the other side.

Jieun took a deep breath and turned to Minhyuk, who didn't look like he was in the mood to talk. Rather than saying anything to him, she pulled the strings, forcing Minhyuk to fall into the portal with her.