“Your Imperial Majesty,” Jandi tried desperately, swallowing down the panic, “why don’t we go look for Mongryong? Let’s leave that boring old watch alone, shall we? Come on! Let’s find Mongryongie!”

The toddler ignored her. Turning the pocket watch upside down and shaking it with a chubby fist, he frowned. “Backwards,” he complained, shaking the watch harder.

Jandi winced. Hopefully the watch was strong enough to withstand the ire of a three-year-old child. “Well, yes, Your Imperial Majesty. It’s backwards because you turned it upside down.”

Emperor Baekhyun rotated the watch back, shook it again, then held it out to her, disgruntled. “Still backwards,” he complained. “Dummy.”

What? Taking the watch, Jandi peered at it. He’s right, she realized, stunned. The hands on the watch were moving counterclockwise, and far too quickly too. This was no ordinary pocket watch. And unless the emperor had somehow managed to break it in the thirty seconds he’d had his sticky fingers on it, Jandi would bet Jongin's radio that the watch’s abnormal behavior was part of the Railway’s quickly brewing plans in the Golden River region.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” Jandi said, suddenly remembering what Baekhyun had just said, “does your mummy have one of these too?” She held up the watch, hardly daring to breathe. “Is hers backwards too, like this one?”

The emperor wrinkled his nose, starting to squirm again. “Jandi, where’s Mongryongie? I want Mongryong!”

Jandi sighed. Of course. As she well knew, children had a tendency to lose focus at the least convenient of times, and now that the toddler had his pup on his mind, there was no way she’d get any more information out of him. Going on a hide-and-seek adventure for the emperor’s pet wolf, on the other hand, might at least offer an opportunity to snoop. Shoving the pocket watch back into its wrapping, she zipped up her purse and held out a hand. “Alright, c’mon. Let’s go look for Mongryong, shall we?”

“‘Ryong,” the emperor agreed, scrubbing at his dripping nose and then grabbing Jandi’s outstretched hand with sticky fingers.

Jandi cringed. Some things never change. Like toddlers’ complete and total disregard for personal hygiene.

***

“AWOOOO!” the emperor howled, sticking his head under the cabinet. “Yip yip? ‘Ryongie?”

Trailing behind her almighty sovereign, Jandi sighed. Somehow, it seemed His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Baekhyun, had gotten it into his head that Mongryong would respond if he howled loud enough, like some sort of call and response game. Now he was trotting around to all of his mother’s favorite places to hide Mongryong, yipping up a storm. Really, Jandi would have found it all hilarious if she wasn’t so concerned about drawing too much attention to herself. The imperial palace was a dangerous place, even if she was only here as an unofficial babysitter for the emperor.

“Mongryong’s not here,” Emperor Baekhyun concluded disappointedly, rocking back on his heels. "Not here, not here." His lower lip started to tremble.

“Hey, hey, hey, no tears!” Hastily, Jandi kneeled down to his level and brushed back sweaty strands of his hair. “Your mummy has lots of hiding spots for Mongryong, right? We’ll just go to the next one. It's alright."

Baekhyun sniffled, whether from his cold or his narrowly-avoided tantrum, Jandi wasn’t sure. “Yeah. Next one.” He clambered unsteadily to his feet. “But you have to help.”

“Me?” Jandi pointed at herself. “How am I supposed to help?”

The emperor frowned at her. “You say ‘awoo’ too,” he demanded after thinking for a second.

She choked. “Me?”

Bangs flopping up and down, he nodded. “Or else Mongryong won’t hear us.”

The look on his face, so earnest and determined, was impossible to argue with, and with a pang, Jandi was reminded of Three and all the silly games he’d made her play with him back home. Swallowing down the lump in , she forced a smile. “Of course. Awoooo!”

The grin lighting up the emperor’s face was blinding. “Now he’ll have to hear us!” Grabbing her hand, he hopped from one foot to another. “C’mon, c’mon, Jandi! Let’s go to the trapdoor!”

“Trapdoor?” Jandi stumbled after him. Surely this was another product of a three-year-old’s overactive imagination, just like the whales in his bathtub and the dancing of the wolves. Nobody really has a trapdoor in their house, right? she thought. And certainly not one they’d let their child play with?

“Mummy hides Mongryong there sometimes,” Baekhyun said, panting in his haste, “but she says I should only go if things get seer-ee-ous.” He emphasized each syllable of the last word, clearly imitating his mother’s stern speech.

“Really?” Jandi almost tripped in her surprise. So there actually is a trapdoor! Some sort of contingency plan, perhaps, in case of an attack on the palace. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense - just in the time since she’d married Kyungsoo, there had already been two attempts made on the emperor’s life that she knew about. Really, it was no wonder that his mother had tried to teach him to hide if things got dangerous.

“Awoo!” cried Baekhyun, pulling Jandi down a narrow hall near the royal chambers. “Jandi, you too!”

“Awoo,” Jandi said dutifully. “Yip yip!”

They skidded to a stop in a tiny, tucked-away corner - completely nondescript, really, Jandi thought. If she had just been passing by, she could have mistaken it for any of the dozens of random dead ends in the palace that had been constructed for apparently aesthetic purposes. Scrambling to his knees, the emperor pushed down on a tile on the floor.

“Awoo!” he howled, pushing harder. “Come out, ‘Ryongie!”

Before Jandi’s eyes, an entire segment of the wall shuddered and folded over on itself, revealing a small, hollowed-out hiding place - just the pe