She hadn’t seen Jitae in years, since her mother was still alive. She didn’t think she would ever see him again, but there he was, in the flesh, a relic of an old life she missed so dearly, in the body of an old man she had appreciated a lot more than her mother had.

She felt the magic in her gut. She wanted to scream his name. “Jitae!” But all she could do was mumble through the cloth that was now chafing the corner of uncomfortably.

“Oh, Arin,” Jitae said with wide eyes now welling with tears. “Hyo, I can’t bear to see her like this. Is this all necessary?”

“I can feel the magic, dad,” she told him. “It’s definitely necessary.”

Dad?

“I’m afraid if we untie her hands, the magic will make her take off the gag and something bad will happen. We have to avoid that at all costs,” Hyojung continued.

Arin’s eyes darted between Hyojung and Jitae, confused and slightly afraid.

“You have to tell her, Hyo,” Jitae said.

Hyojung sighed and took a seat on the bed in front of her, moving Woozi’s limp body to the side as if it were just a pillow that was in the way. “Yes, now is the time you learn the full story.

“You see, Ar, we’re stepsisters. Jitae is my real father from his first marriage with a mage woman he was set up with. It was important for my grandmother, the witch that cursed you, that my fathers had magical babies. It didn’t matter to her if my parents didn’t love one another. Anyways, the point is, when I was born, my grandmother blessed me to be a spiritual, magical person. She wanted me to be a part of the restoration project, and so I acquired these extraordinary abilities as a mage, abilities that no other mage has. That’s why I am able to enchant a large building and see seconds into the future. That’s why I have the ability to go into the world of spirits and our connection to it. Little did my grandmother know that by blessing me, she was enabling me to destroy her and the entire world of magic on Earth.

“So, my mother ended up seeing other people. My grandmother found out and cursed her to eternal pain. She died two weeks later, threw herself off a bridge because she couldn’t handle it. I was only six.

“When I was 19, I fell in love with a muggle girl. My grandmother found out about our relationship and was furious; she wanted me to be with a mage and a man so I can carry on the line of magical babies. I refused, and so my grandmother cursed the girl I loved. That girl ended up committing suicide a year later.

“You see, Arin, I’ve had it with magic! Both me and my dad have had it actually. It has destroyed too many lives. We can’t let MRS continue on this path; they’re just enabling selfish, privileged people by giving them the power to wreck others. I just want that power gone, and if that means I die in the process, then so be it. I just need to collect a little more magic, and it’s pouring out of you right now.”

Arin felt the magic. It was the kind of magic that would kill. It was directed at her stepfather, who brought back a wave of memories that made her long for a return to an irretrievable past. She loved Jitae and what he represented in her life. She missed him.

Jitae was now seated in one of the chairs that Hyojung’s girlfriend had pulled from the storage for him. He was looking at her, taking her all in as tears streamed down his cheeks. He probably felt it too: the longing for the past. The longing for her mother.

“You see Ar,” Hyojung continued the story, “That night during the concert, when all the bad things happened, the only reason I knew where to find you was because of Dad. He told me what had happened and where you would be, and asked me to go look for you. You didn’t know me, so I was safe from your curse, which is why I went after you and not him. He probably would have died that night too if he hadn’t gone looking for you…”

Jitae was the one who had bought Arin her tickets to the Chilli concert all those years ago. That was why he knew where she was, and that was why Hyojung, who Arin had always thought was a random guardian angel that was at the right place at the right time, was able to locate her, and help her to find a way to live with her curse. It all clicked together in Arin’s head; it all made sense now.

“Through me, he was helping you all this time,” Hyojung continued. “He paid rent in the building and paid Jeonghan to keep you here and employ you. Jeonghan would never do anything out of kindness, you know.”

Arin was staring at Jitae the whole time. He looked ashamed. His head was down, and he could not meet her eye. It was like he knew that she felt betrayed by the fact she was kept in the dark all these years, that her life had been managed by someone that she didn’t even know still cared about her.

But he did care. Arin could see that from the tears in his eyes and the way it hurt him to look at her bound to a chair like a prisoner.

Arin was now crying, and for more reasons than one. All of this new information about Hyojung and her grandmother confused her and overwhelmed her. Also, the cloth around was so uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than it had ever been. She just wanted to scream his name out loud, but she couldn’t, and it was so painful.

She hated this. She hated the revelations and the reunions and the pressure the magic was putting on her to writhe her wrists out of the ropes so she could take off that irritating gag around . She wanted to scream.

Perhaps Jeonghan was right to tighten the rope as much as he did, and Hyojung was wrong to loosen it, because after much elusive struggle, one of her hands finally came free.

As if possessed, her hand flew up behind her head to the knot that was keeping the cloth in place.

“No!” yelled Hyojung, lunging forward to stop her.

But it was too late. Arin had managed to get the knot undone, and the loose cloth fell to her neck, giving her the power to do what she felt so compelled to do ever since her stepfather walked through that door.

“Jitae!” she yelled.