Jiwoo gasped. Her eyes were fixed on the distance. She was seeing something neither of them could. 

“What is it?” Sooyoung had stopped immediately. Her hands rose just in front of her, but they fell before they could reach Jiwoo. 

“We have to get back.” Jiwoo scanned the space in front of her. Tears had begun to fill her eyes. 

“Why?” 

Jiwoo shook her head. Then she turned. 

“Jiwoo,” Sooyoung caught her hand, “we’ll go, but you need to tell us why.” 

“Just,” Jiwoo pulled her hand away, “we need to go.”

Gowon tried to help before Sooyoung looked completely dejected. “Tell us something," she said.

How many times had Jiwoo made decisions without them questioning it? When she’d turned a certain direction, they’d both followed her. When she’d told them they had to get going in the middle of the day, they followed. Neither of them had ever asked why. 

“There’s too much,” Jiwoo looked back at where she’d looked, “there’s darkness and I don’t know where it’s coming from. Only that its around Yerim.” She started to run back. “Trust me,” she threw over her shoulder. 

Gowon swore she heard Sooyoung mutter, “I always do.”

Jiwoo gave no sign that she’d heard it. 

______

Olivia dreamed of green eyes filling with darkness. She dreamed of screams for mercy and a deep cold erupting within her. In her dream, she enjoyed every second of it. 

When she awoke, the air was filled with panic. Someone else’s. Then she felt the disgust that always came with bright spirits, but this one even more. It was one that attacked even Astra. And she felt three of them. They were chasing something. She could feel their hunger. 

Olivia scrambled out of the tent. It was early evening. 

She landed on the ground, stumbling as she landed, before setting off at a run. 

Even though her magic lay with the darkness, she was still able to see the light of others. Even before she’d actually gotten her magic, she’d been able to. Maybe that was her only connection to the moon. 

She found the three spirits. One was close to its target. The other two were closer to Olivia. Further away from the person they chased. 

And Olivia had seen that it was a person. Purple threaded through their light. But there was a lot of darkness radiating out from them. She could see that from here. 

Olivia ran harder. She wouldn’t be able to catch the spirits. 

What was Yerim doing here? And why was she feeling all of that fear, anger, and pain? Where was it all coming from? 

The night energised her. There were more shadows than there was light. It was perfect. For her. Not Yerim. 

She didn’t know how long she ran, nor how far away the spirits or Yerim were. Only that they’d been close enough for her to sense them. And close enough for her to intervene. 

She saw the spirit of a horse first. It was a vibrant orange. It might’ve been beautiful, had the air around it not been corrupted. And Olivia had lost sight of the appeal of bright spirits when all had her. 

The shadows of a crop of trees shot up in a tall black wall. The horse whinnied as it veered away. It started to run away, but she’d slowed it. That’d be enough. 

Olivia threw a blade of darkness. It hit its flank. A short and high sound left it, but it ran even faster. 

She leapt through the air, her hands covered in shadow. She sank another dagger into its hind leg. She clung on for dear life as it kept running, stumbling as it did. 

Her feet caught on the ground and what parts of her did come into contact with the horse burned. Their light always made her feel sick. 

She summoned another piece of darkness and drove it into the horse’s spine. 

Now she felled it. It toppled over, taking her with it. Her back hit the ground, hard. The rest of the horse nearly crushed her, but it rolled away just as quickly. 

Catching her breath, she heaved herself to her feet. 

The horse writhed around, its entire lower half the colour of the setting sun. 

Olivia drew on shadows as she would a breath. A large wave of them pulled away from the ground and the trees. A large stake of darkness impaled the horse to the ground. The strangled screech that left it made Olivia turn away. 

It would turn soon. She told herself that it would stop attacking others. She told herself that what she’d done was right for it. 

Then she ran to take the next one. Another bright spirit had already reached Yerim. 

She nearly stopped running. She was too late. 

No, Olivia thought. Yerim could handle herself. And she’d had years to learn even more. She’d learned how to fight. She’d learned how to run away when she could. 

Olivia kept running. She’d take down the other spirit so it wouldn’t join. 

She could only hope Yerim could flee in time. 

______

The curtains parted and in came a dishevelled Chuu. 

“Where are they?” she gasped. Her eyes were wide. Her light was sickly white with terror. 

“Where’re who?” Haseul asked. 

“Yerim, Y-Yeojin, and Hyunjin.” She looked between her and Heejin. “I-I can’t find them and-and,” she stammered. Then she squeezed her eyes shut before opening them again. “Please come with me.”

“Why,” Heejin began, words already poised for a fight. 

“We’ll go.” Haseul briefly looked to where Yves stood. She was also out of breath, her brow furrowed. She looked like she didn’t know why they’d run back from wherever they’d come. 

Chuu’s entire body loosened as she turned. 

“You want us with you?” Lisa asked. 

Haseul shook her head. Chuu had never come to her for anything. She’d never looked desperate or terrified in front of her either.

“If you can reach Hyojung, tell her to look out for them.” That group could handle almost any situation, from vampires to rabid spirits. And if they could reach them in time, and if that group was close enough, they could handle whatever had scared Chuu so much. 

They walked briskly through camp. Some stopped what they were doing to look. Their groups had never been seen together without some sort of argument breaking out—or absolute silence shared between them. Of course them simply walking together would garner attention. 

Chuu took them straight to the forest. None of them spoke. 

Haseul caught her looking to the side and then at the ground. Her eyes were almost mad with worry. 

Then Chuu stopped suddenly. “Where could Yeojin have gone?” 

“Why just her?” Heejin crossed her arms. 

“Answer me,” Chuu snapped. “Yerim’ll have followed her and Hyunjin’ll have known that. Where did they go?”

Haseul hadn’t noticed that Yeojin had left. She’d gone off alone. Again. With the anger she always let herself feel, she was a target. 

“Hyejoo,” Heejin said. “She’d want to see her herself.” She seemed

“She wouldn’t know where to go,” Haseul said. 

“Yerim does,” Chuu finished. “Would she have gone to that town—that house?” 

“So they both went with her,” Heejin frowned, “what’s wrong with that?” 

“I,” she broke off. Both panic and anguish shone in her eyes. 

“We don’t know where they are,” Yves said. “At one point, we knew they were fine. The next, I couldn’t even feel their light.”

“They’re not safe out there,” Chuu said. “Please, I know they aren’t, but I can’t protect them. They’ll need you.” 

She didn’t say it, but Yeojin wouldn’t let Chuu or Yves do anything anyway. Gowon didn’t even come in to that discussion. Chuu knew that. It was also why she’d come to them. 

“Okay, we’ll get going.” 

“What?” Heejin rounded on her. You’re trusting her? was the silent question. 

Haseul nodded. “I know where to go.” She also knew that Chuu would see exactly where that was.

Thinking back on it, Haseul wondered why she hadn’t seen it before. Chuu’d always hid it well, but if you looked closely, she’d usually been one step ahead of the rest. And she’d used to tip her off whenever Yeojin or someone else had snuck out. 

And now, whatever she was seeing terrified her. That scared Haseul too. She wouldn’t risk anyone’s life for a personal vendetta. She was past that. At least she hoped she was. 

______

Choerry glanced back. The spirit was a snake. Its body was thicker than her leg. Its scales were bright green and blue. Golden eyes were fixed on her. Hunger filled those eyes. 

She ran harder, making sure her path was in the opposite direction of the other two. No root tripped her. No branch cut her. She’d had plenty of practice to perfect that technique. She didn’t try to ward it off. She needed to get far enough. Hyunjin’s path was still too dark. Yeojin’s was almost silver. Flickers of orange were in it. 

Night was coming quickly. Already, Choerry felt the glow of the waxing moon sink into her skin. She held it all within her, letting nothing slip out. 

There were other spirits following: malevolent dark ones. They’d have been going after Hyunjin otherwise. The darkness in her was a beacon. Choerry just had to outshine that. 

She blinked away tears. Her thoughts turned to those dead men. Men she’d let die. She felt the shame of that. She thought of wanting that one mortal to die. 

More tears. 

Her path vanished. 

Something stabbed into her ankle. 

Choerry toppled over, her face slamming into the ground. White hot pain lanced from it. Her nose was broken—crushed actually. 

The snake tightened its grip. Fire erupted from her ankle. Choerry screamed. 

The ground opened up. She kicked at the snake, but its grip was a vice. 

The corrupted light seeped further into her. 

She forced a piece of the earth to slam into its head. Its grip loosened. She made the ground swallow the spirit and forced it to harden. 

Barely was it gone that Choerry saw a stretch of deep grey. 

She let go of her light. It erupted from her skin, illuminating the forest as though it were day. 

Four spirits surrounded her. Two fled from the light. They went int the direction she’d been going. Away from Hyunjin. Away from Yeojin. 

The other two launched themselves at her. 

Choerry swung her arm at the first, grabbing the stag by the throat and forcing it down into the ground. 

It screeched as light flowed into it. 

A grey cougar sank its teeth into her shoulder. As she cried out, it hissed and let go. 

She made branches wrap around its body and pinned it to a tree. 

Choerry was still holding a partially turned spirit. She drove a length of moonlight into its heart, impaling it into the ground. 

The earth was churning. Choerry hadn’t noticed. Her path still hadn’t reappeared. 

Out of the earth emerged the snake. Too fast for her to bury it again. She dove out of the way. She landed on her bitten ankle and fell immediately. 

Choerry had the ground rise between her and the snake. It slammed into it with a series of crunches. 

She added more, making a wall around her. Any strength she’d had from running had vanished. The reality of the fight was settling in. Tears kept welling up from the pain. Her nose had started to repair itself, but it still stung. Her leg was the main problem. She couldn’t stand on it. The spirit had poisoned her. That poison was still spreading. 

The snake still tried to reach her as well. Choerry could sense that the stag had turned. It’d fled. She didn’t blame it. 

The cougar had been weakened by the light, but it hadn’t turned. Other spirits were nearing. No bright ones, thankfully. But Choerry didn’t know how she’d fight them, let alone how she’d escape the snake. 

And the light that was her future was gone. She was going to die. 

The desperation she felt now wasn’t forced. The ground was shaking beneath her. Either it was her magic, or something else. 

The ground. 

Choerry realised then how stupid her fear had made her. She even laughed. 

She took a deep breath and let the ground take her. 

Normally, this was where bodies went. Now, Choerry burrowed herself deep into it. She forced the ground to part and compress, making it free in front of her. She let it go back when she passed. 

Here, she could barely breathe. Her chest was already tightening. The memory of drowning came to mind. She pushed it down. 

The snake was following. Its twisted, pale path was still above her. The dark spirit hadn’t broken from the branches. Choerry’s light was spreading there. 

The other dark spirits were somewhere as well. Their numbers were smaller than earlier. Had she miscounted?

Choerry kept going, even as her body begged her to breathe. All she heard was the pounding of her heart and the sound of wet and dry earth churning around her. The small rocks held there slid against her, creating countless small cuts in her skin and clothes. Choerry’d never actually tunnelled through the ground. She had no skill here. 

Then her body gasped for a breath. She started drowning. 

Once, her people had been attacked by elemental fae. A small group, but they’d been effective. Choerry had been targeted by a water fae. She’d nearly killed her. Choerry had barely gotten her own magic under control. 

As she’d scrambled to try and swim away, the earth had crumbled, while roots of the nearby trees had launched themselves at the fairy. In her panic, Choerry had both impaled and strangled the fairy. She hadn’t known what she’d done until the whirlpool had collapsed. 

She’d sputtered and heaved beside his trembling body, her lungs ravaged by water. 

Now, Choerry forced the ground to spit her out. She coughed, her breath a wheeze. Her leg still screamed with pain, but she was somehow cut off from it. She felt the snake come, its light had a strange glee held within it. It had her. 

Light. 

It was made of it. They’d all only ever been terrified of the corrupted bright ones. What she wanted to do was dangerous, she knew that much. It wasn't much worse than dying where she stood, was it? 

Reaching for it as she would to a tree, dirt, or her own light, Choerry took hold of it. 

The burn reached her mind. Choerry clenched her jaw to keep from screaming. 

She pushed back on it. It hissed, recoiling. 

Then Choerry’s grip slipped. The pain vanished. 

The snake shot forward. 

She grabbed it again. The fire came alive in her head. A strangled scream left her as she wrenched the snake to the side. 

The spirit flew across the ground. It smacked into a tree, breaking it in half with a deafening crack. 

Choerry let go and wrapped the tree around the snake. The wood answered her call easily. 

The spirit broke free just as easily. 

Choerry tried to reach for it again. The pain split her mind. She shrieked. 

Never had the light felt so wrong to her. It blinded her, making her scramble back, squeezing her eyes shut. She should’ve pushed through the pain. Now she’d pay for her weakness. 

But the impact never came. 

Instead, there was more hissing. There was also a high-pitched screeching. 

Choerry opened her eyes. She almost couldn’t see past the too bright light of the snake. 

But she knew what was in front of her. 

Hypnos was on top of the snake’s head. She could make out his feet digging into the snake’s eyes. His mouth was on its torso. 

The snake’s body whipped around. Then it slung around the bat. It began to wrap around him. Hypnos’ skin began to lighten. 

Choerry cried out. The ground shot up. It pierced through the snake’s body. It twitched, but kept wrapping itself around Hypnos. It was going to crush him. 

“Get away!” someone screamed. 

In the next moment, Choerry was being hauled up by her arms. Their skin burned her. She wrenched herself away. 

“Save him.”

“Who?” It was a voice she didn’t know. 

“The bat.” She pulled herself up, ignoring how her leg protested the movement. “We need—” 

Hypnos let out a shriek, just as the snake’s entire body slackened. 

“He killed it?” She didn’t recognise this voice either. 

The bat fell away. The snake had a dark blue head, which was partially torn off. Its eyes were still gold, but they’d been ripped into as well. Light leaked from its eyes and neck. 

Hypnos lay still on his front. Half of him was lavender. 

Choerry crawled over to him. The dark purple churned across his skin. It made for a soup of the two shades of purple. 

He was alive. He hadn’t been turned. 

Then what was he now?

“Others are coming.” It was the person who’d first screamed at her. She was a girl with bright blue hair. Her glow was blinding. 

Choerry looked away and put a hand to Hypnos’ head. He didn’t flinch. 

“I’ll carry you,” Blue-hair said. “You’ll carry him.” She’d stopped glowing. She was beautiful. 

“Carry him?” Her voice sounded faint to her. 

A small way’s away, she saw three other girls fighting two dark spirits. One was on its way to turning. Another pair had already been turned. They fought with the girls. These were other Astra. 

“You’re the one who can control nature, right?” 

Choerry laughed. “I just control dirt and wood.” Or was there more? She couldn’t quite remember. 

Still, she made the ground beneath Hypnos hard and got it to rise. The platform shook. 

“Where’re the others?” she croaked out. “I was with two others.”

“Some of our group went to them,” a second gorgeous elf said. Her voice was so gentle. Her eyes were a deep pink. Choerry knew who she was, but couldn’t place the name. She’d never forget someone who looked like that. 

Come to think of it, she also knew Blue-hair. 

The dirt holding Hypnos fell. The pink-eyed elf caught him. She looked at Hypnos with hesitant eyes, but she didn’t drop him or the dirt. 

Arms went around Choerry and lifted her up. Even with enhanced strength, Choerry knew this person was stronger than most elves. 

She reached out a hand towards Hypnos. 

Pink-eyes came over with him so she could put a hand to his fur. 

“Don’t tell them about him.” Choerry was exhausted, but the pain wasn’t letting her sleep. 

She wanted to look for the paths of the others. But she couldn’t bear to have any light in her vision. It hurt too much. 

“We won’t,” one said. She had a yellow badger at her side. 

“But we have to tell them that they can,” another frowned, “be killed?”

“And controlled,” Choerry muttered. 

The one holding her tightened her grip. “We saw that. None of us do it because it’s too painful. We don’t even know if it does damage to us.”

“I feel terrible now,” she said. “Is that enough?”

“Yeah.” A pause. “We know how to help with that.”

Good, she thought. 

“Why weren’t your friends with you?”

“They were dying,” Choerry murmured, sinking further into the arms around her. “They weren’t after I ran.”

Silence fell as they walked. Choerry’s leg hadn’t stopped burning. At some point, she’d made dirt wrap around it. It helped if the moon didn’t shine on it. 

There rest of her needed the light. Her shoulder was frozen. Her hand was numb. Her nose was slowly healing. Painfully. 

Her head was far from mending. She’d closed her eyes again. Just looking at the night sky hurt. 

“You distracted them,” Blue-hair said then. “Most of us came to you because so much of you was grey.”

Choerry smiled. “It worked.”

“You made yourself bait,” the second gorgeous girl said. “Did you really expect to fight them on your own?” 

Meaning, had she expected to survive?

“No.”

They were silent the rest of the way. 

______

Yeojin slammed her staff into the spirit. It whimpered as light flooded it. 

Only one. There were so many. This must’ve been the third pair? 

She leapt at the next one. It was going straight for Hyunjin. 

She summoned another length of moonlight. She felt a small chill. The first sign that she was using too much light. 

Hyunjin was being pinned to the ground by a spirit, its jaws snapping at her face and neck, but never quite reaching. The elf’s hands were glowing faintly. 

Yeojin kicked it off of her. The spirit had already gotten too its feet when Yeojin rose. Then it made for her own throat. 

She rammed her staff into it. It tackled her to the ground. The wind was knocked from her, but she’d gotten a good enough blow. She easily pushed it off her, ignoring the cold that shot into her fingers. 

Hyunjin was dancing around another spirit. She didn’t have enough light for a weapon. 

Yeojin summoned a sword. The cold came again. She was only able to make half of a blade. She hoped it’d be enough. 

“Here!” She tossed it. 

Hyunjin caught it. The half-formed sword disappeared into the spirit’s mouth when it next attacked. There was a shrill scream. Was that sound supposed to come out of a lion? 

She kicked it away with a grunt. “Thanks.” 

Yeojin took in the spirits around them. Some had fully turned, others were in the process. They hadn’t been filled with a freakish amount of darkness. 

Hyunjin cursed. “There’s more.”

Yeojin knew well enough why. They were both panicked, Hyunjin was almost more dark than light, while Yeojin had drained herself of her own light. 

“We’re running,” Hyunjin said. 

She didn’t argue. She was exhausted from the running and the fighting. She also had a nice set of gashes down her back. 

Yeojin still ran. 

Where was Choerry? Briefly, Yeojin wondered if she’d run away. But as much as she found the elf intolerable, she knew that Choerry would never do that. Yeojin had seen her fight before. She could handle these types of fight with ease. 

Still, there were so many spirits. What could the rest do if they caught someone on their own?

“Over here!” someone yelled. 

Yeojin deflated when she realised it wasn’t Choerry. 

But they were Astra. 

Hyunjin turned in their direction immediately. Her step had hardly faltered. Was she that fit or still pushing herself? 

Yeojin followed. 

There were spirits ahead, but one was already in the process of turning. When they reached the Astra, Yeojin watched someone stab another spirit in the heart. It was dark brown. 

“Hyunjin?” The speaker sounded as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. 

“Where’s Yerim?” Hyunjin asked. 

“We split up,” the girl replied. She had large doe eyes. They were a deep blue. “Mimi took the lead to get the other one.” Her brow furrowed. “That’s Yerim?” 

“What’s happened to her?” Hyunjin was moving again. “Where’d she go?”

They were going after where else they saw the light. Yeojin saw no sign of it with her normal vision. Just how fast had Choerry run? 

“A bright one.” A pause. “There were dark ones too, maybe they started—” 

Hyunjin had broken into a sprint. Where she got the strength, Yeojin didn’t know. 

Still, she pushed herself to keep up. Her back ached and her growing stitch was starting to feel like a stab wound. 

A bright spirit. Had Choerry known about it? Or had she thought she’d be getting more dark spirits off their tail?

In the moments after she’d started running, Yeojin had felt the echoes of darkness start appearing around Choerry. There’d been so much, all at once too. She’d never thought any of that would've ever come from her. 

A howl sounded then.

“I’ve got it,” someone else shouted. 

Another of the group broke away. Yeojin recognised one, Binnie. What was Hyojung’s group doing here?

As they neared the other cluster of light, Yeojin needed to sift through it to find the light threaded with purple. 

Already, Yeojin felt sick. She herself had been drained fighting with Hyunjin at her side. Choerry had been alone. 

This isn’t that bad, she told herself. Hyunjin’s worse off and she’s running. 

No one said anything. The trek felt like hours, but it was only minutes. 

Twice, Yeojin stumbled. Hyojung righted her both times. 

She kept going. Her body was in agony, but they still needed to run. Exhaustion wouldn’t matter if Choerry was hurt. Or worse. 

Then they reached them. 

Choerry lay limp in someone’s arms. 

Yeojin felt as if she’d been punched. Choerry looked dead. 

The figure before her was covered in dirt and blood. Her clothes clung to her by simple threads. Normally, that would’ve made Yeojin blush. Now, it gave her a view of a still bleeding shoulder, as well as countless other cuts and gashes. 

Mud clung to her entire leg, but it was steadily dripping off. A sickly pale glow came from it. 

The bright spirit had gotten her. 

Most people ran from them. When it’d all started, they’d lost too many elves who’d tried their hand at fighting them. That kind of light worked like a poison. The only solution was to spend time in complete darkness. Not even a fire could be around you for too long. 

A cry left Hyunjin as she rushed over. Whatever glow she’d had before vanished. Then she gathered Choerry in her arms. 

“What happened?” Yeojin asked. The words came out as a gasp. Her lungs hurt. 

The one who’d been holding her grimaced. She had blue hair. “She’d taken two down, but four more had been coming. The spirit had her cornered.”

“But that came along,” the other one said. She had pink eyes. Arin. 

That was when Yeojin saw Hypnos. She hadn’t even noticed he’d been with her. 

His two-coloured eyes were open. He was two different shades of purple, light and dark. Just like that cat spirit. 

“They can die,” the blue-haired one told them. Was this Mimi? “The bat killed it. We saw it.”

Hypnos looked up at Yeojin. She saw recognition there. He leaned into her hand when she patted his head. 

“He saved her,” Yeojin murmured. 

Arin nodded. “Big risk for its kind,” she said. “And her.”

“We need to get her to the water,” Hyunjin said. “These’ll get infected.”

“We’re close to camp, Hyun” Arin put a hen to her arm, “she needs a healer. And fast.”

The mud fell away completely and they were bathed in the glow of Choerry’s leg. It was bone-white. 

Choerry whimpered. 

Yeojin got out a thin blanket from her pack. She wrapped it around Choerry’s leg. Her thumb brushed the skin. She flinched at how hot it was to the touch. 

Hyunjin’s pace had quickened. Except for Choerry’s leg, both were filled with too much darkness. Even Yeojin, who’d expend almost all she had, outshone them. She didn’t know how Hyunjin was still awake. She wasn’t sure if it was even healthy for her to still be moving and exerting herself. 

At the very least, the moon was out. 

“Please tell me you have something with you,” Hyunjin said. 

Yeojin didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t ask. 

Arin responded pretty quickly.” We’ll get it to her once we’re there.”

“We need to get her here,” Hyunjin said, her voice strained. Her didn’t mean Choerry. Who was it? 

“I’ll send for her as soon as we get there,” Hyojung said. Her smile was almost too wide, but it was gentle. 

Hyunjin’s pace neared a jog. 

“You won’t help her if you collapse.” Arin’s hand went to her shoulder. “I can take her.”

Unsurprisingly, Hyunjin shook her head. 

They kept going. 

“Was she awake when you found her?” Only now was Hyunjin starting to sound out of breath. 

“Yeah,” Mimi said. “But out of it. She didn’t even know who we were.”

Yeojin frowned. “Why not?” Choerry looked up to this group too. She couldn’t have just forgotten what they looked like. They were all immortal. They didn’t change much. 

“She tried to control the spirit.”

“That could’ve killed her.” The corrupted light came to you without the spirit even being close to you if you did that. Some had been driven completely mad by it. Or their minds had died completely. Not even the mental fae knew how to cure that. 

“No, but this saved her life,” Mimi shrugged, “so I guess it was the next best option.”

“Will she be okay?” Yeojin felt a second wave of fear. It just made her feel colder. 

A nod. 

“You’re sure?” With Choerry’s leg, she already had too much of that light in her. 

As if reading her mind, another elf, Seunghee, said, “she got a lot, but it didn’t break her.”

Both Yeojin and Hyunjin flinched. She hated the sound of that. 

“She’ll be okay.”

“How do you know?” 

The elf didn’t look annoyed by Yeojin’s questions. “Personal experience from when it all started. I saw some die and some survive.” A hard edge came over her pale green eyes. 

Yeojin nodded. Sometimes, she could only marvel at how much experience the people around her had. Even Choerry had led an impressive life so far. Yeojin had only ever heard snippets of it, but what she had heard about—Choerry’s trips between witches and fae, as well as her own experience in learning how to use her nature magic—Yeojin had always found herself listening then. 

“Drink something first,” Arin was saying. 

Hyunjin didn’t respond. 

The pink-eyed elf raised the waterskin to Hyunjin’s lips instead. The look in her eyes made Yeojin pause. When she angled her head slightly, she was puzzled even more by Hyunjin’s expression. 

When had this happened? 

Logically, Yeojin could figure that out. But when she thought about how Hyunjin had fought the urge to stare at Heejin whenever she walked by just last week, the sight in front of her now barely had an explanation. 

There were hurried steps then. From camp. 

Haseul appeared first. Her green eyes scanned them, meeting Yeojin’s eyes first, before sticking to Choerry. It was difficult to watch how her expression crumpled. Heejin was there soon after, her eyes widened when she saw Choerry. When she took in Hyunjin, and probably how little light was there, any bravado she might’ve had vanished. 

“Are you coming in or do I get Jinsoul?” Haseul’s voice was perfectly steady. Just hearing it made Yeojin feel better. 

That was until she saw Chuu. Countless times, she’d been told to lay off the girl. She’d always ignored them. She did now as well. 

“What’s she doing here?” Yeojin asked. “Wasn’t she on a search party?” 

Chuu looked at her. She saw hurt and something else. 

“She knew something was wrong,” Haseul said sharply. “She came back to tell us.”

“And how—” 

She raised her hand. “Yerim first.”

Yeojin felt a rush of shame then. 

“We’re going in,” Hyunjin said. “Hunting parties are starting to forget it’s dangerous out there.”

Haseul’s eyes filled with more concern when she took her in. “And what about you?” 

“They need to remember what it looks like to clear a place like that.” She kept walking. “And once they see it, they’ll know it wasn’t Hyejoo.”

Haseul only nodded. 

Arin and Binnie had come back. Unharmed. They both nodded at Haseul and the others, but fixed a gaze on Hyojung. 

"The spirits were already turned when we got there," Arin said. "But I didn't see any other dark spirits?" 

"Hyejoo," Chuu whispered. 

Yeojin didn't even snap at the mention of her. She just felt worse. Had she dragged Hyejoo into this as well? She'd come back, escaped whatever life she'd been living before, only to be dragged to close to her old one. 

No one said anything more about who'd turned those spirits. It just meant that things could've gone much worse than they already had. 

Yeojin saw that Heejin had hung back. Her eyes flit between Choerry and Hyunjin. Then they lingered on Hyunjin, eyes growing pained. She’d taken one step forward, but hadn’t taken the next. 

Yeojin knew why her worry wasn’t just for the girl in Hyunjin’s arms. Choerry’s wounds would probably heal soon. The rest didn’t seem so concerned about it—they just needed to heal Choerry soon. 

No one had talked about Hyunjin yet—about how the darkness had continued to seep into her heart. Yeojin also didn’t say that most of the spirits had gone after Hyunjin, ignoring Yeojin until she just about tackled them. 

Briefly, she wondered if a part of Heejin could feel the extent of that damage. They’d been intertwined since they were little. They’d grown even closer in the years that’d followed. Even if they talked far less now, even if Heejin was bound to someone else, no one could say that they’d grown apart. Even if there were people who wished they were, and one of those people was Hyunjin herself. 

And even Yeojin could see that. She could only hope that the moon would too. 

But now, they needed to get Choerry back to camp. She’d gotten hurt just because they’d been on this journey as three. She’d gotten hurt because Hyunjin had absorbed more darkness than she could handle. And the two had only been there because Yeojin had wanted to see the house. 

They’d been in harm’s way because of her. Both had gotten hurt because of her. If she hadn’t insisted on going, if she’d gone back with Hyunjin, or agreed to go home when Choerry had given her the choice—none of them would be this hurt. None of them would have been in this much danger. 

But Yeojin had made them all go. Both had known she couldn’t go alone. And both were now hurt, one by darkness, the other by light. 

And it was all her fault. 

______

Author's Note

I hope you'll forgive the brief interlude of other characters finding out about Yerim's situation. They were a little bit before some of what'd happened in the last chapter, but the latter parts all happened parallel to the chase. 

My internship just ended, but I've now got a month to study for an entrance exam (which was postponed because of the virus, but is now steadily on its way to coming around). I'll try to update when I can, but I can't make too many promises. Today's chapter was on a bit of a tight schedule, but I wanted to get it up this weekend. 

If you're confused by something, enjoying it, or have any predictions or other remarks, I'd love to know your thoughts. Seeing the reactions to what's happened, as well as your insights on certain characters and their decisions, really encourage me to keep developing the entire Loona cast. They're a really interesting set of characters to follow for me. 

I hope you're all doing well! See you in the next chapter.