Hyebin’s stern gaze drifted to me, as if warning me not to say something I’d regret, then she bowed and hurried away.
I stood alone with Hong Gildong, my stomach clenched like I was staring down the edge of an abyss. If I could make him respect me, then he would trust me the way he trusted Hyebin, and one day I would have my truth.
Hong Gildong waved for me to follow him into the night. Unlike Hyebin, he didn’t seem concerned about lingering too long in any one particular time period. No one even seemed to notice him, despite his hair the color of starlight. The crowd parted easily around him as he walked unhurriedly down the street. Even the smoke from passing food sellers seemed to blow away from him, the whole world a sea parting to let him pass.
He drew to a stop on a bridge overlooking the Bulgwang stream, the same place I’d paused to look at the sky, thinking about Hana.
“I don’t like to do these sorts of missions,” he said at last, resting his hands on the railing. He wore an array of rings in various shades of silver and gold, his fingers glistening like claws under the moonlight. Descendants with stronger dragon blood couldn’t resist thetemptation to hoard riches. “It seems unfair in some ways, doesn’t it?” he said. “Everyone makes mistakes.”
Surely this was a trick question. I bowed my head slightly while thinking over my answer. “No,” I said quietly. “I trust your decisions, Sajangnim.”
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound star-bright as it echoed across the water. “It wasn’t a test, Mina. I was only making conversation. It’s a flawed process, I know that.”
He turned toward me, the gold in his eyes flaring bright. “To err is human, and in many ways, descendants are closer to humans now than the dragons we came from. But what many of us have forgotten is that we’re not, and will never be, human.”
I swallowed and nodded. Hong Gildong certainly didn’t seem human, but I didn’t see howIcould be anything else.
“Humans are allowed to make mistakes,” he went on. “It’s necessary for their growth. But descendants cannot make mistakes.”
He looked to me as if expecting a response, so I nodded in agreement. “Mistakes are dangerous in this line of work,” I said, something Hyebin had said to me many times.
“Exactly,” Hong Gildong said. “This is what it means to be a descendant. We were not put on this earth to be heroes. If we do our job correctly, no one will ever thank us, and some will even hate us. But we are stronger than humans, so we bear the shame in our hearts so that they don’t have to. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, Sajangnim,” I said automatically, even though none of it did. All I could think about was Hana on the ground, her tortoiseshell box forced between her teeth. He was right about one thing—we were no heroes. Even in this moment, we were existing unnecessarily outside of our origin timeline. Surely Hong Gildong planned to smooth over any ripple effects later on. He could adjust the timeline as he wanted to, yet he claimed the timeline was his god, that he was helpless to do anything but what others had already determined.
But I’d given the right answer, so he nodded in approval and turned back to the sky. “Do you know why I wanted to come here?” he said.
I shook my head.
“It’s a clear night,” he said, pointing overhead, “a good view of Horologium.”
“I’m… sorry?” I said, squinting into the darkness.
He gestured for me to step to the left, then pointed once more. “It’s my favorite constellation,” he said. “It looks like a clock and a pendulum. Do you see it?”
I followed the direction of his finger, frowning at where he pointed. I could just barely make out the crooked shape of a swinging pendulum, etched into the sky by six dim stars.
“As long as they’re stationary, pendulum clocks are the most precise timekeepers in the world,” he said. “Descendants cannot afford to overlook a single moment. That is what this constellation reminds me.”
“That’s… poetic,” I said politely. But I must not have sounded very enthused, because Hong Gildong laughed.
“By the way, Mina, I’ve begun planning next year’s roster. We are, as you know, a bit short-staffed. I would love to have you continue to work with Hyebin, but I feel compelled to remind you that you have a quota to hit.”
My face burned. “Yes, Sajangnim,” I said stiffly. “I won’t disappoint you.”
“I should hope not,” he said, smiling knowingly before turning back toward headquarters. His grin lasted only a moment, but I swore that his teeth caught the glare of moonlight, illuminating the sharp points of his fangs.
Chapter Six
“I hate weddings,” Hyebin said, as if that wasn’t patently obvious from the way she was storming across the reception hall and tugging up her green velvet dress, which she wore with the enthusiasm of a snake clinging to its own dead skin. Unfortunately, her normal sweatpants wouldn’t cut it for a wedding of this caliber.
Apparently, one of the wedding guests was a future K-drama actor, but I wasn’t allowed to know his name. Celebrity-adjacent missions were highly classified ever since a descendant had tried to twist the timeline so that she could marry Min Yoongi from BTS. All I knew was that thanks to a butterfly effect from a rogue agent, the actor was going to get food poisoning here and miss an audition, ruining his acting career. He was supposed to be the first Korean actor to win an Emmy, so it was paramount that we corrected the mistake.
Hyebin stormed up the stairs rather than wait for the elevator, jammed two envelopes of gift money at the bride’s attendants in exchange for banquet tickets, then all but ran down to the banquet hall while I tried not to trip in my heels.
“Who wants to spend this much money just to be a slave to their in-laws?” Hyebin said under her breath.
“People in love, maybe?” I said.
