“Otohime-san,” I said quickly. “Please, can you help Yejun?”
Otohime turned to Yejun, her vivid eyes taking him in unhurriedly. “He is not one of my descendants,” she said. “It’s not my place—”
“Urashima Tarowasn’t your descendant either, but you tookhim in!” I said. “You cared for him and gave him time magic! How is this any different?”
Otohime stilled at my words, her gaze drifting back to Yejun.
The whole reason that Japan had access to time magic at all was because Otohime had loved a human and gifted him a box of time to protect him. That man—Urashima Taro—had opened the box and unleashed her magic on the world.
“Please,” I said, dropping my head and bowing. “None of this was his fault. He was injured protecting your descendants.”
Otohime turned to the gold dragon, exchanging a long glance. After a moment, the dragon nodded.
Otohime knelt in front of Yejun. His tired eyes fluttered open as she pressed a hand to his cheek, then closed again as she pulled back.
“I cannot save him,” she said.
I gripped Yejun tighter. “But you’re—”
“My domain is time, not healing,” she said. “He cannot be saved.”
I felt my fangs descending once more, claws digging into Yejun’s shirt. I hadn’t planned on fighting a god today, but for Yejun, I would try.
“However, perhaps there is something else we can do,” Otohime said.
I straightened up, quickly retracting my claws.
“We can reset the last hour, so that this tragedy never occurs in the first place,” she said. “It’s probably for the best, as I see there has been a lot of… meddling with the timeline.”
Reset the last hour?I thought, my stomach sinking. I should have expected this—all my unauthorized time traveling probably poked a few too many holes in the timeline, and I was lucky I wasn’t actually getting punished for it.
But I didn’t want to forget the way my parents stood up forme, the way Yejun was willing to die for me, the way I learned that Mina Yang wasn’t a failed descendant and disappointment after all.
I looked down at Yejun, who was breathing shallowly, his face sickly gray.
“Okay,” I said. “Yes, please do whatever you have to do to save him.”
“What about him?” Hyebin said, gesturing at Hong Gildong, who was still curled up in the corner.
The dragon huffed out a breath, and Otohime laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, Hyebin-nim,” she said. “We have plans for him as well.”
A hand gripped my sleeve, and I looked down at Yejun, whose eyes were now barely open.
“Hey,” I said, taking his hand. “It’s okay. Otohime is going to help you.”
He made a wordless sound of acknowledgment. I squeezed his hand a bit too hard until his eyes opened wider.
“If you can hold on for another minute, you might want to do this first,” Hyebin said, kneeling in front of us. She passed me a notebook and two pens.
“What’s this for?” I said.
“I figured there are some things you might want to remember,” Hyebin said with a shrug. “If you want to write yourselves notes, I can drop them off at the restaurant for you to pick up later.”
I glanced over Hyebin’s shoulder at Otohime. “Is that okay?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened,” she said with a soft smile.
I turned back to Hyebin. “Thank you,” I said. “Not just for this but… everything. And I’m sorry.”
