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Hani grunts in exertion as she digs her claws into the crevices between the warehouse's gray concrete bricks, pulling herself up toward the roof, careful to avoid the cracked windows. Seokga is not far behind her, and Hyun-tae, to his credit, is keeping up remarkably well. An icy night gust whistles around her ears as she climbs, whispers on the wind taunting her. Coward. Liar. Your fault. Somi's blood will soon be on your hands. Liar. Liar. Liar.

Hani bites down on her lip hard as she pulls herself to the roof, pushing herself across the shingles on her stomach toward the cavernous hole leading down into the warehouse. A soft grunt alerts her to Seokga's presence—he lies beside her in a similar position, his eyes bright in the shadows as he glares at their point of entry. "Damned demon," he sneers as Hyun-tae joins them, panting. "When it's sent back to Jeoseung, I'll ensure that King Yeomra gives it a suitable punishment. Better yet—I'll inflict it myself."

"We should look down," Hyun-tae whispers. "It is wise to see what we are walking into."

Hani nods, and as silently as she can, creeps toward the void. Clenching the edge of the ruined shingles with her hands, she peers down into shadows and darkness, careful to keep her face hidden. Her eyes take moments to adjust, but when they do…

The inside of the warehouse is a dump. The stone ground is littered with garbage, the walls are coated in sloppy graffiti, and there are more than a few overturned cars lying in heaps of crumpled metal atop seas of shattered glass. But these things are not what capture Hani's attention.

The warehouse is, as she predicted, teeming with Unrulies. She watches as clusters of Unruly bulgasari rip the cars apart, stuffing the metal into their mouths with greedy hands and cackling as they chew. Hani winces. It is more than likely that those cars were abducted with their drivers in them. And there are no signs of the drivers now.

Unruly bulgasari are not the only creatures within the warehouse. Hani bites back a curse as she catches sight of a crowd of fat baegopeun gwisin scampering through hordes of other Unrulies, stuffing something red and raw into their maws. So that's where the drivers went.

There are a few gumiho leaning against the crumbling cement pillars of the warehouse and Hani's eyes flicker between them as she searches. She clenches her jaw as she takes in a handful of dokkaebi, a few dripping-wet mul gwisin, but no Somi.

And no Dok-hyun, either.

Hani retreats, sitting on the shingled tiles and shaking her head at her two companions. "No Somi," she whispers. "No eoduksini."

Seokga's face tightens. "They must be somewhere inside. Somi's scent led here."

"It did." Hani chews on her bottom lip. "You're right. She must be here—she must be. She's just not visible." She frowns. "The eoduksini has amassed quite the following in a short time." She's pleased that there are no Unruly yong or imoogi—the powerful dragons and serpents would give a hard fight. There are no samjokgu, either. Hani feels a rush of tentative relief. The ferocious three-legged dog-shifters are frighteningly capable of ending a gumiho life.

"Its ideology is appealing," Hyun-tae offers grimly. "The Dark World reborn. Unbridled chaos. It's exactly the sort of thing that homesick Unrulies would flock to."

"What do we do?" Hani glances at their point of entry with trepidation. "Do we go in now? Or do we wait for Somi or the eoduksini to show themselves?"

"The eoduksini would expect us to wait," Hyun-tae replies, pulling the silver daggers from his pockets and clenching them in his hands. "And we cannot fall into its expectations. We should go now." It's clear he's itching to find Somi.

"Unless it's watching us," Hani replies warily.

"If that's the case," Seokga mutters darkly, "then either way, we don't have the element of surprise. But I suggest that we take our chances and hope that he hasn't been watching. We take him by surprise—or in the worst-case scenario, we get this battle over with sooner."

The worst-case scenario,Hani wants to bite back, is that we die. But she stays silent and lets her expression speak for her.

This battle is unlike anything she has ever faced before.

Chances of survival are low, to say the least.

Seokga's gaze softens. "We'll be all right," he says quietly. "We will see the morning light dawn over New Sinsi again, Hani. Together. I swear it on Hwanung." He takes her hand in his, and she flinches in surprise at the burning heat of it. "I swear on Hwanung, god of laws and kept promises, that the sun will shine on us both once again."

Hani's eyes widen. "You shouldn't make oaths you cannot keep." Hwanung will hold him to his oath, and if he can't fulfill it, there's no telling what Seokga's punishment will be.

"I will find a way to keep this one," Seokga replies, his thumb tracing circles on her skin. "I promise."

Her hand sears with heat from his, burning and blistering as the promise settles in. She fights back a wave of overwhelming emotion as she stares at Seokga. If they make it out of this fight alive, she'll find a way to…explain. She will.

Her throat aches from withheld tears as she kisses Seokga softly. Gently. It is a bittersweet kiss, light and hesitant.

It is worryingly close to a goodbye kiss.

You will lose him,she thinks, fighting back those tears. Either way, after tonight, you will lose him.

"We'll see the morning," Seokga whispers against her lips. "We'll see the dawn."

Hani barely has time to manage a smile—a sad, broken thing—before the roof shudders underneath them…and shatters completely.