Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“He’s still making a dumb face behind me, isn’t he?” Mira asked, sort of in an undertone.

Baby glanced back to check and hummed skeptically. “...Gotta be honest, I think his face just looks like that.”

“Has anyone told you that you look especially short and pathetic today?” Romance inquired sweetly. Clearly still sulking then; good to know.

“Aw, no, come on, Ro,” Abby chided. “He’s not especially tiny and pitiful today…he’s always like that. Don’t worry, buddy, we still like you; we just have to be extra careful not to trip over you—ah, no, no claws, Mira help—”

Mira ignored them all as Baby lunged past her at Abby, who ducked behind Rumi and Jinu for cover. Romance lengthened his stride a little to drop into step with her, and since he wasn’t scrambling to go save Abby from himself she figured that meant Baby wasn’t actually trying to kill him like it sounded. Rumi or Zoey probably would have stepped in to stop it if he was.

Probably.

“All this fuss just because I offered a massage,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. “I don’t know why you always insist on assuming the worst; I know you had a very busy schedule today and I’m sure a massage would help.”

A massage from an actual masseuse probably would help, at least a little—currently, the biggest source of tension in her life were the former Saja Boys, and not even the most gifted masseuse in the world could get rid of them for her. She definitely wouldn’t be accepting his offer, however, or any other offer that would entail letting him touch her for any reason.

“No messing around on hunts, remember?” she told them pointedly, as Abby darted back around to more or less hide behind her and Romance. For a given measure of “hide”, anyway; he was almost a foot taller than her and even Romance only came up to his shoulder. And he was greatly mistaken if he thought Mira would intercede on his behalf. “If you’re going to come with us, at least don’t get in the way.”

“We never do,” Abby said with a touch of wounded pride. Mira wouldn’t say they never got in the way, but admittedly, the five stray demons were...not entirely useless. Some of them could even manage to focus for a whole ten seconds at a stretch if they had to—mostly Baby and Jinu; Mystery only counted if the object of focus was Zoey. Abby and Romance were capable of not getting entirely on her nerves, at least when they were focusing on fighting other demons still on the wrong side of the Honmoon. But without a viable target to aim them at yet…they were mostly still just getting on her fucking nerves.

“No massages then, if you’re so insistent, but surely there’s something else we could do to help you relax then?” Romance added, playing at innocent but his tone leading.

Mira glanced despairingly to the side to see where Baby had ended up. His presence was usually enough to deter them at least slightly, on the grounds that he was a complete dick to everyone except Zoey and sometimes Mystery, but Zoey must have called him off before he could do any real damage to Abby and he’d gotten pulled into a conversation with her.

She could chase them off on her own, of course; she’d done it plenty of times. But she was certain there was a pack of some sort of demons or spirits in the area, and there was always a possibility of getting jumped if she let herself get distracted by Romance and Abby. And then she might just have to kill them on principle, despite having promised Rumi she wouldn’t…without a good reason, anyway.

Instead of arguing with them—because engagement of any kind would only give them the attention they wanted, and lately she was fully committed to the strategy of ignoring them as much as possible—she tried to walk a little faster and outpace them. It might have worked if they’d been more distracted, but they were both focused on her at the moment and they were, unfortunately, tall enough to easily match pace with her. It backfired too, because now they’d moved too far from the others to be easily in range, and when the gwishin finally made their appearance they converged on her as the closest human around.

Gwishin were a lesser kind of spirit, hardly more than wisps of fog with claws and wide, gaping mouths set into blank, featureless heads—deadly to a normal human, but hardly a threat to Mira except for how many there were. They’d expected more than one because they tended to travel in packs, moving in clumps like a tangle of spiders, but this was more than the five or six they’d expected to find. There had to be dozens of them here, like they’d gathered here for some purpose, but they were hardly even sentient so what reason could they possibly have?

It was a little strange, but nothing she was overly concerned with at the moment. Gwishin of any variety weren’t much of a threat to a hunter, even in a large group. And although she would never, ever admit it to them…the five Saja Boys weren’t terrible in a fight. Hunting with them required some adjustments to their usual fighting style to avoid hitting one of them by accident, but they were pretty good about staying out of the line of fire. Romance and Abby were still flanking her, but they dropped back once she summoned her woldo and were careful to stay out of her range. The demons fought with their claws rather than with weapons, but they didn’t seem to need any other weapon—they tore through the gwishin as easily as the hunters did, and in short order only a few remained.

One of the gwishin flickered past her just out of range, but before she could chase after it, Romance shredded his claws through the center of it, scattering its wavering form and destroying it in seconds. That left only four gwishin remaining, clumped up together and trapped on all sides by the eight of them. Zoey held back—she couldn’t throw her shin-kal without the risk of missing and hitting Abby or Jinu across from her, but Rumi and Mira closed in to deal with the final stragglers while the others kept watch.

A thick plume of oily black smoke boiled up in the center of the remaining gwishin, obscuring their forms in seconds. Mira and Rumi both stopped short as the gwishin shrieked within the smoke, their voices high and shrill with animal terror. One of them lunged as though to escape the smoke, not so much heading toward Mira as away from whatever was within the obscuring cloud of smoke, but a long, pale hand tipped in black talons snatched it out of the air and crushed it. It died with a last wordless howl of terror.

Mira snapped her woldo up to bear on the cloud of smoke and could see Rumi doing the same with her saingeom off to her left, but for a long, tense moment no one moved. It was obvious some sort of demon or spirit was hidden within the smoke, but this was utterly unlike anything they’d ever encountered before and the uncertainty was enough to hold them all back.

In the next instant, the black smoke seethed and roiled like a pot boiling over and it rushed toward Mira. She dodged but wasn’t fast enough to avoid a swipe to the ribs, a heavy, glancing blow that knocked her off balance and sent her staggering back. She caught her balance on her woldo, burying the blade deep in the pavement to brace herself up. The shock of seeing her own blood splattering the dirty concrete overrode the pain for a few jarring seconds. She sucked in a breath and wrenched her blade free as Rumi and Zoey both leapt at the new demon.

She’d taken a hit from demons before. Not often, especially as the three of them got more experience with fighting together, learning to move as a team and cover for one another, but it had happened. It had never felt like this before, burning like acid, wending deeper into her veins and spreading like fire. Worse was the feeling of something flickering, as though her very soul guttered like a candle in a hard breeze. She faltered, gasping, and reflexively tightened her grip on her woldo.

A hunter did not drop her weapon. Mira hadn’t spent so long training, so long fighting, just to do something foolish like drop her weapon mid-battle.

She tightened her grip on the shaft of the weapon, feeling the comforting weight and gathering herself for another attack...and the woldo vanished. The sensation of the candle burning in her chest guttered and died in a wisp of acrid smoke. She was left empty-handed, wide-eyed with shock, feeling hollowed out in a way that was hard to describe. Something like evisceration, something like heartbreak, more painful than either. Too stunned to move, even to get out of the way of the—the whatever the fuck that was, the demon of some sort that they’d never encountered the like of before—could only stand stock-still, clutching the bloodied wound over her ribs and watching the flash of purple-black claws emerging from a cloud of thick, oily smoke—

A body knocked her out of the way. Not Zoey or Rumi—they all knew how to catch each other in a flying tackle, had practiced and practiced to do it without hurting each other. This was someone bigger, heavier, and clearly had absolutely no idea how to soften against another body. It was less like a heroic save and more like being hit by a truck. But they cleared the reach of the claws safely and landed in a tangle with only minimal bruises, so it was a win overall. Even before catching sight of the bright magenta-pink hair, a few shades deeper than her own, she knew who it was.

She didn’t have time to decide how to respond or find leverage to shove Abby away—she could see Zoey twisting to try to avoid another flash of claws that would have torn her abdomen open, instead catching a slash across the dip of her spine. Past her, Rumi was already bleeding, her whole right arm red with it, and at this distance Mira couldn’t tell how badly she was hurt. Rumi didn’t have her sword either, and Mira could see her clawing at empty air as she tried and failed to call it from the Honmoon. Mystery pulled Zoey safely away from the demon’s claws just as her shin-kal vanished.

Whatever affliction had taken her weapon from her, it had worked on them, too. All three of them were weaponless. Defenseless and surrounded by demons. A nightmare scenario. It had gone all wrong so quickly.

“Go!” Jinu was shouting at his little demon tagalongs, his Saja Boys, while simultaneously grappling to pull Rumi away. “Take them and go! Run!”

He finally managed to get an arm securely around Rumi’s waist and they both vanished, leaving behind no trace except for the trademark puff of purple-red smoke.

“Rumi! No!” Terror shook her out of her shock and she fought against Abby’s hold, twisting and clawing to escape him. Across from her, she could see her own horror reflected in Zoey’s expression, but before she could do more than open her mouth, Mystery pulled her away in his own cloud of smoke, Baby vanishing in almost the same instant.

Mira was strong enough to flip Abby over her head with the right leverage. She knew she could; she’d done it before to prove a point. Even with bad leverage, she was strong enough to send him sprawling if she put in the effort to really try—and she didn’t see any point in pulling her punches, because if they were close enough to catch her fists then they probably deserved it. But she was trying now, fighting with everything she had...and he was unmoved. To his credit, he looked almost as startled as she did about this development. But he already had a good grip on her, so when Romance dropped down to catch his shoulder and hiss, “What are you doing? Move,” it took no effort at all for him to pull her with him as he teleported away.

Mira had never been teleported by a demon. Point of fact: Mira had not actually known they could take anyone with them when they teleported, at least until tonight. She was completely unprepared for how terrible it would feel, like getting pulled inside out and dissolved. She and Abby had been tangled up when they vanished and they were still tangled when they landed, though he made an effort to catch her. It would have been better if he’d just dropped her, she thought sourly—his attempt to catch her threw him off balance too, and he flattened her on the ground where they’d fallen in a heap. He’d had the forethought to cushion the back of her head with one hand, which was a surprisingly considerate thing to do, but it wouldn’t have even been necessary if he hadn’t been clinging onto her in the first place. Romance landed on his feet beside them, as gracefully as a cat, seemingly for the sole purpose of making their crash-landing look even worse by comparison.

“Get off me,” Mira snarled, elbowing Abby squarely in the throat. That should have sent him rolling across the ground and choking, regretting his choices for at least the next half hour. Instead he made a startled little umpf sound, reflexive like he’d expected it to hurt, but then blinked at her in surprise. Notably, he was not in the slightest bit crumpling in agonized pain at having invoked her hunterly wrath. Rather, he looked mildly startled, then flattered, the big idiot.

“Aw—you barely even hit me that time. You do like me!”

“Get up,” Romance said impatiently. “They got hit by whatever that thing was; she doesn’t have her powers. None of them do.”

Fuck. Fuck. So that really had happened.

Worse—it really happened, and demons had noticed. Demons had seen her weakness first-hand, and demons had scattered her team. The demons in question were Rumi’s pet project, so it wasn’t as cataclysmic as it sounded on paper. Yet. But it was a terrible development in a night that had otherwise started off fairly promising. And now her friends were gone, and she was alone, outnumbered two to one without any ability to defend herself.

“Wait, is that what happened?” Abby pushed up to his knees—briefly straddling Mira; as soon as she had her full strength back she was going to kick him so hard Jinu would have to rewrite all their songs to accommodate a castrato—and then clambered up to his feet, bending to offer her a hand up. She batted his hand away impatiently (he let her bat him away; her fingers stung where she’d clipped him too hard and he hadn’t even noticed) and pulled herself up. It hurt, a lot, and she couldn’t manage to catch the hiss of pain that escaped. They both saw her grimace and pale. She wavered on her feet and Abby stepped closer to press a steadying hand to her hip. She wanted to elbow him away on principle, but for one thing, she actually did need the help right now while she was still weak-kneed and shaky. That was another thing—there was a very real and humiliating possibility that he wouldn’t actually notice if she tried as weak as she was now.

Instead, she ignored them both and fumbled for her phone with her free hand, her other still clamped tight across the bloody gashes on her ribs. Fortunately the screen hadn’t cracked when Abby landed on her. Twice. Why was he so heavy anyway? He was a demon; they had preternatural strength or whatever, it wasn’t like he actually needed all of those muscles.

As she pulled up their group chat, the first notification came in from Rumi, a garbled spasm of meaningless letters. Mira frowned at it and started to type u ok? when Zoey’s responses started in, rapid fire like always.

Zoey: everyone ok???

Zoey: we’re ok rn but i can’t pull my weapons

Zoey: can either of you pull weapons???

Zoey: i didn’t know we could teleport w them; Rumi did u know that?? Do you teleport w Jinu?? Mystery doesn’t teleport w me :(

Zoey: bb says the demon thing might be poison?!? D:

Zoey: n thats why no weapons :(

Zoey: bb says he can’t teach me to teleport but i think he means won’t teach me; will update when he agrees. he can be bribed.

Zoey: srsly r u ok i'm freaking out

Well. At least that was proof that it was really Zoey. Couldn’t be bothered to capitalize or type out full words, but she could still drop a semi-colon in a sentence and find the time to pout about her weird-ass relationship with Mystery and Baby.

She typed, I’m ok and, because she knew what the next questions would be, grudgingly added, I can’t pull a weapon either. R&A are with me.

Rumi finally got herself together, wherever she was (probably having a thank god we survived makeout with Jinu, ugh) and started a video call instead of texting. Mira accepted the call and barely had to wait more than a second before the screen divided and Zoey was visible too. Or, specifically, Zoey’s jaw and part of her shoulder, with Baby wedged in against her neck to see the screen. Mystery wasn’t in frame, but Mira could pick out the silvery-lavender of his hair on Zoey’s other side, all three of them smushed in close.

She bit back a sigh because she already knew Abby would see it and take it as a cue to do the same, and—yep. He pressed up close against her back and ducked down to bring his face level with hers, practically breathing down her neck. He reached over her shoulder, and because he was stupidly tall he had the freakishly long reach to catch Romance’s arm and reel him into their huddle. There was no way Romance would be able to see the screen around Abby, so he leaned up against Mira’s other side instead. Stubbornly, she held her position and pretended not to notice where either of them was pressed against her.

(Shifting her weight would bring her more into contact with one or the other of them; there was nowhere to move even if she didn’t feel like she might fall down without them to help brace her up. It was temporary, but for now she could ignore the curl of Abby’s broad hand over her hip and the light press of Romance’s arm across her back, his hand on Abby’s shoulder to tuck her between them. This would only be tolerated for the duration of their conference call, and it was fine, Mira was completely fine with this.)

“Is everyone okay?” Rumi asked frantically. She was somewhere indoors, Mira could see, but couldn’t make out enough of the background to tell where she was. Not their penthouse, but somewhere dark and quiet. Jinu’s shoulder was visible in the frame, like Rumi was leaning on him, but he hadn’t tried to contort himself down to fit in the frame. Unlike Abby, the idiot.

“Fine,” Mira lied, curt even by her standards. Zoey was delivering a high-speed monologue that more or less translated to, “I’m hurt but not dying, and I’m trying to find the right leverage to bribe my situationship into teaching me demon magic”.

Mira whished she could say this was a new development, but unfortunately it was old news at this point. Rumi was learning from Jinu how to control her demonic abilities, which had been long-suppressed. Zoey had decided a fun bonding activity would be to, apparently, pester the shit out of Baby and Mystery to teach her, too. Baby had, at least so far, mostly tolerated this with fraying patience, but Mystery had actually tried to accommodate her in his own (mostly non-verbal) way. As far as Mira was aware, Zoey’s side of the project had gone absolutely nowhere, given that she wasn’t actually a demon and was more just a gremlin, but she seemed to be having fun anyway.

Mira had declined to join this project when Abby and Romance offered, but had conceded that Rumi should learn and it was (probably) harmless for Zoey to try to learn, too. As long as she didn’t have to get involved or spend more time than was strictly necessary with any former Saja Boys, she didn’t care. She was trying to be supportive of them and their (weird as hell) relationships, but her resolve was mostly still in a baby-steps stage where she didn’t ask for any details and they didn’t tell her any details, and she could skate along on the thin ice of plausible deniability a little longer.

“Where are you?” Mira cut in impatiently. “We shouldn’t split up while we’re...while we can’t access our weapons.”

Not defenseless and never helpless, but...unarmed. Lacking their usual strength. And now scattered who even knew where.

“We’re in my mom’s old apartment,” Rumi admitted a bit uncomfortably. “I, um. I showed it to Jinu recently, so he knew where it was.”

“We’re...wait, I don’t actually know. Where is this?” Zoey craned her head to look around. Somewhere with a lot of neon lights, but no one close by from the sound of it.

“Yongsan,” Baby told her. “Near the Electronics Market.”

“Oooh, right, we were here last week to get you a new laptop.” Zoey brightened with recognition. “So, you can only teleport somewhere you’ve been before? That makes sense.”

“Picked somewhere far from where we were,” Mystery murmured, his voice barely carrying to the camera.

“That was a good idea!” Zoey told him brightly. “Good job!”

“We’re in Hongdae,” Romance added. Was it suspicious that he didn’t try to narrow it down more than that? Or was he just trying to stay on topic? He continued before Mira could decide to interrogate him further. “We shouldn’t go back to the penthouse yet. That thing might go looking for the hunters. We can all find somewhere to stay the night and regroup in the morning to figure out what to do.”

“Ro, you catch that thing’s scent?” Baby asked.

“No. Too much smoke,” Romance told him. “You?”

“Nah. Too much smoke for me, too. But it scratched up the hunters so we might be able to catch something from that. We’ll find somewhere safe first and then try—we’ll text if we find anything.”

“Hang on, catch what? Catch what from what?” Mira demanded, overlapping with Zoey saying, “You can smell what attacked us from the wound it left?”

Which, fuck, that was probably a better question, wasn’t it? Was that what he was implying, that they needed to...what, sniff the wound? Gross.

“You can do that?” Rumi, startled, looked up at Jinu. “Wait, can I do that?”

“Find a safe place, then explain. Text later. If it shows up and kills you in the night, maybe try to send someone a text about it first,” Baby said impatiently, then ended their side of the call. Sometimes Mira forgot how much of an asshole he was.

“Wait—damn it, Jinu, what’s he talking about?” Mira snapped, clenching the phone so hard it hurt her hands. Which was just embarrassing, honestly; usually she had to be careful not to grip it too hard in case it broke. It was like she’d been reduced down to how she’d been at fifteen, when she’d only just properly started her training with Celine, still fumbling and ineffective and scared all the time. It sucked to go back, but it was even worse to have Abby and Romance for company while it happened.

Rumi obligingly angled the camera up, so Mira was able to see the way Jinu froze up and got all awkward and evasive. “Uh—I mean. Well, we can...the wound might have traces of...Ro, you can explain it better than me, talk to you later, stay safe, bye!”

“You—” Mira began angrily, at the same time Romance yelped, “Why me?” but then Rumi’s end of the call was gone, too.

“That little fucker,” Mira said wonderingly. Jinu had gotten too comfortable with not being afraid of her—she’d definitely be fixing that just as soon as her powers were back. “What were they talking about?”

It was definitely suspicious that Romance was avoiding an answer this time. “We should get off the street and find somewhere safe.”

The blatant evasion was obnoxious, but even more annoying was the fact that he was right. She was still bleeding and they were all too recognizable to loiter in an alley in the middle of the night. “Fine. Where exactly are we?”

“Hongdae,” Romance said again, which didn’t help at all.

“Why Hongdae of all places?”

“Can’t remember the street name, but there’s a nightclub around the corner from here. Ro and I went there last weekend,” Abby told her, which didn’t really answer the question but did offer a clue as to why they might have been here recently. It was also a little concerning—she knew that sometimes the demons would go out on their own from time to time, although not often as far as she could tell, but knowing it abstractly was different than having to wonder what two demons would be doing in a nightclub full of helpless, intoxicated humans.

Setting aside the not unreasonable concerns, however…she rolled her eyes. “We ran from a fight against a demon more powerful than all eight of us and you took us to a nightclub?”

“I didn’t take us to the nightclub,” Abby said, becoming snippy with the insinuation that his floundering attempt at a plan hadn’t been perfect. “I took us to the alley behind the nightclub, which you’ll notice is empty. Nobody around to start screaming when three people appear out of thin air.”

Which begged the question of what they’d been doing in the unpopulated alleyway in a red-light district that made it memorable enough for Abby to go back there as a first reaction, but the first rule of media interviews was to never ask a question you didn’t want to hear the answer to.

“There’s a hotel close by,” Romance added. The implication that they’d stayed at the hotel last weekend was left unspoken. Mira didn’t question that, either. Huntrix had an event at an awards show last weekend and they’d left the former Saja Boys behind; Mira hadn’t asked what they’d done while the girls were gone and she hadn’t given it much thought when they didn’t offer up any information. Plausible deniability; Rumi made them all swear to be on their best behavior, and Mira pretended to believe it when they agreed.

The thing was. The thing was, Jinu was obvious with his infatuation with Rumi. Any subtlety or subterfuge vanished when she was nearby. And maybe that could have been chalked up to an individual quirk—and what a revelation that quirk had been, discovering that the mastermind behind the plan that nearly shattered their group and almost caused the downfall of the world was actually an awkward dork who was clumsily, ridiculously in love—but then there was Mystery. On his own, he was stand-offish, cold, reserved, composed...and then he spotted Zoey, and he turned into a lovestruck puppy. He followed her everywhere, he did anything she asked and things she hadn’t even mentioned. He brought her drinks and snacks and blankets and pillows and notebooks and new pens like a dog that had learned it would be rewarded for playing fetch. He had no chill, in other words. A measurable lack of chill. It’d be funnier if he wasn’t, like...mildly terrifying to be around. Baby was hardly any better; he had a hint of composure by comparison, but anything Zoey wanted, Zoey got—Baby and Mystery would see to it personally. Baby might scoff and roll his eyes and put up a front about it, but he’d damn well do it.

So. That was three examples of how a down-bad demon behaved. They obsessed, and they fumbled around their object of affection trying to make themselves into some cavemannish provider. Which brought her around to Romance and Abby, who, by all appearances…were courting each other. Mira sometimes caught strays from their absurd little mating dance around each other, but it hadn’t taken more than a few days of observation to realize what was really happening: she was getting caught in their crossfire. With Rumi and Jinu oblivious to anyone else’s presence while they spent hours staring lovingly into each other’s eyes and the complicated three-way tango happening between Mystery, Zoey, and Baby, Mira’s presence around Abby and Romance became default. If Bobby spent more time in the penthouse (and if they’d actually told him about the Saja Boys) then they’d probably just as easily flirt with him instead of her. It had stung a little, in a way she didn’t care to examine more closely, but it made it easier to ignore them when they made flirtatious remarks at her, or tried to bring her things. The same routine had played out enough times that she had the rhythm of it down. It was Abby, all faux innocence, saying, Oh, Mira, I brought you a drink—and here, Ro, I have one for you. It was Romance, his words perfectly innocent and his tone turning it to something sly and insinuating as he waved her over to the space between them on the couch, saying, Mira, come sit with us while we watch a movie—oh, you don’t want to? And pouting about her refusal until Abby made a production of pulling him close to cuddle.

So when Romance led the way up to a love hotel, Mira didn’t bother to raise an eyebrow at them for it. She still seethed about Abby’s arm around her waist but had accepted it as a necessity: he was helping her stay upright, and his body close to hers helped hide the blood on her shirt. Most of her focus was on keeping herself walking; she was in the unenviable position of trusting him to keep her upright and trusting Romance to lead the way. She also accepted that Abby was using her as a convenient prop: they didn’t get more than a second glance from anyone who passed them, not the way they would have caught attention if he’d been wrapped around Romance like this instead. She was a convenient third-wheel and nothing else, and she knew it.

And it was fine anyway, because she wasn’t Rumi and she wasn’t Zoey; she wasn’t going to date one demon, much less two, and wouldn’t have wanted them even if they’d been serious. She just wished they’d take the hint and stop trying to draw her into their nonsense—she didn’t care what they did with each other, as long as they didn’t try to involve her.

They’d picked a hotel that didn’t require ID, which made sense since they didn’t officially exist, and didn’t have a human manning the service desk. Self-service, all electronic. Paid for in two-hour increments; Romance checked the current time and then logged eight hours with a shrug. They had cards to an expense account Rumi set up for them—Mira had laughed when Rumi told her about it, but she had to admit it was better than letting them teleport around and steal things. It wasn’t even that they were malicious about it, they just genuinely didn’t seem to care. It took Jinu putting his foot down to make them use their cards consistently. She had an idle thought about finding someone who could make them fake IDs; they’d have to pick better names for themselves. She refused to help submit paperwork for someone calling themselves “Romance” or “Baby”.

She’d sort of been expecting more from a love hotel picked out by demons. At the very least a heart-shaped bed and some strategically placed mirrors she could make fun of them for. Disappointingly, it was a very normal-looking hotel room. At least it was clean. A queen mattress, white linens turned down neatly. An armchair tucked in the corner by a small trashcan and a curtained window behind it. A nightstand on either side of the mattress and a lamp on each. A surprisingly nice bathroom just to the side of the entrance with a walk-in shower.

She was still bleeding, which ruled out the clean white bedspread as a place to sit. The chair looked like plastic faux leather, something easily wiped clean. When she pushed away from Abby he let go slowly, making sure she stayed on her feet when his support was removed. She eased down into the chair gingerly and kept her hand pressed tight to the bleeding gashes on her ribs. Fuck that hurt. “Okay. Talk.”

Abby sat at the foot of the bed and made himself comfortable, legs spread wide and elbows braced on his knees. Romance didn’t. He was between her and the door, but less in a way that suggested he was blocking her in and more in a way that said he was leaving his escape route open. She raised her eyebrows at him for it—granted, of the three Huntrix, she was the one most likely to attack him, but she’d been very benevolent about the whole process so far (really!) and had only ever attacked as a retaliation for having them intrude on her space. Non-lethally, at that. Rumi had asked her not to harm any of them unless given a good reason to, and Mira had agreed. If that agreement came at the end of a long, heated argument that brought all three of them to tears at least once each, well...that was between them.

Jinu was tolerable, when he wasn’t mooning at Rumi. Baby was a bitchy little asshole, and if he hadn’t been a demon Mira thought they could have been friends immediately. Most days she almost didn’t mind having him around. Mystery was...weird, frankly, and a bit off-putting, but he was entirely wrapped up in Zoey’s world and otherwise was a quiet, unobtrusive presence in the penthouse. Abby and Romance, though...ugh. They had each other, so there was no reason why they should seek her out unless it was from boredom. Which would have been fine—Baby did that, too, when he tired of the Zoey-and-Mystery show, and honestly he wasn’t bad company most of the time. But where Baby was content to hang out with her at a respectable distance and make snide, cutting commentary about the trashy shows she watched with him and eat spicy foods too hot for any of the rest to tolerate, Abby and Romance seemed to want her attention on them. They pressed too close, they tried to trap her between them, they wanted her focus solely on them even if they had to annoy her to get the attention they wanted.

The point being, they’d never indicated much understanding toward the concept of personal space. It was suspicious that they were both being conspicuously careful about it now. Not just of her space, but keeping some distance between each other, too.

Gamely, Romance tried to evade one more time. “We’ll need supplies for the night—clothes that aren’t bloody, food. Bandages? Other...human medical things? I should—”

“You should explain what Baby and Jinu were talking about,” Mira said bluntly. “Spit it out. Something to do with the scratches? What is this poison? What is it doing to me?”

“Right. That.” He shifted in place, restless in a way nobody would think a demon could be, visibly uncomfortable. “Well. I don’t know about the poison. I’ve never seen it before. It was a guess that it took your powers, cut you off from the Honmoon—that’s why you can’t draw your weapons and why you’re not as strong as usual.”

“Figured that part out already,” Mira agreed tetchily. The reminder stung. “But what was he saying about it’s...scent?”

“The smoke in the room, from every time it teleported around or whatever it was doing—that was deliberate. To conceal it’s scent. Otherwise, we might know what kind of demon it was, or be able to track it. Younger demons might not know how to pick apart scents and track them down, but most of us are older and we know how. Me, Jinu, Baby—maybe not Mystery, but I don’t know for sure.”

Mira blinked and considered this—and noted how he was still talking around the answer instead of just telling her—then turned a skeptical stare on Abby. “Wait, are you the youngest? I figured...I mean, his name is literally Baby.”

“Baby’s almost as old as Jinu,” Abby told her with a quick grin. “I bet there’s no more than a decade between them.”

“Abby’s the real baby of the group,” Romance added, smirking at Abby when he flipped him off in a good-natured kind of way.

“Okaaaay,” Mira said slowly, drawing out the word. She shifted and winced, clamping her hand harder against her side and felt more blood seep through her fingers. Fucking fuck that stung like hell. “So, you have stronger senses because you’re older, got it. What’s that got to do with that fucker clawing us up?”

“It touched you. It attacked you physically and magically. I might be able to...um, detect traces it left behind.” He paused, almost visibly weighing his options, then added delicately, “I might be able to taste it. If I tried. If you let me try.”

Mira squinted at him in the lamp light. Fuck him for still managing to look perfect and pretty after all the stupidity of the night—at least Abby had the decency to look a little rumpled after flopping around an alleyway. Damn, she’d bled onto his shirt, too; they’d both need to find a way to cover that before they left.

Whatever. Focus, Mira, for fuck’s sake. “Taste it. Like. You mean my blood?”

“Yes. Well,” he amended, “yes and no—not just the blood, but the wound itself.”

Well. There went her next suggestion, which would have been to point out the blood on Abby’s shirt and tell him to knock himself out.

She could, reluctantly, see why Jinu hadn’t wanted to be the one to break the news. His delicate, old-fashioned sensibilities probably ruled out saying something like “Hey, can me and my buddies lick you a little, for science?” in a group call. But Baby was a fucking coward and she was going to watch the season finale of Devil’s Plan without him for it. This was exactly the kind of terrible news he would usually enjoy springing on people, but he’d bailed out and now she had to listen to Romance fumble his way through it from the questionable safety of a love hotel. What an asshole.

“So,” she said slowly, working through the problem with the tired despair of someone who knows the ship has struck the iceberg and now it’s only a matter of how fast it will sink, “So, you’re saying you. You need to, like...lick it?”

The hotel room wasn’t interesting enough to justify the way Romance was studying everything in it except her and the stupid wipe-clean cuck chair. “…Yes. It’s a little more involved than that, but...basically, yes.”

“A little more involved how?” She demanded, instantly suspicious.

“Not for you,” he clarified. “For me. To pull apart the tastes and isolate just the demon. But I need somewhere to start, and...for that I need a taste of it.”

Of you, he didn’t say, which was terrific forethought on his side because Mira would have thrown something at him if he’d said that. Well, alright, there wasn’t actually anything to throw and the chair was too heavy, but like. She would have glared at him at bare minimum.

“You’re still bleeding,” Abby observed. Like most of his observations, this one was extremely obvious. Mira threw him a dirty look for daring to point out what she very much already knew. “And we really do still need supplies, like Ro said. I can go get what we’ll need while you and Ro, um, handle the other part. If you want.”

Arguably the only thing worse than letting Romance lick her ribs in front of his boyfriend was making his boyfriend leave while he did it. Fuck, she wished she hadn’t ever thought of the stupid chair as the cuck chair, because now that was all she could think about.

“No,” she croaked, and had to clear her throat to try again. “No, it’s. Whatever, it’s fine. Stay if you want to. Will you be able to tell more about the poison if you do this?”

Romance shrugged again. “I’m not sure. Maybe. I’ve never seen hunters incapacitated by a poison before. I don’t know enough about it to make any guesses. But maybe. I’ll tell you if I notice anything.”

Demon powers were stupid. Who had to lick things to activate their magic powers? It was fucking absurd.

It...also made a certain kind of sense though. Even they needed a starting point. Just, usually the starting point wasn’t an open gash on her ribs. This was going to be so unhygenic, even if they hadn’t been in a fucking love hotel.

“Just. Give me a minute,” she told them, striving to sound calm and collected. She landed on “grumpy” instead, but. Close enough or whatever.

She pulled up the Huntrix group chat again, which was always pinned to the top of her texts. There was also one that included all eight of them, which she rarely responded to, and the unanswered invite to the one Romance and Abby kept trying to start with her; while she was in her conversation logs she deleted it again. One of them would send another invite every time she deleted the notification and it never seemed to deter them when she deleted them.

Zoey had been the one to first add phone lines into her plan, for Baby and Mystery, but Rumi had followed suit to add the other three “so everyone can keep in touch”, as she’d explained to Mira. It had taken them all of an afternoon to get it set up. Mira’s only comment on it had been to point out that it might have been nice for someone to tell her that before arming the demons with phones, because the very first thing Romance and Abby had done was try to add her into a chat. From Mira’s perspective, two unknown numbers had suddenly started texting her private number—a horror movie cold-open scenario that had not improved with the realization that she was being texted by literal demons. Rumi had only explained it when Mira cut her workout short to come back and tell them about the strange messages she was receiving.

She typed out a message to Zoey and Rumi. Are you hearing the same thing I’m hearing about the poison? Licking? Be serious. Really??

Zoey responded with a string of emojis, exactly none of which Mira was prepared to respond to constructively right now. Eggplants featured heavily. She also linked to an article about something called a Jacobson’s Organ, which, gross. Whatever that was, Mira wasn’t clicking the link. Rumi replied on a delay, but more helpfully, so Mira forgave her.

Rumi: You don’t have to. 100% don’t have to if you don’t want to.

Rumi: But it might help. We need information and this is how we can get it.

Easy for her to say. Mira rolled her eyes and very firmly shoved away any and all thoughts about what the others might be getting up to right about now. Fucking Zoey and her eggplant emojis—Mira hadn’t ever noticed that the demon-face and eggplant emojis were the same shade of purple until now, so. You know, thanks for that, Zoey.

Fuck, she’d bled on the cuck chair and was sticking to the leather as the blood dried. Every part of this night sucked.

“What would you need me to do?” If she thought of it as a kind of training exercise, she could almost pretend it wasn’t the worst suggestion she’d ever heard.

“It’d be easier if you were laying down.” To his credit, Romance delivered this with an absolutely neutral voice. If there’d been even the smallest suggestion of his usual insinuating tone, even a hint of a smirk, she would have thrown him out the window.

Or tried, anyway. She kept forgetting she didn’t have her usual strength. So that probably wouldn’t have ended well for anyone, least of all her.

“I’ll bleed all over the sheets if I do that,” she pointed out. “That’s a bad idea if we’re trying to keep a low profile. Which we are.”

Perhaps predictably, neither of them seemed to have considered that. Or maybe they had and just hadn’t cared; demons were weird. They gave her a blank look, then traded a considering expression at each other. Romance shrugged. “I’ll...get a towel?”

A place like this probably budgeted for linens getting destroyed on the regular, Mira figured. Better a towel than the entire bedspread. Romance headed for the bathroom, but Abby rolled up to his feet from the bed and came to loom over her for a beat—god, he really was tall for absolutely no reason—before he lowered himself gracefully down to his knees at her feet. She stared at him, too tired to downplay how unsettling it was to have him so close. “What are you doing?”

“Can I take these off for you?” He tapped the edge of one of her knee-high boots. None of them had stopped to switch to the courtesy slippers in a basket by the door.

“I can do it.” It would hurt, but theoretically she could. Any second now, she might actually try to lean forward and see if she could actually make it that far.

“I know.” Whether or not he actually believed her, he said it simply and sincerely. “But can I do it for you?”

She hesitated. The no was instinctive and knee-jerk, but she made herself take a beat to think it through. She could do it herself (probably), but it would hurt like hell and she didn’t really want to. Abby was offering, and by his standards he was even being kind of normal about it. “...Okay.”

His fingers found the zippers on the back, barely brushing the sensitive hollow behind her knee. She suppressed a shiver—for fuck’s sake, he’d barely even touched her, probably not even on purpose; get it together Mira—and helpfully lifted her feet one at a time to let him pull the boots off and set them aside. He smoothed his thumb over the top hem of her sock, just below the curve of her knee, and okay, yeah that time it was definitely on purpose. Before she could say something cutting or gather herself to push him back, he settled back on his heels and raised his gaze to meet hers. “It’d be easier to move to the bed if you’ll let me pick you up. Can I?”

Romance came back in time to catch the question—or maybe he’d been able to hear them the whole time; the room wasn’t that large—while pulling the blankets off the bed. Without looking up from this task, he added, “He’s right.”

Taking her shoes off for her was a vastly different proposition from letting them pick her up and carry her around.

“I’m not helpless,” she said waspishly, and then could hardly follow that up with help me up like she really probably should have. She braced her free hand on the arm of the chair and started to push herself up, but Abby hadn’t moved and he was blocking her in. She collapsed back down into the seat and scowled at him. “Move. You’re in the way.”

“We know you’re not helpless,” Abby told her, his voice low and soft in the quiet. “We want to help. Will you let me? Please?”

“The puppy-eyes only works on Zoey,” she told him irritably.

“It works on Rumi too,” he told her, flashing a quick smile. Which was unfortunately true; Rumi was also a sucker for big sad eyes in a handsome face. Exhibit A: Jinu’s everything.

“Zoey and Rumi,” Mira conceded, because, well. That the former Saja Boys currently lived with them was plenty of evidence to support that fact. “But not me.”

He nodded slowly, and she could almost see him shifting strategies. “Not you. But it’d be practical to let me help you up. And you’re the practical one, right?”

Mira had never been accused of being practical a day in her life. There was actually a pretty strong argument to be made that Bobby was the practical one, the honorary Huntrix with no idea about their hunting. She nudged his shoulder with her knee, but gently. “Nice try. Get up. Thanks though, for helping with my shoes.”

She pretended not to hear Romance’s soft laugh, or the murmured, “Stubborn,” as Abby pouted at her but rocked back and up to his feet. He at least took a step to the side but undeniably was still looming in a way that would usually have gotten him a lecture. This time she let it go and ignored them both. She was too busy fighting for her life to peel out of the stupid cuck chair; blood had dripped down past the waist of her shorts and stuck her thigh to the pleather seat. She grimaced as the shift to stand pulled against her ribs and swore under her breath when her skin peeled away from the seat. “I’m leaving them such a bad review online. That chair sucks.”

“We’ll take you to a nicer hotel the next time you’re bleeding everywhere,” Romance promised, and Mira huffed a little laugh despite herself. Even that hurt.

It was only a few steps over to the bed at least. If it had been much farther than that she probably would have embarrassed herself by having to give up and sit right on the floor. Romance had found a roll of small trash bags in the bathroom and used his claws to cut a slit in a few of them so he could spread them out wide. This showed unusually good foresight for someone who hadn’t seen any problem with getting blood all over the place, but she was glad he’d done it. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d bled, how much she was still bleeding. Was this because she’d been nerfed back to a normal human’s ability? Or was it some side effect of the poison?

“This should have stopped bleeding by now,” she muttered. “It didn’t even cut me that deep. I’ve had worse and didn’t bleed like this.”

“Bleeding isn’t in my blood,” Romance sang, teasing. Mocking, really. “Isn’t that how the song goes? It’s probably the poison. Lay back.”

“You don’t like the lyrics you can take it up with Zoey,” Mira grumbled, but she braced her free hand carefully behind her for leverage. She eased back slowly, trying to keep her torso straight and take most of her weight on her arm. The mattress dipped behind her as Abby settled himself on her right and reached out with careful hands to take her weight as she settled back. It hurt like hell anyway, and she blinked back reflexive tears of pain and breathed slowly as she settled on her back, trying to stay steady and project a level of calm she didn’t feel. Abby helped support her until she was lying flat and even gathered her hair out of the way to keep it out of the blood. He was out of her line of sight and it was unsettling to have his hands on her like that, but admittedly, he was helping.

The trash bags crinkled faintly as she shifted and tried to find a comfortable way to lay, then gave up when it was clear that there was nothing comfortable about this at all. Even her joints hurt, in an aching, feverish way that was honestly pretty worrisome. How fast did it take for an infection to set in? Not that fast, surely?

Romance, still standing beside the bed, leaned down to catch her eye. “Still okay? Do you need a minute?”

“Just do whatever it is you need to do,” she told him irritably. It could have been a completely innocent and polite question, but he was using that overly sweet, fake voice he’d used when he was still playing at being an idol. Teasing, maybe even trying to joke, but she was in no mood for it while laying in a slowly growing puddle of her own blood.

There shouldn’t be a way for three adults to fit on a bed this size, much less for two of them to manage it gracefully, but that was demons for you. Mira tried not to be resentful when Romance managed to knee-walk up the mattress beside her on her left and somehow didn’t look like an idiot doing it. Abby curled around to lightly tug at her left arm, his body curved in a protective frame around her.

“You’ll have to let go for Ro,” he murmured to her. “Take my hand.”

“I’ll get blood on you,” she protested, but reluctantly pried her hand away from the wound on her ribs. Immediately she could feel fresh blood well up and spill over in hot trails.

“I don’t care.” He tugged on her sleeve again and she fumbled to catch his hand, letting him lace her blood-slick fingers through his. Whatever; she’d go back to being annoyed by their existence tomorrow. For now, her ribs fucking hurt and she was uncomfortable, and she could hold someone’s hand if she wanted to.

Romance touched her lightly, the pads of his fingers barely making contact with her waist. The high-waisted shorts and cropped t-shirt had been comfortable and practical at the start of the night, but were considerably worse for wear by this point. “I’ll have to move your shirt up. Is that okay?”

Damn it. She should have realized that on her own. The idea of letting him—either of them—tug her clothing around was intolerable. She tangled her fingers of her free hand in the hem of her shirt and pulled it up, wincing at the drag of blood-soaked fabric across the torn edges of the claw marks, and held it firmly in place high enough to show the wound but low enough to cover her bra. A girl had to have standards.

Romance lowered himself down until he was propped up on one elbow, his other hand still splayed over her stomach. She could feel her pulse under his palm and it was disconcerting to know he would be able to feel it too.

“It won’t hurt,” he murmured, his voice soft. Kind, even. She thought he might actually mean it that time; it wasn’t his fake, simpering idol voice. It made a surreal, unnerving contrast to the wash of eerie lavender seeping over his skin, the sudden flash of deeper purple patterns and the glowing gold-coin eyes glancing up at her through his hair.

Right, so. It made sense that he would need to go demon mode to do...whatever the hell this was. She probably would have realized that if she’d given it any thought at all. She watched him dip lower, close enough to feel the feather-soft ends of his hair brush her skin, and squeezed her eyes shut as he opened his mouth.

For a moment she thought he hadn’t moved, or that he might pull back, but then she felt the subtle wash of his breath across the thin skin over her ribs and fought back chills—he was breathing her in, drawing air in through his mouth like a snake scenting for prey. (Oh, right—Jacobson’s Organ; she remembered why that sounded familiar now. Thanks, Zoey, all those nature documentaries were good for something after all.) She breathed in and out in slow, mechanical increments, steady like Celine had taught them, and tried very hard not to notice anything other than the movement of air through her lungs.

That moment of white-knuckling her way into zen lasted about a second and a half, and then evaporated on the spot when the press of firm, wet pressure dragged across the bottom claw mark. Her measured breath in stuttered and hitched, somehow stupid enough to be surprised even when she knew it was coming. At the very least she managed to hold still on her own—if he tried to hold her down she was going to either break her knuckles or his nose, whichever gave way first. She clenched her bloodied shirt in her fist and tried to even out her breathing, and only realized she was gripping Abby’s hand just as tightly when he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Romance smoothed his hand over her stomach in a slow stroke, possibly in an ill-considered attempt at being comforting, but didn’t apply any pressure to hold her still.

“Anything?” Abby asked. He’d dropped his voice low and soft again, but the break in the quiet made Mira twitch, not quite a flinch. She blinked back into focus as Romance lifted his head. His eyes were closed and his face was—um. Okay, so. There was a possibility she hadn’t entirely considered that demons might like the taste of blood. Might, particularly, savor the taste of a hunter’s blood. His lips were stained with it like dark gloss, sticky and shining in the low lamplight in a way that drew the eye.

She never quite managed to stop noticing that he was beautiful. They all were; she’d thought after a while the shock would wear off and they’d fade into the background, but they were inhumanly lovely and there was just no getting used to it. The golden gleam of his eyes opening drew her focus away from his mouth, but not before he’d noticed her looking. He licked his lips slowly (which, gross, that was blood) and hummed thoughtfully. “Didn’t realize hunter’s blood would taste so strong. Give me a minute.”

And without so much as a you don’t mind, do you? he ducked his head down and licked up another mouthful of blood straight from the source. She hadn’t expected him to try again and flinched that time. Abby pressed closer to her, lying curled around her almost protectively, and made annoying little hushing sounds in her ear. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Stay still a little longer.”

“Oh my god, stop talking.”

Romance’s jaw worked as he lifted his head again, his eyes half-lidded. It was a bit like watching someone tie a cherry stem with their tongue: deeply uninteresting for the outside observer, but she could tell his focus was turned inward.

“Got it that time,” he breathed out, with that content, pleased, sleepy-eyed expression and his mouth stained red like he’d been kissing someone, and just.

It was just. A lot to deal with right now. Was the thing.

“Abby. You should know how to find it, too. C’mere.” Romance lifted himself up, an easy one-armed push up like it was no effort at all, and leaned over Mira. Kind of like he—wait, he was—

They were kissing. Directly over her head. Open mouthed and deep, slow and sweet. There was. There was definitely a lot of tongue involved. Mira stared up at them, frozen in shock. They were both in their demon forms now; she hadn’t even noticed when Abby changed.

Romance broke the kiss and leaned back. Abby leaned into him, chasing for another kiss, and got a chaste peck and soft laugh for his trouble. “Focus. Did you pick up on it? The other demon?”

“Just tastes like Mira,” Abby murmured, which. Which was. Hm. Alright. That made an impact from point-blank range, okay. Mira was learning all sorts of interesting things about herself tonight.

“What—what.” She pulled fruitlessly against Abby’s hold, but he’d laced their fingers together and was leaning his weight down on their hands for balance, keeping her stuck in place. “Are you fucking serious right now—”

“He’s new at this,” Romance protested, holding his hands up in a gesture of innocence. “It takes practice to separate out the notes. I pulled the demon’s note to the top first, but it’s still a lot to unravel. He just needs more practice, that’s all.”

She was going to show him unraveling, for fuck’s sake. She’d been trying, really trying to give them the benefit of the doubt with this idiotic and invasive plan, and now they were just using it as an excuse to…to…hell if she even knew; be horny at each other about her blood? Fuck that.

“We’ll try again. You’ll get it this time,” Romance assured Abby, shuffling back to bend low over Mira again, but she dropped her grip on her shirt and shoved his face away.

“No, fuck that, get off of me—”

Tried to shove his face away. She tried. And failed. He blinked at her, slow like a cat, with her hand pressed across his mouth. She snatched her hand back before he could bite her or lick her again and snapped, “This was a stupid idea. Get the fuck off me.”

“I should have explained what I was doing first,” Romance acknowledged mildly. He folded his hands primly under his chin and gave her another slow blink. It should have looked prissy and absurd, but he was still in his demon skin and it looked an awful lot like what it was: a patient predator at close range. He tilted his head inquiringly and his eyes caught the light like an animal’s, turning it back in a hollow yellow-gold flash. “Sorry. Does it help at all if I say it’s not what it looks like?”

“No.” She pushed against Abby until he let go of her, dried blood peeling their hands apart unpleasantly.

“I was trying to pass him the top note,” Romance explained, unbothered. Mira started to struggle up—yep, still intensely painful, good to know—and he gently pressed his palm to her shoulder with careful pressure to nudge her back down flat. And there was that urge to break his nose, right on time; she clenched her fists and held herself very still. “There’s really only one way to do that. But I should have at least mentioned it first, so I’m sorry for that. He should learn how to do this, though. Can I show him?”

“Do you really need more blood to do that?” she snapped. She was flustered and somehow both too cold and too hot even in her torn clothing, angry and embarrassed in equal measure. The ragged claw marks burned in the open air, exposed and shock-sharp with pain, and blood was everywhere, sticky and cloying with a metallic reek. She wanted to get rid of it, all of it; get rid of any trace that this night had ever happened.

“I told you, it’s not really about the blood. It’s the traces left in the wound itself,” he explained again, unruffled. Catching her expression, he looked as though he was fighting back the urge to roll his eyes as he added, “And yes, I really do need another taste if I’m going to share it with him. Can I?”

He absolutely did not have to phrase it that way. There was no reason at all to say it like that unless it was specifically to embarrass her. Worse, it worked. She glowered at him. Thinking of it as a training exercise was getting harder the longer this went on.

“Fine,” she grit out, but jabbed a finger at him as he started to lower himself back down. He jerked back before he lost an eye to her stiletto manicure. “But. Last time. After this I’m taking a shower and someone’s buying me bandages. And a hoodie. Got it?”

“Got it.” He eyed her nails warily, then unexpectedly wrapped his hand around hers. He pressed lightly on her knuckles until she got the point and relaxed her fist, then threaded his fingers through hers like Abby had with her other hand. Like Abby was doing again with her other hand, as it happened. She shot him a warning glare over her shoulder and got an angelic smile in response, which. Yeah, in hindsight, that was about what she’d expected. It might have been more effective without the purple skin and patterns, the gold eyes and flash of fangs in his smile; Abby was exceptionally bad at the “poor innocent me” expression, but he was incredibly good at looking sinister as fuck. “Last time.”

He pressed their joined hands down at her side while Abby did the same with her other hand, pinning her down with gentle pressure. And paused there, just for a moment, golden eyes flickering over her body disconcertingly. It felt unspeakably exposed, like a rabbit turning its belly to a wolf’s teeth, but she shoved the feeling away. She wasn’t prey and they could never be predators to a hunter.

(They could. They had, once, and nearly succeeded. And she’d still had her powers then, her weapon, her friends—now she had none of it. The scales had tipped decisively in their favor. They all knew it.)

He settled back where he’d been before, lying on his stomach beside her and propped up on one elbow. She got another evaluating glance from him before he tried to move toward her—a polite “May I?” would have been nicer, but also would have been rejected on principle so maybe it was for the best that he didn’t try—so she at least had some warning before his mouth was on her again.

The creature, the demon, had gouged at her and caught her with three claws. Mira hadn’t necessarily realized Romance was working his way up the lines from bottom to top, but she definitely noticed this time, with the flat of his tongue dragging down the sensitive (painful, fuck, would it kill him to be a little more careful?) laceration just below her bra band. He hadn’t made as much contact with the other two tries, she noted with some resentment, but before she could decide what to say about it he was pulling away again. It didn’t take him as long to sort through the “notes”, whatever that meant. She was reminded of wine tasting notes and immediately tried to banish that thought because it was laughably vampiric in this context. But maybe now that he knew what he was looking for it was easier to work through it, because it was only a few seconds before he was leaning forward again and murmuring, “Abby,” soft and heated, and—

Right. Okay. So maybe she should have been more clear about not having them kiss over her. Or pass notes, whatever, but like—come on, that was kissing. With tongue. And, huh, their demon patterns got a little brighter when they were...excited, a ripple of hot magenta across the deeper plum. That was good to know; she’d seen it happen from other strong emotions (usually killing rage, at least in the demons she encountered on the regular, or sometimes terror), but not...you know, this specific strong emotion. Abby made a soft sound from low in his throat, and while it wasn’t a moan it also...wasn’t not a moan, exactly, and really, guys, was this necessary? Actually strictly, professionally, necessary? She had doubts about it, that’s all.

Romance was the one to break the kiss again, settling back contentedly like he had no higher aspirations than to lay pressed against Mira. His demonic form faded back to his usual human mask. “Get it that time?”

“I think so. Yeah?” Mira tilted her head back to look up at Abby where he was still leaning over her head, so she caught a good view of the way he licked his lips like he was chasing the taste. “Bitter. Like tar. I think I can taste the poison too. Sharper? Astringent.”

“I could too,” Romance agreed, turning a contemplative look back at Mira. At her ribs, specifically, like he’d forgotten there was a person attached to his personal taste test. “Not sure what to do about it though.”

“Could we draw the poison out?” Abby mused. “Like sucking the venom from a snake bite?”

“That doesn’t even work with snake bites,” Mira felt obligated to point out. Nature documentaries were one of Zoey’s favorite pastimes to unwind; Mira and Rumi knew a lot of random animal facts by osmosis. “That’s not a thing.”

“We’re demons though; maybe it’d work for us. If Ro can pull out the poison enough to identify it in your blood, maybe he could draw it out too,” Abby pointed out in turn. Which sounded like bullshit, frankly, but so had most of the rest of this and yet, apparently, there was a grain of truth to it. She turned a skeptical stare on Romance to see if he had an opinion on the matter. Noticing it, he shrugged. It should have looked awkward and stupid, trying to shrug while leaning all his weight on one arm, but he made it look graceful like everything else he did. Mira resented it especially strongly right now.

“I mean, maybe? Not like I’ve done it before. Do you want me to try?”

Licking the lacerations was already a deeply questionable medical practice, unhygienic, and painful; it was difficult to imagine that actually sucking on it would be helpful in any capacity.

“No. Absolutely not.”

He shrugged again. “Your call. You looked like you were thinking about it.”

“I was thinking about how much of your demon powers are actually just bullshit you made up on the spot,” she told him bluntly. “Get off me. I’m gonna go take a shower. Someone go get some bandages while I’m cleaning up.”

Romance winced, like he had a suggestion she wasn’t going to like, and she was already preemptively glaring at him when he said carefully, “You’ve lost a lot of blood already and this is still bleeding—if you try to stand up that long for a shower you’re going to faint. And then Zoey and Rumi will probably blame us for it.”

A distinct possibility, admittedly. Not that she was going to admit it, but like. Yeah, plausible.

Noting the lack of a counter argument, he pressed his luck. “Abby will go get supplies. I’ll help you clean up, if you’ll let me.”

He didn’t offer to let Abby stay with her, she noticed. Not that it particularly mattered, neither prospect was more appealing than the other, but it stuck her as odd. Suspicious, even? Maybe. Hard to tell.

Still. It was a sensible suggestion. She relented, if only because the idea of standing up for that long or making the long trek to the bathroom a few feet away sounded like her personal hell right now. “Okay. Fine.”

“Specific requests?” Abby asked as he faded back into his human form too. “I don’t know what humans do when they’re hurt. I assume there have been some changes in the last few hundred years.”

Right. Sometimes she almost managed to forget they were actually all creepy old men.

“Sports drinks; anything that says ‘electrolytes’ on the bottle,” she instructed. “It’ll help with blood loss.”

“…‘Electro-light’?”

She tugged her hand free from Romance’s hold and fished around to find her phone. A quick search brought up image search results for a few common brands. “Something like these.”

He leaned in unnecessarily close to look at the screen and hummed thoughtfully. “Got it. Sports drinks, bandages, food, and a hoodie.”

There was a quick brush against her temple, warm skin and a trace of dampness, like—

Hold up.

Did he just kiss her head? He did not just kiss her head.

He propped himself up (safely out of reach) before she could retaliate and said cheerfully, “Ro, any requests?”

“Something with protein in it, so Ms. Huntrix doesn’t get crabby,” Romance told him. “And something sweet for me, thanks.”

“Will do.” And he was leaning over her again to brush a soft kiss to Romance’s mouth, light and quick, and then he was rolling gracefully to his feet. “I’ll be back soon. No fighting, you two.”

Right. Like she even could. She glowered at his retreating back as he left the room.

Chapter Text

The door clicked shut behind Abby quietly as he left, leaving her in an awkward silence with Romance for a moment.

“I’ll get something to help you clean up,” Romance told her as he, too, slid off the bed and strolled away to the bathroom. She’d never admit that she breathed easier once they were both out of sight, even if only briefly. She could still hear him in the bathroom, rummaging around and running water in the sink, but for a blissful moment she was alone to catch her breath for the first time all night. Not having access to her woldo was nerve wracking. It was like a piece of her was missing, leaving her cored out and off balance.

Also. It was very, very late to have made this observation, but. There was only one bed. She’d noticed it before now but hadn’t actually followed that thought down to the obvious conclusion until all three of them were on the bed at the same time. And while they had just proven that all three of them could fit on here, she’d also just gotten a comprehensive example of why she really, really didn’t want to be here with them all night. She supposed it was a good thing that they were comfortable being open about their relationship around her? Mira was a safe space, good for her! But there was such a thing as being a little too comfortable.

Romance returned while she was halfway through the process of levering herself upright. He shot her an exasperated look and hurried over to help her sit up, hooking one arm behind her back to pull her up carefully. “Couldn’t just be still for two minutes? I wasn’t gone that long.”

She ignored that and took one of the dampened hand towels he’d brought. He’d even used hot water; what a gentleman. She began the arduous task of scrubbing drying blood from her hands and arms. Romance seemed to take her silence as blanket permission to do as he pleased and started dabbing at the blood she could feel on her back, her skin tight and itchy where it had pooled under her body and dried. Admittedly, it would have been hard to reach on her own. She longed for a shower. For her shower, specifically, and the privacy of a room without demons in it.

“Might as well take this off,” Romance remarked presently, hooking a finger in the sleeve of her shirt to give it a tug. “It’s ripped up and covered in blood. It’s leaving smudges all over where I just cleaned.”

“I’m not taking my shirt off in front of you,” Mira snapped, nettled.

“It’s filthy. There’s no point in trying to clean up while you’re still wearing it.”

True. But counterpoint: her shorts were also soaked in blood and would have to come off at some point. ‘Some point’ had been decided already, as far as Mira was concerned: when Abby got back, she was locking herself in the bathroom and changing clothes in there. Alone. She’d rinse off in the sink while she was there—unfortunately, Romance had made a solid point about the likelihood that she might pass out in the shower, so that would have to wait—but she could at least manage to get passably clean and into fresh clothes.

“It stays until I have something clean to wear,” she told him irritably. Honestly, why did he need to be told that? That should be common sense.

He clicked his tongue in an (irritating) admonishing way, like a chiding auntie, but shrugged it off. “Whatever.”

He left her to scrub halfheartedly at the blood on her stomach while he deftly removed the pins and ties keeping her hair up in her signature tails. Really, she should have tried to do something with it before they left the alley way—put it up in a bun or something, anything less recognizable. She wanted to shoo him away, but even the thought of trying to raise her arms that long made her ribs twinge. Besides, he was...surprisingly gentle. Careful not to pull too hard or tangle the long strands as he unwound the pieces that were wrapped around the base of each tail to hide the pins. He had long, slim hands, not as broad as Abby’s but with long fingers. With all the hair accessories removed and her hair falling loose, he gently carded his fingers through to neaten it. Mira tried to suppress a shiver as his nails scratched lightly across her scalp and didn’t quite hide it. He paused, his hands still buried in her hair. “Did that hurt?”

The smart answer would be to say yes and to chase him back. Some idiot with Mira’s voice said, “No, it’s fine.”

Like an idiot. Why, Mira? Actually why? Whatever, it didn’t matter. They could call a truce for a night, right? Like adults? That could absolutely happen.

Her hair had mostly been spared from the mess with Abby’s intervention, but it was long enough to perpetually end up in the way and some of the ends had dried into blood-dark little spikes. Romance left off finger-combing her hair when he encountered the tangled ends and took up one of the relatively clean wet towels to dab at the dried blood carefully until it came off. Somehow he managed to do it without creating a tangled mess, like she would have done. It wouldn’t have been the first time one of their hunts ended with her trimming a few inches from her hair, though fortunately she’d been able to save most of the length so far.

She gave up on the cleaning for a little while. She couldn’t really manage the rest without clean clothes and bandages, so for now she pressed one of the dry hand towels to her ribs and applied pressure firmly, pulling her knee up for added leverage while she fumbled her phone with her left hand.

“Want me to look something up for you?” Romance asked dryly the second time she dropped her phone and cursed.

“No, I got it. I’m looking up this hotel’s website. Their QR code wouldn’t scan.” She gestured vaguely to the little placard on the bedside table.

“Leaving that negative review already? Or did you want to extend our reservation?” He sounded tired for once, believably human and tired, but he still made a halfway decent effort at his usual sly, insinuating tone to add, “We could find a place with a bigger bed, if you prefer.”

“If we spend another night out of the penthouse, we’ll find somewhere to rent that has more space,” she told him distractedly, ignoring the tone to answer the question and finally managing to navigate through the room reservation process. “But for tonight, I’m getting a second room. I can probably get one on this floor. Hey, what’s this room number?”

“Why, what’s wrong with this one?”

She threw a skeptical glance over her shoulder at him, eyebrows raised. “The obvious? There’s one bed and three of us?”

A pause. Then he plucked her phone from her hands and pocketed it. “No.”

“No—what do you mean no, give me my phone back!”

“No. And no, you’re not reserving a second room. You can barely stand up by yourself. You couldn’t sit up by yourself—”

“I absolutely could have, I was almost up when you came in—”

“And what happens if that thing tracks you here? You can’t defend yourself. You can’t run.”

She flexed her fingers on instinct, pulling for the comforting weight of her woldo...and came up empty handed. It doused the argument more effectively than anything else could have. Worse, he noted the movement and obviously recognized it for what it was. His eyes, dark and human in one instant, gleaming cat-like gold in the next, flicked between her empty hands and her face.

“A hunter without a weapon isn’t much of a hunter,” he observed. He was still managing to keep that neutral expression and tone on lock, but the bright gold in his eyes was a warning all on it’s own. Mira, gritting her teeth in a way Bobby and Zoey fussed at her about, said nothing. There really wasn’t anything else to say that wouldn’t make things worse. “Stay here, with us for tonight. If that thing comes after you, we can take you somewhere safe. Tomorrow we’ll regroup with the others and you can make other plans if you want, but for tonight, there’s no reason to split up and make that thing’s job easier for it.”

She opened her mouth to retort—even she didn’t know what she was going to say, but something angry that she’d probably regret later—and Abby clattered in through the doorway before she could. The sudden intrusion of sound made her jump, made her realize she’d been glaring at Romance (staring at him, get it together, Mira) and look away.

“I’m baaack,” Abby sang cheerfully, swinging a few plastic grocery bags from one hand and fumbling the door closed with the other. “I brought stuff! I—”

He paused, noting the tense silence, and sighed. “You were fighting, weren’t you.”

“No,” Mira grit out, at the same time Romance said with forceful cheer, “Of course not!”

Okay. So neither of them would win any acting awards for that performance. Abby tried a skeptical, disappointed expression out on Mira, rebounded off the impenetrable wall of leave me the fuck alone she was busy rebuilding, and tried his luck on Romance instead. Astoundingly, the puppy-eyes worked on him and he relented with a grudging, “We might have had a disagreement about the accommodations.”

“And he stole my phone.”

“And you can have it back when you stop trying to rent another room.”

“Why, what’s wrong with this room?” Abby wanted to know. Romance stared up at the ceiling like he was praying for patience and Mira buried her face in her hand. Abby, observing this, made a tremendous mental leap of deductive reasoning and nodded sympathetically, “This bed’s a little small for three, I guess. That’s okay, we’ll just cuddle.”

“You are the worst person I know,” Mira informed him tiredly. Cuddle. For fuck’s sake.

“Untrue; you’re friends with Baby.” He handed her one of the sports drinks. Red, which was obviously the best flavor. He was slightly forgiven.

“Baby isn’t my friend,” she grumbled, wrestling one-handed with the lid of the drink. Romance plucked it out of her grasp just as easily as he had her phone—they really needed to work on their manners—opened it for her and handed it back.

“Of course he is. You watch horrible reality shows together. And those movies where everything explodes,” Romance said, unimpressed. “What, you can’t admit you’re friends with a demon?”

“No, he was my friend. Then he suggested the stupid scent tracking thing on a conference call and refused to explain what he meant. Now we’re definitely not friends. I’m going to spoil the ending of Devil’s Plan for him. In fact I’m going to look it up right now and text him the winner, give me my phone.”

“Don’t start a prank war with Baby, that won’t end well,” Abby advised sagely. “Ro, give me her phone. Yours too. I got chargers.”

They traded; Romance turned over custody of the phones and Abby handed him a plastic bag filled with half a pharmacy. Romance rustled through the bag with great interest. Mira put her indignation about the phone on hold and leaned in slightly to look. Not leaning against him, absolutely not, just. He was there and there was nothing else to prop up against, and he was holding the bag anyway.

“Did you just grab one of everything?” Mira asked. It was almost impressive—until Romance held up a box of maxi pads with a puzzled expression. Mira choked on her drink. It hurt a lot, for the record. Coughing with injured ribs: 0/10 experience, would not recommend.

“Pretty much. Then someone who worked there asked what I was looking for, and I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth or she’d freak out, so I just told her my girlfriend was bleeding and in pain and in a bad mood. She also told me to get you this.” Abby dropped a box of chocolate and a bottle of over-the-counter analgesics in her lap with the triumphant air of a golden retriever bringing it’s owner a shoe.

“The adhesive is on the wrong side of these bandages,” Romance said, still puzzled as he opened one of the pads to inspect it. “How is it supposed to stick to you if the adhesive is on the bottom?”

“She said I was being a very good boyfriend,” Abby added proudly in a leading, expectant tone, clearly waiting to be praised.

Mira was certain that no one had ever suffered the way she was currently suffering.

She took a fortifying gulp of her drink, fumbled the cap back into place, and set it aside. “Right. Okay. Good job, I’ll take it from here.”

She tried to snag the bag away from Romance, but he effortlessly moved it out of her reach. At least he’d put the box of pads back.

“We’ll help you,” Romance insisted, affecting a noble, gallant tone. It wasn’t the same as the fake, simpering voice he’d put on while the Saja Boys were still playing at being idols, but it would have worked better if Mira didn’t already know he only did it for effect when he was about to be especially obnoxious. “We can’t let our girlfriend suffer alone; the servant who helped Abby would be so disappointed.”

“No; not your girlfriend; don’t call them servants,” Mira listed off on her fingers. “Give me that. I can bandage myself up and change while you guys clean this up.”

She waved at the pile of bloody towels and trash bags. By some miracle they’d managed to avoid getting blood all over the bed, but it was only a matter of time if they didn’t pick this mess up.

Romance said, “Hm,” in a thoughtful way she didn’t like the sound of, traded a glance with Abby that seemed laden with some unspoken meaning, then turned back to her. “Can you draw your weapon yet?”

She scowled at him. He’d literally just watched her try and fail. “You know I can’t.”

“Okay. Abby, would you…?” Romance gently pushed her up (she jolted away, startled to realize she’d been leaning on his shoulder without meaning to) and stood with the bag as Abby swooped in and picked her up easily, one arm under her thighs and the other supporting her back. As easily as she might pick up a purse, no signs of effort aside from the way his biceps bunched and flexed. And frankly, even that might have been for dramatic effect.

“Hey! Absolutely not, put me down!” She shoved ineffectually at him, trying to wriggle out of his grasp, only to flinch and double over with a ragged gasp when she twisted the wrong way and pain lanced through her ribs. Fuck, she felt that all the way down to her knees.

“Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself,” Abby chided, and rubbed salt in the wound by tucking her head under his chin like she was a child. “Be still.”

He carried her to the bathroom, where Romance was filling the sink with warm water. He’d cleared half the counter already, the side closest to the door, and on the other side was sorting through the bag of supplies. He gave them a cursory glance as Abby carried her in and set her carefully on the counter top, but otherwise seemed engrossed in what he was doing. Mira leaned back on the cool glass of the mirror and tried to catch her breath.

Was the poison getting worse, or was she just tired? Was she tired because it was getting worse? That sharp jolt of agony had knocked the fight right out of her. She was tired of arguing with them, tired of being near them. She wanted to go back to the penthouse and let Zoey and Rumi take over, let them bandage her up and move to the couch so they could sink into the cushions and watch a ten hour compilation video about turtle facts or whatever Zoey’s hyper-fixation of the week was. They hadn’t really made time for just the three of them lately, now that she thought about it.

Rumi had transformed overnight into Rumi-and-Jinu; you almost never saw one without the other. And Zoey’s latest and greatest hyper-fixation was Mystery, with a side-order of Baby when he’d let her. Mira practically didn’t even have time to herself anymore either, much less time to spend with the two most important people in her life: anytime she was alone for more than a few minutes without a locked door between her and the rest of the world, Abby and Romance appeared and got on her nerves until she went and found a door to lock. Occasionally it would be Baby instead, which was fine now that they’d struck up a truce. One of them would put on a movie or a show and they’d snipe about it for a few hours from opposite ends of the couch, or at bare minimum never any closer than within six feet of each other. Once or twice it had been Mystery who turned up to sit with her, which was less like hanging out with a friend and more like realizing Michael Myers was standing behind you. He just...appeared, silently and without warning. Then, just when you thought you were used to it and you let your guard down, you’d glance up again to find he’d just vanished without a sound while you weren’t looking. It was like living with a ghost, and Mira would have been more annoyed about it except she suspected he was doing it to give Zoey and Baby time to themselves without also intruding on Rumi-and-Jinu in the process. He was trying to be a bro, albeit in a way that was vaguely serial killer coded.

The point being: she missed her friends. They were her family, the only family that counted, the family she’d chosen for herself...and instead she was hanging out with a pair of demons, one of whom she’d killed before. Or, not killed exactly, but sent back to the demon realm in painful and semi-permanent way; he’d managed to find his way out easily enough, but if not for the recent strangeness with the Honmoon he would have been stuck there forever. He’d even been nice enough not to hold a grudge about it.

She was slowly beginning to wonder if Romance might be holding the grudge instead. He still flirted and tried to get her attention any way he could, but she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that maybe he didn’t actually like her very much. Maybe didn’t like any of them, but especially her. And she’d previously suspected they might be courting each other, or whatever old-fashioned term they might use for it, but now that she’d seen the very practiced and familiar way they kissed she was reevaluating that from “courting” to “definitely already a thing”. If someone had killed her boyfriend right in front of her, she’d probably hold a grudge about it too, so. Understandable, really, and she wouldn’t blame him if he was mad about it. But it did leave her very, very suspicious of his motives when he (for a random, non-specific example) volunteered to stay nearby as a guard against a demon that seemed entirely capable of killing her, or tried his hand at being a nurse while she was too injured and tired to fight about it.

On the heels of that thought, something warm and wet dragged over the thin skin of her hip. Mira flinched hard, slamming her head against the mirror in the process, and kicked out on reflex.

“Ow, fuck—why’d you kick me? Ro did it!”

Romance held his hands up in exaggerated innocence, one hand holding a damp, bloodied washcloth. She flushed in embarrassed anger. She’d thought he’d licked her again.

“Maybe a warning before you do that next time?” she muttered. Had he done that on purpose?

“My mistake,” he said solicitously, blatantly not an apology. Yeah, he definitely did that on purpose. “Can I keep going, or are you going to kick Abby in the knee again if I do?”

Abby was lucky she hadn’t actually been aiming when she’d kicked him. Hell, for that matter, Romance was lucky he hadn’t been standing in front of her when he’d done that; he wasn’t as tall as Abby and she would have hit a lot higher than his knee.

“I’ll do it. What kind of bandages did you get?” She held an expectant hand out to Romance, wiggling her fingers in a give it gesture. He rolled his eyes but handed over the cloth without a fight.

“A bunch,” Abby told her cheerfully. “The sticky ones Ro had, but also the regular kind in a roll and gauze pads. And these things—butterfly bandages? The instructions on the box sounded useful.”

“That’ll help,” she agreed. Romance located the package in question and read the instructions on the back while Mira tried to clean up the blood again. That twist when she tried to make Abby put her down had been a mistake; the ragged claw marks had started bleeding again. “They’ll hold the edges together while it heals.”

Should she have gotten a real doctor involved? Stitches, maybe? Yeah, probably. She’d never needed stitches before. Hadn’t needed a doctor in years. They didn’t get hurt like they used to when they were first starting out, and even then they’d often had Celine with them for their first few hunts, until they got used to working and fighting together. They’d all taken some hard knocks over the years, but there were perks to being caretakers of the Honmoon. It took care of them in turn, in its own way. Gave them their weapons, gave them their strength, gave them healing. In return they protected it, strengthened it, fought and bled and sang for it. And now it was just...gone. That connection, severed.

She’d never fully realized how warm that connection was, buried under her breastbone, until it went cold and hollow.

“Okay.” The bleeding had, at least, slowed down now, if not stopped completely. “Butterfly bandages, then gauze, then the compression bandage over that. That should work.”

They’d taken a first aid course before (Celine insisted) but that had been a long time ago and they’d never really needed the knowledge before. She was very much aware now that they should have kept up with their certifications, as she skated by on half-remembered instructions and whatever seemed like it would work. She had to accept their help with it, unfortunately; she just didn’t have enough hands to do everything herself. She’d cleaned most of the blood off her stomach and, very carefully, around the edges of the wounds themselves, but she hadn’t wanted to get too close with the dubious cleanliness of hotel (love hotel) washcloths. Abby had picked up a can of sterile saline solution along with a mountain of gauze, and Romance set to work carefully flushing out the claw marks until Mira was reasonably sure it was as clean as it was going to get under these circumstances.

(And because he’d had to stop; she’d gone so pale she was almost gray, shaking with pain and beaded in cold sweat. Neither of them commented on it, and Mira refused to acknowledge it even as she gripped Abby’s hand like a lifeline to stop herself from reacting.)

All three of them fumbled to get the butterfly bandages in place properly, and Mira found there was something vindicating about seeing someone as graceful as Romance accidentally stick his fingers together with bandages, cursing under his breath the whole time. But otherwise, Romance had picked up the gist of it quickly and Abby followed instructions well. Overall, letting them help with the bandages wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be. She hadn’t been particularly helpful during the bandaging process, having ceded the operation over to them with ill-grace, but she put her foot down when first Abby and then Romance tried to coax her into letting them help her change clothes. If it had been Rumi or Zoey offering she’d have gladly accepted the help, but not from them.

“No,” she said firmly. “Out. And close the door.”

Even as exhausted and in pain as she was, she was absolutely prepared to fight about it if they tried to push her on this. Possibly sensing the danger—or maybe just equally tired of arguing with her as she was of arguing with them—they gave up. Abby brought her the bag of clothes he’d picked up while Romance tidied up the mess they’d made, and then they both left her sitting on the bathroom counter.

“Don’t lock the door!” Romance called through the closed door. “We’d just have to break it if you need help, and I don’t think we want to give their cleaning servants a reason to look too closely at this place when we leave.”

“Stop calling them servants!” Mira called back, and then went back to figuring out how to take her shirt off without raising her arms.

The clothing was...a struggle. Realistically, she really should have had someone help her. Getting her shirt off hurt and removing her bra was worse; it took two tries before she managed to get her sports bra off without raising her left arm. Wriggling out of her shorts, the denim stiff with dried blood and grimy with dirt, made her want to scrub off the top layer of her skin anywhere the fabric had touched her, and she thought she’d pulled something in her shoulder trying to work them down her legs without bending, since that was now impractical with the addition of the compression bandages. She left her socks on; that was going to be more effort than it was worth, and her feet were cold anyway.

It took an embarrassing amount of time and effort to wipe herself clean, or at least as passably clean as she could get without a real shower, and then even more effort to pull on the sweatpants Abby had bought (no underwear? She was choosing to believe he just hadn’t remembered and it was in his best interest to let her continue to believe that). She managed to pull on a loose tank top that was a little too big for her—actually, wait, he’d probably intended that for one of them; oops—and finally had to just give up there. She’d wanted the comforting warmth and bulk of a hoodie, plus it would be a useful disguise when they left tomorrow, but as she clutched the soft, dark gray fabric to her chest she had to admit there was absolutely no way she was going to be able to climb into it on her own. The thought of lifting her arms to work the fabric over her head made her feel a little like crying. She was exhausted, trembling with it, and little shocks of fiery pain radiated from her ribs with every too-fast, gasping breath. She’d had to get off the counter and stand to get cleaned up and dressed, but now she was sagging against the wall for support and little black specks crawled at the edges of her vision. She braced her back against the wall and slid slowly down to sit on the cold tile.

A light tap on the door made her jump. “Mira? Need any help?”

Romance. He was going to make a smug I told you so face at her, but…

“Yeah,” she admitted miserably. “Yeah. You can open the door.”

He opened the door cautiously, like he was expecting to see a weapon aimed at his face as soon as he looked inside (if only; she missed her woldo bitterly), then caught sight of her on the floor and opened it the rest of the way. “Did you fall?”

“No,” she told him with brittle dignity. “I sat down.”

“Mh-hm.” He risked getting closer and knelt by her, not touching but giving her a slow, evaluating once-over. “Did you sit because you were going to fall?”

Obviously, or she wouldn’t be on the no-doubt horrifyingly dirty floor in the bathroom of a love motel. “Just help me up.”

She’d meant for him to help her stand, but of course he just took it as permission to pick her up in the same humiliating princess carry that Abby had used on her. She’d learned her lesson last time and didn’t try to struggle out of his hold. She wasn’t sure she would actually stay conscious through another shock of pain like that, and they’d only just managed to get the bandages on with the bleeding mostly stopped. He carried her just as easily as Abby had, proving once and for all that Abby’s flexing had been theater instead of real effort, and set her gently in the center of the bed.

They’d cleaned up while she’d been changing clothes, and Abby was already lounging in bed on the side closest to the window. He’d taken his shirt off, because of course he had, but at least he’d traded his jeans for sweatpants. At least he was wearing pants, period. He pulled her close when Romance set her down, which she allowed provisionally because there wouldn’t be room for Romance to sit otherwise, but resisted his efforts to pull her into lying down with him. Sensibly, he noticed and stopped trying immediately.

“You okay? You look pale.”

Blood loss and a lot of pain will do that to a person. “I just washed my makeup off. Where’d that bottle of pain meds end up? The one the person in the pharmacy gave you?”

He sat up (with an entirely gratuitous amount of ab flexing the whole way up) and rummaged around in one of the bags beside the bed until he located the pill bottle and her drink. She glanced over the instructions and took double the recommended dosage. The people writing those instructions probably hadn’t ever been clawed up by a demon.

Romance had wandered off after setting her down, something she’d been too tired to question but deeply regretted when he came back with a neatly folded stack of her bloody clothes in the process of tucking them into one of the plastic bags. The mental image of him folding her underwear or picking up her bra was almost a lethal dose of humiliation strong enough to end her after everything else she’d endured today.

This was the worst night ever. Or at least, the worst since Gwi-ma had almost killed them all.

He set the bag aside without remarking on it, and Mira would rather arm wrestle the smoke demon than mention it, so she sat very stiffly and drank the stupid electrolytes and tried not to have any thoughts about anything for a little while. Romance settled on the other side of the bed quietly, leaning back against the headboard.

Lacking access to her phone and unable to see the little clock on the bedside table, she could only make a guess at the time, but it had to be close to three in the morning by now. An endless black hole of exhaustion was dragging her down but she was reluctant to give into it yet.

“We should leave early, before it’s fully light outside,” she said, finishing off the rest of her drink and tossing the empty bottle into the small trash can beside the chair. Fully landed the throw, of course; Huntrix don’t miss.

“We can, but why? The others probably won’t be up that early,” Abby pointed out, not unreasonably.

“Because we should teleport back to that alley first, and we’ll have less chances of being spotted if it’s early enough to still be dark out.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I mean...okay, but again, why?”

“There’s a chance we could be spotted by someone who might recognize us or take pictures,” she pointed out impatiently. “Bobby will die of a heart attack on the spot if I’m seen leaving a love hotel, much less leaving with you two.”

“I never thought about it, but we should have done that instead of attacking you in the bathhouse,” Romance mused. “We could have had paparazzi waiting out front, let you catch us in the doorway, and just like that: career-ending scandal.”

“That wouldn’t have worked. None of us are stupid enough to fall for that.”

Oh fuck, that would have worked. They were absolutely stupid enough to fall for that. If they’d genuinely believed there was a real threat—a demon in a human disguise wailing for help, the Saja Boys running and Huntrix in pursuit? Mira could imagine exactly how that would go down. And what would they even say? ‘Oh, no, we aren’t wearing all this black leather to have an affair with this new idol group, we were just trying to kill them!’ Yeah, that would play well to the press.

Romance had that smug look that meant he knew exactly what she was thinking, but he just hummed thoughtfully and said, “No, I guess not. Well, we’re all on the same side now anyway, so it doesn’t matter. We can teleport you out of here tomorrow if you prefer.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be better. We’ll have to throw away all the bloody towels and stuff too—it looks like we harvested someone’s organs in here or something. It’s better if we can just teleport that away too instead of having to carry it out past security cameras.”

“Organ harvesting?” Abby was a little too interested. “Is that something hotels offer now?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “No, god, don’t be weird. I just meant this is not an insubstantial amount of blood; if someone sees it they’ll freak out.”

“It was a lot of blood,” Romance admitted. “You should eat something, you’ll feel better.”

That was true, she reflected ruefully. Hunting demons took a lot of energy, and then she’d lost a lot of blood. She didn’t know how to tell how much blood, exactly, it wasn’t like she’d had a measuring cup on hand, and she also didn’t know how much blood was considered a safe amount to lose. Something to research later. Or just text Zoey about it; she’d probably know and have a link to a helpful article saved already.

Abby handed her a protein bar and a bottle of water, teasing, “Ro must feel sorry for you or he’d be making a fuss—he won’t ever let me bring food to bed.”

“This isn’t our bed,” Romance pointed out. “And I’m making an exception anyway because Mira’s injured.”

Our bed. The casual mentions of them sleeping together. The...the kissing. They weren’t usually this...blatant about their relationship. The penthouse had plenty of guest rooms, plus Huntrix actually owned the top three floors anyway, not just the top floor, so Mira hadn’t really made an effort to find out where all the scattered pieces of Rumi’s pet project ended up. If she’d bothered to check, she might have to live with knowing that Jinu was staying in Rumi’s room, and almost a guarantee that at least Mystery, if not both Mystery and Baby, were staying with Zoey. And Romance and Abby were, she was reasonably sure, in the guest room at the end of her hallway. The one set aside for her guests, if she’d ever had any. She supposed it had been intended for family, not...whatever this was. But it was only a guess, because she’d never actually tried to check.

No details. That was the deal. Plausible deniability only worked if they let it. As far as she knew, there were five separate and occupied guest rooms in the penthouse right now. She ate the protein bar and drank the bottle of water, offered up absolutely no comments whatsoever, and thought about nothing at all. Not one single thought; none.

By the time she’d finished eating the pain meds were finally starting to work, at least enough that every movement wasn’t completely agonizing. As long as she moved very slowly and carefully, she could make the trip to the bathroom and back under her own power. No toothbrushes; she’d forgotten to mention it to Abby before he left, and maybe demons were above human concerns like that, but there was a sealed travel-sized tube of toothpaste with the little bottles of cheap shampoo and soap from the hotel. She scrubbed her teeth clean with her finger for lack of a better option, washed her hands and face, and then hobbled back to the bed. And paused.

So. Her options were: sleeping in the horrible cuck chair, which had been somewhat wiped clean while they had been cleaning up the room but which was almost guaranteed to still have blood on it, sleeping on the floor, or sleeping on the too-small bed with the two demons who were already in a relationship. Or a secret fourth option of trying to get them to sleep on the floor, but she really didn’t have another argument left in her tonight and there was no real reason to make two-thirds of the room’s occupants take the floor when one-third could just as easily do it.

They both glanced up at her in concern when she stopped in the middle of the room. Abby looked worried, Romance looked...evaluating, cautious. Concerned, but in an analytical way that set her on edge. They’d left space between them for her and Romance was still angled half-off the bed with his feet on the ground, the way he’d moved to let her up. Waiting for her to come back.

“Mira? Are you okay?” Abby asked.

“I’m...I’m fine, yeah.” She fumbled for a response that wasn’t everything hurts and I want to go home and landed on, “Just tired.”

Abby’s worried expression softened into something fond. “Yeah, I bet. Come sit down with us. We’re trying to work out a plan for tomorrow.”

That was a blatant ploy to ger her to move closer, but...fuck it, the chair was horrible and she wasn’t going to lie on the floor of a love hotel. She gingerly moved to sit at the foot of the bed, as far as she could get from them without falling off, and tried to project the air of someone confident, collected, and not falling apart from fear and exhaustion.

Oh. That was just a Rumi cosplay, wasn’t it? Well. Couldn’t ask for a better role model, at least.

“Plan, right. Yeah.” She rubbed her tired eyes and tried to pull her brain back on track. Plans: she could make one. Any second now.

“So. We’ll get up early, gather up all the crime scene evidence, teleport back to the alley, dispose of all that,” she gestured vaguely to the gruesome bag of bloodied towels and trash, “and then...ugh, I guess kill time for a little while to give everyone else a chance to wake up. The recording studio, maybe? That’s close to Rumi’s apartment and they keep a room reserved for us.”

“It’s also probably the second place someone would look for you after the penthouse,” Romance pointed out. Which...yeah, true.

“A coffee shop or something then, I don’t know. Or I can ask Bobby to help me find someplace to rent until this gets sorted out. A hotel suite, or maybe an apartment somewhere.” Just for a moment she thought about asking Rumi and Zoey if they should tell Celine what had happened, or at least check with her to see if she’d ever encountered a demon like this, but...none of them had spoken to Celine since Gwi-ma—technically, Mira and Zoey hadn’t talked to her in even longer. Rumi, though. Rumi had told them about going to visit Celine that night, about their argument and Rumi’s awful request.

No. No, they definitely weren’t going to Celine for help with anything anytime soon.

But really, what were the odds that the demon would try to track them down and bring the fight to them. Were they being overly cautious?

...No. She remembered how easily the demon—a single demon? Or more than one, concealed within thick, black smoke? They didn’t even know for sure—had scattered them, left them weaponless and bleeding. It had to know that the poison worked, that they were cut off from the Honmoon and all the power that came with it. It would make perfect sense if it tried to press the advantage and come after them before they could figure out how to counteract the poison. If they even could.

They’d never had to hide before; not like this. Huntrix didn’t move in the shadows, they were neon stage lights, glitter, and gleaming stilettos. Battle hymns topping global charts. They had a penthouse in a branded tower, for fuck’s sake. Unshakable confidence, and yeah, maybe arrogance—no demon would be dumb enough to come straight to the hunters, surely?

Well. Almost no demons would be that stupid. She cast a thoughtful glance over two of the five who were demonstrably exactly that stupid.

It had started with Baby. He was the only asshole who would do something that brazen, and if Mira hadn’t been absolutely certain he’d shown up to try to kill them, she would have respected it a lot more. He turned up without a hint of warning in their dressing room after an event, a month after the Gwi-ma disaster, with a blunt, “Hey. You know your boyfriend is trapped in your sword, right?”

When the resulting chaos died down—which would later result in a very sheepish apology to the venue; Huntrix didn’t have a reputation for being the kind of divas who wrecked dressing rooms, but with a very heated game of cat-and-mouse with three of them trying and failing to kill the shit out of one (surprisingly fast and evasive) demon in a single small room, they’d certainly wrecked that one all to hell—they’d managed to pin Baby in a corner with a variety of weapons hovering a scant few centimeters over his skin. He’d been surprisingly pleasant about the whole affair, aside from some very inventive cursing, and largely unbothered by the various scrapes and bruises he’d picked up. He hadn’t actually been trying to kill anyone, Mira was pretty sure (because she’d have cut his fucking head off if he had really hurt any of them) but they’d all gotten a few bruises and claw marks, none of it serious. He’d given Mira a busted lip with an admittedly well-timed headbutt, clawed Rumi’s sword arm up from wrist to elbow, and left a bruise on Zoey’s wrist and a knot on her forehead where he’d grabbed her arm and slung her face-first into a wall. Mira also had a massive bruise on her upper arm that took a week to fade completely, but that had been from Zoey accidentally colliding with her during the chase. Rumi snarled, “Explain,” hitting her demonic register. And he had.

Well, eventually. First he’d complained a little (a lot), but honestly, in hindsight, Mira could kind of see his point. He’d actually shown up intending to talk, and all the subsequent delays for running, brawling, and shouting had been instigated on their end, not his. Still. There was a right way and wrong way for a demon to announce their presence to demon hunters, and goddamn if he hadn’t picked one of the wrongest ways he could find. He brought it on himself, honestly.

It had taken a few weeks for Rumi to contact Jinu’s...soul? Spirit? Ghost? Mira couldn’t quite get her head around the details. But in the three weeks or so it had taken, Baby regularly turned up to offer advice with varying levels of helpfulness. The thing was, his advice was, ultimately, useful at the core of it, right? But he had a lot of attitude and temper packed into that skinny body, and no one had been particularly open to hearing him tell Rumi to “get her fucking shit together already”. So that had been one of their worst meetings, but highly educational when it came to teaching demons what kinds of things they could or couldn’t say to Rumi within Zoey and Mira’s hearing. Once Rumi had established contact with Jinu through some manner of deep meditation or trance or whateverthefuck, Baby had left them to their own devices and vanished for a week and a half.

None of them wanted to admit it, but secretly they’d all been a little worried about him. He’d never given them any way to get in touch with him, instead turning up on his own schedule like a stray cat, but he’d been fairly consistent for a few weeks and had been obviously committed to helping Rumi reach Jinu. He was relentlessly an asshole about it, but he was also undeniably trying. So it was concerning when he just dropped off the face of the earth for almost two full weeks without even a single mention of it before or any sort of contact during. And apparently he’d literally dropped off the face of the earth—he turned up with blood on his sweater and matted in his hair, three iced lattes in a to-go caddy, and three more demons trailing him: Mystery, Romance, and Abby. All of them looked like they’d been in a recent fight and come out a little worse for wear, but notably none of them looked dead like Mira had expected them to be.

She’d never actually gotten an answer out of any of them about the blood, which was...concerning, but surprisingly Baby had told them a little about what he’d been up to during that radio-silent week and a half when they’d asked him. She and Zoey had already talked about the Gwi-ma incident long before any Saja Boys turned back up in their lives, so it hadn’t been a complete surprise to learn from him that both Baby and Romance had survived the fight. As best Zoey could recall, Baby had vanished practically the same instant Mystery went down. Mira clearly remembered taking Abby out and remembered stabbing Romance, but in the chaos she’d lost track of him after that. She’d assumed he’d died from his injuries, but she’d also known it was possible he’d survived. Unlikely, but possible. Baby hadn’t told her where Romance had been in the meantime or what he’d been doing, and she hadn’t ever quite managed to ask him about it directly. But Abby and Mystery hadn’t died in the strictest sense; they’d ended up back in the demon realm. Baby had, to hear him tell it, picked up Romance, took him on a road trip to get the other two, then made a quick stop at a coffee shop on the way back because he’d apparently learned from his mistakes and didn’t want a repeat of The Dressing Room Incident.

Because they weren’t idiots, none of them believed it had been as easy or casual as Baby made it sound. He’d torn his way into and back out of the demon realm and then stopped for lattes—that was Highly Concerning Behavior, okay? Huntrix was Highly Concerned. Even as strange as the Honmoon had become, that kind of undertaking would have taken a hell of a lot of effort on his part. But Zoey had been willing to let the details slide, more focused on having both Mystery and Baby back now that they weren’t trying to kill anyone and wanted to hang out with her, and Rumi was focusing on Jinu, aided by Romance’s surprisingly helpful and patient advice, and Mira hadn’t wanted to fuck things up worse than she already had so she just hadn’t pushed. By the end of the week, the whole set of five were living in the penthouse with them.

Mira felt she’d handled the situation fairly well over all. The whole...pulling her woldo on Rumi thing at the Idol Awards…that felt pretty shitty. She wasn’t over it, even if Rumi had forgiven her almost as soon as it happened. So she’d been trying, really trying, to be a little more patient, a little less quick to react. Frequently made herself stop, take a breath, and evaluate before she did anything rash. Said nothing at all when she couldn’t find something positive or constructive to say. It left some awkward silences, maybe, but surely that was better than saying the wrong thing and breaking them apart all over again?

(She knew Rumi had never been the problem—Mira was the problem. Zoey would have heard her out at the Idol Awards; Zoey would have listened and been kind and supportive. Zoey would have helped Rumi; they could have fixed it right then and there. But Mira pulled a weapon before she could, and Zoey had reluctantly followed her lead, and Mira could never, ever risk it happening again.)

And, okay, yes, she’d almost killed Baby that first time in the dressing room, but again: dressing rooms were off limits. And now he knew that with absolute certainty. And, alright, she’d pulled a weapon on him a few times at the start when he started showing up regularly, before she got accustomed to it and stopped jumping every time he faded in from the shadows, but like...come on, he did that shit on purpose, she knew he did. Rumi never fell for it, but she knew Zoey had drawn her shin-kal on him more than once. And they’d never actually hurt him; hadn’t really even tried, after The Dressing Room Incident. And...well, okay, admittedly it had only taken a day for Abby to almost catch an encore performance of being cut in half after she flipped him over her shoulder, with Romance getting the butt-end of her staff to the diaphragm just seconds later when he tried to intervene. The lesson learned there: do not touch Mira, especially if she didn’t know you were there and you’re a fucking six-foot-something-tall kaiju silently stalking around in the halls first thing in the fucking morning trying to hug the unsuspecting. She’d gotten her point across (without hurting anyone, even if she’d wanted to) and it hadn’t happened again since. No more attempted hugs, although they’d found other ways to be obnoxious instead.

But aside from all that, she was...she was trying. Rumi and Zoey were important to her, the most important people she had, and she didn’t want to ever jeopardize her relationship with them again. Didn’t ever want to see the look of devastation on their faces again, knowing she was the one responsible for it. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—do it to them again. If that meant accepting the demon boyfriend(s) and all their associated demon buddies, then...okay. She could learn to do that. Not without some fucking boundaries in place; she couldn’t change the core of who she was. But she could learn to be better, be more accepting, be more open (sort of), be supportive. Movies and trash tv with Baby when neither of them could sleep. Not jumping out of her skin or reaching for a weapon when Mystery appeared somewhere without warning. Attempting, god help her, not to make fun of Jinu for being the most awkward dork in two planes of reality for probably the last four-hundred years running.

(Attempting, god help her, not to look at Jinu and see only the demon who’d come so close to destroying them and everything they stood for.)

Trying not to take it personally when the apparently committed pair of demons flirted with her, because they didn’t mean it and she didn’t have to be weird or sensitive about it.

“Mira?” Romance touched her arm lightly, hardly making contact, but she flinched before she could stop herself. She hadn’t even noticed him moving; so much for those hunter reflexes. Not his fault, really; she was tired and it made her jumpy. He withdrew but didn’t comment on it. “It’s late. We should try to rest if we’re going to leave early.”

That “we” was a concession; he obviously meant her specifically. It was hard to get properly annoyed about it when he was right. Well, no, it was actually more annoying that he was right, but the hard part was summoning the energy to get mad about it. She was so tired.

Abby reached out a hand to her but didn’t touch, saying softly, “Come lay down.”

She’d kind of hoped, albeit without much optimism, that one of them would have moved closer to the other while she was slowly hobbling around in the bathroom earlier, but no. She’d known they wouldn’t, and they hadn’t—there was a deliberate gap between them, a Mira-sized space in the middle of the bed. Hemming her in again, like they often tried to do with varying levels of success. This was their most successful attempt yet, owing almost entirely to outside interference and bad luck.

Whatever. They were pretty obviously together and they’d made that very clear tonight. They’d drawn a boundary, and Mira excelled at boundaries. Whatever the game was with the nearly constant teasing and flirting, it didn’t mean anything to them and it damn well didn’t mean anything to her. Don’t make it weird, Mira. They were hiding out from the smoke-demon thing, and that was all. She could be normal about this. Sharing a bed was...okay, less normal, never mind the setting or the reason, but it was fine. Completely fine. No one had to make it weird, least of all her.

She didn’t take Abby’s hand, but she did shuffle carefully up the bed to settle between them, and she didn’t try to bat them away when they helped. Abby’s broad palm nearly spanned her back, taking her weight when she gingerly eased herself down to lie beside him. Romance’s careful touch, light and quick, gathered her hair back so it wouldn’t get caught under her body, his other hand supporting her shoulders as she settled. Between the three of them she managed to find a somewhat comfortable way to lie down. She had to lie on her uninjured right side, which put her facing Abby. Which...was a little stressful while he was shirtless; there was nowhere safe to look. But somehow worse than Abby’s bare golden skin in the lamplight was Romance settling in lightly behind her—still not touching, but undeniably present and completely out of her line of sight unless she craned her head around uncomfortably. He was so close she could feel the heat of his body in a line down her back, but she couldn’t properly keep track of him, of anything he might be doing. He could claw through her throat before she even knew he’d moved. If she could see his face right now, would he be wearing his human face or his real demon form? Would his eyes be dark, or cat-like gold? She didn’t know, and not knowing was infinitely worse.

“Your hair is going to get all tangled up like this,” he commented quietly, and she hadn’t even realized he still held most of her hair gathered into a loose bundle until he tugged very lightly. “Can I braid it for you?”

“Um—yeah, sure.” He’d probably be smothered under her hair by morning if it wasn’t tied back, and it would tangle terribly if it wasn’t braided at least. “Where’d all those hair pins end up? There were elastics with them, I’ll get—”

“I’ve still got them. Stop fidgeting.”

“I’m not fidgeting.” She was, a little. She stopped and knotted her fingers together in a tangle, pulled close to her chest. Abby slipped his hand over hers but didn’t try anything else. She let him and held herself very still, fought back the strange shivery feeling that rolled down her spine with the gentle sensation of Romance’s hands in her hair as he carded his fingers through from root to tip.

She was accustomed to letting people touch her hair, and even her face or body; Huntrix had hair stylists, clothing stylists, and makeup artists, they had stunt choreographers and photographers, sometimes worked with guest dance choreographers, and all of those people had assistants, and then sometimes the venues or events had their own staff and their assistants. It was a normal thing now, she’d had years to get used to it and it didn’t bother her anymore as long as all of those people stayed professional and respectful.

(And they did stay respectful, because anyone overstepping got shut down hard and fast by Huntrix themselves, and then Bobby or Celine made a call, and they never showed up to a Huntrix event again. A few had even gone far enough to get themselves blacklisted out of the entire industry, though only very few and only in their first few years starting out.)

So why was it so unsettling to let Romance touch her hair, or let Abby rest his hand over hers? It was nothing she wasn’t used to, just...not from them.

Well, the obvious, of course: demons. Demons who might potentially be holding a (not entirely unreasonable) grudge against her specifically. That’d be unsettling to anyone, probably. The fact that they’d promised to behave themselves, no maiming or plots of world domination or devouring souls, was less than reassuring when she lacked the means to enforce their behavior. But she was still a fucking hunter, even if she couldn’t currently hunt, so why did it send a shivery chill down her spine with every light tug through her hair as Romance wove in a simple braid? Why did the light, simple touch of Abby’s hand over hers, not holding or pressing or restraining in any way, make her feel overheated and trapped?

Romance secured the end of the braid with one of the ties he’d removed earlier (had he been keeping them in his pocket? He’d had one on hand already, as far as she could tell—why?) and pulled away without any lingering touches, nothing at all she would have objected to. Why did it feel so claustrophobic to have him at her back, close but not touching? “There, that should hold. Probably not up to your usual standard, I’m sure.”

Probably not; it was probably lopsided since they were both laying on their sides. She’d have unevenly crimped waves tomorrow when she took the braid down, and her stylist would probably openly weep if she ever saw it. But she wasn’t being styled for a photo shoot anyway, and she just said, “Thanks,” because Zoey had been not-so-subtly pressuring her about positive reinforcement with the former Saja Boys. And Mira did actually listen when Zoey was explaining things, even when she was overly caffeinated and talking at mach speed.

She felt the mattress shift as Romance moved, but couldn’t quite track the motion enough to tell what he was doing. She tensed, waiting for an inappropriate touch to fall or an attack to land...and he turned off the lamp behind him on the bedside table and settled back into place where he’d been before. Close but not touching.

Abby propped himself up on his elbow and let go of her hands to reach back and turn the lamp on his side off. This was accomplished with a suspicious amount of flexing and strategic posing to show off his best angles, of which he was unfortunately possessed of in abundance.

“You’re going to pull a muscle doing that,” she told him, affecting a flat, unimpressed tone. Mira did ‘unimpressed’ better than anyone, it was her brand.

(It was a tiny bit impressive. He definitely didn’t need the muscles with supernatural strength, but damn he had them anyway.)

“Doing what?” he asked, the picture of impugned innocence as he held a pronounced bicep curl like a body-builder flexing.

“Oh my god. You’re an embarrassment.”

“Yeah,” he agreed equitably, dropping the pouty expression to flash his teeth in a quick grin as he finally quit posing and turned off the lamp. “Made y’look though.”

She didn’t respond to that, clinging to what remained of her dignity in the dark against the low vibration of Romance’s soft laugh behind her.

It wasn’t possible for her to sleep under these conditions and she’d already accepted that as fact. She closed her eyes anyway, breathed slow and counted out each breath like she’d been taught to do. She would just meditate quietly, resting until it was time to get back to work, and…

…And woke up a few short hours later to a broad hand stroking warm and slow down her spine, a deep voice murmuring low and close, “Wake up, sweetheart. You wanted to leave early, remember?”

Mira dredged up an incoherent, grumpy sound that loosely translated to leave me alone or I’ll end your life. Leave early? That couldn’t have been her idea; that didn’t sound like her at all.

Wait.

Sweetheart?

She slammed back into full awareness, raw adrenaline flooding the sleepy stupor out in a wash of cortisol and muscle memory, limbs in motion even before her conscious mind caught up to her. Abby must have expected it because he gently deflected her fist away from his nose with one hand. The other was bunched in the hem of her tank top, a loose fist against the small of her back, and he used the pressure to pull her back in close even as she recoiled away. She’d jerked a knee up on instinct too, but he nudged his knee between hers and pulled her closer until she was nearly straddling his thigh. It was, admittedly, neatly handled without a single hit landing on him. Under different circumstances she might have been very impressed.

“We’re going to have to work on that,” he told her cheerfully. “You can’t try to break my nose first thing in the morning every time we sleep together.”

For fuck’s sake.

“Get off,” she snapped, struggling to sit up. So that was still hugely painful, good to know. Not as much of a sharp, debilitating agony anymore, but she’d gotten stiff and sore in just a few hours of rest and it was hard to move; she swore she could almost hear her joints creaking as she moved. Overall, she still felt better in some ways, but worse in others.

Abby sat up against the headboard in a move that involved more gratuitous flexing. Except worse this time, because he pulled her up with him and she’d braced her hands against his chest while trying to pull away, so there was just. Just a lot of smooth, tanned skin and firm muscle under her hands right now. It was unfair to expect her to deal with that first thing in the morning. And now she was just sort of...not sitting in his lap, okay, that was not happening, but she was, entirely through no fault of her own, now fully straddling his thigh. In a way that was, admittedly, more or less exactly like sitting in his lap. Except that she would never, so obviously that wasn’t what this was.

“What the fuck.” It wasn’t a question, it was a declaration against this injustice and affliction upon her person.

“And good morning to you too,” he told her. “How are you feeling?”

Martyred; thanks for asking.

She took a deep breath, held it for four seconds, and let it out in a slow sigh. “Let go of me right now.”

He’d had his hands on her waist, although very lightly. He now held his hands up in a show of innocence. Mira didn’t have demonic grace; she clumsily slung her knee back over his leg and dropped to sit beside him. She was gracious enough not to knee him in the balls when she did it.

(Not entirely on purpose anyway; he caught her knee in one big hand before it could land anywhere unfortunate and generously helped her move to sit beside him, raising an eyebrow pointedly at her but not commenting.)

Romance wasn’t on the bed with them, but he was easy to spot in the small room. It looked like he’d been packing up a small backpack that hadn’t been there the night before. Noticing her attention on him, he dropped the bag on the stupid cuck chair and sauntered over to sit against the headboard beside her. Careful not to move too suddenly or at a bad angle, she shifted until she could lean back against the headboard too. She couldn’t really keep track of them both like this, but at least she’d catch any movement on either side in her peripheral vision. Hopefully, anyway.

Romance definitely looked like he had something snide and smug to say, but she glared at him and he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he handed them both to-go cups of coffee from the bedside table on his side.

Baby had started the precedent by bringing them iced lattes with the other demons in tow; it was the unspoken apology beverage of choice now since the eight of them had begun to live together. Mira decided to take it as the olive branch it was intended to be and withheld any complaints or objections she could have made.

“I went out early to get rid of the trash, then picked up a few things,” Romance explained lightly. “Got a different hoodie for you that might be more comfortable to wear than the one Abby got you; this one zips up. It might be easier for you to put on right now.”

It was a surprisingly thoughtful gesture. “...Thanks. That’ll probably be easier, you’re right.”

“I had to get Abby a new shirt anyway,” he said with a light shrug.

“You stole mine,” Abby told her, plucking at the strap of the tank top in question. “But it looks better on you anyway.”

Mira lifted her arms to look down at the top doubtfully. It was a little loose on her, but even by his standards it would have been ludicrously tight on him. “This would be way too small for you. There’s no way it’d fit.”

“Only one way to find out. You’ll have to take it off though; you want a hand with that?”

Alright. She could admit she’d practically handed him that one. She made an irritable sound into her coffee and lifted her head to say, “Don’t start, it’s too early.”

He chuckled, his voice deeper and a little rougher than usual (because he’d just woken up? Is that what he always sounded like in the mornings? If so, she hated that she knew that now.) but he backed off and said, “Sorry, you’re right.”

“Do your bandages need to be changed before we leave?” Romance asked. He sounded distracted, and when she looked back over at him she found he was skimming search results on the topic on his phone.

Specifically, “how to fix injured human,” but close enough. He’s a little confused, but he’s got the spirit.

“Probably, yeah,” she admitted, and chugged most of the coffee in one go. Fuck, there wasn’t enough caffeine to compensate for the absolute bullshit of the past six or so hours. “What time is it?”

“Just after five.”

So it had only been about two, maybe three hours since they’d applied the bandages. It might be okay to leave it, but if they did end up killing time out in the city for a while before meeting up with the others, it would be better to have fresh bandages in place than to risk bleeding through the old ones in public and causing a scene. She tried to remember what they’d been taught about how to care for their own wounds for the occasions when they couldn’t go to the doctor who knew about them, who’d helped the Sunlight Sisters before Huntrix.

“I think the butterfly bandages are supposed to stay on for a while, but the rest will need to be changed. I’ll handle it and then we can go.”

They traded a glance over her head. Too tired and sore to pretend not to notice it this time, she snapped, “What?”

Abby eyed her thoughtfully and leaned over to grab something off the bedside table—the bottle of pain meds. He offered it up and said in the careful tones of a man who knew he was on thin ice, “I’m sure you can do it without help, but will you let us help anyway? It’s just…it took a lot of effort to get you bandaged up last time.”

That was a fairly diplomatic way to say there was no way she could have managed it on her own the night before. Well, no—she could have, probably. At the very least, she could have cobbled something together long enough to stop the bleeding and like, ideally not die, but...it would have been much worse without someone around to help. She still didn’t like that the help had come from them, but she could (very grudgingly) admit the help had been (somewhat) appreciated.

Stalling for time, she scanned the instructions on the bottle again. She was taking doses too close together, so she took half the recommended amount this time. That probably evened out, right? She chased the pill with the last of her coffee and wrestled her decision into place.

Fuck it. She wanted to leave this stupid hotel as fast as possible, and the fastest way would be to let them help. They’d already done it once, so maybe it’d be easier this time.

“Okay,” she sighed, and made a mental note to see how hard it was to get certified in some kind of first aid course. “Okay, fine, yeah. You can help. Just...let’s get this done with; we should leave soon.”

Abby beamed and took both the pill bottle and empty coffee cup for her and set them aside on the bedside table. “Sure. Now? Or do you need a minute?”

“Now’s fine,” she agreed impatiently, making a shooing gesture at him. “Move over so I can get—aah! The fuck?”

In a fast, fluid move, he caught her by the waist, lifted and turned, and she landed right back where she’d been before—straddling his lap and mad about it, this time with her knees on either side of his hips.

“What. Are you. Doing.”

“Helping.” And he pushed up to his feet, easy as breathing, his hands under her thighs to hold her up. On reflex, she hooked her ankles behind his back, her thighs pressed tight around the narrow taper of his waist, and held onto his shoulders for balance.

It wasn’t impressive. She was not impressed. They were demons—it wasn’t exactly news that they were all far stronger and faster than a human. Baby could probably have just as easily carried her, and she was at least half an inch taller than that scrawny little punk.

(But as a professional in show business she had to admit...Abby definitely made it look impressive. She was not impressed, to be absolutely clear, but. Credit where credit was due: the showmanship was impeccable.)

“This is the last time you pick me up without permission unless it’s an actual, real emergency,” she grit out as he carried her easily to the bathroom. Over his shoulder, she could see Romance following behind, smiling his smug little smile and carrying the bag of assorted medical supplies. “Or we’re going to have a problem. Clear?”

He tried the sad puppy-eyes on her again, possibly hoping it would be more effective at close range. Mira remained unmoved against this tactic; only Zoey and occasionally Bobby could use that against her. (Okay, and Rumi, not that she tried it often. And, recently, that bizarre, stupid tiger that followed Rumi everywhere, but literally no one could withstand the tiger. Mostly she was immune.) Giving up on the sad eyes when it became clear it wasn’t going to work, he set her gently on the bathroom counter and said, “Yes, ma’am. Sorry. I was trying to help though.”

“Whose definition?” Romance wanted to know as he strolled in behind them. As he passed by, he ran an absent hand down Abby’s back, brushing Mira’s knee lightly as he did.

Brushing her knee, because her legs were still locked around Abby’s waist, fucking shit—

“What?” Mira hurriedly untangled herself from Abby, distracted from the question and only half paying attention. Abby clearly didn’t share her sense of urgency and made no move to back up even when she pushed against his chest. On the contrary, he leaned into the touch and propped himself against the counter between her knees. His only concession to her efforts was to slide his hands out from under her thighs to rest lightly on her knees instead, which was not actually an improvement in Mira’s opinion.

“Whose definition of an emergency are we using?” Romance clarified, setting out supplies in a neat row on the other side of the sink. “Because no offense, but I’m not sure you’re the best source for that.”

Full offense taken, in fact. Every offense, and fuck him.

“Definitely my definition, since I’m the one you two keep trying to carry around like luggage,” she said flatly. “If I want your help I’ll ask for it.”

This time she did ignore them when they traded glances, Abby incredulous and Romance wry. Which...yeah, okay. When Mira was less annoyed, she might be more willing to admit that “asking for help” was very much not one of her notable skills.

Not that she’d admit it to them specifically, but like. Generally.

Firmly ignoring them both, she leaned back against the mirror for support and pulled up the hem of the tank top, knotting it clumsily just below her bust.

(She wished now that she’d left her sports bra on the night before, no matter how itchy with drying sweat and blood it had been, but it was too late now. The tank top was black so it was a little less obvious than it could have been, but this was still a bad time to not be wearing a bra.)

The compression wrap looked okay when she and Abby carefully unwound it (okay, Abby did—Mira tried to help and got gently but firmly shooed away until she gave up), but the gauze underneath was stained rust red and faintly yellowish in places from what she hoped was just dried blood and lymph. It wasn’t infected, right? They’d cleaned the claw marks out as carefully as they could manage before it was bandaged. It couldn’t have gotten infected that fast, right?

The gauze was stuck to her skin with dried blood, which was both gross and painful to remove. Romance carefully used the remaining saline solution to dampen the gauze until he could peel it away gently with minimal pulling. The butterfly strips were mostly still holding up, although a few had soaked through with blood and saline and had to be replaced. Mira gritted her teeth silently through the sting of it while Romance worked and Abby pressed his hands in a grounding touch against her knees.

“I don’t know much about human injuries,” Romance admitted, when the wound site was as clean as he could manage with the supplies they had. He carefully patted everything dry with clean gauze. “Does this look like it’s supposed to?”

Mira tried to look it over as objectively as she could. She wasn’t really qualified to make a judgment call on this, frankly, but it didn’t look like, obviously infected. Not like something out of a zombie movie anyway, which was the only sort of comparison she knew how to make. There was some discoloration around her ribs, but she thought that was just bruising—the demon had caught her in a glancing blow, not quite landing the hit fully, but there had still been tremendous force behind it. So the bruising was expected, and the claw marks themselves looked pretty awful but, again, not in an unexpected way. Raw and ragged, and all but guaranteed to heal into a nasty scar that she’d have to hide for the remainder of her career unless she wanted to come up with a story about how she’d been clawed by a tiger or something. Could she play it off as a stunt gone wrong? It certainly looked like a wild animal had clawed her up; it would be hard to convince anyone who saw it that it was damage from a video set or something. Maybe they could sabotage a stage lighting rig to fall and she could pretend she’d been caught under it?...No, that was a stupid idea.

“I mean...I think so?” Noticing the look they both gave her—Abby worried, Romance almost incredulous, she lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “What? I’m not a doctor. We don’t usually get hurt like this. I don’t know what to look for. I think it’s probably okay. Just...bandage it back up and let’s go.”

“Don’t you have a doctor you go to after you hunt demons?” Romance asked, and there was...there was kind of a tone to the question, something Mira couldn’t quite identify. Like he was trying to keep his voice level, but there was a tension under the question she couldn’t quite pick apart. Concern? Anger or annoyance? He was hard to read; she didn’t know him well enough to tell what that tone meant and it put her on edge.

“There’s someone we can call if we get really hurt, but we usually don’t need to.” And Celine always heard about it, and then they all had to sit through a firm, disappointed lecture about safety that would make them feel worse than they already did.

Hypocrite, Mira thought bitterly, and then shoved that thought away. Nope, not going there.

“If it’s still bleeding tomorrow, I’ll call her,” Mira offered as a compromise. “But if it stops bleeding with just the butterfly strips, I probably won’t need stitches and the doctor won’t be able to do anything other than what we’re already doing, I think. It’s probably fine.”

Romance failed to look convinced about how completely fine and normal this all was, but he kept his opinions to himself and moved ahead with carefully reapplying fresh bandages. He was faster and more confident with it this time, although that might also have been because he’d only had to reapply a few butterfly bandages and had managed it without sticking his fingers together this time.

Mira’s job in all of this had mostly been just to keep her arms out of the way and focus on breathing steadily, which was harder than it sounded, but with the bandages in place she unknotted the tank and let it fall to cover her again.

“Thanks,” she offered, only a little begrudging. Positive reinforcement; see there, Zoey, she’d been paying attention. She probably could have done that on her own, but it had been faster and easier just to let them do it. She pushed against Abby’s chest again, pointedly raising an eyebrow at him. She could see him visibly weigh his options and decide not to push his luck again; he stepped away to give her space and offered his hand instead of lifting her off the counter like he obviously wanted to do. Mindful of how she’d ended up on the floor the night before, she took his hand and let him help steady her as she slid off the counter and found her footing.

She sent them back out into the room so she could get cleaned up and at least somewhat presentable for the day before she went back out to join them. It didn’t take them long to finish cleaning up the mess they’d made of the room. Rumi’s account was going to get charged a hefty fee for all the missing towels, but it was better than having the cops called to investigate a bloodbath. Abby put her boots on for her, and then while he was tugging on a (criminally tight) t-shirt, Romance held a light pink zip-up hoodie for her while she worked her arms through carefully. He zipped it for her without a single remark, which itself was somewhat suspicious—he always had a sly remark ready.

Following her suspicions, she looked down at the hoodie. It was a shade darker than his hair, a few shades lighter than hers; a soft bubble-gum color.

And screen-printed over her heart in bold hot pink, outlined in sharp black to stand out at a distance: #miromabby. There were rhinestones; it was atrocious.

“You didn’t.”

“Hm?” He busied himself with the backpack again, tucking away the remaining medical supplies they’d used—and conveniently stepping out of her reach. She fumbled around over her shoulder to feel the back of the jacket, deeply suspicious now. There was something there, the plasticky feel of a cheap screen-print. Because Huntrix would never officially license shipping merch, so this was some bootlegged print he’d picked up in a street vendor’s stall in the shady end of Hongdae specifically to make her suffer.

“We’re supposed to be avoiding attention and you picked up something with our names on it?” she complained, struggling and squirming her way out of the jacket.

“Technically not our full names,” he pointed out in a very reasonable tone, as though she was the one being difficult here. “Except Abby, I guess. And don’t worry, I picked one that didn’t have a real picture of us. That signing was a really popular event, huh?”

If it wasn’t a real picture then it was fan art, which was almost worse because it could be anything. She finally managed to wriggle out of the jacket and flipped it around.

She’d dreaded the worst, because despite Bobby and the PR team’s best efforts to screen their fan interactions, they’d all received some...well, highly creative fan art and letters over the years and she knew exactly how liberally her likeness had been used, but to her relief it was a pretty tame print. Almost cute, even, if not for how it made a mockery of her very existence. A chibi Abby flexed both arms in a ridiculous strongman pose, with a chibi Mira and chibi Romance each hanging off one comically large bicep. They both looked rapturously happy to be there while Abby sported a smug grin.

“They got the proportions wrong,” Mira commented. “Your head is even bigger than that.”

“I think it’s lovely,” Romance said, cheerfully unaffected by this observation. “I used to be a patron of the arts, you know; I always try to support an artist with a vision.”

Abby, having finished gathering up the last of the trash, obligingly stood to his full height and flexed an arm for Romance, who took the invitation and hung off him easily. He was shorter than Abby, of course, they all were, but tall enough to have to pick up his feet to do it, bending his knees and letting Abby lift him higher.

“I’d offer my other arm, but that’d probably hurt your ribs,” Abby told her ruefully. “Maybe when you’ve healed?”

“Does this count as an emergency worth being picked up for?” Romance wondered, still hanging from Abby’s bicep.

Better not to give them the satisfaction of a response, Mira decided, and ignored them pointedly. She inspected the reverse side of the jacket, determined that the print wasn’t visible through the fabric, and turned it inside out before she put it back on. She continued to ignore them as they laughed and Romance dropped back to his feet as lightly as cat, instead focusing on figuring out how to zip up the hoodie from the inside. A little tricky, but manageable and a small price to pay.

That fucking hashtag had gone viral so fucking fast. #rujinu was still the most popular tag, with #zoeystery and #miromabby in a close second and third place. Zoey had attributed the rankings to the relative ease of spelling for Rumi and Jinu’s names, but Mira had seen enough negative feedback to know that the polyamorous nature of their particular “ship” had upset some people.

Baby hadn’t entirely managed to avoid the ensuing ship wars, but he’d managed to keep himself out of the trendier tags. That little bastard had done it on purpose somehow; Mira couldn’t prove it and she knew he’d never admit it, but she was dead certain she was right.

“Let’s go,” she said, pushing up to her feet carefully. She’d already expected it, so Abby’s brand new Huntrix shirt didn’t get more than a cursory glance. At least Romance had the sense to pick one that only had the band’s name and not their pictures on it. That one even looked like it might be actual merch, too.

“Sure.” But Romance eyed her critically for a moment first, then suggested delicately, “Should I help you with your hair first?”

She’d taken the braid down and shaken the waves loose in the bathroom, but hadn’t been entirely able or willing to raise her arms long enough to do anything else with it. It looked as well as could be expected after the night she’d had; rumpled but not too terribly tangled.

The only thing worse than being caught leaving a love hotel in a shady nightclub district before dawn would be being caught leaving while obviously disheveled and rumpled. The sweatpants, men’s tank top, and inside-out jacket wasn’t going to do her any favors, and having her hair loose and messy definitely wouldn’t help either. She sighed and sank back down to sit on the foot of the bed. “...Yeah. Just put it up in a bun?”

“I can do that.”

If he ever got tired of being a washed up former idol, he could probably make a decent career as a stylist, she reflected as he finger-combed through her hair again. He was good at it, and he was careful not to pull too hard or get caught in any tangles as he gently worked them free. Even without any tools aside from the small handful of pins from the night before, he managed to wind her long hair into a tidy bun and pinned it securely in place. “There. All set.”

“Thanks,” she said grudgingly, but...well, he was helping, and Zoey had been adamant about the positive reinforcement thing.

Chapter Text

Romance left first, teleporting back to the alley in a little puff of smoke to scout out the area and make sure no one would see them. When he texted them the all clear (Mira had finally, resentfully, accepted their chat invitation and got a heart-eyed smiling emoji from Abby while he stood next to her and beamed), Abby pulled her close and teleported them both away.

She’d thought that it had been such an unpleasant experience the night before because she’d been wounded, hurting and terrified, but it turned out that being teleported around actually just really sucked. She tried to breathe past the nausea and almost lost the battle when the smell of the dumpsters nearby invaded her nose and mouth. “Ugh—gross.”

“Come on; let’s get out on one of the main streets and get a cab.” Abby still had his arm around her shoulders, carefully avoiding the hidden bandages on her ribs, and she let him steer her out as they followed Romance. It was reminiscent of the night before when she’d been stumbling and unsteady, held up against Abby’s body and trusting Romance to lead them somewhere safe. Which...ugh, okay, positive reinforcement like Zoey said…

“Thanks,” she told them, pitching her voice just loud enough for Romance to hear her too. He paused and looked back at her, and she could see Abby from the corner of her eye as he looked down at her. “Both of you. For helping. None of us would have gotten away yesterday if you guys hadn’t been there, so. Thanks.”

“I’m glad we could help,” Abby told her sincerely, squeezing her shoulders lightly to pull her closer in a one-armed hug. She tolerated this primarily because trying and failing to elbow him away would be the final blow her ego wouldn’t survive. It was also cold out this early in the morning, with the sun just barely over the horizon, and he put off a tremendous amount of body heat. More than a human would? She wasn’t completely sure; she wasn’t usually in prolonged contact with anyone like this and had never been in contact with one of the demons this long before yesterday.

“Does that mean you’re going to let us help without yelling at us about it?” Romance drawled with an amused tone. He dropped back to walk in step with them on her other side. He’d used one of her hair ties to pull his hair back in a half-up bun, making only the slightest concession to change his usual style to be marginally less recognizable. It was, irritatingly, a very attractive look for him; it made the line of his jaw sharper, the vulpine slant of his eyes more noticeable. Mira had been trying to ignore it.

(Abby towered over everyone and was muscled up like a nightclub bouncer, and had bright magenta hair—nothing at all could be done to make him less noticeable and he hadn’t bothered to try.)

“Probably not,” Mira admitted. “And I meant it when I said to stop picking me up. But you know, thanks though.”

It was just at six on the dot when they stepped out onto a street with light traffic. A cafe and coffee shop was turning it’s ‘open’ sign on across the street from them, and at the corner beside them an elderly woman was setting up a small produce stand in front of her shop. Mira breathed in the cleaner air and felt a little lighter as she watched the normality of a city waking up around them.

By 6:02, the first texts from Zoey had started to roll in, now using the large chat group with all eight of them in it. Mira suspected she’d forgotten to turn her alarms off after that Zoom interview they’d had two days earlier; it was carefully staged, of course, but it had been intended to look like a casual morning with Huntrix while they drank tea and sat in their kitchen answering light, casual questions from a reporter in her own kitchen halfway around the world. A kind of low-key “get ready with me” type of video; fans loved it. Bobby had come over to oversee the interview, although careful to stay out of frame and too quiet to get picked up on the mic, so the former Sajas had made themselves scarce. Afterward they had a proper brunch with Bobby and then went back to bed for a few more hours of rest—or at least, Mira had gone back to sleep; she hadn’t asked what everyone else was doing during that time.

It only took a few text exchanges before Rumi joined in, and with everyone awake (and anxious to regroup), Mira gladly abandoned the plan to kill time somewhere in favor of just calling a cab to take them to Rumi’s apartment. They detoured across the street first; the cafe had a bakery and Mira asked for two large boxes of literally anything they would sell her, sliding her credit card across to the awestruck teen at the register with a PR approved smile firmly in place. It was really too early to ask for what amounted to a catering order and she tipped generously to make up for it.

(“Your jacket’s on inside out, by the way,” the teenager told her, his voice wavering when Abby wrapped an arm around her shoulders again. She didn’t look down to check, but there was a very strong possibility that he was flexing his biceps, judging by the dazed way the teen was staring at him.

“Is it? Oh, it is. Thanks so much, I’ll fix it. Have a good day.” Bright, shiny PR smile, Mira.)

Rumi’s studio apartment had been her mother’s. After her death, Celine had paid for it and sent a cleaning service out once a month for upkeep until she signed the deed over to Rumi on her sixteenth birthday. Mira wasn’t sure on the details, but there was a strong possibility Rumi actually owned the whole building. The studio apartment took up the south corner of the building on the top floor and had a balcony that wrapped around the corner. It was cozy and quiet; Mira had been there a few times before. Rumi had left most of the furnishings and decorations as they’d been when her mother selected them, only updating the appliances and light fixtures as needed. She didn’t often stay there, but said it was nice to know there was a quiet, out of the way place she could go if she needed a break.

The cab dropped them off at the corner of the block by Mira’s request, and the neighborhood was quiet in the golden early morning light. Peaceful. The air was cool and clean, crisp with the promise of autumn on the way as the summer months eased their way out. She tugged the jacket closer as she led the way to Rumi’s building.

(In the cab, Romance had slid into the backseat first and held a hand out to her with the clear intention to pull her between them. She gave Abby a push toward the open door and settled into the front seat with the driver before either of them could stop her.

“Good morning! Your jacket’s inside out, by the way.”

“Good morning! Oh it is, I didn’t even notice. Thanks, I’ll fix it when we get out.” PR smile, Mira; ignore the laughter from the backseat.)

Mira had never given much thought to renting her own place. She could have, of course; Huntrix had done very well for themselves under Celine’s guidance and Bobby’s immaculate talent for securing favorable contracts for them. The money wasn’t an issue. But the three of them had always been together, ever since they’d formally debuted. First in training dorms, then in a spate of hotels and rented apartments, until they’d finally moved into the penthouse three years ago. She liked living with them; they were the sisters she’d never had.

Rumi greeted them at the door with a relieved smile and hugs for all three of them, with Jinu waving from the kitchen where he was making tea (the only thing he could safely be counted on to make without causing a fire), and they looked so unbearably domestic that Mira had the hard realization that it might be time to start thinking about getting her own place. The penthouse would still be their base of operations whenever they were in between tours, but there was a very real possibility that Rumi and Zoey both might soon want their own places to live, somewhere quiet and secluded where they could work on their relationships.

She swallowed down the lump that wanted to form in her throat. It was fine, of course. They were all adults, they were all entitled to their privacy. They would still be her sisters, the family she’d chosen for herself; that wouldn’t be any less true if they didn’t live together anymore. It would be a change, but it didn’t have to be a bad one. She’d be fine. Mira was always fine.

“We picked up breakfast,” she offered up, a little pointlessly since Rumi had already had to duck around the boxes Abby was carrying to give him a hug. “Some cafe I’ve never heard of. Are you okay? How’s your arm?”

Rumi grimaced as she closed the door behind them quietly. “I still can’t draw my sword, but I feel like I’m close. We got the bleeding to stop last night and it’s still bandaged up. I think in a day or two I’ll be back to normal. Hey, your jacket’s inside out by the way. How are your ribs? I couldn’t see much last night but it looked pretty bad from what I saw.”

“Not great,” Mira admitted. “I can’t draw a weapon either. I think it’ll take more than just a few days for me.”

Rumi darted a glance past her at Jinu, Romance, and Abby in the kitchen, then looped her arm through Mira’s and called, “We’re going to sit out on the balcony; will you send Zoey to us when they get here?”

“Sure. Do you want to take your tea with you?” Jinu brought them both mugs of green tea with a sappy smile for Rumi. “Hi, Mira; glad you’re okay. Oh, your jacket’s inside out.”

“Morning, Jinu, thanks for the tea. Glad you’re okay too.” Over his shoulder, she could see Abby was leaning on Romance and they were both snickering into their own cups of tea. With any luck, one or both of them would choke on it.

She let Rumi tow her out onto the balcony and settled gingerly on the small outdoor couch out there. The sun hadn’t risen high enough yet to warm up the balcony. Rumi settled close on the couch with her, careful not to put too much weight on her as they leaned together.

“How are you feeling? Did…” her eyes flickered past Mira again, where the three demons were probably still huddled up in her kitchen together. “Did you get any sleep? Were things okay with them? Where did you guys end up, anyway?”

“They’re so annoying, Rumi,” Mira sighed, and rested her head on Rumi’s shoulder. “But yeah, it was mostly okay. Slept a little; not much. We found a hotel nearby and stayed there for the night. And, uh, expect to see some extra cleaning fees, because we got blood on basically every single towel they had and had to throw them all away.”

Rumi made an unhappy noise. “I don’t care about the fees, but are you sure you don’t need a doctor? We could call Dr. Kwon. We probably should call Dr. Kwon, in fact.”

“Not unless we have to. You know she’ll tattle on us to Celine.” Mira hesitated and sat up slowly. “I didn’t tell her about any of this. Did you?”

“No.” Rumi’s voice was small. “I don’t think Zoey did either, but I haven’t asked her yet. Do you…do you think we should?”

Realistically...probably, yes. Definitely yes. This was a big deal. They’d never been injured like this before, never had their weapons stolen from them. It had never even seemed like a possibility until now. If there had ever been a recorded instance of something like this happening to hunters before them, Celine would probably know or be able to find out. And there was always a possibility that Celine herself could be attacked, although that was less likely now that she was retired from active hunting.

“Do you want to tell her?” Mira asked quietly instead of answering. She found Rumi’s hand and squeezed. In the early morning light, the patterns on her skin glinted with soft iridescence, a pale ripple of rainbows refracting under her skin with every shift. “We don’t have to. We won’t if you don’t want her to know. Or if you don’t want to talk to her, Zoey or I could tell her about it instead.”

Rumi squeezed her hand and thought about it. “...Let’s wait and see what Zoey thinks first. I’m...I’m not ready to talk to Celine yet. But she probably should know about this. It’s important.”

Mira nodded reluctantly. Frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to Celine yet either, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to make Rumi do it. This was a decision for the three of them to make together, and if anyone needed to talk to Celine, Mira would handle it for them.

“I think we need to ask Baby how he got in and out of the demon realm,” Mira said, gracelessly changing the subject. Rumi looked relieved to switch topics, then frowned thoughtfully.

“D’you think he’ll tell us now? He wouldn’t before.”

“Dunno, but I think we should ask him. Maybe he’ll answer this time.” Mira hesitated, trying to find the right words that wouldn’t be misconstrued or sound accusing. “The Honmoon is...it’s not breaking apart like before, but it’s strange now. Flexible, almost? That can’t be coincidence. But we need more information about how the demons are getting through now, especially if really strong ones like this one are going to start showing up, and there’s no one else we can ask.”

Other than Celine, but. You know, fuck that. And if she knew anything useful about the current state of the Honmoon, she hadn’t seen fit to reach out on her own to let them know. Mira was...mostly sure that she would have. If it was important. Even if she was upset with them, or guilty, or angry (Mira couldn’t guess which—Celine hadn’t contacted any of them, so she had no idea what Celine thought about anything that had happened) she would still try to give them any important information she had...wouldn’t she?

Rumi squeezed her hand very tightly and whispered, “...Do you think the Honmoon is wrong because of me? Because I. I think it’s me.”

“No,” Mira told her firmly. “I don’t think it’s because of you. I don’t even think I’d say I think it’s wrong either, it’s just different now. But in a way that I think we can fix, if we can just figure out what’s different and why. It’s still secure, and it even seems like it’s working. Just...differently.”

Rumi relaxed a little at this; Mira hadn’t even realized how tense she was until she wasn’t anymore. “...Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. We’ll ask when they—oh, there they are.”

Zoey slipped out onto the balcony and flung herself on them both. “Are you guys okay? I was so worried!”

“Ow, ow—Zoey, gah, no hugging—!”

“Zoey, no, Mira’s still hurt! Ouch! Not my arm either!”

Zoey let go in a hurry and scrambled back. “Oh! I’m so sorry! Oh my god, I forgot! Is it your ribs? Rumi, is your arm okay? Are you both okay? Are you bleeding?”

“S’ok,” Mira gasped, still trying to catch her breath. Fucking ow, but like. She’d live. “No more hugs for a while though. You okay?”

“I’m pretty much fine now. Hurts when I bend the wrong way and I can’t feel the Honmoon or draw my weapons, but like. Besides that, I’m okay; it didn’t really scratch me that bad. I think I’ll be back to normal in a few days. Are you guys okay?”

“Pretty much the same for me,” Rumi confirmed. “It bled more than I think it should have and it really hurt, but that might be because I didn’t have the connection to the Honmoon anymore. Once we got the bleeding stopped though, it was fine. I think I’ll be okay in another day or two.”

Zoey turned an expectant look on Mira. She wished she had better news to give her. “...I think it’s going to be more than a few days for me. It hit me pretty hard. I’m not actually sure if I need stitches or not; we got it to mostly stop bleeding but it looks pretty bad. It’s...it actually might be kind of bad, I think. And I’m worried about what this poison might do to us, honestly.”

“Do you think we need to call Dr. Kwon?” Zoey asked immediately, her Serious Business Zoey face on. Mira winced.

“I don’t know. I hope not though—you know Celine will find out if we call her.”

Zoey frowned. “Yeah...about that. You guys ever think we need to get a new doctor? Usually a doctor wouldn’t go and blab to someone else about their patient’s medical history. That’s kind of one of the big rules about being a doctor.”

Mira had, in fact, had that thought. Recently, even; while holding an ice pack on Zoey’s head after The Dressing Room Incident and looking up concussion symptoms on her phone with the other hand. “Yeah…going to be hard to explain the whole...demon hunting thing though. Dr. Kwon’s grandmother was a hunter, so she already knew. Trying to tell someone new is going to be…a problem.”

“True. Something worth looking into though,” Rumi said thoughtfully.

“I thought about threatening Dr. Kwon,” Zoey admitted. Rumi and Mira stared at her. “I mean! Not with violence! But telling her that we’ll never go to her again if she doesn’t stop telling Celine. We’re not teenagers anymore.”

“...True,” Rumi said, thoughtful again. “That might be worth a try. Although…Zoey, we were talking about it before you got here—do you think we should tell Celine about this?”

“No.” Zoey’s voice was firm and certain; no hesitation. Mira looked at her in surprise.

“No?” Rumi looked as surprised as Mira felt.

“No. The first thing she’ll ask is how we got away, and it’ll be obvious we’re leaving something out.” She gestured to the patio door, indicating the five demons inside. “She’ll find out about them, and there’s no telling what she’ll do then, but it won’t be good. And...I don’t…I don’t trust her. Not anymore.”

Rumi dropped her gaze to her hands, twisted in her lap. “...Because she lied to you. About me.”

“No,” Zoey said with absolute certainty. “No, I understand why she lied. I understand why she told you to lie to us, and I understand why you did it. None of that was your fault, Rumi. And I think in her own way, Celine thought she was doing the right thing. Doing her best.”

“Then...why?”

“That’s why. Not that she lied. But that she thought making you afraid of yourself was the right thing to do, the best thing to do—that, I don’t trust.”

Mira hadn’t quite been able to put it into words even in her own thoughts, but as usual, Zoey knew exactly the right thing to say. “Yeah. Exactly—you lied because she told you to do it, to protect you. But she can’t or won’t admit that she messed up and made a bad call. That she did more harm than good. That’s—I don’t trust her judgment. Not anymore. And we’re better now, right? We’re working together better than ever.”

“But the Honmoon is all messed up because of me,” Rumi said, dropping her voice back to a whisper again, like Celine might hear it and appear from behind one of the patio chairs. “What if I really broke it? Like, really broke it?”

“It’s not broken,” Zoey said firmly. “It’s new and different, and that means we’ll have to make changes. But the traditional way obviously didn’t work either or there wouldn’t have constantly been demons breaking through. We just need to make adjustments. We’ll learn. And...we have help now. Information the old hunters never had. We’ll fix it, Rumi, you’ll see. Together.”

Zoey took one of Rumi’s hands, and Mira hadn’t spent so long being their lead choreographer just to miss a cue, so she took her other hand. Rumi sniffled hard and looked up, blinking back tears. “You guuuuuys…I’m glad you’re okay, and you’re right—we’ll fix it. Together.”

“Together,” Zoey agreed, voice wobbly with tears. And, still wobbly with tears, quivered out, “And Mira, your jacket’s inside out.”

Mira laughed and then immediately had to stop and clutch at her ribs. “Ow—no, that hurts, no laughing.”

“Yeah, can I ask about the jacket? You kind of ignored me and Jinu earlier when we mentioned it.” Rumi pulled her hands free to swipe at her eyes, then turned to look at Mira closely. “And you didn’t really tell me what happened with you guys last night either—don’t think I didn’t notice the lack of details. They took you to Hongdae?”

Mira waved her off. “You got the gist of it already; I didn’t skip anything important. Can I borrow a different jacket from you though? I can’t wear this all day.”

She unzipped the jacket enough to twist the lapel and show the rhinestone hashtag to them. Zoey squeaked in a way that meant she desperately wanted to squeal about it and knew it would be unwelcome, and Rumi let out a deeply unattractive goose-honk of a laugh that probably would have ended their careers if it ever happened on stage. Mira rolled her eyes and zipped up the jacket. “Don’t encourage them.”

“Romance?” Zoey guessed. “Abby’s still groveling; I don’t think he’d go out of his way to make you mad when he’s trying so hard to get you to like him.”

That...was a surprisingly good guess. Except the thing about the groveling; no one was groveling or trying to make her like them. That was weird even to think about.

“Romance,” Mira confirmed. She hesitated, wondering if she should mention the whole...suspicion of him holding a grudge thing, but ultimately decided against it. He could just stay mad if he wanted to; she’d done what was necessary and she’d do it again if it came to that.

Just...she really hoped it didn’t come back to a fight against the Saja Boys again. It would break Rumi and Zoey to fight them now, after months of peaceful cohabitation. Mira would protect them from anything if she had to, but...she really, really didn’t want to have to. Not like that.

“We should go back in and talk with them; we’ve got some plans to make,” Zoey said, dropping her voice low and serious. “But real quick before we bring them back into the conversation—the poison, and the traces of demonic energy. Was everyone able to get a lock on it?”

Rumi blushed. Mira thought longingly about jumping off the balcony. “Yes. Don’t ever text me eggplants again, by the way.”

Rumi, bright red all the way up to the roots of her hair, covered her face with her hands and hunkered down like she was trying to shelter in place. Zoey gave Mira a wide-eyed, innocent expression that fooled no one.

“Typo,” Zoey lied blithely. “Anyway. So they were all able to pick up traces of it? Jinu, Romance, and Abby?”

“Y-yeah.” Rumi emerged from hiding, not making eye-contact. “Jinu said...uuuummm…”

“Please feel free to summarize what Jinu said and don’t give an exact quote,” Mira suggested, studying the view of the city and not, in any way, shape, or form, looking at Rumi or Zoey as they traded glances and giggles.

“He, uh. He said it seemed faint, mostly faded. Mostly, it was just me. So, he thought it would fade from my system pretty fast, probably, and then I’d be able to access the Honmoon again.”

Zoey was nodding briskly, still blushing a little bit herself. “That’s pretty much what Mystery and Baby thought too. We haven’t checked again since then and that was just a few hours ago anyway, but I thought it would be a good idea to have them check again after like...twelve hours, give or take? Just to compare and see if it really is fading, or if it’s gotten worse.”

“Oh!” Rumi was, incredibly, somehow an even brighter shade of red now. “Oh, I mean. Yeah, I guess. That could be good. A good idea, I mean. To keep track of things. Yes.”

Mira was going to change her name and start a new life somewhere else; start a new career. Mountain climbing or something; something remote and far, far away from this conversation.

It made sense, was the thing. Zoey had a lot of ideas and not all of them were winners, but she was methodical and smart, and Mira trusted her judgment. They needed more information if they were going to make plans, and if this poison or demonic corruption or whatever was going to get worse they needed to know that, too. It was a sensible idea. Practical.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. Not again. Not for me. But you two should, if you want to,” Mira said, nodding and trying to look very accepting. It was fine for them, and she was fine with whatever they wanted to do as long as they were both agreeing to it and everyone was safe about...whatever it was they were doing. And, please, please nobody ever tell her any details about it.

“If that’s what you prefer, then absolutely,” Rumi agreed hastily, nodding rapidly. “Totally. I don’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

Zoey bit her lip and very conspicuously didn’t agree. Mira eyed her warily. She expected teasing or coaxing, maybe even an attempt at a guilt trip. But Zoey looked serious. She looked tired, anxious, and very unhappy—but she looked serious, with no trace of humor. She said carefully, “I’m sure that was really uncomfortable and scary. And I understand why you wouldn’t want to risk it. Letting them, or anyone, that close.”

Okay, well. That was uncalled for commentary, frankly. Yes, sure, Mira could be stand-offish; it was practically her brand. But not wanting demons to lick her was definitely not an unreasonable boundary to have, regardless of the reason.

“It’s not that deep,” Mira told her stiffly. She didn’t get defensive or angry—Mira was zen. She was mellow. She wasn’t even a little bit hurt or annoyed at the implication that this was just her being...avoidant, or afraid of getting close to people, or whatever, because it wasn’t even about that. Obviously. “And I’m not scared. I just don’t think it’s necessary; I need time to heal and I’ll be back just like before. If it still looks bad tomorrow then I’ll go see Dr. Kwon, or I’ll make up an excuse and see a different doctor. I’ll...say I got attacked by a stray dog or something.”

Wait, that was actually a much better idea than the lighting rig thing. She should have thought of that sooner.

“Did either of them say the poison seemed faded on you?” Zoey pressed.

“It—well, no. It didn’t come up, I guess?”

“And you made it sound like you got hurt worse than either of us. Did you?”

Almost definitely. “I...I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell how badly you got hurt.”

Zoey turned at once and hiked up the back of her shirt. “Can you peel the tape up?”

There was a single layer of gauze stuck down on all four sides with medical tape. That alone was enough to convince Mira that Zoey wasn’t hurt too badly.

(Also—and not that Mira was going to be the one to mention it, because plausible deniability, but also—Zoey had a new symptom in the form of a very clearly imprinted bite mark on her lower back, just above her ass. Rumi and Mira noticed it, noticed each other noticing, and came to a silent and mutual agreement not to notice it anymore.)

Rumi peeled up the tape and they both inspected the cut. A little jagged and inflamed around the edges; diagonal from top left to lower right across the small of her back. Mira estimated six inches long, and shallow enough to have already closed up and scabbed over. It might not even leave a scar, but it was terrifying to see a claw mark tracking across her spine like that. She wasn’t badly hurt but she could have been.

“Is that pretty close to how you got hurt?” Zoey asked, craning her neck to look over her shoulder at them. Rumi gently smoothed the tape back down and tugged Zoey’s shirt back into place.

“That’s pretty similar to mine,” Rumi said quietly. “Different spot; mine’s on my bicep. But it’s shallow and not very long. It bled a lot, but once that stopped it seemed pretty much fine. Mira?”

Yeah, no, she was pretty sure that fucker had been trying to pull out an organ or two. “I’ll show you later, if that’s okay. We just got it bandaged back up like an hour ago and I don’t want to redo it yet. But, no. It hit me a lot harder than that.”

Zoey turned back to look her in the eye. Horrifyingly, her eyes were bright and glassy with unshed tears, and while normally Mira would (correctly) assume that was an attempt to guilt her into doing something she didn’t want to do, this time it was readily apparent that Zoey was barely holding her composure together by fraying threads. Mira knew the difference by now: that wasn’t Zoey playing it up for effect, not teasing, not trying to bait her—that was Zoey on the verge of breaking down.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you guys. Not again, after everything we went through. I—I can’t lose you two again; I can’t. We’ve never seen anything like this or fought anything like this, and I just—if it gets worse and we don’t realize it in time, or if it has some other side effect we haven’t noticed yet, or if you get attacked again and get poisoned again, I just—I don’t know what I’ll—”

“I’m sorry, Zoey.” Mira couldn’t reach Zoey without squishing Rumi, so Rumi got squished and they both got hugged. She ignored the way it pulled and burned in her ribs, and she was all but certain a couple of the butterfly strips had just given up the fight, but she hauled them both in for a tight hug anyway. Worth it; she still had half a box of butterfly bandages in the backpack. “I’m sorry. You’re right, it’s a good idea.”

Rumi wrapped her arms around them both and squeezed, and yeah, there went a couple more of the butterfly strips. Maybe she actually did need stitches after all. Fuck, that hurt. Mira gently and carefully untangled them all so she could straighten up a little, but leaned on Rumi for support. Moral and structural; fuck that hurt a lot.

They’d almost died not quite four months ago. They’d almost died, and it was Mira’s fault, because she hadn’t been able to just communicate like a normal person; couldn’t just be the friend they needed her to be. She’d fucked up so hard it almost ended the world, and even by Mira’s standards that was a new low. She’d said she’d do better and she meant it at the time, but here she was making the same mistakes all over again; letting them down when they needed her.

“I know it’s weird and you don’t even like them, and that’s okay. You don’t have to let them—you really, really don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Zoey said, muffled against Rumi’s shoulder. “Maybe someone else could do it? You’re friends with Baby; he could do it instead if that’d be better?”

That would be objectively worse. The only possible worse target would be Jinu, with Mystery a close second place for “Most Horrifyingly Awkward Choice”. Since Zoey still had her face hidden against Rumi’s shoulder, Mira felt justified in pulling a face. Rumi pressed her lips together and managed not to laugh as she rubbed Zoey’s back comfortingly.

“No, it’s okay. Romance and Abby already have something to compare against anyway; it’d be easier for them to keep track of any changes.” Probably? It sounded plausible anyway. “I’ll talk to them about it later; if they’re okay with it then...then I’ll let them help keep track of any changes.”

Ugh. It was going to be a very terrible conversation with a very terrible outcome no matter how it ended: either they agreed, and then she was trapped by that agreement, or they bowed out and then she had to face Zoey again. Worse, she might have to have the same terrible conversation with Baby instead.

(Baby might agree if Mira asked; she wasn’t entirely unaware that their fragile truce had turned into a real friendship, albeit a weird, antagonistic one. And if nothing else, he excelled at making other people uncomfortable as a hobby, so that would probably be incentive enough. But if Zoey asked him to do it then he definitely would, and there’d be no getting out of it then.)

“Okay,” Zoey sighed. She sat up, wiped her face on her sleeves, slapped both cheeks briskly, and tried again with something approaching her usual cheer. “Okay! Alright. So, that’s handled. We’re also agreed about Celine and Dr. Kwon? No contact on the former, the latter only for an emergency and after a strong talking-to. Does that cover it?”

Mira and Rumi nodded dutifully.

“Okay. Then I think for the rest, we should probably talk it over with the guys, since this will involve them too. Back inside? We stopped and got coffee for everyone too. Baby said he had some ideas but he didn’t want to go over it more than once, so he wouldn’t tell me.” She scowled, approximately as threatening as a pomeranian. “...Pretty sure he could have gone over it more than once, but noooo. A quick summary? A bullet point list? I love lists; everyone knows this. But did I get a list? No, I did not.”

But she bounced up to her feet and helped Rumi up, and then it took both of them to get Mira back up. She could feel damp heat under the compression bandages and thought she might have bled through the gauze again, but the pain was back to a manageable level as long as she didn’t move too fast or bend. And as long as there were absolutely no more hugs, or she might actually die this time.

But they still had plans to make and things to do today. She gritted her teeth against the sharp spike of hot pain when she straightened up, breathed in slow while she found her footing, and then tried to ease through it with a slow breath out. Another day or so, and her ribs would probably be healed enough that she could move more easily on her own. Maybe a couple of weeks until she could start running through forms with the wooden training staves she kept in their home gym (because a practice spear would probably raise some questions). Hopefully by then, whatever was cutting her off from the Honmoon would disperse enough that she could get back into the fight and they could find the demon that had done this to them.

One step at a time.

Rumi’s apartment was cozy for two or three people, but uncomfortably crowded with eight. Rumi folded into an armchair and Jinu stationed himself behind her, while Zoey (carefully but firmly) hauled Mira to the couch with her, planting herself in the middle with Mira on one side and Mystery on the other, Baby perched on the arm of the couch by his shoulder. Romance took the remaining armchair and Abby dropped comfortably to sit at his feet, leaning back against his legs.

Baby leaned over Mystery’s head to inspect Mira thoughtfully. She expected another ‘your jacket’s inside out’ remark, but he went a more direct route with, “You look like shit.”

“Thanks, you too.” What an asshole, honestly. It would have helped if he could have at least had the decency to look a little bit rumpled after a night spent in hiding, but no—clothes perfect, skin perfect, hair perfect. Abby was right, Baby was the worst person she knew. She was glad he wasn’t dead, but as a basic courtesy he could have looked a little bit bedraggled this morning.

“That thing got you pretty good, huh?” It sounded like he was aiming for gloating but landed on genuine concern. Which, gross. No. They didn’t do concern, that wasn’t their thing.

“I think,” Mira said solemnly, “that it was trying to high-five me and it missed.”

He snorted a laugh and sat back up. Concerned bonding moment over, thank fuck. “Right, so. I got good news and bad news.”

“Good news!” Zoey cheered, at the same time Mira and Rumi deadpanned, “Bad news.”

“Good news, I don’t think that thing can track us. I checked around a little bit last night—if it had gotten anywhere close to any of us, I would have been able to tell. And it would have pushed the advantage if it could, I think. Bad news, you live in a fucking tower with your name on the side in neon, so I don’t think it’s gonna have to look all that hard to find you again.”

“Good news, if it shows up there we don’t have to waste time looking for it,” Mira pointed out, and Baby bobbed his head in tepid agreement.

“Sure, but bad news—any of you able to pull a weapon yet?”

Oh, right. Bad news: no weapons.

“We have tasers,” Zoey offered. “Bobby got ‘em for us. And Mira has those staff things she uses for training. Um, what else...kitchen knives? Oh! We can make a flamethrower with hair spray!”

Baby gave her an unimpressed look, leaning his elbow on the top of Mystery’s head. “I don’t think that’s gonna work out the way you hope it will.”

Mira imagined trying to throw a brick at the smoke demon and it evaporating on the spot after a single bonk. Unlikely, but it was a nice thought. If it was that easy to get rid of a demon, everyone would do it. They’d never tried the tasers, but it seemed unlikely to work on a demon. Maybe it’d work on a water demon? Probably something they should test once they had their weapons back, just in case it didn’t work.

“You think we need to go into hiding somewhere then,” Rumi said unhappily. They had obligations; they couldn’t just vanish. But they were overdue for a real break, and although the timing wasn’t great, it wasn’t the worst either. They’d been slowing down their performances and press appearances since the Gwi-ma thing, and then pulled back even more when Baby had turned up so Rumi could focus on getting Jinu back. Bobby had noticed. Of course, they hadn’t been able to tell him about...well, any of it, really, but they’d hinted at needing to take a little time to themselves and he’d accommodated and covered for them as best he could. He was the best.

“We could let Bobby know we’re taking a formal break and, you know, actually try to stick to it this time,” Zoey said, giving Rumi a pointed stare. “We won’t be doing any performing for a while anyway, not while we’re still healing. We can tell him we’re working on a new album and take a vacation somewhere. I don’t want us to split up again unless we have to, but going back to the penthouse probably isn’t a good idea right now either.”

“Probably no reason to split up,” Jinu agreed. “The five of us can cover for you three more easily together than we could if we’re split up into groups. It’s a little bit of a risk—if it finds any of us, it’ll have all of us—but I think it’s smarter to stay together.”

A vacation sounded nice. Impractical, but nice. Good news/bad news situation again—taking time off wouldn’t be the hardest thing, but scheduling a vacation somewhere subtle required security, planning, and a lot more staff than most people would expect. And if they were completely avoiding the penthouse, they wouldn’t be able to pack their own clothes or makeup, and it wouldn’t be safe to send staff to do it for them. Plus, taking five former idols who’d vanished under mysterious circumstances was...complicated, to say the least. They’d have to be even more careful than usual to avoid being spotted by the press. And they usually tried to clean out the penthouse before they traveled to make sure nothing spoiled in the fridge while they were gone and made sure no one forgot to take out the trash, but aside from their own efforts they also had a cleaning service come in and tidy up if they were going to be gone for more than a few days at a time. They hadn’t expected not to go back home the night before, so if a cleaning crew came in they would find plenty of evidence to show that more than just three women lived there now. Their staff were discreet, but there was always a risk of someone going to the tabloids if there was something provable to show.

Mira checked their shared calendar on her phone, still turning over the logistics and wondering where they could go. It wasn’t practical for them to just up and leave without a warning, but it might not be safe to go back either. “We have an interview tomorrow, and a photo shoot scheduled this Friday, but it looks like we’re fairly clear after that. We were supposed to attend an award show next week, but we could just do a prerecorded thing and skip it; we weren’t performing anyway. We could tell Bobby we’re taking a proper hiatus this time. A few months maybe; we really do need to work on the new album without getting stopped for interviews constantly.”

“Is a photo shoot a good idea right now?” Rumi asked hesitantly. “We’ve never had to hide a serious injury before...that might not go so well.”

“What’re we supposed to be wearing?” Mira asked. She vaguely remembered being involved in that meeting with Bobby, but last week felt like a lifetime ago and she couldn’t remember the details now. “As long as it covers, it should be fine. We won’t be performing, just standing around for the photographer. I can manage that; should only take a few hours.”

“Golden tour outfits,” Zoey supplied with a wince. She and Rumi might be able to cover their injuries with makeup, but the risk of something incriminating being spotted was high enough as it was even without factoring in that Mira’s injuries were a bit more substantial and difficult to cover. “We can make adjustments, add some layers. Golden: Winter Edition! That’ll work.”

“We could just do the interview and skip the photos,” Rumi offered, which was very nice of her but, no, they really couldn’t do just half of the job. Either they canceled the whole thing (and Bobby would do it if they asked, but it would stress him out and Mira would feel terrible) or Mira toughed it out for a few hours. She knew which option she’d prefer.

“The Zoom interview was fun,” Zoey said wistfully. “It was nice to not have to go in for hair and makeup somewhere. And when we were done, we were already at home. We should do more of those. Maybe we can ask them to do that instead?”

Rumi hummed noncommittally. She looked like she was also considering the downsides of the plan when Mira glanced over at her to check. She was looking down at her phone and frowning, biting her lip anxiously. Jinu had noticed it too; he slid a hand over her shoulder gently and she tangled her fingers with his immediately. “...We need to go back to the penthouse at least briefly. We need to pack, need to clean up. We need to make it look normal, not like we’re being chased out. And it’s better for us to do it, together, than to have Bobby or his assistants do it—they could get hurt. We’d have to get our outfits together for the shoot so Bobby doesn’t have to, plus then we can figure out how to better cover up, make some outfit adjustments for the shoot.”

“Didn’t we just cover why that’s a bad idea?” Baby said irritably, and then made a startled sound when Mystery hooked an arm around his waist and yanked him down off the arm of the couch. He landed in Mystery’s lap, off-balance and clearly annoyed about it if the flash of golden eyes and fangs was any indication, but Mystery either ignored the obvious bundle of red flags he was holding in his lap or just genuinely didn’t notice. It was Mystery, so...Mira figured it was a 50/50 chance either way. Zoey curled into Mystery’s shoulder and twined her fingers through Baby’s, completely disregarding the claws. Mira knew Zoey had noticed, so she was choosing to ignore the warning signs. Baby made an irritable and distinctly inhuman sound from deep in his chest, like an animal growling, Mystery rumbled back at him in a deeper register, and Zoey patiently ignored it all.

“We won’t be staying long,” Zoey told him, not acknowledging the growling. They finally settled down, although Baby folded his arms and sulked about it while Mystery rested his chin on his shoulder. Baby had to fold his arms higher than Mystery’s to cross them over his chest, and it made him look even younger and poutier than he already did. Mira was now familiar enough with how Baby operated to know that the more obvious he was about his bad mood, the safer it was for everyone involved. It was when he was on his best behavior that it was time to be on alert. If he was sulking with this much showmanship then he probably wasn’t actually mad.

Actually, come to think of it...that sounded like someone else she knew. She turned her attention back to her phone for cover and glanced through her lashes at Romance and Abby, who’d both been suspiciously quiet throughout this conversation. Abby looked alert and focused, but not overly concerned. Romance, though...he looked quietly displeased with the whole situation. Mira didn’t know him well enough to guess which part he was put out about; it was strangely unsettling not to know.

“Right, just in and out long enough to pack and clean up a little,” Rumi agreed with Zoey, also electing not to acknowledge the growling demons stacked on her couch. Rumi was a professional; Mira admired that about her. “Shouldn’t take us longer than an hour or two. We’ll call Bobby while we’re at it and let him know what we’re doing. He can help us figure out someplace to stay. We need something secluded but not too far from town; we still have those interviews coming up this week.”

And somewhere with enough room for eight people without making it obvious that they were planning for eight people. Mira opted not to point this out; Rumi knew better than most how to make plans to that allowed her to keep her secrets hidden.

“Beach trip!” Zoey exclaimed, popping upright so unexpectedly that Mira flinched and then winced from the movement. “It’s the off season and starting to get chilly, so there won’t be as many people. I bet we can find a big beach house to rent out. Maybe somewhere in Gangneung? It’s a little bit far if we have to drive back for interviews though...Maybe we could stay in a hotel until we finish that shoot on Friday, then go to Gangneung for a few weeks after?”

“Hotel suite through the end of the week, Gangneung after,” Mira agreed, throwing in her vote with a nod. She shifted her weight with a wince again—yeah, those bandages needed to be changed and she needed something with more back support than this couch. Sooner rather than later. “Penthouse first for cleanup and figure out the Golden outfits. We’ll tell Bobby we need a change of scenery; he’ll believe it.”

It was a go-to excuse for them when they had to sneak off somewhere. As far as Bobby knew, all three Huntrix members loved the outdoors and had a constant need to “step out for fresh air”. It was at least somewhat true, so that was more of an exaggeration than an outright lie...unlike all the other outright lies they’d told him over the past few years while he was their manager. She’d always felt a little guilty about it, but lately…

Lately, she was starting to wonder if they should just tell him. Celine would flip her shit entirely if they did, but that was nothing compared to the catastrophic reaction she’d have if she knew they’d been living with five demons and they were already doing that anyway. So really, what was one more mark against them?

“Okay then, that works,” Rumi agreed. “We can tell Bobby you guys are staying here with me this week; when we go to the interviews, you guys can meet me here and we’ll have a driver take us straight from here. Will that be okay? You guys can teleport straight here now that you’ve been here, right?”

She glanced around to open the question to the remaining four Sajas. Baby nodded (Mystery didn’t react, but that wasn’t a surprise), and Romance leaned down over Abby, resting his forearms on Abby’s shoulders with his hands loosely linked together across his chest. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Do it the other way around though: tell him you’re all staying in the hotel and have Jinu bring you there. It’ll be easier for everyone. Do you want us to find another hotel just through Friday then?”

Oh, no, red flag.

“I’ll handle the reservation this time,” Mira said firmly. No more love hotels with a single bed, absolutely not. Romance angled a sly smile at her, like he knew exactly what she was thinking, but didn’t object. “He’s probably right though, Rumi; we should tell Bobby you’ll be with us. It’ll give us an excuse for an extra room anyway. Zoey, you want me to book you guys with us? We can get a couple of suites in the same hotel.”

“Yeah, good idea! I’ll check some listings around us and we’ll pick one out.” Zoey snapped her fingers and turned to Jinu, and Mira and Rumi eyed her warily. Zoey did that when she was pretending to have just remembered something—which meant she’d be waiting for the right moment to bring it up. “That reminds me though—Jinu, how’d you know you’d be able to teleport with us? When I asked Baby and Mystery about it, they told me they usually wouldn’t have been able to carry me with them because the Honmoon prevents it. Rumi’s an exception, obviously, but for me and Mira it wouldn’t normally work. Did you already know that would work when we couldn’t summon our weapons anymore?”

Conspicuously, Baby and Mystery had both gone very quiet and still, watching Jinu with a hawkish focus that was evident even without being able to see most of Mystery’s face.

Jinu, for his part, looked embarrassed and shifty. “Uh. Well. I mean, that made the most sense to me—without the Honmoon you don’t have your weapons or your other abilities, so…”

So…he panicked, and it just happened to work, and he was justifying it after the fact. Mira huffed a laugh and had to stop to press a hand to her ribs. It wasn’t funny, really, but...it was a little funny. It hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder why they’d never tried to teleport them anywhere before now. If she’d had to guess, she would have thought it was because kidnapping a hunter came with an inevitable “what now” on the other end—separating them from each other would have just pissed off everyone involved and made them twice as mean in a fight; there was no way it would be worth the effort to even try.

“You guessed,” Abby surmised flatly. There was a kind of subvocal vibrato under his voice, a deeper bass crawl that wasn’t usually there. Not quite a growl, but getting very close. “You guessed?”

Mira thought even that was giving him too much credit, frankly, but at least it’d worked. “We didn’t have a lot of time to make a plan; it worked out.”

“He almost got you all killed,” Baby pointed out irritably.

“It’s not the first time,” Mira said without thinking, then winced and shot Rumi and Jinu a guilty look. “Shit—sorry.”

“No, you’re right,” Jinu agreed quietly. “I apologized, but it still happened. And no, I didn’t know it would work, and I didn’t have a backup plan. I’ve never seen anything like that demon either.”

“You did apologize, and we accepted your apology,” Mira acknowledged guiltily. It had actually been the very first thing he’d said to her and Zoey once Rumi evicted him from her sword, and it went a long way toward smoothing over the conversation that had followed. “I didn’t mean to throw that back at you again. I’m just tired and crabby, ignore me.”

From the corner of her eye, Mira saw Zoey subtly squeeze Baby’s hand and was willing to bet Mystery had just gotten a nudge too. Baby sighed and tugged out of Zoey’s grasp to scrub his hands over his face. “Alright. You did your best and it worked, fair enough. We gotta work out a better plan before we pick a fight with that thing again.”

“We will,” Zoey agreed as Mystery nodded silently into Baby’s shoulder. “But for now, should we head back to the penthouse and pack up?”

“Bandages first,” Romance said, inclining his head to Mira. He was right, but fuck, was it that obvious? She double checked that she wasn’t bleeding through her jacket, but it wasn’t visible.

“You do smell like blood,” Baby agreed, and Mystery nodded again. Creepy little fuckers. “A lot of blood, actually.”

Rumi and Zoey turned panicked faces on her—thanks for nothing, Baby, stellar work—and she held up her hands in a placating gesture. “I’m fine, I’m not dying. I think maybe one of the cuts reopened earlier, that’s all. We’ll stick a new bandage on and then go pack up, okay? It looks worse than it is.”

“No, it looks exactly as bad as it is,” Abby corrected, settling back into Romance’s loose embrace.

“Might actually be worse than it looks,” Romance added unhelpfully. “Considering the poison is still working against you.”

“Right, okay, that’s—we can handle it, we’ll handle it,” Zoey was muttering as she stood, fast and jerky. Mira shot Romance and Abby a glare before her view was obstructed by Rumi and Zoey converging on her.

“We’ll go to my room and fix the bandages up, you’ll be okay,” Rumi assured her as they helped her to her feet.

“You’ll be fine! You’ll be totally okay! We’ll fix it!” Zoey agreed. Great, now they were both on the verge of tears.

“Do you need any help?” Jinu asked very carefully, clearly still uncomfortable. It was nice of him to offer, but also oh god no.

“No, thanks though.” Mira shot Romance another glare as he handed the backpack of supplies off to Zoey as they passed. “I’ve got plenty of help.”

Chapter Text

“It’s not that we’re already given the interview questions in advance before we do these, it’s just that we tend to get the same kinds of questions,” Zoey elaborated, working a thin braid into Mystery’s hair. “And yeah, we probably don’t really need to prep answers in advance anymore, but it’s kind of a tradition now.”

This hotel was a vast improvement over the tiny love hotel. Zoey had teased Mira, threatening to reserve a honeymoon suite with extra rose petals, but what they settled on was more like a corporate suite. Four bedrooms connected to a large main sitting room, and each pair of bedrooms were connected by a bathroom on either side of the sitting room. She was still savoring the relief of knowing there would be a door between her and the rest of the suite’s occupants for the night.

Despite the extra space, she wasn’t actually surprised when the entire group of five—Zoey with Mystery in her shadow, Baby a few steps behind, and then Abby and Romance mere seconds later—ended up in her room. Neither Rumi nor Zoey had expected to see the damage Mira had taken in the fight, and despite her repeated reassurances that she was doing fine (mostly), they’d been taking turns lurking nearby in case she dramatically collapsed or something equally embarrassing. Rumi had helped her pack, and Zoey had helped her wrap her ribs in plastic cling film from the kitchen so she could shower before they left the penthouse without getting her latest round of bandages wet.

Their hovering was a little annoying at times and largely unnecessary—by now, Mira could walk without help and stand for a few minutes at a time without getting tired; that was real progress!—but more annoying still was the ancillary hovering that came with it: where Zoey went, so did Mystery, with Baby weaving in and out at will. Wherever Rumi was, Jinu was lurking around awkwardly nearby. Abby and Romance were still adrift in her orbit too, one or both nearby at nearly all times. It was exhausting, but by this point she was resigned to it and had stopped trying to chase people out of her personal space.

A movie was on in the background, some murim series marathon that none of them were paying any attention to with the volume down low. Mira was propped up against the headboard on the left side of the bed so her injured ribs weren’t at risk of any accidental bumps. Zoey curled against her shoulder on her right, with Mystery draped across her lap like a weighted blanket. Romance was on the other side of Zoey, which might have been at least mildly concerning except that Baby had flopped down on top of him and emitted almost inaudible growls every time he so much as shifted his weight, effectively pinning him by sheer threatening presence despite being at least four inches shorter than Romance. Abby was too tall and broad-shouldered to fit in Mira’s lap the way Mystery had for Zoey, but he’d wedged himself into place on his back between her knees and was apparently content there even with his legs hanging off the end of the bed. Mira had protested Abby’s decision specifically, but he’d refused to budge and now she was using his head to prop up her tablet while Zoey read over her shoulder, so… whatever, maybe he’d won that round. He was too heavy to rest on her legs like he’d started out—her foot started getting pins and needles almost immediately—and though she wasn’t sure she liked the compromise, it was admittedly more comfortable now that she had one knee hooked over his shoulder, the other leg outstretched down the side of his body. Sensibly, he’d recognized that any touching would not be welcomed, but he seemed happy enough to lie where he was with his hands folded over his stomach.

“Why bother then, if you’re just doing the same interview over and over?” Abby asked. He was the only one with any interest in what they were doing; Mystery’s interest began and ended with the hand Zoey was petting through his hair, and Mira was fairly sure Baby was laying on Romance as some sort of weird demonic threat display. It couldn’t possibly be comfortable and he definitely wasn’t watching the movie he’d put on, but he also wasn’t moving and wouldn’t let Romance move either.

“It’s not the same interview,” Zoey protested, ignoring Mira muttering that’s what I keep asking too. “It’s...okay, the interviews tend to be pretty similar every time, granted. But it’s not the same interview. And interviews can be fun sometimes! We got to do that one where they asked us questions while we played with puppies; that one was really nice.”

“That one was fun,” Mira admitted. “We should do that again.”

It was hard to tell at this angle, but she thought Mystery might be sulking. He nudged his head into Zoey’s hands and she unraveled the braid, petting through his hair consolingly.

Abby had tried it too when he first settled into place, but Mira ignored him and readjusted her tablet until he stopped moving. To his credit, he’d only tried once and he’d given up fairly quickly. (His hair wasn’t even long enough to braid; what did he think she was going to do?)

“It just seems like an unnecessary risk to go out right now,” Romance added. He tried to adjust or sit up straighter and Baby growled, deep and threatening, until he stopped moving. Looking faintly beleaguered, he rallied himself and continued, “The demon can’t track you, or maybe hasn’t tried, but if you’re out somewhere public where you could be noticed it might find you.”

“It’s a bad idea,” Baby agreed, settling in smugly once he’d sufficiently threatened Romance into staying still. He rested the bony point of his chin on Romance’s shoulder and wedged his elbow into Romance’s sternum while he made himself comfortable. From experience, Mira knew his pointy elbows could be classified as a deadly weapon when he applied himself. Romance aimed a martyred expression into the middle distance but didn’t try to move again. “And if it’s not an important interview anyway, then why bother? Just tell your little hamster of a manager that you’re sick or something. Have Mira tell him; he’d believe it. You still look like shit, by the way.”

“Don’t call Bobby a hamster,” Zoey chided. “And leave Mira alone; she’s just tired. You look great, Mira. But tired though. Anyway, it’s not really a public interview; there won’t be a studio audience or any big crowds. There wasn’t any publicity or press around it either—we’re just going in, doing the interview, and then we’ll leave right away. The studio director was a friend of Rumi’s mom back when the Sunlight Sisters were getting started; we’re kind of doing it as a favor, so it’s not going to be as big as our interview events usually are. In and out, no problems; we’ll only be gone a few hours.”

“A couple of us could go with you at least,” Baby grumbled. “Pretend to be security or something. Doesn’t have to be all of us, if that would draw too much attention.”

“Yeah, that’d go well,” Mira said dryly. Jinu and Abby could maybe plausibly pass as security, if they didn’t look like Jinu and Abby. Absolutely no one was going to take Romance, Mystery, or especially Baby seriously as a security detail, even in the unlikely event that they weren’t recognized instantly. “It’s not like your two-second career and extremely public disappearance isn’t like, the number one mystery in the world right now. You have any idea how many podcast episodes there are about you guys?”

“I don’t know what a podcast is but it sounds stupid,” Baby told her, not without a certain level of sulky irritation.

“They are,” Mira agreed. “But no, you definitely can’t come with us. That’s an even worse idea than us going by ourselves.”

“Oh, so you think it’s a bad idea too,” Romance noted pointedly. “But you’re doing it anyway.”

“We have obligations,” Zoey sighed. “It’d be nice if we didn’t, but we do. It’s just one interview. And, well, the shoot on Friday, but honestly I’m not sure about that one. Mira, I know you wanted to just switch up the outfits a little and push through, but…”

“The photographer isn’t going to punch me in the ribs,” Mira said, rolling her eyes. She flicked into a photo album from earlier in the day, when they’d been working out layering ideas for their outfits. They had plenty of costume pieces and other clothing they could mix in, and it was a shame not to wear some of it more than once. With more black accent pieces underneath, any hint of bandages (or hickies) were covered and it made the white and gold outfits pop. It looked sleek and intentional, not like they were hiding anything. They’d even touched up their makeup first so the stark black, white, and gold wouldn’t wash them out in the photos, especially with all of them exhausted and running on only a few hours of sleep. They’d taken a few test shots together and separately so they could decide on a few options and run it past Bobby for approval. Jinu took the group shots for them, but Rumi made sure he held the tablet low to give them impression that they’d propped it up on a table to take the pictures. “See, look—we look great, you can’t even tell anyone was injured. We can tell them I pulled a muscle working on choreography and ask to sit in between takes; it’ll be fine.”

Zoey bumped their shoulders together gently. “Fine. But only if you feel up to it on Friday. And! Only if you keep up with changing your bandages regularly. And! The other thing. The thing we talked about. The thing you were going to ask about. Did you ask?”

Subtle. Really, truly subtle, Zoey; almost imperceptible, really. “Yes, I asked. And yes, Romance and Abby will check for the poison regularly and I’ll text you with updates even if there aren’t any changes.”

“Good.” Zoey poked Romance’s shoulder, right under Baby’s chin. “You two text me updates, too. No offense, Mira, but you undersold your injuries enough that now I want a second opinion on any medical updates from you.”

Mira rolled her eyes at this, but honestly, she could kind of see Zoey’s point. “What? I was completely honest. ‘Not dying but I don’t feel great’; that’s a good summary.”

“One of us will text you updates too,” Abby agreed, and got a pat on the head from Zoey for it. Mystery’s sulk became more pronounced.

“Speaking of which, we should probably go do that too,” Zoey added, very casually. Definitely not blushing and fidgeting, and that definitely wasn’t the curve of a smirk on Mystery’s face now or a downright devious expression on Baby.

Plausible deniability. Mira saw nothing. Nothing to see here even if she’d been looking, which she wasn’t. “Good night. I’ll see you around noon to start getting ready for the interview?”

“Yep! We get to sleep in a little bit tomorrow.” She tugged lightly on Mystery’s hair. “Come on, you two, let’s go.”

Baby rolled to his feet, as graceful as a gymnast except for the strategically aimed elbow that caught Romance squarely in the chest on his way up. Romance narrowed his eyes at him, flashing to gold and back again for an instant, but didn’t comment on it. Mystery slid off the end of the bed and helped Zoey off after him. Mira waved them out instead of trying to stand; Abby didn’t really have any weight resting on her now that she’d adjusted her legs around him, but moving out from around him would be too much trouble to bother with right now. And now that she was finally comfortable and her ribs didn’t hurt too badly, she didn’t want to get up.

“How often should the bandages be changed?” Abby asked, turning to rest his head against her thigh. Mira adjusted her tablet again but otherwise didn’t react to his movements.

“Twice a day, barring anything urgent.” Like, say, reopening a wound in a group hug. No more of that for a while. “Should probably change it again before I go to bed.”

“That would be easier anyway,” Romance agreed. “Since we’d have to uncover it to check the poison.”

Yeah, probably. Mira had been trying not to think about it. It was one of the conversations she’d had in the penthouse this afternoon, one of the times that Zoey and Rumi had stopped hovering to go handle something in another room, and Abby and Romance drifted closer instead. Mira hadn’t wanted to even float the possibility of voluntarily letting either of them close enough to touch her again, but then she’d remembered Zoey’s tears and Rumi’s barely disguised panic and gave in. They’d both agreed readily and hadn’t expressed any surprise or made any jokes, although they both had to know how unusual it was for Mira to voluntarily request help, much less this kind of help.

“I’ll get the bandages,” Romance added, getting to his feet. He absently rubbed his chest where Baby had caught him with his elbows. “I don’t think you’ll need to get up if you don’t want to; we should be able to avoid making as much of a mess this time.”

“I think it’s pretty much stopped bleeding, yeah,” Mira agreed absently, watching him move around the room with easy confidence. She wondered if he knew why Baby had been behaving strangely, if he’d guessed or if he just thought it was Baby being slightly more of an asshole than usual.

Yeah, that was another conversation she’d had in the penthouse. Rumi had been helping her pack, but they were both sitting on the foot of Mira’s bed and taking a break from packing to pet Derpy instead, talking and laughing about nothing in particular when Baby came in. All of the demons seemed capable of moving in complete silence and it wasn’t unusual for one of them to accidentally (or intentionally) sneak up on someone, so the humming was probably to let them know he was there. Humming Soda Pop was to let them know that he was still an asshole.

“Rumi, Jinu’s looking for you.”

“Oh, thanks. I’ll go check on him. Did he say why?”

“Didn’t ask. I assume he’s losing his will to live because you’ve been out of his sight for more than thirty seconds,” Baby deadpanned, and Rumi rolled her eyes at him but went to go save Jinu from himself.

“I’ll come back to help you with your bags, Mira.”

“Don’t bother, I’ll make Baby do it,” Mira told her, and Rumi laughed as she left, Derpy padding silently behind her.

“Just so you know, I’m not carrying shit,” he informed her, although he waited until Rumi was gone to say it. Rumi would have made a disappointed expression at him and he would have caved immediately—she had almost as high of a success rate as Zoey did for getting him to behave.

(Mira had mentioned this phenomenon to Zoey once, only to be shown a graph she’d charted out in the back of a notebook. In order from least to most: Baby followed instructions from Abby and Romance exactly never, Mystery only on occasions Zoey noted as “extenuating circumstances” and had pointedly not elaborated on, Jinu rarely, Rumi and Mira tied in second place for “most of the time”, and Zoey always. Mira made her promise to use this power only for good; Zoey solemnly promised only to try.)

He wandered in and flopped back on her bed uninvited. Mira eyed him warily. It wasn’t entirely unusual for him to seek her out on his own, but it was unheard of for him to come into her room. He’d never even tried, now that she thought about it; none of them had, even Romance and Abby.

“You still look like shit,” he told her bluntly. “Didn’t sleep?”

“Not really. It wasn’t the most comfortable hotel I’ve ever stayed in,” she said dryly.

“Mh-hm. Crowded, too, I bet.”

She turned to look at him more clearly. He wasn’t looking at her—he was staring up at the ceiling with an intense, focused expression, blue eyes sharp and cold. His tone was off too; flat and hard. “...Yeah. It was. What’s with you? You’re pissier than usual. You need a nap or something?”

He paused. On anyone else, it might have read as hesitation. Then he pulled himself upright smoothly—the way a human couldn’t, uncannily like a puppet pulled on a string—and turned to face her. His human mask was still in place but there was a yellow sheen over his eyes when they caught the light. “Anything happen that shouldn’t have?”

She hadn’t quite grasped the question immediately. “Uh. ‘Anything’ like the demon attacking us and losing our connection to the Honmoon?”

He gave her a flat look. “Anything like a couple of demons alone with a hunter who can’t fight back, maybe being more pushy than they should have been?”

It was an unexpected question, not the least because of who the question was coming from. And for all of her (many, and completely reasonable) misgivings about having the five demons living with them, that had never been one of her concerns. Granted, it hadn’t concerned her before because she’d had the security of knowing her weapon was always at hand, just a heartbeat away. But she understood what he was getting at now. “...No. Not really.”

His eyes narrowed. “Not really isn’t the same as a no.”

Mira took the question seriously—it was obvious that he wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “We had to have a talk about not picking me up and carrying me around, but otherwise, no. It was...it was fine. Awkward. Uncomfortable for everyone. But not...not like you’re thinking.”

He’d studied her face for a moment, then nodded once, sharply. “If that changes, or you want them to back off—tell me. I’ve been staying out of whatever the hell you three have going on because I figure you’d stop it if you want it stopped; I know you could have if you really wanted to. But without your weapons, the situation’s changed. So. Tell me if you want them to fuck off, and I’ll make sure they stay fucked off.”

Mira was more touched by the offer than she wanted to admit. Yeah, he was an asshole and probably genuinely evil, but he was also (in his own very specific way) considerate and almost kind. He was wrong about “whatever you three have going on”; there was nothing of any sort “going on” and Mira felt she was nearly constantly putting a stop to anything they happened to be doing in her vicinity, but it was still nice of him to offer. “...Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good.” He got to his feet and headed for the door.

“Hey…where did he go, after the fight?” she asked, and he paused without looking back. It probably wasn’t necessary, but she clarified awkwardly, “Romance, I mean. You both survived the fight, but you came back to talk to us alone. Did you escape together?”

“...No. I left alone, before he did. As soon as Mystery dropped, I knew it was done. With Jinu out and Mystery down, there was no way the three of us were winning that fight.” He turned back then. “And I was right. You took out Abby and then, what, Ro got stabbed? That’s what it looked like, anyway.”

“Yeah. In the chest.” Center mass—she would have aimed for his heart if she’d had more time, or cut his head off to be completely certain, but the fight was chaos by that point and she’d just jabbed for whatever she thought she could hit. She’d knocked him away with the butt end of her woldo, then attacked Abby. Romance could have had time to run then, but he hadn’t; he’d launched himself at her with a feral snarl and she’d stabbed him out of the air mid-leap, letting his own momentum drive the blade into his chest and then thrown him off to the side. Spiritual weapons did more damage than just physical, at least to demons. She’d expected him to die on contact, like Abby and hundreds of demons before them had, but then she’d lost track of him and hadn’t been able to confirm for sure what became of him after that.

“Yeah, I saw. Big fucking blade on that thing; left a big fucking hole.” He folded his arms casually and leaned back against her vanity. “You haven’t asked him about this, then?”

“No.” Somehow, it hadn’t come up in conversation yet. Hey, remember that time you guys tried to kill us but we killed half of your team instead and you ran off with a gaping chest wound? What happened there?

Baby nodded. “Ask him. If he won’t tell you or he gives you a shitty half answer, then ask me again and I’ll tell you. But he should get the chance to tell you himself, I think.”

And with that, he’d slipped out the door before she could think of a response.

She still hadn’t asked Romance about it, just like nobody had asked Baby about his field trip to the demon realm and back. It had been a very long and exhausting two days—Mira wasn’t in the mood for anymore difficult discussions and those were guaranteed to be very, very difficult discussions. They’d have more time once they got things sorted out with their schedule and took that hiatus. For now, she just wanted to go to bed and sleep for at least ten hours before the interview tomorrow.

Romance came back with the backpack of supplies. Abby hadn’t moved, so Mira put her tablet away and tapped him on the head as she started to try to shift away from him. “Okay, time for you to move now.”

“Can’t; I’m pinned.” He hooked his arm under and around her calf and tapped her leg where it lay over his shoulder. “I’ll just have to stay here.”

“Don’t,” she warned curtly. Things had been a bit less tense since they’d come back from the penthouse, probably because Zoey had been around as a buffer all afternoon, but Mira wasn’t in the mood to tolerate their usual teasing. Too tired, too sore, too busy worrying about too many things. He tipped his head back to look up at her, maybe evaluating how much he could get away with at the moment.

The risk assessment must have tipped in her favor; he patted her knee lightly and just said quietly, “Okay.” He helped her move her leg aside, his hands careful and light, and rolled to settle behind her instead. He was still too close, but...whatever, they’d been closer than that for the past hour already, it was fine. She was fine.

Romance left them to sort themselves out without any comments, but when Mira sat on the edge of the bed to face him, he crooked a finger at Abby behind her. “Come over here, I’ll need a hand.”

Mira was almost certain he didn’t, but Abby readily took the excuse and settled in behind her so that she was now sitting between his legs in a mirror of how they’d been laying earlier. He managed it without much touching, at least not yet, but it didn’t inspire much confidence that she’d managed to keep her temper intact long enough to get the bandages changed out.

She’d promised Zoey she’d let someone handle the bandages and check for poison; their continued cooperation wasn’t a guarantee and if they got on her nerves enough she would absolutely go find someone else to do it. She just...really didn’t want to have to do that, and she hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

“Your shirt?” Romance prompted, not touching. He moved, slow and smooth, to kneel between her feet in front of the bed, bracketed in by both her and Abby now.

Mira, experiencing some misgivings but determined to just push through the awkwardness, pulled up the hem of her shirt and twisted it in on itself to make a rough knot, enough to keep the hem pulled up just under her bra again. She reached for the bandages but Abby got there first, reaching around her to unwind the pressure bandage and roll it up into a neat bundle to be set aside.

“Zoey said it probably wasn’t a good idea to sleep with the pressure wrap on again,” Abby commented in her ear. “Should we leave that off this time?”

“Probably, yeah. It can go back on tomorrow.” Mira had also gotten that lecture; she wondered if Abby had asked or if Zoey just cornered him where he couldn’t escape. “Zoey knows more about this stuff than I do.”

Romance peeled off the medical tape and gauze. Relatively speaking, this time the gauze didn’t have much blood on it. After the impromptu group hug in Rumi’s apartment, they’d had to completely remove and redo all of her bandages, even the butterfly bandages. Mira had worried that would go poorly, but it hadn’t been as bad the second time around now that she was barely bleeding at all. Rumi and Zoey had not agreed with her assessment and hadn’t appreciated the observation about the bleeding, and Mira sat through the resulting lecture with tired patience. If it made them feel better, she’d listen and repeat back instructions on what she should or should not be doing while her ribs were still injured.

“What about these?” Romance asked, tracing a light fingertip over the bottom set of butterfly bandages. The bruises had darkened considerably since the night before and the adhesive wasn’t comfortable on her skin where she was still sore and sensitive, but they were still necessary.

“Those will have to stay a while. They’ll be changed out every other day for a few days at least. Rumi and Zoey replaced them all earlier today, so they don’t need to be redone yet.” She hadn’t actually thought this part through until now, and wrinkled her nose in consideration as she asked, “Is—is that going to be a problem for you? To check for the poison?”

“I don’t think so.” He shrugged lightly as he threw away the old bandages and dampened a folded piece of fresh gauze with saline. “But this is new to me, too, so I guess we’ll find out.”

The saline was colder than she’d expected and she twitched backwards away from it with a hiss, only to run into Abby at her back. Romance drew away too, hands up like he was proving he was unarmed and his expression wary. “What? Did I hurt you?”

He hadn’t retreated like that yesterday. So, yeah, Baby had probably threatened him already. Strange as it sounded, it made her feel a little better.

“No, it’s just cold. It’s fine. Go ahead.”

This time she stayed still while he carefully cleaned up around the edges of the wounds, wiping away dried blood and antiseptic that Zoey had applied earlier. Abby offered his hand and, after a pause, Mira took it. It didn’t really hurt much, nothing like the night before, but it still stung like hell and she gripped his hand hard. Her shirt was staying in place by itself but she gripped the knot in her other hand anyway, more to have something to do and to keep her arm out of Romance’s way while he worked.

“Can I check the poison?” he asked, dropping the last of the bloodied gauze into a trash bag at his side. It had been her suggestion, her request that he was completing, but she appreciated that he’d asked instead of just doing it. This was already a nerve-wracking process without having a demon try to put his mouth on her without warning.

“Yes,” she told him stiffly. Fuck, maybe she should have just asked Baby to—no, wait. She remembered the look on his face when he’d followed Mystery and Zoey out. Yeah, no, absolutely not. As objectively terrible as this situation was with Romance and Abby, it could still have been much, much worse.

Romance settled his hands on her waist lightly and pressed in close, sliding his body between her knees to make room for the span of his chest. Mira twitched away from the contact on instinct, but that just gave him more room to draw in closer and pressed the outside of her legs against Abby’s while Romance nudged his way up the inside of her thighs. Abby leaned his weight back a little and pulled Mira with him by wrapping his other hand around the curve of her shoulder, giving Romance room to slot into place between her legs.

Somehow, this had seemed like the least terrible option just seconds ago. Mira was reassessing some of her recent choices.

Romance tilted his head to look up at her from close range, and she watched the transition from human mask to demon skin roll over him. “Still okay?”

Four months ago, this would have been one of her worst nightmares come to life. Now, it was...okay, still kind of horrible, but more in a deeply embarrassing way than a ‘we’re all going to die horrifically’ kind of way. So...that was an improvement? It was certainly some kind of development, anyway. “Yeah. Still okay.”

He didn’t check again or ask if she was sure, which was probably for the best because she was already five seconds away from chickening out. He pressed himself up close, warm and solid against her like Abby was behind her, and angled his head down. The pink flash of his tongue stood out against the deeper purple of his lips when he was in his demon form like this, and that was—that was just more of a visual than she needed right now. She closed her eyes and turned her head away. Training and willpower kept her breathing steady and even as she tried and failed not to track the feeling of his tongue, hot and wet where he delicately lapped at the edges of the wounds in between the butterfly strips holding her together. Abby shifted his weight behind her again, changing the angle to tuck her closer, and somehow now her face was hidden against his shoulder without quite knowing how they’d ended up this way.

“It hasn’t faded much,” Romance said. His voice was a little lower and deeper than usual, and pressed this close she could feel the vibration of each word through his chest, but otherwise he sounded normal enough. Mira risked looking back down at him, only to get annihilated by his smile at point blank range, all fangs and flashing gold eyes beneath the long lace of his eyelashes and soft fall of his hair. His demon form turned him into something beautiful, sharp, and terrifying, but he wasn’t doing anything overtly threatening right now aside from just existing, solid and present and too fucking close between her thighs. “But it isn’t getting any worse, at least, and it is starting to fade a little. That’s a good sign.”

“H-how long until it’s gone?” No, nope, no wavering voice, no breathy tone—get it together. Stop making it weird! She cleared her throat and tried again, stronger this time. “Rumi thought she might be able to draw her sword in the next few days. Zoey thought the same, or maybe a little longer than Rumi.”

“Not sure exactly, but I think longer than that. A week at least, maybe longer.” One hand trailed higher, the pads of his fingers just barely brushing the bruising on the lowest rung of her ribs. His touch remained light and careful of her injuries. “Once it starts to fade enough for you to reconnect to the Honmoon again I think you’ll start to improve faster. But you’re healing like a normal human until then.”

Slow and weak, in other words, but she was glad he didn’t say it outright. It would have been more than her ego could have survived. “A week. None of you have weird magical healing powers?”

“Not really our thing,” Abby told her with amusement. And oh, great, now she also knew what it was like to feel the vibration of his voice through her back, the low rumble of his laughter under her body. “We don’t fix humans.”

Right. Yeah, true. That was a much-needed reality check—as friendly and helpful as they were all attempting to be these days, it wasn’t their purpose. She’d agreed to stop treating them all like an active threat as long as they didn’t behave like a threat, but that didn’t make them safe or trustworthy.

She was trying. She was really, really trying. She could never consider Rumi a threat and would never draw a weapon on her again, but it was a lot harder to look Jinu in the eye and be accepting of his attempts to be different, be better. It was harder still with the rest of his little crew, because she didn’t believe for an instant that any of them actually meant it. Baby, at least, had been blunt about his goal and aim: he wanted out of the demon realm, and he liked the security of knowing the only possible threat to him now—Huntrix themselves—were willing to protect him as long as he didn’t do anything they would object to.

It helped that without Gwi-ma to threaten them into compliance none of them seemed particularly interested reaping souls. They weren’t overly interested in humans in general, as far as she’d been able to tell, and they didn’t have any problems with hunting demons alongside them. That had been the biggest surprise for Mira, personally—not only were they markedly disinterested in human souls, but they also seemed to actively enjoy hunting other demons as though for sport. They were good at it, too—individually, they were all far more powerful than the average demon they’d encountered, and they were also very good at fighting together and alongside Huntrix, seamlessly filling in gaps she hadn’t ever even noticed until they were there to add their help. Mira didn’t think any sort of demon short of Gwi-ma could take out the Sajas one on one, but all of them together with the hunters? Yeah, nothing was going to get close enough to take a shot against any of them.

At least...nothing until this smoke demon showed up.

Romance was still looking up at her, watching her expressions from up close. It was unsettling, even when he sat back on his heels and his human form settled back into place. He set about the now-familiar process of bandaging up her injury. “What were you thinking just now? You made a face.”

“I didn’t make a face,” Mira denied on principle, although she probably had. “...But I was thinking. This smoke demon. You said it was hiding it’s scent or whatever with the smoke, right? Like, that was deliberate, not just a part of it?”

“Right. The smell was all wrong. Artificial somehow; it’s hard to describe. It’s an affectation, not a true ability. Like an ability it’s copying, maybe?” He shrugged fluidly. “I don’t know how it might be doing that—it’s definitely not something we can do. But, yes, I think it’s something it’s doing deliberately to hide itself.”

“So that means it knew about you. It knew you guys would be with us.” She watched him work, but he didn’t hesitate or so much as glance at her.

“I think so, yes. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been any point. Other than to obscure what it looks like, I guess, but I don’t know why it would bother to hide its face. I guess maybe if it planned to meet you as a human it might? I can’t imagine why it would go through the effort to even try when attacking as a demon was successful enough.”

Mira made note of that—the tacit admission that Jinu hadn’t thought they would win an outright fight against Huntrix, even outnumbering them five to three, so they’d resorted to more underhanded means. He’d been right, of course. His scheming had nearly won, but when it came down to a fight, Huntrix had wiped them out. Gwi-ma, on the other hand…

She hesitated. Even saying his name felt like a bad omen, but… “Could it be Gwi-ma?”

“No.” He pulled a strip of medical tape off the roll and used his claws to slice it down to smaller strips. She noted he hadn’t slipped out of his human form aside from the claws; she’d seen Baby do that a few times (he used his claws to open bags of snacks; it would have been funnier if he didn’t manage to make it look somehow threatening) but the rest of them usually stayed either completely human or went completely demon with no in-between.

“No? You’re so sure?”

“I’m sure. Gwi-ma is dead.” He taped down the edges of the gauze neatly. “You three did most of the work. He was in bad shape when he was sent back to the demon realm. Almost dead. We finished the job.”

Mira’s breath hitched in her chest. Baby, dried blood matted in his hair and carrying lattes, refusing to answer questions. Abby, flinching away from the light, his knuckles scraped and bloody and stark, bruise-dark circles around his eyes. Romance, all sharp edges and hard smiles, pale and gaunt, blood under his nails. Mystery moving with a slight limp, keeping to the back of the group like he was trying to stay out of sight.

“...That’s what happened when Baby brought you to us? You’d just come back from fighting Gwi-ma?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“What, like he’s always so open and honest? No, he didn’t tell us.”

Romance smoothed down the final piece of tape with a thin smile. “...Right. Maybe he didn’t think it mattered.”

“We’ve all been worried about Gwi-ma making a comeback,” Mira protested. “That asshole, he could have just said something. Why didn’t he tell us?”

“You’d have to ask him that. And before you ask, we assumed you already knew.”

She frowned but couldn’t really refute this point. They hadn’t exactly been bursting at the seams to tell all their worries to the restored and returned demons. Or, well. Mira hadn’t, at least; she didn’t know for sure what the others had been talking about while they were together. But Rumi and Zoey would have told her about Gwi-ma if they’d known, she was sure of it, so Baby had been careful to keep that part quiet and the others had either followed his lead or just hadn’t cared to bring it up. Jinu probably hadn’t known to ask—he had the ready excuse of having been a sword spirit or something at the time.

“How can you tell the poison is fading?” Abby asked, leaning in to rest his chin on her shoulder. That could have been a perfectly normal question, except for the obnoxiously exaggerated innocence with which he’d asked. Mira was already rolling her eyes when Romance leaned in and pitched his voice into a low, intimate purr.

“I’ll show you—umf!”

Yeah, no. Absolutely not. She was ready for them this time and planted both hands over his mouth to hold him back.

“Go make out in your room to trade notes,” she said firmly. “Not in here. Good night. Thanks for your help with the bandages.”

Romance laughed softly, his mouth open and heated against her palm, and she snatched her hands back at the flick of his tongue over her skin. Okay, yeah, that had been a miscalculation on her part for sure. She deserved that. “Are you sure? I could try to show you how it’s done if you want.”

She glared at him and he laughed again. He folded his arms over her lap and made himself comfortable there. “I’m serious. Jinu thought Rumi could learn, given enough practice. And I don’t know if Zoey can pick it up or not, but I’m very sure an attempt was made.”

Mira was, unfortunately, fairly sure he was correct on both counts. “Is this what you guys talk about when we’re not around?”

“It was relevant to the conversation at the time,” Romance told her primly, which sounded like a yes to her.

Mira followed that thought to what seemed, to her at least, the logical conclusion. “So...did all of you ‘trade notes’ while we were talking on Rumi’s balcony then?”

Abby laughed, a deep rumble through his chest up through her back. Romance gave her an arch expression. “Jealous? But, no. It doesn’t work that way—it would have needed to be within a few minutes of taking a sample. Which also means if I’m going to show Abby what I’m talking about with the poison, it’ll have to be now or not at all.”

“Guess you should leave now then,” Mira said pointedly.

Abby made a disappointed sound (directly in her ear, because he was still right up against her neck, what the hell) but said, “Show me in the morning instead, Ro. I want to finish watching the movie before we go to bed.”

This was possibly the most audacious of his obvious ploys to date. All the rooms were identical: there was a wide bed and a tv with access to all the same channels right next door. And furthermore, she was absolutely certain that not a single person had paid any attention to the movie at all since Baby had turned it on. If she asked right now, she as dead certain that neither of them would be able to name even a single character—and for that matter, neither could she. She didn’t even know how long this specific movie had been on or how much time was left, and she’d bet anything that neither of them knew either.

So really, there was absolutely no excuse for her to say, “Fine, but pass me my phone so I can text Zoey an update before she comes storming in here again.”

The thing was, it had been...kind of nice, if not also very weird, when they’d all been hanging out together. Part of it was just that she missed spending time with Zoey and Rumi, so it was nice to just sit and review interview questions with Zoey like they always did. It was different without Rumi, of course, but having the four remaining Sajas hanging around instead wasn’t as unpleasant as it sounded like it would be. Even having Abby halfway in her lap hadn’t been as uncomfortable as she’d thought it would be when he’d first plopped himself down on her legs, at least once they got adjusted and he wasn’t on her legs anymore. Romance and Abby weren’t a replacement for her friends, but...they weren’t terrible company, when they weren’t making things weird by flirting or trying to make out over her head.

She’d intended to settle back into place on the side of the bed closest to her phone. She’d assumed Abby would stay in the middle and Romance would circle back around to where he’d been earlier on the other side of the bed, and she’d been fairly comfortable with that idea. Which made it an unpleasant turn of events when Abby scooted backwards and brought her with him, stationing himself in the middle of the bed with his back to the headboard, but with Mira scooped up in his arms and then settled back in his lap again. Romance took the opportunity to follow them up and was laying beside them where Mira had been laying earlier, trying to hand her her phone while she tried to come to terms with this new arrangement. She was tired of being manhandled, and it was getting more and more tempting to take Baby up on his offer to, quote, “make sure they stayed fucked off”, end quote.

“Baby said this show is adapted from a novel series,” Romance said idly, waggling her phone at her in a very irritating manner until she took it from him. “Are the books any good?”

“I’ve never read them.” Okay, admittedly, the question threw her off track and she momentarily forgot to be annoyed by them both. “Was he actually watching this earlier?”

“He was,” Romance said, sounding grumpy. “And he’s the one who turned the volume down, but every time I moved he’d growl at me about how he couldn’t hear anything because I was moving. Like I was the problem there? All he had to do was not sit on me in the first place.”

“Or at least turn the volume up,” Abby agreed.

“Or that,” Romance allowed. “But preferably, take his bony elbows and go somewhere else. Don’t forget to text Zoey, by the way, or she’ll probably send him in here to check.”

It occurred to her, belatedly, that Baby had probably been jamming an elbow directly into the spot where Mira had stabbed him months earlier. She wondered if it had left a scar or if it still hurt, or if Baby had just targeted that spot as an unsubtle threat. Or just to be a dick, generally; that was always a possibility when Baby was involved.

She sent a text to the Huntrix group chat with a quick update, even though his assessment was more or less what she’d expected to hear. She briefly considered mentioning the Gwi-ma thing, but that wasn’t really an update that should be given by text. She’d tell them tomorrow and hopefully would have a chance to talk to Baby about it, too.

She was still annoyed about the manhandling, particularly because she’d been pretty specific about not being picked up anymore and then Abby had gone and done it anyway. Dick move. But...he was warm and solid, and now that they’d both settled into place and he wasn’t moving anymore, it wasn’t...entirely uncomfortable. A little weird and awkward, and not something she was used to, but not unpleasant either. She could move off to the side, but she’d have to climb over his lanky fucking legs to do it and that just sounded like a lot of work right now.

She and Abby were still sitting up, mostly (slouching; terrible posture and a bad habit, but she could make an exception while injured), but Romance settled in to lie beside them, shuffling closer until he could rest his head on Abby’s thigh. Abby had one arm wrapped around Mira’s waist, holding her tucked up close and warm against his bulkier frame, but he dropped the other hand to pet lightly through Romance’s hair. It was a casual, thoughtless kind of intimacy, like he was so accustomed to it that he didn’t even consciously notice he’d done it. It was...strange to see them like this, to be in such close proximity to the intricacies of their relationship. It wasn’t as though they were particularly going out of their way to hide their relationship the rest of the time, but they’d definitely been a lot more open and obvious about it in the past two days than they had been previously.

Once again, she’d had every intention of staying awake. She’d intended to wait until she saw credits roll on screen, then kick them out to the other bedroom so she could get some much needed sleep. She curled comfortably against Abby’s chest and closed her eyes, but only with the intention to rest her eyes and tune out the faint sounds of the movie running in the background. An hour at most, then she’d make them leave.

It wasn’t even a surprise to wake up with both of them still in bed with her the next morning. She almost wasn’t even annoyed with them about it, more annoyed with herself for letting it happen. They hadn’t really had any better options in the love hotel the day before, but she’d had every opportunity to get rid of them last night and she’d completely dropped the ball. The demon-relocating ball. She sighed to herself.

She was laying on her back this time, but not in the same position she’d fallen asleep in. Abby must have moved her between them—and somehow had managed it without waking her, which was a little alarming. She must have been even more tired than she’d thought; usually she was a light sleeper. Abby was sprawled on his back on her right, and Romance was curled against her left side. She’d sort of expected he would be awake and moving around already, like he had been the day before, but he was asleep and breathing slow and deep. Abby’s long limbs hand ended up all over the place in the night like a giant demonic starfish, and one of his arms was under her head now. Romance had probably been attempting some sort of big spoon maneuver, but since she was laying on her back, it was more that he’d tucked himself into her shoulder with their legs entertwined. One of his arms lay heavily across her waist, his hand curled over the ridge of her hip, but whether by accident or design he’d managed to avoid her bandaged ribs.

There was absolutely no way to get up without waking them, which would mean then having to interact with them in some way. She couldn’t see a clock from this position and had no idea where her phone had ended up, but it was still early enough that only dim, gray pre-dawn light seeped in around the edges of the curtains. Far too early to put up with them, in other words.

The series was still playing on the television, but it appeared to be an opening credits sequence and she belatedly realized it wasn’t even a movie, it was a show. So, ‘I want to finish the movie before bed’ had actually been an even more successful ploy than she’d realized—it had been playing all night and appeared to still be midway through some kind of tournament arc she had no context to understand. She rolled her eyes. Okay, so Abby’s plots might have been extremely obvious, but she had to admit, he’d achieved results. A solid six out of ten stars; improvement needed but the effort had to be admired for what it was.

She’d have to get up and start getting ready for the day soon, but for now she was comfortable drifting in a light doze, halfway between sleep and waking. This hotel had much better mattresses than the tiny love hotel had, and there was enough room for the three of them to sleep without needing to be packed in side by side (not that they hadn’t done that anyway, but at least they were a little more spread out this time), and it was warm and peaceful. They were much less annoying when they weren’t talking or trying to carry her.

Abby woke next sometime later, when the sunlight was beginning to spill into the room around the curtains. It was immediately obvious he was starting to wake because he rolled closer and flattened Mira and Romance both under one long arm, the other still extended under her head. The movement didn’t quite wake Romance, but he let out a subvocal rumble of discontent and curled closer, hiding his face from the light against the curve of her neck and shoulder. Mira had been prepared to deal with the cuddling but hadn’t expected demonic growling and froze under the weight of his head on her shoulder. She was, suddenly, acutely and uncomfortably aware of the potential for fangs close to her throat and wasn’t entirely decided what to do about it yet.

“S’ok, go back to sleep,” Abby mumbled, sounding still more asleep than awake. And yeah, now she had enough evidence to suggest that this was what he sounded like when he’d just woken up, his voice deeper and gravel-edged. Terrible news: she had to live with that knowledge now. He shifted and curled his arm under her, tucking her closer and wrapping his arm across Romance’s back, using his longer reach to pull them both into the circle of his arms. Romance made another low, indistinct sound from deep in his chest, a bass rumble she felt more than heard at this range, but still didn’t wake.

The growling was a lot to deal with this early in the morning, especially without access to her weapon.

“I need to get up,” she whispered to Abby. She attempted to extricate herself from them, but the three of them were all tangled up now and it was impossible to get out of the middle of them without their cooperation. She couldn’t even sit up.

Abby, clearly not entirely awake yet, made a noise of disagreement and curled even closer, until he was nearly lying on top of her. She elbowed him, to no effect. “Abby. Seriously. Let me up.”

“S’too early,” he grumbled, but shifted his weight back a little when she nudged him again. Good start, but she needed a little more help than that.

“You can go back to sleep, but I need to get up now.” How had she slept through whatever process had been involved with her and Romance getting this close? Their legs were overlapping and one of her ankles was trapped under his, and although Zoey had braided her hair for her last night to keep it out of the way, somehow the trailing end of the braid had gotten looped around his hand. She tried to carefully tug it loose and his grip tightened seemingly on instinct. She scowled and tried to pry his hand open, which didn’t work at all.

“Seriously?” she hissed.

“I got it,” Abby sighed, finally awake, and reached over her to cup Romance’s face. “Ro. Wake up, sweetheart, before the hunter kicks you.”

In fairness, Mira had just been considering the logistics of how to kick him while their legs were still tangled together. She was still holding onto it as a backup plan if it came down to it. But despite the lingering (and justified) irritation with them for overstaying their welcome, she didn’t want to go back to their usual antagonistic dynamics either.

They pushed too much and tried her patience too often. But, in fairness, she had been maybe a little too quick to take offense too often, snapped and pushed back and made no effort to get to know them beyond their usual smug smirking and insinuating remarks. The past two days had been a monumental trial on her patience and tolerance, but she’d also been able to see them when they had a common goal to work towards, had seen some of their quieter moments together. She’d seen them try to be helpful, attempt to be comforting (terribly, but it wasn’t like she was any good at that either), and although they’d definitely overstepped some boundaries she could also tell, if she was being honest with herself about it, that they were trying to meet her at her level at least a little.

All of which to say, although she was still thinking about kicking Romance, she settled for shaking his shoulder instead. The low rumble of discontent he made in response to the shaking tipped dangerously close to a real growl, but Abby huffed a laugh at the sound instead of becoming alarmed by it and pressed his thumb under Romance’s jaw to tip his head up and away from Mira’s shoulder.

“Ro, come on, yeobo,” Abby coaxed sweetly. “Wake up.”

“Why are you both awake,” Romance grumbled without opening his eyes, turning his face into Abby’s palm to brush a distracted kiss there. He let go of Mira’s hip to pry her hand off his shoulder, twined his fingers through hers, and pinned her arm down against his chest instead. “And why are you both making it my problem? Go to sleep.”

“You have to admit, he’s making good points,” Abby told Mira thoughtfully.

“I will start kicking you both,” she warned him.

“Right, fair. Come on, Ro, let go.”

Romance finally surrendered custody of Mira to Abby, who pulled her across the mattress in one smooth tug to give her room to get up.

“Good teamwork,” Abby told her cheerfully. She wanted to ignore him on principle, but...positive reinforcement or whatever, so.

“Thanks.” She clambered awkwardly over him and finally managed to get off the bed. Her ribs were still sore, bruised and acutely painful where the claw marks were still ragged and open, but she could move a little more easily than before. That seemed encouraging.

“Want me to help you with the bandages?” Abby asked, watching her move around the room with the idle interest of a lazy cat. He hadn’t gotten out of bed yet, but he was sitting up against the headboard now. Romance had curled into the warm spot she’d left, his face hidden against Abby’s hip and his arm hooked across Abby’s lap.

“Not yet, we can do that later,” she said absently while she rummaged in her bag for a jacket. The rhinestone #miromabby jacket was folded neatly on top, exactly where she had not left it, and that was sufficiently distracting that she almost forgot what the question was. The dark gray hoodie Abby had originally got for her was folded underneath, another stowaway she hadn’t packed herself; she checked it over quickly to make sure there wasn’t anything printed on it anywhere and then carefully pulled it on over her head, trying not to raise her left arm too high so it wouldn’t pull her ribs. This jacket was a thicker fabric than the pink one, warm and soft and just heavy enough to be a comforting weight.

Unbidden, she was reminded of Zoey’s guess the day before—that the #miroabby jacket had been from Romance. Abby’s still groveling; I don’t think he’d go out of his way to make you mad when he’s trying so hard to get you to like him. She dismissed the thought; it made sense that they might try to get in her good graces specifically—it was hardly a secret that Mira had been the strongest opposition to having all five of the former boy band living with them.

It was a poorly kept secret that Mira had also folded almost immediately when asked; neither Rumi nor Zoey had ever indicated that they were harboring any hard feelings about what Mira had done at the Idol Awards, but she knew it was her fault things that things had gone as badly as they had. If keeping five demons around like the world’s worst stray pets would somehow make amends, then Mira was willing to tolerate their presence. She wasn’t sure if they were aware of how readily she had agreed to let them stay, but she also wasn’t opposed to letting them think they were on more tenuous ground than was actually strictly true, if only to help ensure continued good behavior. She had a feeling Jinu knew, and Baby definitely at least suspected, but she hadn’t gone out of her way to make it clear that she wasn’t going to kick anybody out.

She’d had a good reason, or at least it had seemed like a good reason at the time, but she could, reluctantly, admit that it was probably long past the point where they needed to be continually threatened to stay in line. It had been three months since Baby’s dramatic reappearance and two months since the rest had returned, and in that time they’d never done anything threatening or caused any harm to anyone aside from other demons (as far as she knew, anyway).

She folded that thought away to consider it later. For now, they had an interview to prepare for and a beach house to rent, and a smoke demon thing to get rid of. She’d work out a plan for how to...be nicer? A better host/roommate to former idol demons? Whatever. That was a dilemma for another day.

“I need coffee,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes tiredly. She’d finally checked a clock and they really didn’t need to be up for at least another three hours; she could have slept a little longer. But her resolve to be nicer to them didn’t extend to sharing a bed with them; the first time had been due to a lack of options, and the second was mostly an accident. There really shouldn’t be a third time. She stood up and adjusted the hoodie to sit comfortably; it was just a bit over-sized, enough to be loose and comfortable, and the bottom hem fell to mid-thigh on her. In an effort to keep her resolve to be nicer, she added, “You guys can go back to sleep if you want. Rumi won’t be here for a few more hours at least.”

Abby was still watching her, she found when she glanced over at him as she collected her phone from the bedside table. He must have put it away for her last night, and had even thought to plug it into a charger for her. His eyes flicked up and down her body, like he was checking the fit of the hoodie he’d bought her, but there was something pleased and almost smug about it that set her a little on edge. Whatever; it was a comfortable jacket and she wasn’t going to turn it down just because a demon had brought it to her. Even if he was being weird about it.

“Alright,” he agreed easily. “We’ll probably sleep a little longer then. Are you coming back to bed?”

“No, but I’ll let you know when we’re getting ready so we can change out the bandages.” She’d probably be able to handle the bandages herself in a few days, but for now it was still too great a task for her to do it all by herself. As annoying as it was to have to rely on outside help, it was better than setting back her own recovery by trying to do too much on her own.

She’d expected the shared sitting room space to be empty when she ventured out, since it was barely past seven and they didn’t really need to be up until around noon or so, but Baby was in the kitchenette poking at the coffee maker and scowling. It was readily apparent at a glance that he wasn’t making much progress with it.

“Don’t set anything on fire,” she warned, only partially joking.

“Not all of us are a walking disaster like Jinu,” he grumbled, and then undermined his own point by adding, “How the fuck does this work? There’s nowhere to put the coffee.”

She flapped a hand at him to shoo him away from it. “I’ll do it. Move it, shorty.”

“We’re the same height,” he said irritably, but hopped up to sit on the countertop beside the machine. He watched intently while Mira inspected the machine to see what they were working with—one of the small, single-cup kind that used pre-packaged pods of ground coffee. The penthouse had come furnished with a very fancy espresso machine that all of them had been too intimidated to actually touch for the first month living there for fear of breaking something. Bobby had come through for them, like he always did—he’d apparently worked in a coffee shop in college and still remembered how to use an espresso machine. He’d been gracious enough to clear an afternoon of their schedule to come teach them how to use it.

Baby had picked up the gist of it within an hour of Zoey showing him how, and while demons didn’t actually need to eat or drink human foods, he’d evidently found the time to develop a coffee addiction at some point while plotting to destroy the Honmoon and release Gwi-ma from the demon realm. Let it not be said that Baby didn’t know how to multitask.

He’d worked out how to fill the pod machine’s water tank and how to turn it on, but had stalled out when it came to actually inserting one of the pods. Mira popped in the one he’d been holding—French vanilla; this was probably for Zoey then—and slotted a mug into place as she started the brewing cycle.

“You almost had it,” she told him encouragingly.

“Don’t patronize me,” he grumbled. “The instructions suck and this is an inferior machine compared to the one I’m used to.”

“True.” The instructions were hand-written on a note card taped to the side of the machine, and they’d obviously been written with the understanding that whomever was following the instructions already had at least a passing knowledge of how this kind of coffee machine worked, a category which apparently excluded demonic former idols.

According to the timer, she had slightly more than a minute until the cup finished brewing. She leaned her hip on the counter beside his knees and asked quietly, “How come you didn’t tell us you’d killed Gwi-ma?”

He’d been fidgeting with the individual serving cups of coffee creamer, building a little pyramid of them on his knee, but at her question he went still. From the corner of her eye, she could see him flick a little glance at her. “...You didn’t ask. And we were busy anyway.”

Not so busy that he wouldn’t have had time for a quick, ‘Hey, by the way, Gwi-ma’s dead’. Which, knowing him, was exactly how he would have dropped that information and then probably refused to elaborate. “Seriously. I know we didn’t ask, but you knew we were worried about it. Why didn’t you tell us?”

He didn’t respond immediately this time, and Mira thought maybe he wouldn’t respond at all. Thought that maybe she’d pushed too far or overstepped a boundary she hadn’t realized was there—something she did regularly, but hadn’t thought she had to worry about with the demons until now.

“I would have told you if any of you had asked directly,” he said finally, his voice hushed in the quiet. “But by that point, Rumi pretty much had the Jinu thing handled. Even without me or Ro for help, she would have been able to get him back probably by the end of the month. So there wouldn’t have been any reason for you to let us stay with you. But if there was still a possible threat, it’d make more sense for us to hang around. Just in case.”

Mira could have pointed out that the three of them had more than proven they could handle Gwi-ma without help (okay—without much help, with all due respect to Jinu there at the end). She could have pointed out that they hadn’t let five former idols and current assholes bumble around underfoot and eat all their snacks because they were being helpful by doing all that.

Instead, she said mildly, “Yeah, okay. Makes sense.”

The coffee machine beeped a triumphant little jingle to announce the cup was finished. Mira collected it and handed it to him. He gathered up his pyramid of coffee creamer and took the cup carefully. “...Are you patronizing me again?”

“No. Was this cup for Zoey?”

“Yes?”

She handed him a handful of sugar packets and a stirring stick. “You’ll need these too then.”

“...Thanks.” He took them, but his expression was still wary and stiff. Right, positive reinforcements, per Zoey’s instructions…

“We’re not going to make you leave,” she told him quietly. “I mean, obviously no plots to end the world again or whatever, that rule still stands. But you don’t have to, like, prove that you’re useful. We won’t make you leave.”

He slipped down from the countertop, moving carefully to avoid spilling the cup. Mira focused on readying the machine for another cup.

“Thanks,” he said again as he passed by, his voice low but sincere.

Mira thought she was starting to get the hang of making friends with demons. Step one: all parties had to agree to stop trying to kill each other and/or take over the world. Step two: boundaries had to be placed and enforced concerning dressing rooms and who was or wasn’t allowed inside. Step three: bond over coffee and dumb movies.

As Baby passed her, she noticed a deeply bruised bite mark was stamped on his neck right where it met his shoulder. The mark was too small to have been placed by Mystery, but she was willing to bet it would match up to Zoey if someone were to measure. So...there might be some alternate takes on “step three” that a creative problem-solver might come up with if they tried. All the hunters who’d come before them would probably have been horrified by Huntrix’s era, but...well, it was working for them so far, right? Kind of? Mostly.

“Modern problems require modern solutions,” she told the coffee machine. It happily sang its little jingle in response.

“What problem?” Abby asked, leaning on the counter beside her. Mira startled so hard she banged her hip on the counter. For such a big guy, he moved so quietly—she hadn’t even known he was there.

“Ow—what?”

“You said something about problems and solutions?” He carefully pulled her away from the counter and smoothed his hand over her hip where it was still sore.

“Oh.” She recalled the bite mark and then, with great resolve and fortitude, repressed that memory. Hopefully forever. “Nothing. Never mind. I was thinking out loud. Do you want a cup of coffee?”

“You take that cup and just show me how this machine works. Please tell me it’s not as complicated as the one in your apartment.”

“It’s not.” She walked him through the instructions. Baby had picked up technology the fastest out of the five of them, but all of them at least had some grasp on the basics by now. Jinu texted like an old man and typed so slowly that it was usually easier to just let him pass a message on through Rumi instead, but in varying degrees all of them were capable of handling most of the technology they might encounter on a day to day basis. Jinu was also the only one to get outright banned from the kitchen unless he was under direct supervision from someone born in this century. Fortunately, the little pod coffee machine was safely within Abby’s grasp and she felt she could leave him to it without incident. Besides, there was a fire extinguisher under the sink if needed.

She’d only been settled into the corner of the couch for a few minutes when Romance joined her. He murmured something indistinct that sounded like it was probably a greeting, then slumped down on the couch with his head in her lap and appeared to fall asleep again the instant he was lying down. She’d lifted her coffee cup on instinct to avoid spilling it when he dropped unexpectedly into her lap, and now she blinked down at him through the circle of her arms as she clutched her coffee mug like a lifeline. “Um. Did you need something?”

“He and Baby went out last night to check around the hotel for any signs of the demon that attacked you,” Abby told her, coming over with two mugs of coffee. He set them on the coffee table and lifted Romance’s legs, then settled in to sit with Romance’s legs across his lap. He claimed one of the cups and left the other, presumably for Romance if he actually woke up long enough to drink it. “He didn’t sleep much, I think.”

“Huh. I didn’t know they were checking.” She lowered her arms gingerly. She could rest one elbow on the arm of the couch, but there wasn’t really anywhere else to comfortably put her other arm. She wavered, then settled her hand carefully on Romance’s shoulder. His hair was so soft where it brushed her hand; she resisted the urge to comb her fingers through the trailing ends. “I’m guessing they didn’t find anything or one of them would have said so?”

“Nothing,” Abby confirmed. “All quiet. I guess the demon can’t track you. Or if it can, it’s keeping its distance for now.”

There were some follow-up questions she should really ask. She should ask how they’d gotten back out of the demon realm, like they should have asked last night but hadn’t. She should ask how the Sajas had known how and when to attack them, back when they were still enemies. She should ask about how they were tracking the smoke demon, and in turn how the smoke demon might track them. She really should do what Baby had suggested and ask Romance where he’d gone after the battle in the stadium.

But that would mean breaking the fragile peace of the moment. It would mean reminding them all of the attacks they’d traded, and the final battle that ended with one of them dead (or at least, sent back to the demon realm somehow) and the other badly wounded, a fight that had nearly ended her life and the lives of her closest friends. Instead, she drank her coffee quietly and idly watched the morning news with Abby while Romance dozed across their laps, and mentally compiled a list of all the (really very important) questions she hadn’t asked yet.

Zoey emerged eventually, trailed by Mystery and Baby. She looked better than she had the day before, less exhausted and anxious, if not fully well-rested either. Probably all three of them would need to apply concealer carefully around their eyes to avoid any concerned questions. And also...Mira eyed her critically, then sighed. Plausible deniability only went so far. “Zoey, do you have your makeup kit?”

“Hm? Yeah, why?”

“Go grab it, please.”

Mystery slipped into their shared room and came back with Zoey’s makeup bag, a large blue case with a smiling turtle printed in electric green. Mira carefully levered Romance up until she could ease out from under him (this prompted more sleepy growling, but by now she was getting used to it and ignored him) and went to sit beside Zoey. “Okay, look that way and don’t move your head.”

“What? Did I forget to blend my foundation down or something?”

Or something, yeah.

“Needs color corrector,” Mira said vaguely, not quite willing to explain that the dark hickey just under the hinge of her jaw was showing through the concealer Zoey must have already tried to apply. “Must not have been as visible under the lights in the bathrooms here.”

“What needs color corrector?” Zoey asked, genuinely confused but still following Mira’s instructions. Then Mira swiped off the concealer with a remover wipe and Zoey let out a little eep as she must have realized what Mira was doing. “Oh no—I said nothing above my collar!”

“Don’t glare at me,” Baby drawled. “You know where all the marks I left ended up.”

“I’m not glaring at you; Mira told me not to move my head! I’m just glaring. Generally. At no one specifically.”

“Sorry,” Mystery murmured, and didn’t even try to sound the slightest bit sincere.

“Both of you stop talking now,” Mira said, not a suggestion. “And Zoey, stop moving, I’m trying to blend this out. But seriously, you know we have a photo shoot in two days, right? We’re all going to have to wear ski suits at this rate.”

“I know, that’s why I said no marks above my collar,” Zoey said grumpily. Mira rolled her eyes but went back to blending concealer over the color corrector. Enough daylight was coming through the wide windows behind them to give her a decent idea of how well the color-correcting had worked, and this time she was able to cover the mark completely. She tapped setting powder over it and handed Zoey her setting spray.

“There, all set. Try not to smudge it before we leave. That goes for you two, too.”

Baby raised his hands innocently. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Well that’s not true,” Zoey muttered.

“I didn’t do anything that’s currently visible,” he amended. Smugly.

“I heard none of that, and please don’t tell me anything else,” Mira said, abandoning Zoey in search of more coffee before Rumi and Jinu arrived. She wasn’t caffeinated enough to deal with this.

Chapter Text

The interview went well, and everything was fine until it suddenly wasn’t anymore. Bobby had hired a driver to pick them up from the hotel and had been in the car waiting for them already. He ran over a few details with them on the way to the studio, mostly a quick recap of the people they’d be speaking to. The interviewer was the current owner of the studio, a woman around Celine’s age or perhaps a bit older, who’d been working in the studio as a lowly intern when the Sunlight Sisters’ career had begun to really take off.

They’d recently had some rocky interviews with people questioning Rumi’s story about her new “tattoos” as a personal expression, the group’s “completely scripted and staged fake break-up” during the Idol Awards performance, and Rumi’s rumored health issues, so it was a nice change to speak with someone who wasn’t trying to grill them about any sensitive topics. The Saja Boys weren’t even mentioned this time either, which was a nice change too. It wasn’t the landmine topic it had once been, now that Jinu and the rest were back and weren’t trying to kill anybody, but it had still been difficult in the past to lie with a straight face about their tragic disappearance when they all knew the tragically disappeared idol group was currently bumming around their penthouse. And this wasn’t even the kind of interview where they were expected to hold a performance at the end of it, which was also a much needed change of pace for them.

They hung around the studio for a little while after the interview concluded, but just for the normal sort of introduction to the studio’s staff—they signed autographs, took pictures, and face-timed someone’s niece to wish her a happy birthday. Normal, low-key fan interactions; the kind Mira actually enjoyed far more than the big signing events because they had time to talk to people for a little while. She was still in a lot of pain and had to be very careful about how she moved, but Rumi and Zoey were taking care to always keep at least one of them stationed on her injured side to help block anyone from accidentally bumping into her. Despite the lingering pain and fatigue, it was nice to do something that felt normal for a change, and all of them were in a good mood as they followed Bobby out of the studio a few hours after they’d arrived.

Bobby talked with his hands, and by now they all knew to give him a little distance to avoid getting caught too close while he gestured. So he was a bit ahead of them in the hall when he gestured too fast and accidentally flung his pen over his shoulder. “—were right about adding the black suits into the outfits—oops!”

“I got it!” Zoey chirped, dropping back a step and crouching to pick up his pen, and Mira glanced back out of habit to keep track of her. Because Zoey had to crouch in her chunky platform heels instead of just bending down, the clawed grasp of the smoke demon’s hands swiped harmlessly over her head instead of clawing directly into her throat.

Mira was ashamed to admit she’d frozen up in disbelieving fear for an instant before muscle memory kicked in.

“Zoey!” Mira grabbed for her arm and hauled her out of the way as the demon made another grab and missed. She shoved Zoey past her, back towards Rumi and Bobby, and flung out her left arm to block the demon as she summoned her woldo—

And failed, because she’d forgotten she couldn’t summon a weapon yet. So instead of blocking the demon off with the haft of her woldo, she sort of just...stuck her arm directly in front of it, empty-handed. She almost couldn’t blame it for clawing at her arm, considering she’d all but asked it to. It jerked her backwards into the concealing cloud of smoke, one hand tearing at her arm and the other sinking it’s claws into her opposite shoulder as it tried to drag her away. Like it was going to teleport with her, the way Romance and Abby had, fuck it knew—

Bobby, shrieking and terrified, battered at the smoke with his clipboard, landing a few hits but accomplishing nothing. Zoey launched herself at it with a battle cry and stabbed the demon’s arm with Bobby’s pen. Mira heard the demon snarl and the hand on her arm dropped away, the other hand loosening it’s grip enough that Bobby was able to grab her elbow and haul her out of it’s reach. Rumi lunged past them all with a fire extinguisher and launched it over their heads into the concealing cloud of smoke. It made a satisfying thunk! sound as it connected and the demon grunted at the impact. Take that, fucker—they didn’t have their usual power without access to the Honmoon, but Rumi was still half-demon and stronger than the average human, and she’d thrown the extinguisher as hard as she could. Even if it was a powerful demon, it had to have felt that one.

“Rumi, take Bobby!” Mira gasped as Zoey seized her shoulder. Rumi grabbed Bobby by the hand and they all ran, stumbling and tripping over themselves down the hall. Mira heard a deep, rumbling laugh and risked a glance over her shoulder, but the smoke was already clearing out and there was no sign of the demon anywhere. Was it gone? Had they scared it off with improvised weaponry? Or had it just changed positions? Were they running straight into another attack?

Rumi diverted them out of the empty hallway and into the first room they encountered. It turned out to be a storage area cluttered with props from past shows and extra folding chairs. She slung Bobby in ahead of her, then reached back and caught Zoey and Mira each by a wrist and dragged them both inside. She kicked the door shut behind them and leaned against it, scrabbling behind herself ineffectively for the non-existent lock. Well, that explained why they’d been able to open the door in the first place.

Zoey flipped on the lights as Mira approached Bobby cautiously. He’d backed himself into a corner against a large standee of the station’s mascot character; Mira hadn’t been fully paying attention to the explanation they’d received earlier so she wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it looked like a giant gummy bear experiencing a manic episode. The gummy bear added a looming, sinister aura to the corner he’d backed into, and he was already hyperventilating in big, tearful, shuddering gasps, still clutching his clipboard to his chest—she was almost afraid to approach him, for fear of scaring him even more than he already was.

“Bobby? Are you okay? Did you get hurt?” she asked softly, stopping just out of reach in case he didn’t want them that close.

“I-I’m okay,” he croaked. “Not hurt—Mira, you’re bleeding! We—I gotta—I’ll call an ambulance. And the police! The S.O.U.! I’ll call the president—!”

“Hey, no, don’t do that. Take a deep breath, Bobby, it’s okay,” she told him, aiming for a soothing tone and probably missing by a wide margin. Mira wasn’t good at being comforting, but she would try for Bobby. He’d always been a good friend and a terrific manager for them, and she wished they’d found a way to tell him about this sooner so he didn’t have to find out this way. “It’s going to be okay. We can—we can explain.”

She glanced at Rumi and Zoey for support. Rumi looked anxious, but Zoey took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders, and approached carefully. “Yeah. Mira’s right, we’ll explain everything. I promise. We should have explained already, and I’m sorry you’re finding out this way instead. We need to leave and get somewhere safer now—will you come with us and let us explain?”

Bobby swiped at his face, wiping away tears and cold sweat, and visibly tried to gather himself. “Okay, yeah, of course I’ll go with you. We should go to a hospital first for Mira, and you can—you can tell me in the car, okay? Whatever it is, I’ll listen. Just tell me what you want me to tell the cops, and that’s the story I’ll stick to, I promise.”

Mira and Rumi traded wincing glances, while Zoey inched closer until she could pat Bobby on the shoulder very gently.

“No hospitals, no cops,” Mira told him, trying to sound confident and firm. Now that some of the adrenaline was wearing off the pain was becoming sharper and harder to ignore, but she inspected her arms as best she could. Nothing very obviously wrong, as far as she could tell: no bones showing through, no severed arteries, and no torn tendons. She flexed her fingers, then rolled her wrists and bent her arms at the elbow and the shoulder. Everything worked, even if most of it hurt. Good enough. “It’s not as bad as it looks. And it’ll make more sense when we explain. Okay? Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“But you’re hurt!” he protested. He let Zoey usher him out of his corner and struggled out of his jacket to hand it gingerly to Mira. “You’re bleeding; you need stitches! Or at least proper bandages and like, antibiotics or something, probably? A tetanus shot maybe? A rabies shot? No cops if you want, that’s okay, but at least a paramedic, if not a hospital. A private clinic! I can find one!”

Feeling like the worst person to have ever lived, Mira took his jacket and carefully threaded her arms into the sleeves. She was taller than he was; the sleeves were a little too short, and the sturdy fabric scraped over the ragged edges of the claw marks down her arm and across her shoulders. But as long as no one looked too closely, it would cover the blood and it helped catch some of the bleeding before she could drip all over the floors. “Thanks, Bobby. But no, really, I don’t need a doctor, I promise. It’s okay. Let’s go—stick close to us, okay? Rumi, can you get the door?”

By which she meant, Rumi, you’re still plastered to the door like a maniac and you’re gonna freak him out, please move. Rumi picked up the nuances of the subtext and peeled herself off the door.

None of them could summon their weapons yet, but Rumi still had the advantage of being half-demon so she took point. She peeked out the door carefully, then lunged out in a flourish of motion, brandishing one of the folding chairs wildly. Mira darted out behind her, ready to back her up...and remembered again that she didn’t have any weapons to contribute to the cause. Well, she could provide moral support, maybe.

The hall was empty except for the fire extinguisher, Bobby’s pen, and a few stray splatters of blood. No demons, no trace of the smoke; it was almost like nothing had ever happened.

Holy shit. Baby was wrong—bonking it on the head had worked. Rumi was a fucking genius. Maybe they should carry fire extinguishers and fancy fountain pens as backup weapons all the time.

Zoey and Bobby followed them out warily, both of them scanning in all directions. Still nothing tried to attack them, and the hall remained deserted and quiet.

“Let’s go,” Rumi whispered firmly, some confidence apparently restored by the demon’s continued absence.

“One sec,” Zoey whispered back, and passed Bobby’s hand to Mira as she darted back down the hall.

“Zoey,” Mira hissed. Her stress levels were high enough as it was without Zoey splitting up the group. And for...Bobby’s pen? A very kind gesture, but safety first, please?

“I’m right behind you!” Zoey stage-whispered, manifestly not right behind them. “Follow Rumi, I’ll be right there!”

Fuck’s sake, Mira thought with exasperation, but didn’t say it out loud. She was probably going to tattle on Zoey to Baby and Mystery though—maybe they could lecture her about safety, if she wouldn’t listen to Mira and Rumi. Pulling Bobby with her, she followed Rumi down the hall. Zoey caught up with them as Rumi was peering out the exit door into the parking garage, as focused and intent as a professional bodyguard.

“I don’t see anything,” Rumi hissed over her shoulder at them. “Let’s go—it’s a straight shot out to the car, don’t stop for anything.”

She glanced back once to make sure all three of them were still with her, then pushed through the exit door and led the charge folding chair first across the parking garage. All four of them kept in a tight huddle, keeping Bobby securely between them and scanning in all directions for any signs of an attack.

Their driver was leaning against the door of the limo to wait for them and startled when they approached, eyeing Rumi and her folding chair warily. “Um…Everything okay?”

“Yep!” Rumi and Zoey chimed brightly in unison, at the same time Mira said, “So great, thanks.” It wasn’t in her nature to be as cheerful as she was aiming for so it came out forced. At the same time, Bobby blurted all in one breath, “Everything is very good thank you how are you could you drive us to the hotel now please everything is fine.”

So. They nailed that, obviously. Super casual and chill, no reason for suspicion. That’s how it’s done, done, done.

“Uh. Okay, sure? Hotel, got it. Any, uh. Any stops along the way, or…?”

Rumi put the chair down and dove for the back seat while Zoey tried to stand up straight and block the driver’s view of them, hands on her hips either to increase surface area or to supplement the image of a casual, carefree pose. Because Zoey, even in her platform heels, was shorter than everyone except Bobby, she was the worst possible person to body-block. Mira appreciated that she’d tried. Even though the driver still had a very clear line of sight on everyone from over her head.

“Just straight to the hotel, thanks so much,” Zoey told him sweetly. From the back seat, Rumi barked, “Clear!” and stuck her grabby little hands out to try to haul Mira in after her. Mira handed Bobby off instead and let him get yanked into the car, then climbed in behind them carefully. Zoey piled in behind her, still saying to the driver, “It’s just been a long day, you know? Tough interview. Thank you for your help today! We appreciate you!”

“Good job, guys, I don’t think he noticed,” Zoey added brightly as she closed the door behind them, and because it was Zoey, Mira was tragically certain that she actually meant it.

Bobby was taking quick, measured breaths, clearly trying very hard to hold himself together. His hand was clammy with sweat in Mira’s, but she held onto him just as tightly as he clung to her.

This was their fuck up. They’d put him in danger. The very literal least she could do was hold his hand through the aftermath.

Bobby checked that the partition between them and the driver was raised, sound-proofed and blacked out, then managed a hoarse whisper. “Look. Are you sure about the hospital, or a private clinic? No cops if that’s what you want, I promise, but at least a doctor?”

“I’m okay, Bobby, I promise,” Mira tried to assure him. He failed to look at all reassured. “I’m not hurt that badly or I’d let you call in a doctor, I promise.”

He continued to look unhappy about it, but he nodded glumly and didn’t call anyone for help, so she had to just take that as a win for now. They fell into an uncomfortable silence for the remainder of the short drive back to the hotel. Rumi spent the whole drive texting in lightning fast flurries. Mira didn’t bother to check her phone, but she could feel it vibrating in her pocket and suspected there would be a flood of messages in their shared chat. Zoey snuck glances at her phone and sent off a few messages, but for the most part they waited in silence with Bobby.

Back at the hotel, the driver took them around to a service entrance in the back of the hotel that they’d been cleared to use. They thanked the driver briefly and then hustled Bobby out into the service elevator and finally into their hotel room.

The sitting room was emptied out and had been tidied by the hotel at some point. The Sajas had been warned in advance to expect it and as far as Mira knew, the five of them had cleared off for a few hours to let the hotel staff work without being alerted to their presence. There was a possibility they were still out somewhere—the last she’d heard, Jinu and Baby had worked out a plan to fan out and comb across the city for signs of demon activity—but she suspected they were hiding in one of the bedrooms, probably eves-dropping at the door and waiting to be allowed back in.

Mira pulled Bobby with her to sit on the closest couch, and Zoey brought them both a bottle of juice. They probably both needed it; Bobby for shock and Mira for blood loss again. Zoey settled in to sit on the other side of Bobby while Rumi paced anxiously.

“Okay,” Bobby said weakly after downing half the bottle of juice in one gulp. “Okay, tell me what’s going on, please. I’m listening.”

Mira hated that they’d put that tremor of real fear in his voice. She hated that their explanation was probably going to scare him even more. She looked helplessly at Rumi, but Rumi was looking uncertainly between her and Zoey while Zoey darted imploring glances between Rumi and Mira. None of them knew how to explain, where to even begin.

Fuck it, Mira thought. She rarely felt like she had any idea what she was doing. Being a hunter was a ‘trust the process’ kind of endeavor and she’d never been one to back down from a challenge.

“The thing that attacked us was a demon,” she said bluntly. Better to just rip the band-aid off all in one go: if it couldn’t be handled discreetly then it was better to just do it fast. “We—we fight demons, usually. That same demon attacked us a few days ago, Monday night. It did something in the attack and now we can’t draw our weapons like we usually can. You’ve seen us use them before, you just didn’t know what they were and we...we weren’t supposed to tell you. But we should have anyway; we should have explained way before this happened. I’m sorry you found out like this, Bobby.”

Bobby didn’t answer, just blinked rapidly and drank a little more juice. That seemed to be enough of a starting point for Rumi, anyway, and she jumped in with a more detailed—and, okay, objectively better—explanation for him. A brief explanation of the Honmoon and the trio of hunters who’d guarded and strengthened it, a history that stretched back as far as memory could track, and the constant demonic incursions that had been fought back again and again. The Sunlight Sisters, and then a bit of Rumi’s own history—stammering through her heritage as half demon, and the patterns that had been kept carefully hidden for so long—and Celine’s part in keeping the Honmoon at least somewhat intact through her solo career until Rumi had been old enough to debut with Zoey and Mira at her side.

She skipped over Celine’s unintentional part in driving a wedge between them. She also didn’t mention the Saja Boys either, and only vaguely alluded to Gwi-ma (shit, right; Mira still needed to tell them what Baby had told her about killing Gwi-ma), but had to circle back around to explain the patterns in somewhat more detail. They’d lied, of course, and told Bobby the same story everyone else got—that they were tattoos, an artistic expression and personal choice. Bobby had handled it better than most, accepting it without any comments and no questions aside from asking if she needed to take time off to let the tattoos heal. Mira had wondered if he’d actually believed them or not; she felt he’d accepted their hastily concocted lies a little too readily and too calmly, but he’d never shown any indication that he hadn’t taken them at their word.

It made her feel even worse now that they were finally explaining it to him, working backwards through years of compounded lies.

Rumi faltered to a close. Bobby was still quiet—unsettlingly quiet. He was squeezing Mira’s hand, but she wasn’t sure he was even aware of it. Zoey patted his arm very lightly and said gently, “Bobby? You okay?”

“I thought,” he began, but stopped and threw back the rest of the juice like he was taking a shot at a bar. He cleared his throat and tried again, his voice unsteady, “I thought you were in an underground celebrity fight club.”

There was a pause. Behind one of the doors, Mira thought she heard a sound like hastily muffled laughter, but Bobby didn’t react to it so maybe that was her imagination.

Delicately, Rumi asked, “What?”

Bobby nodded miserably. “Fight club. For celebrities. On the down-low. I also thought maybe mafia, but. That seemed a little less likely.”

“Huh.” Mira, considering it, could kind of see why he’d thought that. Celine gave off a certain vibe, like not only was she fully capable of murder but that she’d also gotten away with it before. Arguably, that’s just what being a hunter was. And she didn’t know of any underground celebrity fight clubs, but if one existed they would have absolutely decimated it, so she could see where he was coming from with that theory too.

“No, I can kind of see it,” Zoey said thoughtfully. “The mafia thing—that was Celine, right? She does seem sort of...uh...mafia-ish. I sort of wondered that too, when she was first telling us about the hunters and the Honmoon—I thought it was kind of a metaphor and she was actually going to ask me to join her gang.”
Bobby nodded and gestured vaguely to Zoey, like she was making his point for him. “That, yeah, and then the jet getting wrecked—that seemed like something a mob could do, and Celine didn’t even sound worried or surprised when I told her about it. She just said she’d look into getting a new one.”

“Celine would be a great mob boss,” Mira admitted. “I bet Rumi would too.”

“What? Me? Why not you? You’d be a wonderful mob boss! Or Zoey! I think either of you could be a fantastic mob boss if you wanted to be.”

“Aw, thanks!” Zoey said, flattered.

“I thought Mira’s dad was in the mafia too,” Bobby confessed. “I only met him that one time; he was terrifying. I thought...rival gang, maybe, and that’s why he doesn’t like Celine?”

“No, that’s just what his face is like; he always looks like that. He doesn’t like Celine because she got our careers started, and you know my family hates what I do.” This was hardly a secret; Mira’s only concession to her family’s wishes was that she’d changed her surname to her maternal grandmother’s maiden name, removing any connection to her family’s name. Celine had helped her with the paperwork, in fact. It was more for her benefit than theirs—she had been more than willing to sever ties. The broad strokes of the story had been run in magazines and articles so often that it was hardly more than a footnote by now.

Bobby, Rumi and Zoey had only met her father once; it hadn’t gone well and had inspired what Mira still considered to be Zoey’s best diss track lyrics ever, although unfortunately she’d used some very strong language so that one remained one of Huntrix’s unreleased singles. She still occasionally broke it out on their karaoke nights. “I don’t think he’s in any mobs or gangs. He’s way too boring for that. Speaking of Celine, though...we’ll tell her you know now. She can help answer any questions you have, and maybe she can help prove what we’re telling you.”

Bobby considered it; Rumi and Zoey stared at her in abject horror. Mira ignored the stares—this was too far past the point of keeping it a secret from Celine; that plan was over now. They had an obligation to help Bobby through this, and if that meant letting him talk to Celine about it, then that’s what they’d do. Hiding it wouldn’t work anymore, now they had to move on to damage control instead.

“Maybe later?” Bobby said, making it a question. “I have a ton of questions, but I need to—I have to sort it out in my head first. I just...I believe you, okay, I do, but is there—can you prove it, somehow? Sorry. It’s just—this is a lot. And I was pretty sure on the fight club thing.”

Well, there was Rumi herself of course, but Bobby wasn’t familiar with demons and wouldn’t recognize the patterns for what they were. Rumi didn’t have many other demonic quirks, at least not any that Bobby would recognize without scaring the shit out of him (her demon voice was cool as hell once you got used to it, but it would freak him out), and Mira didn’t want that for him or for Rumi.

There were also five examples of demonic presence lurking around, probably in one of the bedrooms. But that would mean explaining a few things they’d strategically skipped over, and they’d also have to ask him to keep it a secret from Celine or risk her storming in while Huntrix was still too weak to stop her from attacking the demons. She didn’t have access to a spiritual weapon anymore, but she’d probably find a way to kill all five of them if she thought she had to. Mira hesitated, looking to Rumi and Zoey to gauge their opinions.

Zoey chewed her lip nervously and darted glances between Rumi and Mira, but didn’t say anything. Mira hesitated to be the one to pull this particular band-aid off. Rumi was the one to take a deep breath and make a decision. “Bobby, do you remember the Saja Boys?”

He remembered, of course. That whole situation had been pretty memorable and had been only about four months ago, even without the added context of “demon idol group”. Rumi explained the parts he hadn’t been aware of. He’d even met them once, sort of, at the signing event, although he hadn’t really spoken with them then. Rumi didn’t try to sugar coat it or soften the explanation of what they’d done: Jinu and the rest had tried to tear them apart, had tried to destroy the very foundations of the Honmoon, and had brought Gwi-ma enough souls for him to pour himself through into the human realm. There were still a huge number of missing persons cases that would never be solved and it was a direct consequence from the Saja Boys—it was one of those things Mira tried not to think about but lost a lot of sleep over, even now. Rumi didn’t flinch from explaining all of it to an increasingly horrified Bobby, though she did offer up some additional context that Mira had wondered about but would never have asked.

“I’m not saying that they had no choice, or that the choices they did make were the right ones,” Rumi said firmly. “But with Gwi-ma still in control of the demon realm at the time, there wouldn’t have been much they could do to help us, even if we had been willing to accept their help. Gwi-ma would have destroyed them before they got far enough to try. And at the time, I don’t think we would have believed them if they’d come to us for help. The situation was too far gone already by that point, I think. Jinu helped me in the end, helped us, but he acted without planning for it first. Gwi-ma would have known if he’d tried to work around his original instructions and would have killed him—what he did was completely impulsive and he gave up everything he is to help me.”

Would they have accepted help from the Saja Boys, even assuming they’d been willing or able to offer their help? Would Mira have listened if Rumi had tried to explain herself, to explain her meetings with Jinu? If Jinu and the others had come to them and promised not to hurt anyone, promised to help them win against Gwi-ma, would Mira have been capable of accepting it and working with them?

She wanted to believe she would have accepted Rumi, if she’d been given the chance to find out in a less incendiary way than the Idol Awards. If Rumi had just shown them the patterns (weeks or months or years earlier), had asked for their understanding and their help—Mira didn’t know for sure what she would have done and now they’d never know for sure, but she wanted to believe she could have been the friend Rumi needed first and foremost, wanted to believe she could have put her hunter’s training to the side long enough to hear her out. She was sure she wouldn’t have drawn a weapon on her, at least; that had been purely reactionary to protect Zoey and herself in the moment, but if Rumi had come to them in a calmer situation to explain, Mira was certain she wouldn’t have even thought she would need to protect Zoey. She would still have been angry, probably, but she couldn’t imagine ever getting angry enough to draw a weapon on one of them.

But the Saja Boys? Demons with a confirmed agenda? Mira knew herself well enough to know that she would never have believed them, and that was even assuming they didn’t pull the kind of double-cross that Jinu had planned and executed so neatly. She’d been barely willing to accept them now, and that was only because she’d seen firsthand how Jinu had given up everything he had to protect Rumi when it mattered the most.

In the aftermath, she’d also seen how Baby had tried as best he could to help Rumi get Jinu back, for no other reason than he and Jinu had been at least nominally allies for a short time and his own sense of honor meant he felt obligated to at least try to help him, even after Jinu had betrayed his cause and left the others to die in the end. She’d seen how Mystery deferred to Zoey’s every whim and always made time for her, always gravitated to her in any situation and gave her his undivided attention no matter what she was doing, and saw how Zoey lit up with his attention. She’d seen that first day after their return (even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it even to herself at the time) how Romance was willing to dive into harm’s way if it meant protecting Abby, and she’d seen how Abby tried to pull him close to protect and reassure him in turn whenever he could. They were more than the faceless evil she’d been taught to hunt, but it had taken a lot of conflict and effort to get everyone to the point where they weren’t trying to kill each other on contact. She didn’t think she would have been willing to accept them before, not without all the additional history and context built up.

Bobby was listening and following along with the story without interruptions (although with several gasps at dramatic points; Bobby was a great audience), right up until Rumi delicately broached the topic of their return. He jerked and sent nervous glances in all directions, flinching from shadows. “Wait, what? They came back? Did they attack you again? Wait, is that who attacked in the studio?”

“No, no, no,” Rumi hastened to assure him. “No, they didn’t come back to fight us. Actually, they came back to help. And, um. They’ve been staying with us. If they hadn’t been there the other night when we got attacked, I don’t think we would have been able to escape at all! So, it’s good that they’re back and they’re on our side now.”

Bobby looked somehow more horrified by that revelation than by anything else they’d told him. “What do you mean they’ve been staying with you?”

“We have a lot of unused guest rooms in the penthouse,” Zoey pointed out reasonably. Mira noticed she didn’t actually say that their guests been using the guest rooms, just that they were available. Fortunately, Bobby didn’t seem to notice. “Oh, but don’t worry, we left the room you like to use how it is—that’s always open for you when you visit us.”

“That’s—I mean, thank you, wow, that’s so nice to hear—but I don’t care about the guest rooms! They’re demons who tried to kill you, you can’t just live with them! Are you being safe? Do I need to call someone? I can—I can hire security? I can hire mercenaries! Can I hire a mafia? Is that a thing people do?”

Who could he possibly call to eradicate demons if Huntrix couldn’t do it? It was almost funny. Mercenaries and mafia—they were still just mundane humans, and mundane human weapons wouldn’t do much to a demon except maybe make them angry. Although, hell, maybe a squad of mafia hitmen armed with fire extinguishers could put a dent in them.

Well, he could probably call Celine, actually. Even outnumbered five to one, Mira wouldn’t have bet against her.

“It’s okay, Bobby, we’re totally safe,” Zoey said soothingly, patting his arm again. Mira was glad she’d touched up Zoey’s concealer before they met up with Bobby this afternoon; this wasn’t a good time to have visible bruises of any kind. “They really didn’t come back to fight us. They’ve even been helping us fight demons while we’re working on the Honmoon; that’s why they were with us when we got attacked on Monday. But we couldn’t risk them coming with us to the interview today since they’re so recognizable. So, we had them stay behind...here. Do you want to meet them? They can show you their demon forms, if you’d be willing to accept that as proof.”

“Yes, of course I’ll—wait, here, as in, here here? Here in this hotel?”

And, retired from their lives as demonic idols or not, the Saja Boys loved a dramatic entrance. Jinu took that as his cue to lead the group in. Thankfully, he’d curbed his usual dramatic flair and none of them were in their demon forms yet. They all dipped into a respectful bow.

“It’s an honor to meet you properly, Bobby; we’ve heard a lot about you,” Jinu said as he straightened up.

Mira had to give them credit: when they weren’t being obnoxious ghouls, they were capable of being very polite and even charming. Mira could see Bobby was caught between warring impulses: Professional Manager Bobby wanted to politely greet the idol super group who’d had a meteoric rise to fame and equally abrupt disappearance from the industry. Normal Human Bobby, who had just spent the past half an hour or so in complete terror and had just learned of the Saja Boys’ very real crimes against humanity, was clearly trying to process everything he’d been told. Admittedly, right now they just looked like a group of attractive twenty-somethings in casual street clothes; Mira knew all too well what they really were, and even she could admit they were doing an admirable job of being very harmless and normal at the moment.

“I’ve, uh. Heard a bit about you, too.” Bobby hesitated. “So…Demons, huh?”

And there was the dramatic flair. They didn’t even have to check with each other first—they all made a seamless transition to their demonic forms in perfect unison like they’d been practicing. Hell, maybe they had. Bobby squeaked, staring at them wide-eyed in shock, but he didn’t start shrieking or trying to hit them with his clipboard, so Mira was cautiously optimistic that he was starting to come to terms with everything.

“Demons,” Jinu agreed, his voice gentle and kind. “But we’re not here to hurt anyone.”

They dispersed from their formation, which at least made them look a little bit less like they were about to start a fight. Jinu went to Rumi, of course, and Mystery made a bee-line for Zoey. Zoey was still between Mystery and Bobby, but Bobby shrank away from him anyway and ended up leaning on Mira’s shoulder to put space between them. Usually she wouldn’t mind, but at the moment Mira’s shoulders were clawed all to hell from the smoke demon, and she tried but failed to hide a wince. Abby and Romance noticed; they approached and Romance held out a hand to her, both still in their demon forms. “Rumi and Zoey can finish explaining—we should get you bandaged up again.”

She didn’t really need help up (probably) but she could see the showmanship of it as a gesture: an easy way to make the point that Huntrix accepted the demons and didn’t consider them a threat (anymore). She took his hand carefully, mindful of the sharp claws he had in this form, and let him help her to her feet.

She wasn’t sure Bobby appreciated any attempted symbolism of the gesture, because he blinked as he processed what Romance said and then lurched to his feet with a wail. “Miraaaaa! Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot you were hurt! We should have gotten you bandages first and then explained! I’m so sorry! I’m a horrible manager!”

Abby stepped forward to carefully block Bobby when he looked like he was going to try to hug her—usually she would never have let Abby do something like that, but if Bobby hugged her right now she’d probably fall over from the pain of it, and it would both embarrass her and horrify him. Bobby was already too committed to the hug to be redirected: he seized Abby instead and burst into tears. Abby froze, his hands awkwardly out to his sides so his claws wouldn’t touch him while Bobby clung to his waist and sobbed loudly into his pecs.

Bobby was a man of discerning tastes; Mira approved.

Zoey, visibly fighting not to laugh, chided gently, “Abby, come sit down with Bobby. He’s having a hard day.”

“Uh...I was...going to go help Ro and Mira?”

Mira patted Abby on the back and said solemnly, “Bobby needs you more.”

Abby sighed but dutifully ushered Bobby back down to the couch, and even wedged himself into the corner where Mira had been before so Bobby could continue to cling to him and cry in the messy, overwhelmed way of someone who has hit a breaking point they didn’t even know existed. He’d cry it out and feel better after, Mira was sure, and in the meantime he could just bury himself in Abby’s chest for a little while.

Zoey beamed approvingly at Abby, who accepted it with a kind of long-suffering patience and patted Bobby on the back, clearly uncertain of the gesture but fully committing to the attempt. He’d even switched back to his human form to take the claws out of the equation. Zoey paused to rummage in her jacket pocket and came up with something bundled in a plastic candy wrapper, which she handed to Baby. “Here—I stabbed the demon with Bobby’s pen. I don’t think I did any real damage, but it looked like I drew blood. Will that help you track it?”

Okay, so maybe Mira wouldn’t tattle on her to Mystery and Baby—that had actually been a really clever idea. And if they could pick anything up from it, it would be worth the moment of stress from her going back for it without an explanation.

“Worth a try at least. Good idea.” Baby took the pen and gestured at Romance and Mira to move. “Come on, I’ll go help you two.”

Mira was pretty sure this newfound helpful attitude had more to do with evacuating the premises of the crying person before he could get roped into becoming the next emotional support demon and not actually a desire to help with her bandages, but it was probably best to let Bobby work on coming to terms with the demons in small batches of exposure. Like a vaccine to build up an immunity; Jinu was probably the easiest one to get to know, and Abby and Mystery were...well. Less abrasive than Baby, anyway. Romance was hit or miss; he was capable of being very charming and even sweet when it suited him, but Mira was all but certain he never actually meant it and if he dropped the charming act halfway through it would probably scare Bobby more than the outright hostility he was likely to get from Baby. Better to give him a little space for now.

Besides, she was curious about the demon’s blood, too. “I thought the blood itself wasn’t what you were tracking. Will you be able to pick anything up just from that?”

“It’s not the blood,” Baby confirmed. “It’s the power. Magic, I guess you could say. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get much from the demon’s blood alone, but it’s worth a try anyway.”

In the adjoining bathroom between her bedroom and the one meant for Romance and Abby, Mira sat on the edge of the bathtub. Partially because it seemed like a practical choice that would give Romance access to her shoulders and back, but partially because she felt like she might fall over if she had to walk any farther, and leveraging herself up onto the bathroom counter just wasn’t going to happen right now. Romance steadied her while she sat, then slipped out of the room.

“The first time we got attacked, I thought I was imagining that it hurt more than it should have,” Mira commented, trying to sound very calm and collected and not panicked about the unknown demonic poison. “But now I’m sure—some kind of side effect, maybe. I’m not even injured that badly, I think, but it’s bleeding more than it should and it hurts way more than it should.”

“I wondered about that too,” Baby remarked. “I could tell Zoey wasn’t injured all that bad, but I also knew she wasn’t faking about how much it hurt. Couldn’t tell if it was a side effect, or just because you’re all not used to healing like a normal human anymore.”

“The healing thing definitely isn’t helping, but no, I really think it’s doing something else that makes it more painful,” Mira grit out as Romance returned with the backpack full of medical supplies. It clinked faintly as he set it down; it looked like he’d restocked on supplies while they were out.

Romance helped her out of Bobby’s jacket carefully—she’d have to buy him a new jacket; it was black so the blood stains weren’t as noticeable as they could have been, but they’d probably never get all the blood out of the lining—and then hesitated as he got a clear look at the damage for the first time. “Mira…”

“I know. It looks bad.” It didn’t feel great either. Her left sleeve was in tatters and soaked through with blood, and her right shoulder had been clawed up from collarbone to shoulder blade. She took a moment to evaluate—the black button-up she’d worn today had looked very polished and chic this morning, but now looked like the survivor of a horror movie had worn it all the way through the end credits. She sighed and admitted she knew what needed to be done, no matter how much she was going to hate it. “Okay. Help me get my shirt off. The first person to make a single smart-ass remark gets thrown off the balcony. I’ll ask Jinu to do it; you know he will.”

“No remarks, no comments,” Romance promised immediately. She believed him. Or, more accurately, she believed he would let it go for now and then later bring it up in a moment specifically chosen to embarrass her as much as possible. Hopefully by then she’d have access to her weapon again.

“Want me to pinky promise?” Baby asked. With extreme sarcasm, which meant that in fact yes, she would now insist on a pinky promise from him before this went any further. She held a hand up, pinky primly out, and gave him a flat, expectant stare until he huffed a little laugh. He gravely made a show of linking his pinky through hers and they shook on it, once. “Okay, fine. Shirt off; let’s see what you did to yourself this time.”

Romance removed her shirt by simple expediency of slitting through the fabric with his claws. Not actually necessary—it could have just been unbuttoned—but the shirt was already beyond saving anyway and she had to admit, it had been faster to just let him cut it off.

Baby leaned in to get a better look and frowned at the damage. “What’d you do, shove your arm right into it’s claws?”

“How’d you guess?” Mira asked, impressed by his insight. They stared at her, then at each other. Romance sighed and started to set out supplies on a clean towel; Baby rubbed his eyes tiredly (she noticed he had to be very careful with his claws while he did it).

“Yeah. Okay. That was obviously the wrong question to ask. What I should have asked was, why did you shove your arm straight into it’s claws? I don’t mean to criticize your hunting technique, but…”

She scowled at him. “I didn’t just let it get a free shot, okay? I was trying to block it to keep it away from Zoey, Rumi, and Bobby.”

Baby didn’t look impressed with this (very reasonable) explanation. “...So. What I’m hearing is, you forgot you don’t have weapons and you’re basically a normal human right now?”

She pursed her lips. It had been pure muscle memory and instinct, trying to block anything from getting too close to Zoey and Rumi, but in the heat of the moment… “It happened really fast. I didn’t forget, exactly, I just...didn’t remember immediately.”

Baby considered this, glancing thoughtfully at Romance for a moment. “Huh. A couple of things make more sense now.”

“What?”

He ignored her and set about unwrapping and inspecting the bloodied pen. “Tell me about the attack. What happened? Rumi told us some of it when she was texting, but take it from the top and tell us what happened.”

She made a mental note to push him for a real answer, maybe if she could catch him by himself later, but outlined the attack for them as best she could remember. It had happened so fast that it was all a blur now. They both listened intently without interrupting, although Romance’s attention was divided while he carefully worked to clean up the mess of claw marks. The smoke-demon had all but shredded her left arm, leaving a jagged collection of gashes and deep, mottled bruising from the force of its grip. It had also clawed up her right shoulder when trying to pull her backwards away from the others and left gouged marks over her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder, and on her back down to her shoulder blade.

Now that she had something to compare against, she could appreciate how careful Baby had been during The Dressing Room Incident—both to avoid being injured himself, but also to avoid causing any serious injuries to them. He’d left scratches all up and down Rumi’s arm in an attempt to make her drop her sword, but none of it had been much worse than a very motivated or malicious house cat might have been able to accomplish—it was obvious now that he hadn’t intended to cause any damage, just kept them distracted long enough to try to talk them down.

Mira wasn’t badly injured enough to need real medical intervention, and she knew enough basics to know she’d gotten lucky. It had come close to the arteries in her arm and neck but hadn’t hit anything important.

“I don’t know why it didn’t come after us again after that first attack,” she admitted, concluding the recap. “It could have, easily. There wasn’t anything we could do to stop it. No way the fire extinguisher or a pen did enough damage to make it back off. But it just...gave up. There must be a reason but I can’t figure out why.”

Baby swiped a smear of blackish blood from the nib of Bobby’s pen and licked it off his fingers. Then made a face and said, “Ugh—at least half of that was just ink. But yeah, definitely the same demon as before.”

He offered the pen out to Romance, who conducted the same test but, disappointingly, didn’t pull a face at the taste. He confirmed, “Same demon. And ink, yeah.”

“This is just a guess, but I think you can ignore the ink,” Mira suggested helpfully. “But I don’t mean to criticize your hunting technique…”

Worth it for the matching bitchy expressions that garnered from them.

“Can I check to see if you were poisoned again?” Romance asked, nodding to her arm where it was still sluggishly bleeding through the gauze he’d pressed onto the deepest of the gashes. “It’s probably all but guaranteed that you were, but it’d still be better to check.”

She was resigned to it by now. At least the door was closed, so Bobby wouldn’t have to see any of them in their demon forms licking an open wound; that would probably undo a lot of the goodwill Abby was currently building for them by letting Bobby cry into his cleavage. “Yeah, go ahead.”

Gaining new injuries on her arm was, at the very least, marginally less…horrifically intimate? She was grateful to have been spared any claws to the lower back like Zoey had ended up with, anyway, although sitting in her bra in front of them wasn’t actually a great experience either. All the more so when Romance pulled back like he’d been stung, blood still smudged on his lips, and met her gaze briefly in a startled, worried glance. He turned to Baby, and Mira had a sinking feeling of things going wrong even before he said, “I think there’s two different signatures here. I wasn’t sure before, but it’s easier to tell after the blood sample on the pen. Will you check?”

Baby looked surprised to be asked, and then cast a wary glance at Mira. “...Do you want me to?”

Honestly, no—she would have been much happier if she could have been blissfully unaware of any part of this nonsense. But she would just keep worrying about it until she got answers, so she nodded slightly. “You can check. If you want.”

Romance moved to sit beside her on the edge of the bathtub, clearing up space for Baby to move forward, and wrapped his arm around her waist. Mira offered her arm out again and tried to mentally run through choreography sets or something, anything to distract her from the sight of Baby leaning down and licking her wrist.

She’d been right; letting one of the others check was somehow worse than letting Romance or Abby do it. She was so glad she’d been able to confirm that personally.

He rocked back on his heels, frowning thoughtfully. At least neither of them looked the slightest bit interested in her blood this time—she wasn’t sure she could handle that right now. “...Hard to tell, but I think you’re right.”

“So it’s two different demons attacking us the same way?” Mira asked. She wasn’t sure she understood what they were getting at and was too tired to even really try, to be perfectly honest.

“No, just one demon. But it’s...I don’t know exactly, mimicking other demons, maybe? Borrowing parts of their powers? Like the smoke—that’s not something the demon attacking you is able to do by itself, I’m pretty sure. It smells wrong; it’s something it’s creating artificially. I think this is two different effects—the demon itself is taking away your access to the Honmoon, but there’s something else on the claws that’s poisoning you. That’s probably what’s making it hurt, and I think it’s also making you bleed more than you would otherwise.” He hesitated, glancing at Romance briefly and then back at her. “Any other side effects you’ve noticed but didn’t mention?”

“Like what?” She couldn’t think of anything in particular. She was tired, but they’d barely gotten any sleep for two days and she’d lost a lot of blood a few days before; fatigue seemed normal. She was maybe more anxious than usual, but usually they weren’t being stalked by a violent demon trying to jump them at random (the Saja Boys didn’t count; hadn’t attacked since Namsan Tower), so that seemed normal too.

He shrugged stiffly. “Anything unusual. Hearing things? Mood swings?”

Romance shifted beside her, but when she glanced over at him he was looking away.

“No, not really?” And she really, really didn’t want to be the one to say it, but they were avoiding the subject too hard for it to be anything other than coincidence. “You’re describing what Gwi-ma did. I thought you said he was dead.”

“Gwi-ma is very fucking dead. And if we’re being technical about it, then what I’m describing is the start of becoming a demon. It’s just that Gwi-ma was good at making that happen. But demons existed before him and they’ll keep existing long after him—there’s lots of ways for a human to fall.”

Mira pulled herself up straight. It was suddenly much colder in the room than it had been before. “...Becoming a demon.”

“We were all humans once,” Romance said softly. “I’ve never heard of a hunter turning into a demon before, but then, you’re not much more than just a human right now.”

“I’m still a hunter,” she countered sharply.

But like he’d said: a hunter without her weapons, without the Honmoon...wasn’t much of a hunter.

“Fuck this,” she muttered. “Help me get bandaged up. I need a shirt before I can have this conversation. Are you sure about this?”

“I’m sure the poison and the effect cutting you off from the Honmoon are two different things,” Baby said, still very calm and level in a way that normally Mira would appreciate but right now wanted to kick him for. He sounded like he was trying to keep her from panicking, but fuck that because she wasn’t panicking at all, even a little. Mira was a fucking pro at not panicking about shit, okay? Observe her immaculate chill. “I’m sure the demon that attacked you today is the same one that attacked you all a few days ago. I’m not completely sure what the poison is doing, but this is my best guess. I don’t know why or how, but it’s something you should be aware of.”

Fuck. Fuck. “Bandages and a shirt. Then we need to tell Rumi and Zoey. And maybe Bobby, but I don’t want to upset him more than he already is today.”

Baby and Romance both tilted their heads toward the door, seemingly without realizing they were doing it. It made them both look like dogs listening for their owners, and she bit her lip to keep back a bubble of hysteria-tinged laughter.

“He stopped crying, at least,” Romance offered. “Sounds like he’s still with Abby, but he’s talking to Zoey and Rumi. They’re explaining to him about what he can or can’t ask Celine.”

“Should we be worried about Celine? Zoey’s mentioned her, but you guys hadn’t talked about her much before now, so I didn’t ask,” Baby said. He hopped up to sit on the bathroom counter, clearing out of the way for Romance to start working on bandaging Mira’s arms and shoulder. “She’s one of the hunters before you, right? She raised Rumi.”

“Yeah. She was in the Sunlight Sisters with Rumi’s mom. Yes and no, on being worried about her? No, because she doesn’t know you exist and we’re trying to keep it that way. She was aware of the Gwi-ma thing—” Fucking hell, was she aware; that had been a very horrible confession to hear from Rumi after the fact, and all of them were still a little raw over the entire situation, “but we never told her about you coming back. As far as Celine knows, all of you got killed in the fight, and we weren’t very specific about how it happened. But yes, you should be worried, because if she finds out I’m pretty sure she’s gonna start a comeback tour of her solo hunting career, and with us not being able to draw our weapons yet we wouldn’t be able to protect you. She doesn’t have access to a spiritual weapon now that she’s technically not one of the guardians of the Honmoon anymore, but I honestly don’t think that would stop her.”

Baby tilted his head thoughtfully as he considered this, but had the good sense not to ask if they’d be able to kill Celine. Even if they could (which frankly, Mira doubted), they absolutely couldn’t kill her without destroying the life they were trying to build. Mira, Zoey, and especially Rumi might be feeling very conflicted about their former mentor right about now, but that was absolutely not an open invitation for anyone to try to kill her. She thought that went without saying, but maybe it was worth it to be specific about it, so she added firmly, “Do not attack Celine.”

He waved her off. “Wasn’t gonna, don’t worry.”

She wasn’t completely convinced, but at least she’d tried. She’d mention it to Zoey later, maybe she could get a better promise out of him than Mira had.

They both paused and did the head tilting thing again, then Baby hopped down from the counter. “Zoey and Rumi are asking for an update. Want me to tell them what I told you, or do you want to wait and tell them yourself?”

She should probably be there for that conversation, but Romance was still halfway through taping up her arm and hadn’t even started on her shoulder yet. Plus, she still wasn’t wearing a shirt. “Yeah, tell them. We’ll come join you when this is wrapped up. And, thanks.”

“Sure.” He slipped out quietly, only opening the door wide enough to let himself out so at least no one else had to see Mira in her bra today.

“I almost hate to ask, but does this mean you’re going to call off the photo shoot on Friday?” Romance asked. He finished up with the gauze, swathed up her entirely left arm from wrist to shoulder, and set about winding a pressure bandage over the lot of it.

“Yeah, we’re not doing the shoot,” she agreed. “I mean, technically I guess we could—I could wear a turtleneck sweater or something—but no, we’re definitely not going to. Too dangerous. And don’t say ‘I told you so’ because we didn’t take any of you with us today.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up, not quite fully a smile, but at least slightly warmer than the blank expression he’d been holding in place until now. “I would never say that. Baby definitely would. And we did tell you so. But no, I would never.”

He finished up the bandages on her shoulder next, quick and efficient now that he’d had plenty of practice. He had to ease the strap of her bra down her arm to do it; he didn’t break the no comments rule and neither did she. He finally sat back and tapped lightly at the pressure bandage around her ribs. “Should I change these too while I’m at it?”

“Might as well. The pressure bandage can come off, at least.” She looked down, watching his hands while he nimbly unwound the bandages. “Did you know what the poison was doing the first day we got attacked?”

“No.” He glanced up at her through his long eyelashes. He was still his demon form, his golden eyes were stark under the bright overhead lights of the bathroom. “I’m still not sure what the intended goal was, but there’s a lot more of it this time and I could pick it up more strongly. Enough to start to guess. But it’s only a guess at this point—we don’t know for sure.”

She tried to consider that calmly, tried not to panic about it or lash out. Calm, chill—she could manage that. No panicking, not now. “Why’d you have Baby tell me instead of just telling me as soon as you noticed?”

“I wanted a second opinion.” He hesitated, focusing intently on gently peeling away the gauze from her ribs. There was a little fresh blood mixed in with the dried; she’d probably pulled something in the struggle. It wasn’t as bad as it had been a few days ago, at least. He dampened clean gauze with saline and started to gently dab away the blood, and as he did he admitted, “I also thought you would take the news from him better than from me. You two get along most of the time, and you trust his judgment. Or at least more than mine.”

That...was probably true. Baby was an unmitigated dick at least ninety-five percent of the time, but he’d always been honest with them as far as she knew. Usually his honesty was wielded like a blunt weapon, but at least she could count on him to be up-front with her. And she supposed she did trust his judgment, for the most part. His advice to Rumi had been useful and helpful (although, again, supremely dickish most of the time). As helpful as they’d been in the past few days, Romance and Abby were still a mostly unknown factor to her; she hadn’t tried to get to know them better and they’d almost gone out of their way to get on her nerves at every turn before now. They were starting to get along a little better lately but it had still only been a few days for their newfound truce to settle.

He finished up with the bandages and threw away all the bloodied gauze. They’d have to smuggle out the trash again to avoid scaring the housekeeping staff. He pushed up to his feet and offered his hands to help her up, and this time she accepted the help, let him steady her as she found her footing.

“Want me to get Rumi or Zoey to come help you change?” he asked, and she was unexpectedly grateful that he’d offered because she’d almost forgotten Rumi and Zoey were still there in the next room. It wouldn’t have occurred to her to ask for them. She wouldn’t have let him help either, of course, but it was nice of him to ask about getting someone else to help her.

“Oh—yeah, thanks.” Ideally at least one of them would stay to keep an eye on Bobby, so he wouldn’t get overwhelmed or frightened off while surrounded by demons. He was taking the whole situation remarkably well, Mira thought, but there was no reason to stress him out unnecessarily.

Romance carried the backpack and followed her into the bedroom, keeping one hand on her back as though to guide her and hovering in her shadow the whole way. Admittedly, she was feeling a little unsteady by this point; as much as she would have liked to protest his caution as unnecessary, there was a distinct possibility she might fall over at some point. She sank to sit at the foot of the bed and he dropped the backpack beside her luggage. “I’ll get one of them to come help you. Don’t move.”

She hadn’t exactly planned to get up and walk off anywhere. Even if she wanted to move, which she didn’t, where the hell would she go?

She’d expected Rumi to come help, since Zoey had been occupied with Bobby the last time Mira had seen them, but Zoey was the one to peek around the door cautiously. “Mira? Is it okay if I come in? Romance said you wanted me or Rumi to help you get dressed.”

“Yeah, you can come in. Thanks.”

Zoey looked wan and tired even under the warm light of the bedside table lamps, but she managed a wavering smile as she came in and closed the door quietly behind her. “How are you feeling?”

Mira shrugged, immediately regretted it, and tried not to move again while attempting to give the impression of someone who was staying completely still because they wanted to, not because they had to. Absolutely not in tremendous pain here; everything is completely fine. “Tired, mostly. Is there a bottle of pain meds in that backpack over there?”

Zoey rummaged and located the bottle, and brought it to her with a bottle of water from the stocked mini-fridge each room had. This hotel was much nicer than the stupid love hotel had been, Mira reflected. She took another too-high dosage of pills meant to help a headache, not demon attacks, and took a steadying breath. “Did...did Baby tell you guys what they thought the poison is doing?”

Zoey bit her lip, blinking back tears, and nodded. “He told us. Are you...is it…?”

“I don’t feel any different,” Mira told her, and bit down on the ‘yet’ that tried to escape. “Just tired, really. Sore. But otherwise, I’m okay.”

Zoey nodded again and took a few deep breaths, mimicking what Bobby had been doing earlier. For the record, Mira also felt a little bit like hyperventilating, but they couldn’t all panic. So she drank the rest of the water, stayed very calm and collected and not at all panicky, even a little, and said firmly, “Help me get dressed so we can talk to the others about this. How’s Bobby handling it?”

Zoey managed another wobbly smile, strained but sincere. “Jinu and Abby are his favorites, I think. Or they were, but Derpy showed up a little while ago so he’s probably the new favorite now. He’s calmed down now, for the most part, but the whole...poison thing kind of set him off again. Not as badly as before, I think; Abby hugged him and he hugged Derpy, and now he’s calmed down. He’s really worried, of course, but I think he’ll be okay.”

With Zoey’s help, Mira was able to get changed into clean clothes from the luggage she’d packed, although if this kept up she’d end up needing to buy replacements. This was the second shirt and bra that she’d have to throw out due to the rips and blood stains, although at least this time her jeans would probably be salvageable. There was minimal blood on her jeans and it could probably be soaked in cold water before the stains set completely, and in the meantime Zoey helped her into clean sweatpants that she could sleep in later.

While they’d been packing at the penthouse, Rumi had suggested a few different front-closure shirts to make it easier for Mira to get them on and off without help, a suggestion Mira was now deeply grateful for. Zoey picked out a front-zip crop top that would probably be comfortable enough to sleep in and would be (relatively) easy to get out of without help. She’d also be able to move the shoulder straps around enough to change the bandages without actually needing to remove it entirely, which was a very necessary feature at the moment. Zoey helped her pull on a loose, wide-necked sweater on top, commenting as she did, “Are you sure you don’t want to wear that jacket Romance got you? The rhinestones might have been a little bit...much...but it’d probably be more comfortable right now.”

“I’m very sure. Bobby will have a hysterical breakdown if he sees us wearing bootleg merch. Especially...that. He’s been through enough today already.”

Zoey giggled. “Well. There is that. I’m pretty sure he was looking up the ‘Rujinu’ tag earlier, but I didn’t want to call him out on it.”

“And you’ve definitely never looked up the ‘Zoeystery’ tag?” Mira asked pointedly.

“Of course I have. Didn’t I show you the one I set to my phone background?” She flipped her phone around to show her; admittedly, it was a beautifully done drawing of Zoey, Mystery, and Baby, their heads close together in an almost conspiratorial fashion and all of them smiling in a way that Mira was fairly certain Mystery and Baby never did in real life. “I made a separate account so I can leave comments without tying it to our official socials; our fans are all so creative and they have such interesting ideas. I don’t know why so many people leave Baby out though; I have a hard time finding good fan art of him. Why do you get the poly-shippers but we don’t?”

“It’s the hair,” Mira deadpanned. She was mostly joking, but actually that might have been part of it. Most of it stemmed directly from that damned signing event—she’d tried to stay professional while there were so many cell phone cameras pointed at them, but it hadn’t taken long for the cracks in her patience to start to show and she’d been paying for it ever since. Somehow, of all of them, Baby was the only one who’d made it out of that event with his dignity intact. Baby. The guy who’d once said “goo-goo ga-ga” with a straight face on national television. “And please don’t send me fan art of me with them.”

“You say that now, but eventually you’ll come around and I have so much art saved up to show you! I made separate folders for all of us. Actually, Romance is very into the whole fan art concept; you should ask him about it sometime. He was really interested and sometimes he’ll text me artwork he finds online. I get the impression the art scene has come a long way since he was, uh. You know, human.”

Mira resolved to never, ever ask him about any such thing and would continue to live in real fear of what the Zoey-and-Romance text thread might look like, but admitted, “He mentioned something about it when he brought me the jacket. He said he was a patron of the arts? Whatever that even means?”

Zoey brightened with interest. “Oh—none of them would tell me about their human lives except Jinu, and he just told me pretty much the same thing Rumi already told us about him. Do you know what his name used to be? You don’t have to tell me if he wouldn’t want you to, I’m just curious to know if he told you about it.”

“No, he hasn’t said. I didn’t ask either.” She had wondered, of course—it was impossible not to wonder about it, when Jinu still used his original name but the others had stuck to their ‘stage’ names. She didn’t even know for sure who had come up with those nicknames, but personally her bet was on Jinu. Just a hunch, but this was the same man who had learned about memes and approximately half a second later named the mystical spirit tiger who followed him with blind loyalty “Derpy”.

Jinu, ladies and gentlemen: truly one of the demons of all time.

“Oh, by the way—I wanted to check with you before we made any decisions, but of course Bobby is staying here with us tonight, and Rumi and Jinu were thinking about staying in the other room, just in case the demon shows up again. They wanted all five of them to be here in case something happened. But there’s only four bedrooms, so that puts Romance and Abby either in your room or on the couches in the main room, and Abby’s too tall to fit on those, so...is that okay with you?”

Mira sighed and admitted, “They ended up staying with me last night, too. I fell asleep before I could tell them to leave. It’s fine; Rumi and Jinu should stay here if they want to. It’s probably a good idea to have everyone in one place in case something goes wrong.”

Zoey gave her a side-eye, disgustingly smug about this information. “Oooh really? They already spent the night with you? And you’re sure you don’t want me to send you all the Miroabby art I have saved?”

Mira rolled her eyes and gave Zoey a little shove. “Don’t you dare. Now come on, help me up so we can go talk with everyone.”

Back out in the sitting room, Mira eased down into one of the armchairs. She needed a little space from everyone right now while she came to grips with the news about the poison and its implications. Zoey squeezed her hand gently as she helped Mira sit, then passed by to reclaim her seat between Bobby and Mystery. Abby was still wedged into the corner seat and Bobby was still leaning on him, but Bobby looked a bit better than before. His face was still red and puffy from crying, and he went alarmingly wet-eyed and wibbly when he saw her, but he didn’t burst into tears again. Jinu and Rumi had claimed one end of the other couch, while Baby and Romance tried to distance themselves from the pair on the other end. Derpy had his massive head in Bobby’s lap, his unsettling orange eyes focused intently on Bobby, but when Mira and Zoey came back in the movement caught his attention and he padded over to Mira. She couldn’t lean forward to pet him properly, but he laid his head on her knees and let her stroke the downy-soft fur on his snout.

“Hey, buddy,” she said softly, rubbing the spot between his enormous eyes lightly. “Are you being nice to Bobby?”

Derpy blinked at her slowly as though in agreement, although it was hard to tell exactly where he was looking when he was up close like this—it was a good thing he was such a sweetheart, because he was also just...a little bit unsettling, especially from up close. She looked around the room and spotted the magpie perched on a lamp over Abby’s shoulder, where Bobby was occasionally stealing nervous glances at it. In fairness, the emotional support spirit tiger was somehow easier to accept than a six-eyed magpie that managed to look smug—like it knew something you didn’t. Derpy was enormous and full of teeth, but you could also look at him and immediately see that he’d never had a mean thought in his life. Probably never had any thoughts of any kind, honestly. But the magpie? That thing looked like it had blackmail material on everyone it saw. Mira always made a point to be extra nice to it and offer it treats, just in case it someday turned out to be as sketchy as it appeared.

In an unexpected way, it was a relief to have everyone in one place where she could see everyone and confirm that everyone was, at least for the moment, safe. An unexpected outcome from having the Saja Boys and Bobby all in the same room at once, but a welcome reprieve on the constant buzz of anxiety that had clamored under her skin while they’d been out of sight.

“Are you sure you don’t need a real doctor?” Bobby asked timidly. “Rumi and Zoey were just telling me about how you guys usually heal super fast, but right now you’re like normal humans. Mostly.”

“I’m sure, but thanks. None of the cuts were all that deep, and they’ve already stopped bleeding.” Mostly, anyway. Close enough, as long as none of the demons called her out on it again. Romance’s expression indicated he was thinking about doing exactly that, and she pushed the conversation ahead before he could say anything. “Okay, so...Bobby, will you be able to cancel or reschedule the shoot on Friday?”

“Already done,” Bobby confirmed. “I emailed them a catalog of past photo shoots we’ve done that hadn’t been used yet and told them to pick from there. They’ll make due with that. Our official story is that Huntrix is taking a hiatus to work on new material and you started your break a little early to accommodate for an unspecified injury. I’m also looking into a beach house rental, but we haven’t settled on one yet. I’ll narrow down some options and you can pick one in the morning.”

“We also decided not to tell Celine anything yet, even about Bobby finding out,” Rumi added quietly. “He agreed that it would be okay to wait and talk to her later. We don’t...we didn’t think it was a good idea just yet, so she wouldn’t find out about…”

‘About you’ was probably the intended end to that, considering the news about the poison’s effects, or maybe ‘about the Saja Boys’; Mira nodded in understanding so Rumi wouldn’t have to say it. “Probably for the best, yeah.”

“There is some good news though,” Rumi continued, rallying with forced cheer. “We think the poison and it’s effects will fade on it’s own given enough time. I’m...kind of an outlier here, I know, but it’s fading pretty fast for Zoey, too.”

“Yeah, so long as you stop sticking your arms straight into it’s claws, you should be fine,” Baby added pointedly. “I know that’s your new favorite hobby, but you gotta quit.”

“What happened to not criticizing my hunting technique?” Mira complained, but couldn’t help smiling a little. It wasn’t funny, really, but...come on, it was a little funny. Incredibly stupid, but hey, she wasn’t dead at least? One day it would be retroactively funny anyway.

“Um, yeah, about the hunting?” Bobby said hesitantly, raising his hand like a child in class.

Zoey gently pushed his hand down and patted it lightly. “You don’t have to raise your hand. What about the hunting?”

“You’re all going to take a break from that for a little while, right? At least while you’re still healing?”

“While we’re healing, yes,” Rumi agreed with a firm nod, but Mira had already spotted the issue Bobby was trying to carefully point out.

“You’re both going to heal a lot faster than I will.”

Zoey shook her head. “We probably will, as long as nothing else happens, but we won’t go without you. It’ll take all of us to handle this.”

“We can patrol for you in the meantime, until you’ve healed and the issue with this demon is resolved,” Jinu offered. “We’re all more than capable of handling the kind of demons you usually encounter.”

“Isn’t that dangerous for you too?” Bobby fretted. Mira had just been thinking the same thing, but she probably wouldn’t have managed to ask as diplomatically or nicely as he had.

It was probably a mistake, but she couldn’t help but add, “All eight of us were there in that first attack. Didn’t go so great; I’m not sure you guys should go pick a fight without us.”

“It caught us off guard that first time,” Baby snapped. And by now, Mira thought she could tell the difference enough to know that he was genuinely angry—that wasn’t a performative sulk; his expression remained flat and hard, but his blue eyes had a golden sheen where they caught the light and that eerie purple tint was seeping out from the shadows of his face, rendering him otherworldly and strange. Even in the horrible teal sweater printed with turtles that Zoey must have given him, which by the way, clashed terribly with the demonic purple—Mira resolved to tell him so, but like…maybe later, when he wasn’t actively angry anymore. “This time, we’ll be ready for it.”

“It might be better to wait until we can go with you,” Zoey said carefully. “We know you guys are tough and capable, but none of us want to see any of you put yourselves in unnecessary danger either.”

“It’s not unnecessary if we kill it,” he countered, if perhaps a bit less sharply when he addressed Zoey.

“If. If you kill it,” Mira said, trying to sound patient. But everything fucking hurt right now—her shoulders burned with the effort of staying upright, and she was tired and a bit nauseous with the pain and blood loss. It was hard to sound patient and she landed squarely on annoyed instead, which didn’t help anything at all. Baby glared at her, his eyes fully demonic gold now and the rest of his human mask beginning to slip.

He started to respond—something heinously incendiary, no doubt, if his expression was any indication—but Romance elbowed him hard before he could speak. Derpy had turned his head to stare (somewhat vacantly) in the direction of Baby’s voice; catching the movement of Romance’s arm, he padded over to them next. Baby scowled at him, too, but Derpy was impervious—he mushed his head into Baby’s stomach until he gave in and rubbed the tiger’s ears. He was fully in his demon form now, but it was hard to look intimidating and pet Derpy at the same time; Derpy was an anti-intimidation field all on his own.

“If we come across it, and if we have a good shot at it, we can try,” Romance said diplomatically. “But it won’t be useful to anyone if we rush in unprepared and get ourselves killed. We’ll be careful.”

Baby shot him a glare too, but at least he didn’t try to argue. He didn’t even growl at anyone although Mira was pretty sure he would have if Bobby hadn’t been present. Not that she thought he cared about Bobby in any particular capacity, but scaring Bobby would undoubtedly upset Zoey, and despite everything Baby did actually try to make her happy. He pet the tiger and sulked, but he let the argument go.

That more or less ended the discussion for the night; there wasn’t a lot left to say after “be careful, don’t die” was covered. There was more they still needed to discuss—a lot more—but Mira was reluctant to discuss some of it with Bobby around. She was glad that he knew now, even if she hated the way he’d found out, but that didn’t mean she thought he necessarily needed to know every tiny detail. Most of it would just stress him out, and anyway she didn’t think the demons would be willing to talk about their recent field trip into the demon realm while he was listening. Better to wait until everyone was well-rested, tempers had cooled, and Bobby was occupied somewhere else.

It was probably a bit early for them to head to bed; Mira checked her phone for the time and found it was barely after eight in the evening, but both she and Bobby were exhausted. Bobby headed for the empty bedroom beside the one Zoey, Mystery, and Baby had been staying in, giving them all a tired wave as he went. Mira could see on his face that he’d done the math on four bedrooms divided by the nine occupants, but mercifully he opted not to comment on it. Maybe he was also clinging to plausible deniability: as long as he didn’t confirm otherwise, he could pretend that each of the girls would be in one of the other bedrooms while the pile of demons stayed in the sitting room.

Speaking of their pile of demons: Baby wrestled with Derpy until he shifted the tiger over to Rumi, who coaxed him closer to accept cuddles from her instead. Baby hopped to his feet and marched straight to Mira like he intended to start a fight. Mira gave him a flat, unimpressed stare; he wasn’t even the worst thing she’d had to deal with in the past hour and she was absolutely not going to be intimidated by him.

“I’m glad you’re not dead,” he told her brusquely. “Stop trying to fight demons while you don’t have your weapons.”

Aw. Coming from him, that was almost sweet. Maybe he wasn’t trying to be intimidating after all. She held her hands out to him imperiously and demanded, “Help me up.”

He frowned at her, but he did help her carefully to her feet.

“You’re an asshole, but I’m glad you’re not dead too,” she told him once she was up and felt mostly steady. “Don’t go picking fights with this demon without us; I called dibs. You already know we take it personally when demons try to kill us.”

He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. We’ll be more careful than you were, anyway.”

Parting shot fired, he stalked off. He looked marginally less like a homicidal maniac this time, which was good because he was heading for Zoey. Zoey beamed approvingly around his shoulder at Mira as he steered her out of the room into their own bedroom, Mystery ghosting along behind them silently. Weirdos. Hopefully Bobby had his noise-canceling headphones with him.

Rumi approached Mira almost cautiously while Jinu conspicuously made himself scarce in the kitchenette to give them space. “How are you feeling?”

Honestly, pretty terrible. It was a bit like having the flu and a little bit how she imagined being hit by a car would be like; her joints ached even when she wasn’t moving and the claw marks burned and pulled with every motion, and she couldn’t remember ever being this tired in her life. But Rumi looked so worried already and Mira didn’t want to make her even more anxious, so she aimed for ‘true enough’ and said, “Tired and pretty sore. But mostly okay. The scratches aren’t even that deep this time, there’s just more of them.”

Rumi guided her out of the sitting room and back to the bedroom she taken, moving a little slower to accommodate Mira’s pace with Derpy padding helpfully along at Mira’s other side as though to offer support. It was frustrating to be this slow and unsteady; she hadn’t fully realized how much she’d taken for granted her connection to the Honmoon until the connection was taken from her. Rumi wasn’t actively holding her up and Mira could walk on her own this time, but she couldn’t make it far and certainly wasn’t fast about it, and there was a real possibility that she might fall at any moment.

She settled in to sit on the edge of the mattress on the side closest to the door, near the bedside table. Even crossing the short distance from the sitting room to the bedroom had left her a little winded and shaky; she tried to keep her breathing steady and even but it took real effort. She took a moment to just catch her breath and plug her phone into the charger—Rumi had that pinched expression and was making the dithering little gestures that she did when she wanted to talk but wasn’t quite ready to commit yet. From experience (very recent experience, in fact), Mira knew that trying to push her to talk would only backfire; Rumi had to make that decision on her own or not at all. Derpy pushed his head into her stomach again and she rubbed his silky ears as she waited for Rumi to make a decision.

“I’m sorry,” Rumi blurted finally. So she’d decided to talk after all. Mira patted the mattress beside her encouragingly and Rumi sank to sit beside her. “For earlier, at the studio. I should have—if I’d been faster to react, or if I’d been paying more attention, then—”

“It popped up right behind us,” Mira pointed out, interrupting before Rumi could work her way into a spiral. “You can’t be everywhere at once. There was no warning at all—nothing to pay more attention to, nothing to react faster to. It’s not your fault. None of us have our abilities so we’re all a little useless right now. But great job with the fire extinguisher though, that was a good hit.”

“I panicked,” Rumi admitted. She reached out to smooth out Derpy’s fur along the top of his head, where Mira had been trying to ruffle it up into a mohawk. “We’ve all trained so long, and then barely two days without my sword I panicked as soon as something went wrong.”

“I panicked too,” Mira confessed. “When I saw it grab at Zoey, I froze. And then I tried to block it without thinking. Already got a lecture about that from Baby though, so please don’t.”

That finally got Rumi to smile a little, and she looked a little less on edge. “I mean. It was pretty badass that you tried, but please don’t do it again. I’m...I’m glad you guys are getting along, too. I know you didn’t really want them here, but you’ve been really great about it.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been more supportive,” Mira said uncomfortably. “But I’ll get used to it, so. Don’t feel like you have to do anything different. You’re doing fine.”

Rumi’s smile went wobbly and teary-eyed, and her voice wavered as she said, “I want to hug you but I don’t want to hurt you. High-five?”

“High-five,” Mira agreed, and Rumi gently patted their palms together like she was afraid to touch. To be fair, absolutely everything hurt right now and she would prefer not to have anyone touch her for a while.

“And you’re okay with Romance and Abby, right?” Rumi added, dropping her voice low and suddenly completely serious. She managed to look dangerous and pet the idiot tiger at the same time, which was more than Baby had managed. “Because I don’t want to have to kill them but I will if they’re bothering you.”

“You’ll have to get in line,” Mira said, amused despite herself. “Baby offered yesterday so I think he has dibs. But no, it’s fine. We’re fine. They’ve been mostly helpful and only a little bit annoying.”

“I actually think Jinu talked to them yesterday too,” Rumi mused thoughtfully. “So he might have dibs before Baby. I guess they’ll work it out. But that’s good to hear. Okay, well, I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay. I’ll leave you alone now—get some rest, alright? And, um. There’s still some stuff we need to talk about, but just...maybe not while…”

“Not while Bobby’s here,” Mira concluded, nodding slightly. Rumi looked relieved and then guilty.

“Yeah. I agree it was time to tell him! Overdue, even. But some of it’s still...it would freak him out, and there’s nothing he can do, like, constructively with that information? And I don’t think the guys would want to tell him all of it anyway, so. Bobby’s not going with us to the beach house; he’s going to take a vacation and stay away from us until this blows over, and we’ll just keep him in the loop with texts and calls so he doesn’t worry too much.” Rumi’s smile was fond, if not also a touch exasperated. “He’s the best manager; I don’t want him to get hurt. He wanted to come with us, but me and Jinu talked him around to taking a vacation. The rest of us will all talk once we’re somewhere more secure.”

“He is the best,” Mira agreed. “And he deserves a vacation. Maybe that spa trip he didn’t get to take last time. I was worried about telling him everything, especially, you know...the Saja Boys. But it seems like he warmed up to them pretty fast. Or at least Jinu and Abby.”

“Their muscles, anyway,” Rumi agreed with a little laugh. She pushed to her feet, still smiling. She looked much more at ease than she’d been at the start. “We can work on introducing him to the rest of them properly later when things have settled down. Get some rest, okay? Text me and Zoey when you’re up in the morning if you want some help getting dressed or with the bandages. I know Romance has gotten pretty good at being a nurse, but if you need a break you can ask one of us.”

“Thanks. I probably will still need help getting dressed at least,” she admitted. “I’ll text you. Get some rest too, okay?”

Rumi left quietly, Derpy following her out, and Mira took a moment just to breathe and keep herself steady. Fuck, it hurt to just exist right now. Moving slowly and carefully, she eased herself down to lay on the left side of the mattress close to the edge, so her heavily bandaged left side wouldn’t be at risk of coming into contact with anyone in the night. Despite her misgivings, she was willing to let Romance and Abby room with her again since it made more sense than making them try to cram into the small couches out in the sitting room, but too much of her torso was covered in bandages to risk waking up intertwined with them again. And even aside from how much that would undoubtedly hurt, she was also trying to strike a balance between accepting their presence, even trying to be friends with them, and also trying to maintain a respectful distance from their relationship. Boundaries were important.

Abby returned with Romance a coordinated step behind him. Before Mira could even say anything to them, Abby asked, “What’s a shovel talk?”

Mira froze. She briefly reconsidered that career change as a mountaineering hermit living under an alibi as a viable way to escape the conversation she was about to have. Resigned to staying put at least a bit longer while she healed enough to take up mountain climbing, she asked carefully, “Where’d you hear that?”

“Rumi just told us she didn’t feel up to giving us a ‘shovel talk’ right now, but that she would if she thought she had to. Then she did this—” he made a ‘I’m watching you’ gesture; two fingers pointed to his own eyes and then flipped his hand to point with a firm jab at Mira, “and left before we could ask her what any of that meant. Jinu did the gesture too but I’d bet he doesn’t know what it means either; he just did it because she did.”

Admittedly, that sounded like something Jinu would do. At least he was supportive.

“They want us to look at gardening tools with them?” Romance guessed. He sat at the end of the bed near Mira’s legs. Close but not touching, as he frequently seemed to do lately. “Or they don’t want us to talk about gardening? I don’t know anything about agriculture; I don’t think I can help her with whatever she wanted.”

“Rumi, for fuck’s sake,” Mira muttered, covering her face with her hands. It was so sweet that she’d tried, but also, oh god, why.

“What?” She could feel the mattress shift faintly as Romance leaned towards her. She could almost hear the sly smile on his face as he noticed her embarrassment. “Ooh, is this a euphemism? It’s not actually to do with shovels?”

“It means...a talk to tell someone to behave themselves.” She had to tell them something or they’d just look it up; all of them knew how to use a search engine with varying degrees of success. “You know, like… ‘behave or I’ll bury you’; shovel talk. Rumi gets carried away sometimes, ignore it.”

“Ignore it?” Abby echoed, and by now Mira knew exactly what that fake, overly innocent voice meant. “So you don’t want us to behave then?”

It was a trap. It was so obviously, blatantly a trap, and Mira knew it, and she fell for it anyway. She dropped her hands to shoot him a warning glare, and so she was looking straight at him when he stripped his shirt off in one sinuous twist.

“What are you doing?” she yelped. She started to push herself up to sit, an instinctive attempt at an escape, but failed immediately—she’d moved too fast and it hurt too much.

“What? I’m getting ready for bed.” Abby’s tone implied that both he and his perfectly innocent smile had never once had an impure thought. He might as well have had a halo and wings to complete the effect. “Your manager cried all over my shirt, it’s kind of damp and gross now.”

It had been a mistake to react at all, she thought grimly as Abby continued to project purity and benevolence while he ambled around tidying and readying for bed. It was no more effective than any other time he’d done it, and being shirtless wasn’t helping his cause. Romance looked far too amused for her peace of mind, but he was firmly staying out of it to avoid any crossfire. Striving to stay on topic and determined to ignore the shirtless puttering, she said, “Sorry he cried on you like that; he was having a hard time with that attack. Thanks for being nice to him though.”

Abby shrugged. “He’s important to you.”

Right. They did know that already—she’d almost forgotten about the fake demon-Bobby they’d used to lure her and Zoey away from Rumi at the Idol Awards for the Takedown sabotage. They were all too aware of how important Bobby was to them and how they would leap to protect him any way they could; they’d already known they could use him against them.

Her mood dropped, like it always did when she was reminded of that night, but she tried to keep it out of her tone. “Right. I guess you knew that already. Still, thank you.”

Clearly, they were both remembering the same thing. She was looking down at her phone now with dedicated focus, but she still caught the motion from the corner of her eye as they traded a glance.

Abby slipped out to the adjoined bathroom for a moment and Romance said carefully, “We wouldn’t hurt him. Then, because we knew it would have just incited you to fight us and we were trying to avoid that. Now, because we’re on your side. Bobby’s safe; we’ll help make sure he stays safe until you three are recovered.”

It was true that if they’d hurt Bobby at the Awards show, Mira didn’t even think Rumi’s terrifying reveal as half-demon would have been enough to stop them from hunting down the Saja Boys and eradicating every single one of them. It would have hurt them terribly to lose him, but it also would have been a huge fucking mistake for the demons. Gwi-ma himself couldn’t have stood in their way. She wasn’t entirely sure it was a good thing that they knew that—that meant other demons with even the slightest bit of observational skills would also know Bobby was important, would know they could target him to get a reaction to strike back against Huntrix with an easier target than the hunters themselves. It was something they needed to be aware of in the future, although maybe it would be a little easier now that Bobby knew and they could just warn him directly.

Abby came back, having traded out his jeans for comfortable sweatpants. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt, but at least he’d known better than to try to take his pants off in the room with her. He dropped the folded jeans on top of the backpack he’d brought from the penthouse and circled around the bed to sit on the opposite side from her, then held a hand out in offer. “Lie with me?”

She shook her head with a wry smile. “Honestly, it hurts to move right now. I think it’s better if I stay over here.”

She would jump off the balcony before she’d mention the way they’d woken up in a tangle this morning, but surely it had to be obvious that it would be a terrible idea right now even without her pointing it out to them. Abby might not have seen her injuries firsthand, but Romance had been the one to handle the bandages again so he already knew the full scope of the issue. She thought they’d be pleased to have the excuse to sleep beside each other without her in the way between them this time, but to her surprise (and suspicion) they both looked unhappy and in nearly the same motion, like they’d practiced it, Abby checked the window behind him while Romance scanned the doors on their side of the room.

“That’s okay,” Romance agreed, but distracted and sounding like he very much did not find her decision to be agreeable in any way. Mira raised an eyebrow at him pointedly and waited for him to stop inspecting the doors. Finally noticing the skeptical stare she was aiming at him, he clarified, “We were trying to keep one of us between you and any doors or windows until you heal. The demon couldn’t teleport into the room directly unless it’d been here before, but if it tracks you to the hotel, there’s no way that door would stop it.”

Mira blinked and mentally reviewed the last two nights with this new context. Romance had always been between her and the door, while Abby had always been between her and the window. They’d even done it that way in a new room with a different layout. And every time they’d been walking together, just the three of them—Romance led the way, his hands free and loose at his sides, alert and watchful; Abby stayed back to help Mira and carried anything that needed to be carried. In a strange way, it was gratifying to know they’d been trying to be helpful—she’d honestly just assumed they were being annoying. In her defense, being annoying had, until now, appeared to be the only hobby they had. Good to know. “Thanks, but that’s probably not necessary right now with all eight of us here—we’d hear it coming for sure, and it’d have to go past all the other rooms before it got to this one. And it’s also just not really an option while I’m all bandaged up like this anyway.”

“We can help you move over here so you don’t hurt yourself, and we’ll make sure not to touch you during the night anywhere you’re injured,” Abby offered in a coaxing tone, and pouted about it when she shook her head again. Romance didn’t try to argue with her, but he continued to look disgruntled about it even when Abby held a hand out to him instead and he let himself be pulled into the middle of the bed between them.

They both settled on their sides facing her, stacked neatly together with a comfortable ease that spoke of familiar habit. Their height difference was just enough for Abby to tuck Romance under his chin, his larger frame easily enfolding him against his body securely. He’d wrapped an arm across Romance’s chest, and the contrast between the dark navy fabric his shirt and Abby’s bare skin made him glow pale gold under the warm lamplight.

Flustered for reasons she refused to examine, Mira set her phone aside on the bedside table and fumbled for the switch on the base of the lamp. She could reach it but only just; she let out a pained, irritated hiss of breath once she finally managed to turn the light off and settled back on the bed.

“Careful,” Abby chided. “Don’t strain yourself or you’ll start bleeding again. And after all the work Ro put in to get you bandaged up again.”

“I’m fine,” she snapped. This was, debatably, a complete lie, and she also hadn’t intended to sound so irritable. She shouldn’t have to be nice to people while she was in pain; it was an unreasonable expectation for anyone but especially for Mira. She took a deep breath and tried again, a little softer this time while she worked out how to get under the blankets with minimal movements. “I’m fine. It’s the stupid poison; I know I’m not injured that badly, but it’s still...it still hurts. I’ll be fine in the morning. Sorry.”

There was some indistinct rustling from the other side of the bed, but her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark yet and she couldn’t quite tell what it was until Romance was suddenly closer, helping her lift the sheets and blankets so she could awkwardly clamber under them with stiff, uncooperative limbs.

“You won’t be,” he said, moving away from her again once she was settled. His face was a pale blur in the dark; she couldn’t make out his expression.

“Won’t be what?”

“Fine in the morning. You’re not injured as badly as you could have been, but you were still badly injured. It’s going to take time to recover. I’m sure it’s frustrating and I know it’s not what you’re used to, but be patient. Give it time.”

Good advice, which she was generally disposed to ignore. She’d never been good at being patient with any kind of injury or illness. Rumi was the biggest workaholic she’d ever met, but all three of them were very focused, driven people who threw everything they had into their work, whether that was hunting demons or being idols. All four, really; Bobby was just as bad as they were in some ways, but he tried to mitigate it where he could by scheduling them frequent breaks and then trying to get them to actually take at least some of those breaks.

She sighed. She hated it, but he wasn’t wrong. This wasn’t a little sprain or a pulled muscle, or a little cough or sniffle. Realistically, she probably should have had a few stitches and maybe been on bed rest for at least a few days before she started moving around, and no doctor in the world would have cleared her for another wrestling match with a demon. They were busy and they were in danger, but if she kept pushing she was only going to make it worse for herself and put them all at risk while they waited for her to heal. “...I know. It is really frustrating though.”

“I’m sure it is,” Romance agreed mildly. Mira wondered again what had happened to him after the fight with Gwi-ma. He obviously hadn’t died, but getting stabbed by a spiritual weapon was no small thing for a demon. Most of them would have been dispelled on contact with the blade. And it wasn’t like she’d been particularly gentle about it; she wasn’t sure if the blade had pierced all the way through his chest, but like Baby had summarized so casually: her woldo had a big fucking blade and it had probably left a big fucking hole. He’d seemed intact and mostly uninjured when she’d next seen him, but that had been two, almost three months later. How long had it taken him to recover? Where had he been while he was healing?

She didn’t ask. It was something they’d have to discuss eventually, probably, but not tonight. Instead she asked, “Are you guys still patrolling at night to look for the demon?”

“Yes, but we’re not going far, and we’re not going out of our way to hunt for it,” he told her. “We’ll just be checking around the hotel to make sure nothing shows up here. We worked out a randomized schedule for all five of us to go check, so there won’t be any pattern to follow if the demon’s keeping watch somehow.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll try not to wake you,” Abby added. “You probably won’t even notice, and at least one of us will stay here with you.”

That was a deeply unsettling idea and an almost threatening way to phrase that, although she was (mostly) sure he hadn’t intended it that way. But it was also true that she really hadn’t noticed Romance leaving during the night either time he’d left. She’d always thought she was a fairly light sleeper and it was something she still struggled with even after years of trying to adapt to tour schedules, but she hadn’t even realized he’d left until they told her he had. A belated realization occurred to her and she asked warily, “Are you teleporting in and out of the hotel?”

“Yeah,” Abby said casually. “But we’re careful about where we go. Zoey showed us how to look for the, what’s it called...the security cameras?”

That was exactly what Mira had been about to bring up, in fact. Thank goodness for Zoey’s forethought.

“They make a sound,” Romance commented. “I don’t think humans can hear it, but we can.”

Mira blinked, considering this. She knew, generally, that their senses were stronger than a humans, more acute. She didn’t know the specifics and hadn’t ever cared to ask. Well, that wasn’t entirely true—she cared about the parts that were relevant to Rumi and otherwise had tried to pretend the Saja Boys didn’t exist, to the extent that she’d been able. “Would you be able to hear the demon coming before it arrived, or were you tracking it some other way?”

“Hard to explain,” Romance said slowly, thoughtful. “I told you before we could detect something of it’s presence on your injuries, and compared it to scent or taste. That’s only a comparison; it’s more complicated than that. But scent is the closest comparison I can give you, so that’s what I would say that we’re tracking. We would have known you’d been near it even if it hadn’t touched you, just because it was close and used it’s abilities near you.”

“Really?” That was a weird thought—and made her vaguely uneasy about what else they might notice that a mundane person would never pick up on—but it could also potentially be useful. Like having one of those police dogs that sniffed out contraband. Wisely, she kept this comparison to herself; she didn’t think it would be well-received.

“Really,” Abby said. “I could smell it on Bobby, even, and from what Rumi told us it never got close enough to touch him. It was faint on him and Rumi, stronger on Zoey and especially on you.”

“It didn’t touch him,” Mira confirmed. “Thankfully. It was making a grab for Zoey but it missed.”

And then she’d shoved her arm straight at it, like an idiot. What an embarrassing way to get injured in a fight. Rookie mistake. She flexed her fingers, wishing again for the weight of her woldo, for the thrumming vitality of the Honmoon under her fingertips. There was nothing to defend against here and now, no reason to call up a weapon except for the reassurance of knowing she could. There was a cold, blank hollow where that awareness should have been instead.

Romance caught her hand in his, lacing his fingers through hers. Her hands were cold and it made his skin feel almost too hot by comparison.

“We’ll find the demon and get rid of it,” he promised, his voice low and intent in the dark. “It caught us off guard the first time but that won’t happen again.”

Mira, having now been caught off guard twice and come away the worse for it both times, hummed a non-committal, vaguely affirmative response. They could carry their wounded dignity around as much as they wanted; she still didn’t think they should try to pick a fight with the demon. Granted, they hadn’t actually tried to fight it in that first attack. They’d prioritized evacuating the injured hunters first, which was a good move overall. So it was certainly possible that they might fight against it and win if they tried, especially if they attacked as a group—they all still had their abilities, after all, so maybe they’d have better luck than Huntrix was having.

But on the other hand, follow along with the flow chart: Huntrix beats Saja Boys; smoke demon beats Huntrix. Logically it followed: smoke demon would absolutely ruin their day if the Saja Boys tried to fight it. She tried to think of a diplomatic way to point this out to them, imagining the disappointed face Zoey would make at her if she sparked another argument about this right after an almost identical argument with Baby, and had to settle for saying, “Once we’re back to our full strength again, we’ll find it and make sure it regrets coming after us.”

It was, after all, very personal now. Twice, it had gotten the jump on them, and twice she’d come away carrying the marks of its claws. She was willing to resort to some very drastic measures to ensure there wouldn’t be a third time.

Chapter Text

The beach house Bobby found for them was lovely—three stories, a heated rooftop pool and hot tub, balconies off most of the bedrooms and a wide, covered patio on each floor. A home gym, a theater, an enormous kitchen they were a bit intimidated by, and a private beach just a short walk away. He gave them an overview the next morning, composure intact and looking only minimally rumpled in the same clothes from the day before, sans jacket.

“There are ten bedrooms and twelve bathrooms,” Bobby continued on his rundown, and gave the group as a whole a very pointed stare. He’d bounced back after a night of rest and was in full Manager Bobby mode today. Sadly, Derpy had wandered off overnight as he often did, so they couldn’t even use him to distract Bobby now. “Plenty of room for everyone. Now nobody has to share a room!”

Zoey and Rumi avoided all eye contact; the Saja Boys remained largely unmoved by this very unsubtle hint. Mira took one for the team and said, “Good thinking, Bobby, thanks. You picked a great spot for us.”

Seriously, guys? Bobby wasn’t even staying with them; it wasn’t like he was going to enforce anyone’s sleeping arrangements. He was just being practical and protective, in his own Bobby way. The least they could do was pretend to take the hint. Plausible deniability, anyone?

He’d also arranged for groceries to be delivered and put away, and miscellaneous “household sundries”, which turned out to be spa care packages, because Bobby really was the best. He’d thoughtfully rented a charter bus to drive them and their “security staff” out to the beach house, after it was explained that the Saja Boys wouldn’t be able to just teleport straight there—none of them had ever been there, after all. That was assuming they could be convinced to travel there by other means in the first place; after the surprise attack in the studio the day before, none of them could move two feet without a demon falling into place a step behind them. Rumi was presumably used to it already and Zoey was, as always, thrilled to have Mystery and Baby nearby, but Mira was fighting a losing battle for her sanity as Romance and Abby continued to shadow her every move.

After some discussion, Bobby had also taken the extra step to reach out to Celine and let her know, as their manager to their executive producer, that Huntrix was taking an extended break to work on their next album, and not to be alarmed if they were out of contact for some time. She had to know they were avoiding her, of course, but if rumors got around about Huntrix’s hiatus starting early due to an injury then she might be suspicious. Under normal circumstances, it would take an extraordinary amount of effort for them to be injured, and of course Celine would know that—the last thing any of them wanted was for her to investigate.

“And I also booked myself that spa trip, like you suggested, but I can totally still cancel and stay with you if you want! It could be fun!” Bobby said, forcing cheeriness over his anxiety and ending up with a combination of the two that slanted towards ‘manic’. “You might need your manager around to arrange things, or coordinate with the locals, or—”

“Deep breath, Bobby,” Mira instructed, patting him firmly on the back. “You’re a great manager and you’ve been a huge help already. But you deserve a break too, and you’ll be safer if you’re farther away from us until we’re back up to our full strength. We’ll send you updates every day to let you know if anything changes, and if we need help we know you’re just a phone call away. Go enjoy your vacation.”

It took more reassurances from all three of them, plus another long hug from Abby, but Bobby finally headed out for his own vacation spot. He’d ridden with them on the charter bus to the beach house but was now on his way to the airport for his own vacation, still clearly worried but at least somewhat reassured now.

“He says I give good hugs,” Abby told Mira proudly, apparently flattered by the compliment, and opened his arms to her invitingly.

“Good for you,” she told him and pointedly stayed out of his reach. He pouted theatrically and Zoey hugged him instead, ignoring the way it made Mystery let out a low, threatening rumble, and that seemed to appease him.

The drive hadn’t been terrible; a little over two hours and they’d had enough room to spread out a little on the bus. Mira had kept Bobby company during the drive—partially because he was still anxiously watching her like he thought she might drop dead if he let her out of his sight, and partially because having Abby and Romance following her around was starting to wear on her nerves.

She’d still let them help her with the bandages that morning, early enough that no one else was up yet as far as she could tell—the hotel room had been quiet and dim, and she hadn’t heard any sound from anywhere else in the suite. Abby helped prop her up, careful hands easing her back to lean against his chest as they sat against the headboard together, his body warm and solid behind her and his hands spread wide, nearly spanning her waist. Romance worked on the bandages in quick, economical motions. He’d gotten good at it by now; it didn’t take him long to get everything wrapped up again except for the lowest set of scratches on her wrist. Holding eye contact with her, he’d clasped her hand and brought her wrist up to his mouth. It was, technically, less intimate than letting him put his mouth on her ribs had been, but at least then he hadn’t been able to maintain eye contact while he did it.

She was cold all the time now without the Honmoon’s connection and it made their skin almost unbearably hot to the touch; a hot, open-mouthed kiss placed on the thin, delicate skin stretched over the fragile bone of her wrist, the searing touch of his tongue at the edge of the wound. Careful and precise, just at the flinching edge between pleasant and painful. She’d stopped breathing for a moment, caught in the blaze of heat between them and the hypnotic, glowing gold of Romance’s eyes for an endless suspended moment…and then he was gently lowering her hand back down to her lap. The last bandage was wound neatly into place, quick and efficient under his focused attention while she relearned to breathe.

Abby asked (apparently sincerely, or at least, without the obnoxiously fake-innocent tone) if the poison was still fading. Romance said he thought it was, despite the heavier second dose she’d come away with the day before, which was a relief to hear. Then he’d added mildly, “I’ll show you,” which was absolutely not a relief to hear, and Mira had fled the room before she had to witness any sort of show-and-tell between them. She was very certain that Romance had, in fact, shown him, and probably shown him more than that while she was busy making coffee for an inordinate amount of time, but by the time they’d wandered out to join her, Bobby was already up and the others had followed not long after.

They’d been helpful and (relatively) unobtrusive, but it had been almost three full days now of having them almost constantly in her personal space after months of trying to keep them at a distance. It would have been easier to deal with if she could say honestly that she was still annoyed by their presence, but really the worst part was how comfortable and easy it was becoming even after just a few days, now that the initial hostility (from Mira) and overly persistent flirting (from Romance and Abby) had worn off a little. It was this new tension between them that she didn’t know what to do with, left uncertain and uneasy at the change.

Boundaries. It was easier to hold them in place than to backtrack after going too far. It’d be easier if they wanted to be friends in the same way that Baby seemed to: at a respectable distance and without much, if any, emotion behind it aside from a comfortable sort of mutual antagonism. Instead, she wasn’t even entirely sure what they wanted, only that it made her restless and felt precarious, like walking into something that you knew would be a trap when you couldn’t spot the danger yet.

With Bobby gone, they split up to pick out rooms. Mira strategically selected a room on the top floor so none of the others would be above her. By unspoken agreement, they’d all spread out enough that no one would be rooming directly beside each other—Rumi and Jinu picked a room on the first floor that opened out onto a terraced seating area, Zoey picked a room for herself, Mystery, and Baby on the second floor that was close to the covered patio, and Mira’s room on the top floor was tucked into a corner, overlooking the beach but on the opposite side of the house from the pool on the top floor.

The ocean outside was slate gray and choppy with the cold wind coming inland off the water. Although it was too cold to leave it for long, Mira propped open the sliding door to her balcony so she could hear the distant rush of the waves breaking on the shoreline while she unpacked her luggage into the large dresser. They traveled so frequently that she usually wouldn’t bother to unpack until they were back home, but Bobby told them he’d booked the beach house for the next three months. (In an undertone meant only for Mira’s hearing, he confessed that he’d actually only booked it for one month with the option to extend the booking later, and optimistically at that. He tactfully phrased this as being a precaution because history had taught him that Huntrix were too work-oriented to take long breaks, but the unnamed culprit was definitely Rumi specifically.)

She’d left her bedroom door open while she unpacked just in case someone needed her for something, but the light knock on the doorframe still made her jump. She didn’t even realize she’d expected to see Romance and Abby until she turned to see Zoey instead.

“Need any help getting unpacked?” she asked, stepping inside when Mira waved her in. She came in to sit in the arm chair tucked into the nook between the dresser and the window overlooking the ocean. “Ohh—these are cozy chairs; I want one for my room at home!”

“I’m almost done. Are you unpacked already?”

Zoey pulled a face. “I was trying, but Baby has a thing about how stuff should be folded, so I just let him do it. I unpacked the toiletries instead and left Mystery to keep an eye on Baby so he wouldn’t go wandering around trying to unfold everyone’s shirts. Seriously, do not show him your closet at home unless you want him to reorganize the whole thing. I had a system!”

Mira was familiar with Zoey’s “system” of organization. As far as Mira could tell, it was guided by the whims of fate and nothing else. She offered a mental prayer in support for Baby and wished him well in his endeavors. “Got it. What do you think of the house?”

“It’s beautiful! Quiet, though. Maybe too quiet?” She hesitated, then added in a lower voice, “You’re not rooming with Abby and Romance again?”

Mira cast her a questioning glance, surprised by the question. Frankly, surprised that she’d even had to ask. “No? There’s no reason to here—you heard Bobby, this place has ten bedrooms. I’m not even sure where they ended up, actually; I haven’t seen them since Bobby left.”

Half-truth at best; she’d been avoiding them since the bus and she thought they’d finally noticed. Previously that would have spurred them on into bigger and more obnoxious efforts until she evacuated to her bedroom for the night, but this time they seemed to take the hint and were giving her space, too.

“They’re in the room across the hall from you,” Zoey informed her. In hindsight, Mira probably could have guessed as much. “I just...I mean, okay, it’s probably fine, and we don’t know for sure if the other demon can track us—Mystery told me they couldn’t track us before because of the Honmoon, and he and Baby weren’t sure if they’d be able to now or not—but I just worry about you being by yourself.”

Mira had been afraid that someone would try to have this conversation with her. She’d put her personal guess that Abby would try it and had tried to keep out of his way because, strategically, he’d have the best results if he brought it up where Zoey could overhear and jump in and she was pretty sure he knew it too. Mira could flatly turn down one of the demons’ suggestions without feeling a smidgen of remorse, and she knew Rumi wouldn’t try to pressure her, but Zoey? Zoey would, if she thought it was the safest option, and Abby and Romance definitely already knew that.

Actually, wait.

“Did Baby or Mystery think we all needed to have one of them room with us?” Mira asked, very casually. Maybe a little too casually, but Zoey didn’t notice.

“No, actually Abby mentioned it, but I think he’s right now that I’ve thought about it. I mean, Rumi will have Jinu with her and I’ve got Mystery and Baby both with me, but you’re in here all by yourself if something happens.”

Aaand there it was. Called it.

“I think having them across the hall is plenty close enough,” Mira said, aiming for neutral but hitting a flat note. She could see Zoey pause and turn to look at her more closely, and she devoted more of her focus on neatly arranging her clothes in the drawers, tidying what she’d already put away for lack of anything better to do.

“Okay,” Zoey agreed quietly, maybe a little too easily. “You’re probably right. If...if you leave the house at all, like to go walk on the beach or something, will you take someone with you? Just in case?”

“I will,” Mira promised, because that much, at least, wasn’t an unreasonable request. “I won’t leave the house alone.”

“Okay.” She sighed again, then bounced up to her feet and tried again, more cheerfully this time. “Okay! Well. If you’re done here, we were going regroup to have lunch downstairs and talk about our next steps. We’ve got some stuff we should have covered already, but we just haven’t had time.”

“Yeah.” Mira used the dresser for support to pull herself up. She didn’t get as tired as easily as she had immediately after the poison hit her bloodstream; it seemed to wear down and settle after about four hours or so, but the lingering ache in her joints was taking longer to fade this time. Zoey closed the balcony door and gave her space while Mira settled into being upright again—kneeling at the dresser had been a bad idea; she probably should have moved a chair over or just made everything fit in the more easily accessible top drawers.

“How are you feeling?” Zoey asked as they left together. “You seem like you’re moving a little more easily, at least?”

“Getting better,” Mira told her, which was true but didn’t quite cover the scope of the issue. Zoey slanted her a side-eye and she admitted, “Still pretty sore. I got a little stiff from sitting on the bus that long. But I’m getting better.”

“Maybe a change of scenery will help,” Zoey said bracingly, clearly trying to find a silver lining. “It’s nice and peaceful here, and we don’t have any deadlines hanging over us. We can just be on vacation and focus on healing.”

Focus on healing...so they could recover enough to find the demon that had done this to them and destroy it. Yeah. Very peaceful.

The others were already waiting for them downstairs, which might have given the feeling of an intervention except that Rumi and Baby were engaged in some sort of highly competitive kitchen hand towel folding contest in the kitchen and from the sound of it, they were on the verge of all-out war.

“My way is faster!” Rumi declared, with the righteous fury of a queen commanding armies. “It’s efficient!”

“It’s sloppy and ineffectual,” Baby told her, haughty and sneering like an opposing warlord. Mystery, seated at the kitchen island near him, nodded solemnly, a general backing up his commander. Zoey put her head in her hands for a moment and sighed.

“So peaceful,” Mira said in a low monotone to Zoey and made her snort.

“Well, this looks very important—” Zoey began.

“It is,” Rumi and Baby snapped in unison, and went back to glaring at each other. They were almost out of towels anyway; personally Mira would have just left them to it until they ran out of things to squabble about.

“—but I think we have some other things to discuss instead. Instead of the towels. Seriously, stop folding the towels; they look fine.”

“Well these look fine anyway,” Rumi muttered, snippy and virtuous. Jinu gave her a supportive thumbs-up.

For once, sitting with Romance and Abby looked like the only sane option to take. They were spectating at a safe distance from the large formal dining table, openly amused but safely out of the crossfire. Mira eased herself into the open chair to their left, keeping her injured side angled away from them and the rest of the room out of cautious instinct. It put her closer to Abby, who was currently not on her good side after that hint he’d dropped on Zoey, but she was prepared to ignore it for now since it hadn’t actually worked.

“How long has this been going on?” she asked.

“Only about five minutes,” he told her, amused. He stretched out his arm to rest along the back of her chair. “It escalated very quickly.”

Yeah, that sounded right. Bobby had been right to book this place for just a month; any longer than that and Rumi would probably be climbing the walls with restless energy and they’d all be getting on each other’s nerves. They needed a real task to focus on. Fortunately, they had one.

Zoey managed to conclude the war on towels by drawing each warring nation into an armistice and gently bullied Rumi into helping her reheat a pot of soup that had been left for them.

“Looks like chicken kal-guksu,” Rumi said, sweeping by to deposit mugs of tea for all three of them. Mira started to rise and go help them, but got shooed back down into her seat. “No, you stay there. Does that sound okay for lunch?”

“Sounds good, thanks.” It didn’t, actually—she’d found her appetite had been all but non-existent since the attack the day before. The thought of eating made her nauseous. But she knew her lack of appetite had been noticed and worried them, and she was determined to push through the symptoms. Romance and Baby had both agreed that she would heal on her own, given enough time (and, yes, provided she stopped shoving herself directly into the demon’s claws) so she just had to tough it out until then. Hopefully. She sipped at her tea, a mild green tea that didn’t taste like much, and hoped it would help quell the nausea.

Eventually they were all settled in at the dining room table together. Strictly speaking, the demons didn’t actually need to eat, but most of the time they did anyway. As long as Mira didn’t think about it too much, it helped sell the illusion that they were eight (relatively) normal people renting a vacation house together. At least, it did until Zoey said carefully, “I know it’s not something you guys usually like to talk about, but I think we need some information on how you got into and out of the demon realm recently. We need to figure out what’s going on with the Honmoon—right now, even if we managed to kill the demon, it might just come back.”

Mira was watching for it, or she would have missed it—a barely perceptible flicker when Baby glanced to Romance as though for confirmation, and received a minute dip of his chin in a tiny nod in response.

“Well,” Baby said slowly. “First, you should probably know by now—you aren’t actually killing demons with your spiritual weapons. Maybe the weaker ones, but not the stronger, older ones.”

This wasn’t completely new information: exhibits A and B; Abby and Mystery. And Romance, actually, he could be exhibit C.

“It disrupts the physical form—we’re held together by energy; magic,” Romance said, picking up the explanation where Baby had left off, his voice light and unconcerned in a way that had to have been practiced. “If that magic is disrupted, we can’t hold our form here anymore. It sends us back to the demon realm. A more powerful demon would just reform in the demon realm, and eventually might make their way back out through a tear in the Honmoon. Gwi-ma was powerful enough to push or pull us through, but all of us are capable of getting back out eventually, with some effort. Weaker demons won’t have the strength to pull themselves back together; their energy will dissipate into the demon realm—in a sense, they really are dead at that point, and that’s probably what happens to most of the demons you three encounter. But not all.”

Rumi hesitated, then committed. “So, Abby and Mystery...you were…?”

“Dissolved, sorta?” Abby supplied with an easy smile. “We just went back to the demon realm. We didn’t reform immediately, but it’s hard to say how long it took. A few days, a few weeks. Which is what happened to Gwi-ma, and is what would probably happen to this new demon if we attacked it now.”

“So there isn’t anything we could do against it unless we fix the Honmoon first, to make sure it can’t come back out of the demon realm. Could this demon be Gwi-ma? I’d wondered that before now, but I didn’t want to mention it and scare Bobby again. Could it be him?”

Baby said bluntly, “We killed Gwi-ma.”

Rumi and Zoey both stared at him. Yeah, Mira really should have tried harder to find the time to tell them about that already. Zoey said, “Wait, what? You did? When? How?”

“You three—four, I guess, counting Jinu—wrecked his shit pretty comprehensively on your own,” Baby said casually. “He was practically in tatters in the demon realm when we found him. Just little scraps of energy trying to reform. We shredded him—dissipated his form and absorbed most of the energy, scattered the rest. He won’t be coming back. There isn’t enough of him left to come back.”

Okay, Mira hadn’t heard about that part until now. “What do you mean, ‘absorbed the energy’? You ate him?”

He leveled a look of haughty disgust at her. “Of course not, don’t be gross. We stole his power.”

Romance made a thoughtful sound. “It’s not...entirely dissimilar from eating him. Sort of...metaphorically, I guess.”

“It is completely dissimilar because that would be gross. Anyway, not the point—if this new demon gets destroyed up here in the human realm, it’ll end up back in the demon realm. We could, theoretically, go down there and look for it and get rid of it that way, but...it’s probably not the best idea. If it’s destroyed up here after the Honmoon is adjusted to stop letting demons through, then it’ll be stuck down there and won’t be our problem anymore. That plan is safer, but will probably take longer.”

“Personally, I’m still in favor of finding it in the demon realm and killing it off for good,” Abby put in, and Mystery nodded sharply.

Baby rolled his eyes. “That’s because you two always think you can charge straight at a problem and win. How’d that work out for you last time? Remind me.”

Romance shot him a cold look and Baby raised his hands in a mocking gesture of surrender.

“How’d you get back into the demon realm?” Mira asked, trying to work the problem from a different angle.

“It’s not hard,” Baby said dismissively, waving a hand. “But it’s not like we can just ask the demon to leave and hang out down there until you three work out a solution for the Honmoon.”

He was dodging the question. That seemed like a bad sign. “You said it’s easy, but you didn’t say how you did it. What’s involved with that? We can’t ask this demon to leave, but maybe if there was something that required its attention there it would go back on its own?”

“There’s nothing in the demon realm except demons. No reason to go back unless you’re looking for someone there, like we did when we went looking for Mystery and Abby, or unless you’re getting pulled back by force—also like we did, with Gwi-ma. When the Honmoon was weakened in between generations of hunters, tears would start to form where we could pass back and forth freely, but there usually wasn’t much reason to go back to the demon realm until Gwi-ma noticed and pulled us back.”

There were only three options he’d mentioned so far. Mira could do the math. “So…You could get in and out through a rip in the Honmoon, which doesn’t happen anymore. Or you could get pulled in by something more powerful than you, like with Gwi-ma, which also wasn’t possible. Or by having your physical form destroyed here in the human realm. Those are the only ways back?”

Baby didn’t try to avoid the question this time, just said flatly, “Yes.”

The Honmoon wasn’t torn anymore, whatever else was going on with it aside. Gwi-ma hadn’t pulled them back. Hadn’t been capable of it at that point, from the sound of it. Which meant Baby and Romance had...both died? Or not died exactly, but been torn apart to the point that they disappeared, just like Mystery and Abby and thousands of other demons before them had.

“What happened?” Zoey asked, her voice small and hurt. She was sitting between him and Mystery; she reached out a careful hand to touch his wrist very lightly, as though uncertain of her welcome. “You were fine when you left.”

“I went and found Ro,” Baby told them with apparent disinterest, not looking at anyone in particular as he spoke, but he turned his arm slightly until he could clasp her hand in his. “Had some idea of where he might be; only took a few days to find him. We talked and agreed to go back for Abby and Mystery. Your weapons might be stronger, more concentrated and faster at banishing demons, but our claws work just fine. We agreed on a meeting place in advance and went back. Took a little while to meet up, and took a little longer to find Mystery and Abby. Made a detour to get rid of Gwi-ma, and then we headed back up. Getting out again was the hard part, but we managed.”

‘Went back’, said so casually and easily, like he wasn’t talking about them either killing each other or themselves. Mira didn’t trust that one bit, but it was plainly evident that he didn’t want to talk about it in any more detail than that, and Zoey was already shocked and horrified. Deciding it was better to move the conversation along than to try to push for information that wouldn’t be forthcoming, Mira kept her tone as level and measured as possible and asked, “So how did you get back out?”

“Used to be, we could slip out sometimes when there was a tear in the Honmoon,” Baby said. “And if the same rip was open long enough, we could get back on our own without either picking a fight up here or getting pulled back by Gwi-ma. The way it is now, the Honmoon doesn’t tear, doesn’t wear thin in places like it used to, but it’s...eh, hard to describe; bendy?”

“Permeable?” Romance suggested, and Baby shrugged.

“Sure, that. There are...I don’t know if I’d call it a weak spot, exactly, but places where the barrier has more give to it. I don’t know why those places, if they’re significant somehow, but we found one and pushed back through the barrier. It wasn’t the same as tearing a hole by force or finding a rip already open, it was…we were…” He floundered there, searching for the right words.

“Allowed,” Mystery said quietly.

“Right,” Baby agreed, nodding. “Like it allowed us through. And I can’t prove it, exactly, but also? I think most, if not all, of the demons we’ve been hunting since then were ones already on this side of the barrier when it went up after the Gwi-ma thing. We haven’t seen any repeat faces; none of the demons you’ve fought have been able to get back out yet. So it’s possible that this new demon could be sent back and stay there, but it’s also possible that it’s powerful enough to cross like we did. We don’t have enough information to know for sure either way.”

Zoey leaned in, her Serious Business Zoey face on. “The spots that tore before, are they the same places that are flexible now?”

Baby tipped his head to the side, considering it. “Don’t think so. Maybe some are—there were almost more holes than Honmoon there by the end of the Gwi-ma thing. But mostly, no, I think they were new places. We came out into a park, someplace none of us had been before. And when I wasn’t helping you evict Jinu from your sword, I was moving around a lot trying to find another tear in the Honmoon—I was hoping I could find one still open, so I could get back and look for those two idiots more easily, but there wasn’t one in any of the places I remembered there being one, or in any of the places I would expect to see one form.”

Mira had often wondered (dreaded) what he was getting up to those first few weeks whenever he wasn’t lounging around the penthouse being a nuisance. She hadn’t known him well enough then to really be able to tell, but looking back on it now with hindsight, she could see how tired he’d been. How much stress must he have been under as he searched for a way to retrieve their missing companions and returned time and time again into the company of the hunters who only begrudgingly allowed him back? It was almost enough to make her feel guilty for the times that she’d drawn a weapon on him then, but...only almost.

Those were calculated jump scares; he’d done it on purpose. The little shit was lucky none of them had stabbed him by accident.

And actually, on that subject...she was hesitant to bring it up, but it seemed relevant now to know: “Is it just age and power that determine how easily you can reform in the demon realm, or does the damage dealt make a difference? You said all of you were able to reform pretty easily, but Gwi-ma was still messed up when you found him. He was more powerful than you, but he got hit a lot harder with what we did to him together than when we individually fought Mystery, Abby, and Romance.”

“Some of both,” Romance told her mildly. “Mostly the age and power though; a lesser demon than Gwi-ma probably would have been vaporized on the spot after Rumi hit him with her sword, much less what the three of you did together against him.”

That was good to know, although it was also strange to think that if Rumi had attacked one of the others, they might not be sitting here with them today. The shift from enemy combatant to...what, housemates? Allies? Friends, even? It was still a surreal change if she thought about it too much.

As far as Mira knew they hadn’t actually tried yet, but she knew Rumi and Jinu both had some speculations on whether or not he could still function as a sort of part-time sword spirit to power up her blade. It hadn’t been necessary yet, and there was also some concern that if Jinu went back into the blade again, Rumi might not be able to call him back the way she had before. Mira didn’t know enough about the process to make any guesses—and it wasn’t like what had happened to them was a common occurrence; they didn’t have any prior cases to base their situation on—and also wasn’t in a hurry to suggest something that could harm either of them. This might not necessarily be the scenario that pushed them to try either; there were still plenty of things they could try before it got to that point, and Mira was still holding a grudge that she wanted to settle in person with her woldo in hand.

Rumi was frowning thoughtfully, poking idly at the remnants of her soup. “Alright, so. We don’t have access to our weapons currently and we don’t seem to be able to influence the Honmoon right now, but it doesn’t look like it’s weakening from whatever happened to us—at least, not that I could tell. Did either of you check?”

Mira hadn’t tried singing for the Honmoon, afraid of what might happen to it if she tried while being unable to connect to it. Best case scenario (and admittedly, more likely), nothing at all happened. Worst case...well. She was infected with some sort of unknown demonic contaminant. That didn’t seem like something she should get near the Honmoon with, even as a test. But when she let her eyes slip out of focus, her vision hazy and indistinct, she could still see the rippling iridescence of the Honmoon shining out through the heart of the world, insubstantial and intangible but still undeniably in place.

“I didn’t try to influence it, other than to try pulling my weapons,” Zoey said, and Mira nodded in silent agreement. “But it still looks okay, when I check.”

“Right,” Rumi agreed. “That’s what I thought too. I did try singing to it at my apartment, but it didn’t react in any way. So, to me, that almost sounds like when we first started training together, before we could even draw our weapons—”

“Before we could draw our weapons,” Mira corrected, amused, gesturing between herself and Zoey. “You have been armed and dangerous since you were, what, like a toddler?”

“I was ten,” Rumi corrected, pink cheeked and a little flustered, but stuck to her point. “But remember, at first Celine just had us sit and meditate for hours, until we learned to connect to the Honmoon and you guys learned to draw your weapons. I don’t know if that necessarily applies here, I know it’s a very difference scenario, but maybe that’s something we can do to start?”

“It’s worth a try at least,” Zoey agreed, although she looked dismayed with the prospect. Mira wasn’t a fan of stationary meditation, or really, meditation in general—she preferred the gym, something active but mindless she could lose herself in. Zoey liked working out well enough (god knows she had plenty of energy to burn) but hated meditation. And she was also, frankly, kind of distracting to meditate with; fidgety and restless and prone to breaking in with whatever random thought had crossed her mind and absolutely could not be contained.

But Mira couldn’t think of any better ideas and she could kind of see where Rumi was coming from, so she shrugged and agreed too. She couldn’t work out in the on-site gym right now anyway, not with the claw marks still ragged and prone to breaking open again if she moved too much. She was pretty sure she’d reopened one of the cuts across her shoulder blade by forgetting she shouldn’t move anything heavy and slinging her backpack over her arm as they left the bus; it hadn’t hurt nearly as much as the original wound had and hadn’t bled through the bandage. She thought it had probably only bled a little anyway, so she hadn’t tried to change the bandages yet. It could keep until the evening, when Romance and Abby would have to unwrap everything to check on the poison’s progress anyway.

They would have to come up with a better plan eventually, something concrete and careful. They’d been on a few hunts before with their new demon housemates in tow and it had been, surprisingly, very successful. There was some initial fumbling, of course; they were accustomed to fighting as a trio, and perhaps more importantly their spiritual weapons couldn’t hurt humans, they were no risk to themselves or each other. There was no risk of friendly-fire between them. Zoey hadn’t missed a shot in years, but in their first few hunts there had definitely been some occasions that might have ended with a very uncomfortable conversation with a paramedic if spiritual weapons were capable of harming a human. Rumi had great reflexes, but even so she’d grown accustomed to being able to safely cut close to them without fear of causing any harm, just as Mira had never worried about spinning her bladed staff too wide.

But with five demons skirting the fight, they’d all had to be more careful, more contained, more precise. And...well, none of them were quite sure if Rumi could be hurt by their spiritual weapons now that her demonic heritage was more prominent. She’d been sure that Celine could have killed her when she’d gone to her after the Idol Awards but it remained untested theory. And her demonic traits weren’t as pronounced as they’d been when she was at her lowest, shattered with the grief of what Jinu had done to her, what Mira had nearly done, but they were still present. No one was interested in testing that out, even in a small, controlled test. Rumi had hesitantly offered to check with her own sword and immediately been shouted down by Zoey and Mira.

It had been a fairly easy adjustment, all things considered, but it was still something Mira had to constantly remind herself of whenever they went on a hunt now. With this new demon, they’d have to be even more careful: all the original risks still applied, but now if one of the hunters was hurt in the middle of the fight, they’d instantly become a liability. Any of their demon allies trying to get close enough to teleport them away would also be at risk of being attacked, and they didn’t know yet what would happen if the demons fought this new demon: maybe they won and tore it to pieces, or maybe they got shredded apart and had to claw their way back up from the demon realm again after. If they still could get out anyway, which was another risk to consider; maybe the strangely permeable nature of the barrier had been a fluke. If they wound up back in the demon realm again, they might not make it back out this time.

With the loose beginnings of a plan in place, they agreed to try meditating together in the morning. Unspoken but implied: Mira was still injured and tired out from a day of traveling, even if it had only been a few hours. If she had to sit and hold a lotus position she’d probably fall asleep sitting up. It was probably obvious but nobody said it, at least not directly to Mira, anyway. Zoey was enthusiastic about the pool, and Rumi had been distracted by the reappearance of Derpy and Sussie.

Mira, for her part, took a moment to pet the tiger again (so soft. It should be illegal for anything to be that fluffy.) and made the long trek back up the stairs to the top floor. She wasn’t surprised when Romance fell into step beside her quietly on the stairs, and was even less surprised when a glance proved Abby was behind them, just close enough that if she fell backwards he wouldn’t even have to put in any effort to catch her.

“I’m not going to pass out on the stairs; it’s only two flights,” she told them a little curtly, still nursing a bit of a grudge over that attempt to have Zoey talk her into letting them room with her. There was hovering and then there was outright crossing boundaries—the fact that the attempt hadn’t worked was a small consolation against the fact that they’d tried.

“Our room is up here too,” Romance pointed out innocently. “We’re across from you.”

“Yeah. Zoey mentioned that.” She shot a flat look back at Abby but only got that practiced, angelic smile back in return. It didn’t work for him this time either.

Strategy adjustment, she decided. Heading to her room right now was practically inviting them to try something, which would only end with her tired and annoyed. And probably with Zoey upset when she inevitably found out. Instead, she peeled off in the other direction at the top of the stairs and headed toward the pool area. It was faintly gratifying to see Romance miss a step and have to adjust to follow her after he’d turned toward the bedrooms instead, although Abby, a step behind them, didn’t make the same mistake.

“You’re going outside?” Romance asked with surprise. “It’s a little cold for that, isn’t it?”

“Zoey’s going swimming. I can’t get in the water like this, but I’ll keep her company.” Mira hadn’t even bothered to try to pack a swimsuit; all the open wounds weren’t going to be getting into a pool anytime soon, and by the time she was healed enough to risk it they’d probably have left already.

Romance made a discontented sound but didn’t try to argue with her about going outside. Instead, somewhat disconcertingly, he just said, “I’ll be right back,” and abruptly reversed direction to stride back down the hall, fluid like a dance move. Mira paused mid-step to look back at him in surprise and Abby stepped up to stand beside her instead of behind.

“Probably just getting a jacket or something; Ro hates the cold,” Abby said casually. Too casually, in fact; the demons were immune to heat and cold until it hit extreme ends. She’d seen Mystery casually retrieve a baking sheet from the oven without any sort of protection and come away from it totally unharmed.

(She’d come running because she’d known Zoey was on some late-night impulsive hunt for The Best Cookie Recipe Ever and was baking with Mystery and Baby; hearing Zoey’s shriek of alarm had sent Mira dashing through the halls with her woldo in hand and her heart in her throat. If it wasn’t for the fact that, when she got there, Zoey was obviously afraid for Mystery and not of him, that could have been the end of him right then and there.)

Whatever it was Romance was doing, it had nothing to do with her. She dismissed the thought and headed for the poolside sitting area with Abby in step with her. He’d dropped his hand to the small of her back as though to direct or support her; she was electing to ignore it. The path of least resistance or rising above petty annoyances or something—the reality was, climbing the stairs twice in a (relatively) short span had taken more of her energy than she was willing to admit. She didn’t exactly need the steadying hand on her back, but she could (very grudgingly) admit that it probably wasn’t a bad idea to have a spotter nearby in case she actually did have a dramatic collapse. It would be embarrassing to be caught, but not more embarrassing than actually falling down would be.

She thought she’d been ready for it, but opening the door onto the wide balcony was like walking into an open-handed slap; the wind was bitingly cold and sharp. It hadn’t been this cold in the city but here on the coast the wind sliced like a blade across the ocean’s surface. Heated pool or not, swimming in this weather sounded like a way to speed-run hypothermia.

Abby apparently thought so too; he made a shocked sound and then crowded up close against her back. “Zoey wants to swim? Now?”

Mira couldn’t claim to understand it either. “Apparently? Maybe it’s not as bad when you’re in the water.”

Wisps of steam rose off the surface of the pool, so the heater was definitely on and working. Mira wasn’t ready to try bending down that far to test it personally. Zoey could check on that. She sent her a quick text asking if she was absolutely sure she wanted to get in the water; Zoey replied with the unwholesome enthusiasm of someone currently wrangling their boyfriend(s) into their swim trunks. Mira shrugged as she glanced back at Abby. “I guess they’re committing. She mentioned Rumi and Jinu might come up too but they’re undecided.”

The right corner of the balcony was fully covered and had a small gas fire pit, as well as a few tall electric patio heaters, while the left side had lounge chairs arrayed by the pool with big beach umbrellas in between, currently all tightly closed in deference to the chill winds. Mira headed for the fire pit, reasoning that it was safer if she handled that one rather than letting one of the demons try, and directed Abby to the closest few heaters to turn them on. It could have been an overly optimistic attempt, but fortunately they had a simple on/off switch and an adjustable dial, both of which were within the demon’s grasp as accessible technology.

With fireplace lit and the heaters on, the balcony was at least a marginally less inhospitable place. Mira angled toward one of the outdoor armchairs to sit, but wasn’t surprised when Abby tried to herd her toward one of the long couches with him instead. She conceded for two reasons: first and most importantly, it was close to both the fire pit and one of the heaters, and was somewhat sheltered from the wind; secondly, Abby himself generated an astounding amount of body heat. It was a very rare occasion that she would honestly welcome one of his attempts to cuddle, if only because it turned out that shivering was incredibly painful with numerous lacerations.

Abby folded down to sit in the corner of the couch under one of the heaters and tugged lightly on the back of Mira’s sweater in a silent request to follow him. Although not entirely without misgivings, she sat beside him and didn’t try to fight it when he tugged her in close against the line of his body. Romance joined them again, now carrying a quilt folded over his arm. He didn’t appear the slightest bit surprised to find them pressed up against each other in the corner of the couch, which Mira wondered at for a moment, but lost the train of thought when he shook the quilt open and draped it across her and Abby. She’d expected that he would slide in on her other side first to join their huddle, but instead he stretched out to lay on his back down the length of the couch with his head and shoulders across her lap.

It made him look like some indolent lord in a period drama, even with the pink hair and modern clothes. But remembering what they’d told her about their efforts to guard her in the past few days, she could see the scene from a new perspective now. Abby had stationed himself as a wall at her back and had angled himself to view the full span of the balcony; Romance was unencumbered rather than tangled under the blanket with them, prepared to move quickly if needed, and his hands were free to shift into claws at the first hint of trouble. Both of them trying to protect her, even though they had no obligation to help and no reason to even want to—not for her, of all people.

Abby draped his arm around her shoulders, carefully managing to avoid the worst of the claw marks, and reached down to press his hand to Romance’s chest. It tucked her closer against the curve of his body under the circle of his arm, which might have been claustrophobic (or at the very least, irritating) under normal circumstances but sheltered her from most of the wind in this case. Romance raised his hand to tangle his fingers with Abby’s, their hands covering the center of his sternum—right where she’d stabbed him, she realized. Did it still hurt, or was it just a protective gesture from Abby? Just where his hand fell naturally with him reaching over her shoulder like this?

It reminded her that there was a conversation she’d been avoiding. One she wasn’t sure she wanted to have, but...it was long overdue, and she knew it. Beneath the blanket, she’d folded her arms across her chest very carefully—partially due to the cold, partially to minimize her contact with them as much as possible, and partially as an attempt to protect her injuries from any accidental bumps, although admittedly they’d both been very careful of her so far. Now, feeling the raised edges of the bandages rough under her fingertips (bandages they’d put on for her, with careful hands and uncharacteristic gentleness), she knew she couldn’t put off this discussion any longer. Gathering her nerve, she finally asked the question that was several months overdue.

“What happened after you got hurt in the fight in the stadium?”

Romance had his eyes closed, almost as though he’d been dozing off even with the cold. He blinked awake and refocused on her. “After you stabbed me? I left.”

Okay, yes, that was the more accurate way to phrase it. ‘After you got hurt’ sidestepped the blame, shifted the problem away from something Mira had done to simply something that had happened to him. Accepting the blunt correction, she nodded slightly. “After I stabbed you. You had to have been really injured from that. And when Baby showed up a month later, he came back alone. When he kept visiting for almost a month, he came back alone. So what were you doing before he went looking for you? Where’d you go?”

“What terrible, dastardly things was I getting up to, you mean?” His tone wasn’t mocking but the twist of his smile was.

“I’ve never said ‘dastardly’ in my life and I won’t start now,” she told him, trying to keep the mood light. But she wasn’t willing to let him dodge the question, and if he was trying to make her feel guilty he was just going to waste his own time. It wasn’t exactly her business, she knew, but...in a way, they’d made themselves her business just by showing up in the first place. If he wouldn’t tell her she’d just take Baby up on his offer and ask him instead. But she wanted to hear it from Romance directly. “Will you tell me? You don’t have to. But I want to hear it.”

She watched the rise and fall of their clasped hands as he sighed soundlessly. Slowly, with notable hesitation, he said, “I’ll tell you, if you really want to know. But you won’t like the answer. I wasn’t running around killing humans or stealing souls, if that’s what you’re worried about. Is that enough of an answer?”

It was mostly what she’d been worried about, to be fair. Especially when Baby had refused to tell her initially; she’d assumed the worst. But she wanted to hear the whole story, preferably from him. She thought she could probably guess, and if she was correct then he was also right that the answer wouldn’t make her happy. She still wanted to hear it, wanted the confirmation in his own words. “Tell me. You might be right and I won’t like it, but I’ll hear you out at least.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, managing to imply her inattention was the least of his concerns without outright saying so, and didn’t respond right away. She could see he was thinking about it though, almost visibly weighing out his words carefully before he spoke.

“I left the stadium while you were distracted by the other demons and Gwi-ma,” he began finally. His voice was low, quiet, but not hesitant. The distant rush of the ocean was a faded, sibilant hush, layered over his words like a distantly whispered secret. “I knew if I tried again, injured like that, I wouldn’t win. And I knew I wouldn’t survive another hit. I almost attacked again anyway, so Abby and I would end up in the same place, but I...didn’t. All of you were stronger after you broke out of Gwi-ma’s influence. I could feel it, burning.”

His fingers flexed against Abby’s, over the place where she’d stabbed him, making his meaning clear. Abby curled his fingers around Romance’s and squeezed his hand, but didn’t interrupt. “I couldn’t be sure that you hadn’t done enough damage to scatter him entirely, too much for him to reform in the demon realm. He might have been dead for real at that point—there was no way to know for sure. I didn’t know if that would happen to me or not; I’m older than him. Stronger. I might have survived it even if he didn’t, or maybe it would take us both out. No way to know.”

“You didn’t want to die,” Mira reasoned, keeping her voice very level. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—apologize for protecting herself, protecting Rumi and Zoey and all the humans who’d been present. But she understood that even demons wanted to live, had seen more than enough of them shrink back from her in terror in their final moments. It was...uncomfortable, to think that the same had happened to them. Because of their own actions, yes, but also because of her.

“No,” Romance contradicted firmly, his voice sharp for just a moment. She looked down at him in surprise but he was already softening his voice. He tipped his head back, baring his throat to her so he could turn his gaze to Abby. “No, I didn’t care if I died. What would be the point, if he was already dead? No, I didn’t want to die yet. I wanted revenge first. If you’d killed him, really killed him, then I wouldn’t have followed him until you were dead first. That was the one single thing keeping me together, holding my physical form intact while I tried to heal.”

He said it so softly, almost gently. An explanation, not an accusation; an easy cause-and-effect description and nothing more.

She was suddenly much colder than she’d been before.

It wasn’t a surprise to hear, really. She’d been expecting that, or something similar. What was a surprise was how much it hurt to hear confirmed. Which was stupid of her, of course—she’d wanted to know for certain, hadn’t she? She’d wanted to hear it from him, in his own words. And now she had, and she was...what, hurt? Upset that the demons who’d come to kill her the first time around, who she’d apparently nearly killed, might have come back a second time with a bit of a grudge?

It was just...the flashy, ostentatious, obnoxious way they’d gone about it, she thought. That was the part that bothered her. Jinu came back to Rumi to reunite; Mystery and Baby had returned to Zoey to reconnect, to try again under newer, better circumstances. And Abby and Romance had every opportunity to just mind their own damn business—she would have left them alone, given them space and stayed away from them—but no, apparently they’d come back to make a show of their flirting, their performative protection, and they’d done it for revenge. Why? What was even the point? They could just as easily have left her alone entirely, or if they still wanted to fight about it then they could have attacked outright again. They would have lost again, and badly, but they could have tried. Was that why they hadn’t? But then why go through the motions in the past few days, when she was unarmed and weakened? What was the fucking point of it all?

“Alright.” Her voice emerged steady, unwavering, but she couldn’t make herself look at either of them now. She stared straight ahead, out at the distant, gray-smudged horizon line where the sky melted indistinctly down into the sea. “So. You were trying to heal enough to get revenge. And then Baby found you first, offered to go back into the demon realm with you to look for Abby and Mystery? And once you were back into the human realm with them, you could...you could get your revenge. On me. That was the offer?”

Fuck Baby, seriously. She was going to kick his ass. He could have just summarized this for her two days ago instead of telling her to go ask Romance about it instead. What an asshole.

“No. Actually, he told me if I tried anything he’d kill me himself and make it stick,” Romance said lightly. “I’m pretty sure he could, for what it’s worth. No, the agreement was that he and I would go back and find Abby and Mystery, if they were there to be found, and to get back up into the human realm after if we found them. After that, he didn’t care if we went back with him to the penthouse, to you, or if we, quote, ‘fucked off to parts unknown’, end quote. As long as we didn’t try to start a fight with any of you, he didn’t care where we went or what we did.”

That was half an answer, and it raised more questions than it answered. “What if you hadn’t found Abby? What if I really had killed him?”

She wasn’t looking at him, but she could see him from her peripheral vision as he tilted his head to look up at her. “...I had no reason to stay if he was gone. Gwi-ma was as powerful as he was because he consumed a lot of the more powerful demons during his rise; long before my time, of course, but even now there aren’t many demons in the realm anymore who could kill me and make it stick. Baby is probably one of them. Jinu too. If Abby was...gone. Then Baby would make it possible for me to follow him. That was the other half of his offer.”

She wasn’t entirely sure she believed him. It had the ring of truth, the conviction of it, but he’d sounded very certain about getting his revenge. “Just like that? Without killing me first?”

“At the time, we thought getting back out of the demon realm would take a collaborative effort. Before, we could each have torn our way out of the Honmoon, but the changes you three made during that final fight were an unknown factor to us then—we didn’t know how, or even if, we could get out. It turned out to be easier than we thought, but we didn’t know that then. I’m not sure how he planned to get out without me, maybe he’s strong enough to do it, but I didn’t think I could have gotten out without him.” She felt the sharp jut of his shoulder blade on her thigh for a moment as he shrugged. “I did want revenge. But he wouldn’t have let me, and I was...I was angry, still, but I was tired too. I hadn’t healed much, if at all, the whole time between the fight at the stadium and when he found me again. It was getting more difficult to hold together. Getting back to Abby, one way or another, was the bigger priority. If Baby had approached me earlier then maybe I would have had a different answer, but by then...yes, I agreed to his terms. Just like that.”

“Why’d you come back then?” Mira asked, still striving for that calm, level tone, but she’d gone brittle and frost-rimed in the cold. She was stiff, slowly freezing from the inside out. “Waiting for your chance? You’ve had plenty of opportunities in the past few days.”

It made her skin crawl to think of it now, and she remembered how unnerving it had been that first night after the smoke demon attacked, to have Romance at her back, out of sight, lying so close and still in the dark but not moving or touching. How she’d thought of how easily he might kill her then if he’d tried. It would have been impossible to stop him. Apparently she’d been right to be worried, but she’d fallen asleep there with them anyway. Stupid, stupid, Mira: trusting where it wasn’t deserved and hadn’t been earned.

“We wanted to come back,” Abby said unexpectedly. He’d been so quiet, but she hadn’t forgotten his presence; hadn’t been able to forget, tucked up close in the lee of his body. “We discussed it and decided together. I wanted to come back, but we both agreed. If he hadn’t wanted to come with me, we would have just gone somewhere else instead.”

“Why?”

“For you. No—not like that, calm down.” This said because she’d jerked under his arm, startled by the blatant admission. Of course she’d expected to hear that answer from Romance, but not from Abby—she’d attacked him, nearly dissolved him from both realities by the sound of it, and yet he’d never once indicated that he had even the slightest hint of bad blood about it. He didn’t move his hand from Romance’s but he tightened his arm around her shoulders to keep her still. “Not for revenge, nothing like that. You’re right—we had plenty of chances in the last few days. Even in that first attack; Rumi and Zoey were taken away first. The others went with them. No one would have known the difference if we’d let you stay and get killed by that demon. Baby would have suspected but he wouldn’t have known for sure, and he might not have done anything about it. But that’s not what we wanted.”

“So why then?” she demanded, tense and hurting. This had been a mistake, she realized now—she should have just gone to her room and locked herself in instead of trying to talk to them. “Just to watch me get hurt? This must have been a great week for you, seeing all of us injured like this.”

“If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have thought maybe you’d be right,” Romance said mildly. Casual; not mocking but close enough to make her bristle. “Seeing you brought low like this. Like I was. But in truth, no. If anyone is going to attack you, it should be us. And we decided not to even try.”

He untangled his fingers from Abby’s and reached his hand up, moving slowly so she could see it coming. She gritted her teeth and wanted to pull away before he could make contact, but her brittle pride wouldn’t permit her to flinch from his touch, would allow no sign of weakness that could be misinterpreted as fear. His fingers slipped beneath the collar of her sweater to touch, very lightly, where the bandages met bare skin. She was cold from the wind, even with the heaters and blanket, and the contrast made his skin blaze with heat against hers, nearly feverish even with the lightest brush of his fingertips. She held herself very stiff and still under the touch, refusing to react to it. It was nothing he hadn’t already done in the past few days of playing nursemaid, nothing she hadn’t already permitted and more (much more, too much; stupid, stupid Mira), but the context turned it into something invasive and threatening despite how careful he was being.

His voice was quiet, but not soft, as he added, “No other demon should be able to get close enough to put their hands on you except us. This shouldn’t have happened.”

She locked her spine against the shiver that prompted, either the gentle touch beneath her sweater or the low, intimate tone delivering implied threats, and gritted her teeth again while she gathered herself.

“I’m not sorry for attacking you,” she said flatly. Factual and cold, but very, very calm. “I won’t ever apologize for it. If that’s what you’re waiting for, don’t bother. If you wanted revenge, then stop wasting everyone’s time and fucking do it already.”

“The problem with trying to have a calm discussion with a hunter is that you’re also all performers. You can get a little dramatic at times,” observed Romance, a demon who had once joined a demonic boy band to dramatically take over the world and had just dramatically explained his murder-suicide revenge plot.

Before Mira could formulate an appropriately scathing reply to this (Dramatic? She would show him dramatic), Abby sighed and intervened.

“Ro, yeobo, that’s not helping. Mira, listen.” He lifted his hand from Romance’s chest and pressed his palm to her throat very lightly. His thumb pressed gently beneath the hinge of her jaw, angling her face up to his, and his long fingers wrapped all the way around to the back of her neck, the pads of his fingers light against the ridge of her spine and the base of her skull. She stiffened under the touch but refused to flinch or struggle against it. He waited until she was looking him in the eye and let the ripple of his demon form pass over him. He was being very careful of his claws, she could tell; the threat was very much present, but his touch was exceptionally gentle, with only the faintest scratch of razor sharp claws touching the thin skin beneath behind her ear at the bolt of her jaw, and beneath the fall of her hair against her spine.

“When we fought, we meant to kill you. I’m not Jinu—I wouldn’t have stopped, wouldn’t have spared or protected you. If I’d caught you, or if Ro had, we would have killed you. You were protecting yourself and everyone else by taking us out first. You shouldn’t have to apologize for that. We wouldn’t ask you to. I don’t want revenge and I never did. I wanted out from under Gwi-ma’s influence—we both did.” He dropped his hand from her neck, lifted Romance’s hand away from her at the same time, and ducked his head to press a light, chaste kiss to her temple. She didn’t flinch from that either; not accepting it, but choosing not to acknowledge it. “No revenge plots. No apologies. We came back with the others because we were interested—in you; in living together with the others. That’s all.”

Without his hand to restrain her, she turned her face away from him for a moment, closing her eyes and trying to find some measure of distance even while unable to physically move away from them. She could still feel the residual heat where they’d touched her, the lingering ghost of their hands on her skin, and fought back a shudder.

In hindsight, it had been incredibly optimistic to promise she would hear them out. At least she’d known better than to try to promise she wouldn’t get mad.

But realistically, had anything changed, really? It wasn’t like she hadn’t known they were trying to kill her in the stadium. She had been extremely aware; that was why she’d made it a point to take them out first. She’d been intending to head to Zoey next to help her, but by then Mystery was already eliminated and Baby had vanished.

(She wondered if Zoey had already had this same type of conversation play out with Mystery and Baby, or if they’d just quietly agreed to disagree and moved on with their lives. Was Mira the only one who still had a problem? She certainly always seemed to be the only one causing a problem.)

She hadn’t known that Romance had dragged himself away, full of pain and loathing, to plot revenge against her. But it certainly wasn’t a surprise to hear it, and she had already suspected as much. Hadn’t she already had the impression that he didn’t actually like her, or want to be anywhere near her? Hadn’t she already spent the past few days trying to ignore her misgivings and pretend everything was fine? Hearing him say it didn’t change anything substantial, it just drove home what she’d already known: that she’d been letting boundaries slip that would have been better off maintained.

She also hadn’t known why they’d chosen to come back with Mystery and Baby. She supposed if she’d thought about it at all, it was with the assumption that it was some sort of...demonic solidarity, maybe? The five of them didn’t seem to be as close as she, Zoey, and Rumi were, but then, their circumstances overall were pretty different. They were at least cordial with each other, even friendly at times. Even more than friendly, at least between Romance and Abby, and in some undefined way, between Mystery and Baby. She’d assumed Romance and Abby were staying with the others for their company, or because they had nowhere in particular to go, and that at best getting to annoy her was a bonus for them rather than the overall goal. They’d also gotten to take advantage of the role reversal on her part: from actively seeking to destroy them, to reluctantly agreeing to help protect them as long as they didn’t attack anyone. It felt hollow and fake now, but at least in the practical sense, nothing had actually changed about her circumstances except the way that she felt about it. And in the grand scheme of things, the important part was always going to be what Mira could do to keep Rumi and Zoey safe and happy, in that order. Her own feelings on the subject were so far from a priority that it didn’t even break the top fifty list of her concerns.

She took a deep breath, until it strained the confines of her lungs and pulled the bandages on her ribs in a sharp, warning sting. She let the breath out in a slow sigh and opened her eyes, although she kept her sight line fixed on the indistinct smudge of the horizon. “Okay. Fine. We fought but it’s done now. You don’t try to hurt any of us, and I don’t try to figure out how to replicate Rumi’s demon-vaporizing technique. We’ll all call it even. Is that it?”

Abby sighed again. “...That’s it. Really. We’re really not trying to hurt anyone—not you, not Zoey or Rumi, not Bobby or any other humans. If you’re willing to take my word for it, anyway.”

Romance held his hand up between them, not touching; he’d curled his fingers into a loose fist except for his pinky finger. “Pinky promise—no revenge plots, no hurting anybody.”

She ignored that. She was not open to the prospect of voluntarily touching either of them right now, even in such a small, innocuous way. “Good. Then I’ll take your word for it. I’m going back inside; move.”

Romance immediately sat up and shifted to the side to give her space. “We’ll leave, if you want to stay. You might feel better if you talk to Zoey and Rumi.”

She bristled again, this time from the implication that he knew better than she did what she needed right now. She bit down on the urge to snap at him—it would just be inviting a conversation that she wasn’t willing to entertain right now. Instead she floundered out of the blanket gracelessly and stood—too fast; fuck that still hurt and for a moment her vision swam at the edges. “No. It’s fine. I’m tired; I think I need to go lie down. I’ll text Zoey to let her know where I am.”

Romance gave her a thin, sharp smile. “...Not to say ‘I told you so’, but I did tell you that you wouldn’t like my answer.”

“You did,” she agreed evenly. And she really didn’t need to hear an ‘I told you so’ right now, least of all from him. But positive reinforcement or whatever, so: “Thanks for being honest.”

It would have been easy for them to lie. They might have even made it convincing if they’d tried. She wouldn’t have believed it, of course—Romance wouldn’t have been reluctant to tell her if it wasn’t something he thought would make her angry, so any response he gave that didn’t set her off would have immediately been spotted as a lie. She would have asked Baby later for the complete story and they probably knew that, but they could have tried to lie anyway and they hadn’t.

“We’ve always been honest with you,” Abby told her. He sounded...hurt. Which was absurd, because what did he have to be offended about if he’d decided not to be offended by being almost killed?

Whatever. None of this was her problem. Boundaries: now that she knew exactly where they all stood, she could uphold those boundaries. Now she knew better than to bother with any overtures of friendship; they could continue to be civil housemates, not much different than the respectful distance she gave to Mystery and Jinu. Like she should have done from the start. It was fine. Everything was fine.

Chapter Text

Meditation was as unbearable as Mira remembered it being when Celine had first taught them how. Then, she’d been young, impatient to prove herself. Eager to be given a weapon by the Honmoon, tangible evidence that what Celine had promised her could be real. She was embarrassed to even think of it now, how badly she’d wanted Celine’s approval. She’d been jealous and intimidated by Rumi then, who she’d known only by reputation and then, with the reveal of the hunters and their abilities, as the older, cooler, better trained leader of their group. Zoey, too; she might not have come from pop star royalty like Rumi, but she’d already had writing credits under her name by the time she was making her debut with them, and already had a few original songs she’d written and performed online go viral. Mira had felt like the awkward third wheel, just a rich kid pretending to have real talent, and had wanted more than anything to prove her worth—to them, to Celine, to her family, to the world.

Now it was better in some ways—she already had the assurance of knowing she could connect to the Honmoon, that she’d been gifted a weapon from it. She didn’t have to prove anything to anyone; now her goal had shifted to protecting instead. And while her feelings toward Celine were...complicated right now, to say the least, her feelings for Rumi and Zoey couldn’t have been any simpler: she loved them, wholly and completely, and she would do anything for them to keep them safe and happy.

(And while Rumi was always going to be older and cooler, Mira also knew her as the workaholic giant nerd who cried at nature documentaries if baby animals got hurt and liked watching the kind of sappy, romantic dramas where everyone got a happy ending. She wasn’t an intimidating, untouchable ideal, she was just Rumi, her sister.)

It was also vastly worse in a few notable ways. Mostly that it was frustrating to go through a process that provably worked, only to get no results. But also because holding the lotus position right now hurt, a lot, and if one more person interrupted to ask if she wanted a pillow she was going to scream.

“Are you sure you don’t want to meditate on the couch though?” Zoey whispered, and Mira stared up at the ceiling for a salvation that wouldn’t come. “I know you said you’re okay but—”

“Zoey. If we go sit on the couch will you stop asking me if I’m okay?”

“Yes! Well, I mean no, I’ll definitely ask that again at some point, probably soon even? But yes, I’ll stop asking while we’re meditating, definitely yes. Promise.” Zoey hopped to her feet almost in unison with Rumi, both of them eager to help her move before she could change her mind. She rolled her eyes and let them both help her up.

She’d gone to bed early the night before, mostly by accident. She’d wanted space to herself for a bit while she came to terms with everything Romance and Abby had told her, and she’d been trying to distract herself with anything she could think of that might keep her mind busy. Somewhere between buying Bobby a replacement blazer (or three; she’d found some really good ones she thought he would like, and then one that matched their newly reworked Golden outfits in black, white, and gold, and then a cute one with a Jakhodo print all over that looked like Derpy and Sussie so he obviously needed that one, too) and researching paramedic certifications, she’d fallen asleep. She’d woken up in the early hours of the morning from a nightmare she was trying not to think about now in the light of day, but otherwise had slept most of the afternoon and evening away. It had helped, a little; she felt less fatigued and more stable today.

Unfortunately, that made for two skipped meals (it had not gone unnoticed that she’d barely touched her soup at lunch the day before, despite her best efforts) and one skipped bandage change with Romance and Abby, as well as a skipped update on the poison’s after effects. Zoey and Rumi had both been conspicuously trying not to panic or come across too overbearing…but they also were panicking and being overbearing about it. Mira was attempting to stay patient with them but it was getting more difficult as the day went on.

She’d let Rumi and Zoey help her with the bandages, which she’d implied was to reassure them that she wasn’t on the verge of death. That was part of the reason, but mostly it had been a way to avoid Romance and Abby a little longer. She’d have to face them at some point, probably today, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to see them first thing in the morning. So instead Rumi fussed at her about not eating, and Zoey fussed about the bandages and the poison, and Mira nodded at the appropriate moments to prove she was still listening while she tried to decide what to do next.

It wouldn’t be easy to avoid Romance and Abby, but it was still an option. And she’d thought about it—spent too long thinking about it, probably, but she’d let herself consider the possibility of ignoring them, and what the practical reality would turn out to be. Ultimately, she’d dismissed the idea entirely; it was cowardly and impractical, and she wasn’t going to let them think they’d intimidated her (or worse, hurt her). It did mean that she’d have to let them help with her bandages and check the progress of the poison, which...okay, yes, that was going to suck. That was going to be terrible and awkward, and there was no way around it. But having one of the other demons do it would still somehow manage to be worse, so there wasn’t really a good option available anyway. It would (hopefully) only be a few more days anyway, maybe a week at most, and with any luck the poison would be faded enough that she could access the Honmoon again.

“Okay, focus,” she instructed firmly, taking Zoey’s hand to give it a reassuring squeeze, and also to gently redirect her from fussing at the edge of Mira’s bandages peeking out from the cuff of her sweater. “We’re on the couch now, happy? We’re supposed to be meditating.”

“Right, right, yes. Meditating. Of course. We’ll do that. Um. How much time do we have left on the timer?”

“Oh, I paused it when we moved from the floor to the couch,” Rumi said, wincing guiltily when Zoey groaned. “I thought it shouldn’t count! Like when they stop the timer in basketball, you know? It was a time-out.”

“It’s definitely a time-out,” Mira agreed before Zoey could object. “We said we’d meditate for two hours.”

“Right, I know, but just...two whole hours though? We already know we can’t access the Honmoon yet! It feels like one hour would be plenty of time to sit and not make any progress, you know?”

Usually Mira would have agreed with her completely, but she’d been banking on having two uninterrupted hours to decide how to handle the whole situation with Romance and Abby, which was mostly what she’d been doing instead of meditating.

They’d taken over one of the smaller sitting rooms on the first floor and made the unanimous call to kick the Saja Boys out while they tried to focus on their meditation. But even so...yeah, maybe two hours was excessive. Zoey and Rumi didn’t need to be pulled into Mira’s avoidance strategies, although they probably would have without hesitation if she’d actually told them that’s what she was doing. But that would mean telling them why she was avoiding Romance and Abby, and would mean admitting out loud that she was actually avoiding them in the exact cowardly way she’d decided she wouldn’t, so. That strategy was out.

She sighed. “...How long was the timer running, Rumi?”

Rumi checked her phone. “Thirty-two minutes.”

Barely half an hour. Honestly, by their standards, that was fairly impressive. They hadn’t meditated together that long since Celine stopped monitoring them to make sure they were doing the full meditation. (They’d always done at least part of their meditation, but only for about ten minutes to make sure Celine didn’t come back to check on them; then they’d just talked and hung out.)

“Fifteen minutes, then we can stop for today,” Mira compromised.

“Deal. Hey, I was going to go walk on the beach after this with Baby and Mystery—you want to come with us?” Zoey hesitated, then added carefully, “We don’t have to take Romance and Abby with us, if you want. It’d be nice to just go by ourselves, you know?”

She did still need to talk to Baby. And, well. It would be a reason not to have to face Romance and Abby for a little longer, without being an obvious avoidance. “Yeah, I’ll go with you. I haven’t been to the beach in a long time.”

Rumi turned her phone over in her hands slowly. “...Is everything okay with you three? You seemed kind of...down, this morning. Upset. And they’ve both been avoiding everyone since yesterday afternoon.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I just needed some space. And I was tired yesterday. That’s all.” Half-truths at best. But firmly within the span of ‘true enough’. Although neither Romance nor Abby had explicitly threatened Mira the day before, the implied threat was still strong enough that there was no conceivable way that Rumi and Zoey would take it well if they heard about it. Mira would, at best, give them an edited summary later, once she was ready to think of one. She wanted to just pretend the whole conversation had never happened, but realistically Rumi and Zoey both needed to know at least part of it so they’d know to be careful. She carefully rolled her shoulders, easing out the stiffness that came with trying to hold a fixed position while injured, and said, “Start the timer, would you?”

Rumi didn’t. She shifted slightly closer on the couch, so her knee pressed to Mira’s, and asked quietly, “You’d tell us, right? If something was wrong? I know I’m a hypocrite to ask that, but—”

“You’re not. You’re not a hypocrite.” And she’d never, ever say it to Rumi’s face, knowing it could only hurt her to hear it, but she’d been right: not everything was about Mira’s insecurities. She knew she could rely on them for support and help, but at some point she still had to make sure her problems didn’t become everyone’s problem—this was definitely one of those times. “It’s just...we talked yesterday afternoon. Cleared some things up. We should have talked about it already, probably, but. They’re usually being annoying and I’m usually annoyed, so we haven’t been able to talk about it until now. But it’s fine now. All straightened out.”

Rumi was sitting on her right, and Zoey on her left. It meant that the uncertain glance they traded between each other had to pass directly across Mira, and there was absolutely no way she wouldn’t notice it. She rolled her eyes. “Seriously. We’re fine. I’m fine. Quit worrying. If I wanted them gone, they’d be gone already. And I would tell you. Promise.”

Zoey couldn’t lean on her shoulder like she usually would, and instead she tipped over onto the couch, drawing her knees up to her chest until she could lay on her side all curled up like a little pill bug with her head near Mira’s knee. “Okay. I believe you. But if they’re being jerks, even if you don’t want them gone gone, we can still make them leave you alone. Just say the word and they’re in time-out.”

“They’re already leaving me alone,” Mira pointed out. They’d been giving her space since the previous afternoon, although she’d gotten a text from Abby last night asking her to let them know if she wanted them to help her with the bandages. She hadn’t responded, but she also hadn’t deleted their little group chat.

She’d been scrolling through the sparse messages the night before—she’d only accepted the chat invitation a few days ago, and they’d mostly all been in the same room ever since with no need to text each other, so there weren’t many. There at the top, the heart-eyed emoji from Abby after she’d first accepted the invitation instead of deleting it like the others. The all-clear text from Romance a minute later, letting them know it was safe to follow him to the alley. And then, after the big group chat had exploded when Rumi told them about the demon attack in the studio: a demand from Romance to know how badly she’d been hurt, a plea from Abby to tell them if she was alright. She hadn’t noticed the messages—she hadn’t checked her phone the whole way back from the studio, of course, but she also hadn’t turned on notifications for their group chat. She hadn’t seen any of them until she’d been in her text logs the night before, and then while she’d been staring at the messages, trying to imagine what they’d been hoping to accomplish by sending them in the first place, Abby’s text had come in. She’d been so startled she’d dropped her phone. But she hadn’t responded—she’d never responded to any of their messages. A boundary placed, even if unintentionally. She backed out of her texts altogether then and had set to work finding Bobby a replacement jacket instead.

Zoey had worn her hair down today instead of up in her usual buns. She kept her hair much shorter than either Mira or Rumi, but it was still long enough to reach past her shoulders. Mira worked her fingers through to separate out any tangles, then sectioned it out and worked in a pair of French braids. The angle was off but she managed to keep them mostly even. Zoey uncurled from her huddle to stretch out more comfortably and let her finish the braids without protest, and Rumi dug around in her cargo pants to supply a few hair ties. They were the same purple as Rumi’s hair and it made a bright contrast in Zoey’s dark hair.

“I’m okay, really,” Mira told them, softer this time as she tied off the ends of the braids. “Mostly it’s just the poison, I think—it makes me tired, and I don’t want to eat. Baby and Romance both thought it’d wear off in a few more days, and then I’ll start healing faster. We’ll be back on track soon and things will go back to normal. Or, you know, normal for us anyway.”

“I’m sure you’re probably right,” Rumi agreed hesitantly. “We’re just worried.”

“I know,” Mira said, instead of I know and it’s getting annoying or I am too, everything is horrible and terrifying right now and I don’t know how to fix it. “I know, but it’ll be fine. It’ll just take a little longer for me to heal than you two will. That’s all.”

“Do you think you have any of the demon-y symptoms?” Zoey asked, her voice small and muffled. “I know that’s a weird question. I don’t know what that would even look like, or how you’d know, but...do you?”

Mira had been wondering the same thing, and still didn’t have a good answer. She wasn’t hearing voices or seeing things, didn’t have any patterns on her skin, but…that nightmare had rattled her. She’d been trying not to think about it, but it kept slipping back into the edges of her thoughts.

She wished she had a better answer for them, but she was also trying to be honest. They knew enough demons (and a half-demon) that she could be somewhat reassured that becoming a demon wouldn’t necessarily put the others at risk from her, but it was an unusual enough scenario that she was still worried about hurting them somehow without intending to. (It was also fucking terrifying just as a concept; she’d been trying not to think about it.) The only way they could protect themselves was if they knew they needed to be on guard, which meant she had to try to both monitor her own emotions (hard pass) and be open to telling them about her emotions (an even harder pass). “I don’t know. I’m not sure how to tell or what to look for. It’s not like it was when...with Gwi-ma that time, but. Maybe there are symptoms I just don’t know how to recognize? I don’t know.”

Zoey sat back upright, her expression fierce and determined. “That’s okay. It won’t matter, because it should fade on it’s own as you heal. And we’ll make sure you stay safe. So even if...even if something is starting to happen, it doesn’t matter because it won’t keep happening, and it’ll be fine. You’re going to be fine.”

Mira nodded firmly, projecting a confidence she didn’t have and agreeing, “Exactly. It’s already fading, so in a few days it’ll be completely fine.”

Rumi couldn’t really hug her right now, not with her shoulders bandaged up, but she took Mira’s hand and projected her own calm, collected confidence to say, “You’re right. You’re going to be just fine.”

Mira had spent nearly a decade performing with Rumi and Zoey. She knew what it looked like when they were sure of themselves, but she also knew what it looked like when they were projecting confidence from the stage, hitting their cues to complete a performance. This looked more like the latter than the former. But they knew her, too, and surely her attempts to sound calm and collected were just as transparent for them. She didn’t call them out, and they didn’t call her weak performance out either; plausible deniability only worked if they let it. Sometimes she felt like the core of their group experience was ‘fake it ‘til you make it’, but here they all were—making it work.

They never did get around to restarting the timer, but Mira conceded that their talk had probably been more productive than the meditation anyway and let it go at that. Rumi left to embark on her latest project: trying to teach Jinu to cook without causing a house fire. Mira was staying far away from that, but tactfully suggested that perhaps Rumi would be interested in locating the fire extinguisher before getting started. Rumi said grimly, “I found one last night, just in case. I remember what he did to the cup noodles.”

Zoey, for her part, left to go find a warmer jacket for herself and a scarf for Mira, and to locate Mystery and Baby. “I’ll be right back, and then we’ll go for a walk on the beach. Are you sure you’re okay here? Do you need anything? I know, I’ll make some tea for us to bring! I found some thermoses in the kitchen yesterday.”

“Good idea, tea sounds great,” Mira agreed. It was better to give Zoey an outlet for her energy when she got like this. “I’ll wait here, take your time.”

She settled back into her lotus pose again. Meditation hadn’t worked in the last hour or so and wouldn’t work this time either, but she tried. Once again, she found her thoughts drifting back to the day before.

She’d been lying in bed, not asleep yet, just scrolling idly on her phone. Clearing out old emails, reviewing some concept sketches for potential costume designs and scans of Zoey’s lyrics from old notes. Not really doing anything in particular, just trying to stay busy and distracted. A light tap on the door had drawn her attention away, and she’d looked up to find Romance in the doorway with Abby looming behind him.

“Can we come in? Your bandages need to be changed.”

He was right. A creeping sense of dread shivered down her spine, but he was right. She put her phone aside and nodded, accepting them into her space once again. The unease never abated, but remained relegated to background noise while they settled onto the bed with her. Abby at her back, holding her hands; Romance kneeling in front of her to gently unwind the bandages from her arms and ribs. The bruises had darkened over the past few days, livid purple painted in messy streaks and splatters up her ribs, across her arms and shoulders, creeping toward her heart like lines of infection. It hurt, but in a dull, distant way, a grinding ache that couldn’t be forgotten but could be ignored.

“The changes are spreading already,” Romance remarked softly. He traced his claws up the cathedral arch of her ribs, following the dark bruises in their spreading lines. Tracing out patterns. “Don’t worry, we can still fix it.”

“What?” Her thoughts moved slowly, dazed and uncertain. “What do you—”

Her question was lost to a gasp—the breathless exhalation pushed out in a scream that couldn’t find a voice. Romance’s claws pushed through skin and worked past muscle, tugging and snapping bone to make room. His expression remained gentle and patient, golden eyes burning like candles but still so kind, so soft.

“It’s alright,” Abby murmured, pressing a kiss to her hair and holding her arms down at the wrist, held open and defenseless. “Let us help.”

“You don’t need this anyway,” Romance explained gently, tearing her heart out of her chest and holding it up to the light critically. It dripped black rot down his arms and stained the bedding around them. “You never use it; you won’t even notice it’s gone.”

She’d woken up with ragged gasp, clawing at her chest and tangled in the blankets, the restriction an echo of the nightmare. She tore her way out of the bed, staggered into the bathroom unsteadily, and bruised her hip on the doorframe while she slapped at the wall until she found the light switch. Her face was ghastly in the bright lights of the bathroom, tinged gray with pain and exhaustion, her eyes wide and bruise-dark. Her hair fell in a tangled mat down her back, sticking to her skin where it was damp with sweat. She leaned over the sink, bracing her palms on the cold marble, and took deep, shuddering breaths until the shaking started to subside and she felt a little more stable. Then, slowly and carefully, she worked the sweater off over her head. The tank top underneath was pushed down, the straps sliding off her arms until she could work the fabric down to her waist. Slowly, carefully, she evaluated the full extent of her injuries in the mirror under the harsh, bright white lights in the bathroom.

The bruises looked as bad as she remembered, but it didn’t look like it had in her dream. There were no spreading demon patterns, just mundane bruises. The older, lighter bruises at the edges of her ribs had already started to fade from deep purple-black to red-brown and sickly green and yellow. The worst of them were still purple, blue, and black, as were the fresher bruises on her shoulders and down her left arm. They looked awful, as did the claw marks—but it looked normal. She pressed her palm to her heart, her hand cold against her sternum and the curve of her breast; she’d left a few small scratches behind in her panic, but nothing that had drawn more than a few tiny dots of blood. Her heart was still beating too hard and too fast, but with the fading dregs of adrenaline and fear. Nothing more.

She wasn’t supposed to take a shower until the claw marks on her shoulders and arm healed a little more, instead being reduced to the ignominy of a sponge bath like an invalid or an infant. She filled the sink with hot water and cleaned herself up, wiping away the sweat and memories of blood. She made a half-hearted effort to change her bandages; she managed to get the one on her ribs and her arm from wrist to elbow, but had to give up there and left the rest for the morning. Slowly and carefully, she changed clothes and went back to bed. She hadn’t slept again and she’d left all the lamps in the room on, her phone playing music while she worked on her tablet until the sun rose.

She’d been trying so hard not to think about it, but sitting on a small couch in the bright afternoon sunlight pouring through the tall windows, she tried to let herself work through the nightmare. It could just as easily have been a perfectly normal stress dream, she reasoned. The demonic poison still contaminating her was the biggest concern looming over her, and it had only been a few hours since Romance had quietly explained his unfulfilled plan to find and kill her. Even the toughest hunter would probably find that unsettling, and at the moment she wasn’t even remotely close to being a tough hunter. After spending a month or so trying to avoid them as much as she could possibly manage while also living with them, she’d then spent the last few days in almost constant contact with them, and dealing with her injuries and bandages had been uncomfortable every single time without fail. All of it made sense as something that would cause a nightmare. It didn’t have to be anything more than that.

She still couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a sign of something more, something worse. It had the kind of jumbled nonsense logic that dreams had, but there was a ring of truth buried under the reactionary fear. Despite herself, she was reminded of Gwi-ma’s words in her head—whispered poison spoken in her own voice so she’d know the truth of it. She didn’t deserve the family she’d found—she’d turned her blade on Rumi, dragged Zoey into it with her and then shoved her away, too. There was Gwi-ma’s influence underneath it all, but the blame fell at Mira’s feet and she knew it. She and Zoey hadn’t talked about it, after—Zoey tried, had hinted and alluded, but Mira hadn’t wanted to admit that she’d known what Gwi-ma said was real and true. She didn’t deserve them, her chosen family, but she was trying to do what she could to earn their trust back.

She took a few deep, slow breaths, trying to find her center like Celine had taught them. Calm and collected. Not panicking about stupid nightmares, or brooding over demonic poisons, or worrying about the damage she’d done to her family, or the demons holding a grudge against her specifically who were living in her home—just chill, unbothered Mira. She could do this.

She opened her eyes and sighed, preparing to heave herself up and go help Zoey; she could hear her clattering around in the kitchen a few rooms away. As she turned toward the doorway she shifted to stand—and came almost nose to nose with Mystery, who was sitting facing her, his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms loosely folded over them to rest his chin on top.

“Fuck—what the fuck—”

She wished she could say she’d only flinched, but no—Mira launched herself away from him like she’d been shot out of a canon, landed on her ass, and scrambled away across the floor like a scuttling crab until sense caught up and she stopped before she could accidentally throw herself through the window.

“Mystery,” she hissed. He tilted his head in silent inquiry, indicating that he was listening but not otherwise reacting. She made an effort and leveled her tone into something more neutral. “We talked about not sneaking up on me. Remember?”

She’d only pulled a weapon on him once, but she’d also thrown multiple things in purely startled reflex: the tv remote a few times, a couple of pens, a coffee mug once (mostly empty). He’d always managed to catch whatever she threw and handed it back without comment; the overall effect had been like a very quiet game of fetch that only one of them knew they were playing. To his credit, she thought he’d actually made an effort to stop appearing behind her without warning, but now sometimes he’d just materialize in her peripheral vision without a sound. It was a work in progress.

“Zoey asked me to check on you.” In the same way that Baby still sometimes surprised her with how deep his speaking voice was, Mystery still surprised her with how soft and light his voice was—he rarely spoke, preferring to lurk silently in Zoey’s shadow. He laid his head against the curve of his arm, presumably still watching her through the fall of his hair. “Didn’t want to interrupt. Meditating?”

She breathed out a sharp sigh so she didn’t curse at him again. Calm and fucking collected. “Yeah. Sorta. Help me up?”

He unfolded and came over to help. She held her right hand up to him, intending for him to take it and help pull her up, but he picked her up under the arms like a child and lifted her straight up to her feet without any sign of effort. Well. That worked too, and was probably more efficient. Unsettling and weird, but like, that was just Mystery by definition. She was kind of used to it by now.

“Hurt?” he asked, angling his head down to her. She didn’t think she’d opened any of her injuries again, but he could probably still smell the blood.

“No, I’m alright. Thanks.” If it had been Baby (or Romance and Abby) she would have assumed he’d snuck up on her on purpose. If it had been Jinu, he would probably still be falling over himself to apologize and she’d already have assumed it was an accident. With Mystery, she’d never quite been sure which way it landed and wasn’t sure this time either. But he waited until she was steady on her feet and then let his hands drop before he took a step back to give her space, and while he didn’t apologize for scaring her, he also didn’t look obviously amused by the reaction he’d gotten. He didn’t have many visual reactions in general, or at least not that Mira had ever noticed.

He didn’t say anything else, which wasn’t unexpected, but dropped into step with her when she headed for the door. That was a bit unexpected, but then again, if Zoey had asked him to check on her, he’d probably keep her in his sight until they were back to Zoey. Conveniently, that was where she was heading anyway. “Is Zoey still in the kitchen? She mentioned making tea.”

He nodded silently. He didn’t elaborate, but she’d expected to find Rumi and Jinu there too and it wasn’t a surprise to see them. Jinu was eyeing the rice maker with distrust, like a bomb that might go off at any moment, and cutting carrots into matchsticks while Rumi mixed ingredients for a marinade into a large bowl. Baby was at the kitchen island, watching and occasionally heckling Jinu for his knife skills but otherwise keeping out of the way.

“Almost done with the tea!” Zoey said over her shoulder, organizing a line of thermoses and their lids on the counter beside the stove top. “Then we can go.”

Mira moved to sit at the other end of the kitchen island, but Mystery stepped up beside her and silently angled in the other direction, keeping pace when she tried to side-step him until she ended up herded into place between him and Baby. Baby observed this with amusement but didn’t do anything helpful to intervene. Mystery seemed quietly pleased with himself for accomplishing this task, in much the same way that a herding dog might be, and stationed himself at her shoulder like a guard. Mira wondered what Zoey had said to him, verbatim, because this seemed a little excessive for ‘go check on Mira’.

“We’re going to make gimbap,” Rumi told her cheerfully. “Bulgolgi beef and veggies. I thought it’d be an easy first pick for Jinu; it’s one of the first things I learned how to make by myself.”

Her smile dimmed for just a moment, a little flicker, before she pushed through it and added her thoughts about a proper marinade for the beef. Mira understood what she hadn’t said; Celine had raised her, and Celine had taught her to cook. Had taught her everything, really—even when she wasn’t being spoken of by name and even when they weren’t contacting her, Celine’s presence was still felt heavily over them all.

Mira had idolized her in every sense of the word—first following her solo career and finding her past music with the Sunlight Sisters, and then awed by her in person, honored to have been chosen to join Rumi and Zoey as idols and even more so to learn about the history of the hunters and her part in their story. Now...it was hard to think of Celine without also remembering the shattered look on Rumi’s face, or the shamed, whispered confession of what she’d asked Celine to do, holding out her own spiritual weapon and certain she was demon enough then to have the blade turned against her when it wouldn’t have harmed her before as a hunter, as a (mostly) human.

“Rumi taught me to make gimbap too,” Mira added, trying to divert the unspoken memories away from Celine’s shadow and back to the newer, brighter memories they’d made together. “I never learned to cook at home; Rumi and Zoey had to teach me everything they know.”

Jinu flicked a curious glance her way. “You didn’t learn with your family? When I was human, most girls learned to cook from their mothers.”

Two points in his favor: first, he genuinely didn’t understand why it was funny when he said things that basically came down to, “Back in my day…” like the old man he actually was; and second, while it was common knowledge that Mira didn’t get along with her family, he probably didn’t have any reason to know the extent of it. Rumi winced and shot a guilty glance at Mira, confirming what she’d already guessed; Rumi hadn’t mentioned it to him, so he hadn’t known it was a sensitive question.

“Nope,” Mira told him, moving right along. Not his fault, and nothing he needed to know about in any detail. “My mom was big on formal education; not so much for domestic stuff. I’d honestly be surprised if she even knows how. Zoey had to teach me how the washer and dryer worked in our first dorms.”

“To be fair, most of our costumes are dry-clean only anyway,” Zoey added. “It’s not that weird that you might not know how to use the machines. Anyway, you picked up everything really quickly.”

And, more importantly, those were all tasks that Mira’s parents dictated to being “the staff’s business”. Mira had been taught to manage household finances, hold bland small talk in cocktail parties, how to arrange and host a dinner party, and how not to “embarrass her breeding” by speaking out of turn.

Mira had done a fantastic job of undoing all of the effort her parents had put in to make her a quiet, unobtrusive lady who would quietly, unobtrusively marry one of their business partner’s sons and have a quiet, unobtrusive life. Though she supposed some of it had its uses; she could follow along with Bobby’s spreadsheets without difficulty and double check the numbers, although she trusted him enough that she didn’t often bother anymore. She had learned the basics of formal ballroom dancing, ballet, and piano as a child, and had later spun that into her interest in contemporary dance and music. And bland small talk went a long way toward smoothing over awkward moments in interviews, fan events, and producer meetings. The rest didn’t matter much, and she didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it anymore.

So instead of dwelling on it now, she added, “Bobby’s a pretty good cook too. You should see if he’ll give up the secret of his jjajangmyeon recipe sometime.”

“I’m pretty sure the secret is that he used a pre-made sauce,” Zoey laughed.

“Hey, you don’t know that. He’s a man of many mysteries. Actually wait, has anybody texted him an update today? I forgot to earlier.”

“I did,” Rumi said, and fished out her phone to show Mira the selfie he’d sent: off-center and out of focus because he’d taken it with a sheet mask on and cucumber slices over his eyes. “He’s doing okay. He said he got a delivery to his hotel of a bunch of blazers?”

“Wow, those delivered fast,” Mira said, impressed. She’d paid a hell of a lot to make sure they delivered fast, but even still, that was an impressive turn-around time. “Yeah, I replaced his jacket. And got a little carried away, maybe. I’ll tell him to try them on and make sure they all fit.”

She sent him a distracted text to that effect, half listening to Rumi and Zoey talking about doing a spa trip for the three of them soon. She’d have to get with Bobby sometime before their next performance and come up with a cover story for all the scars she was going to end up with. She could try to keep them covered, and to some extent probably would, but it wouldn’t always be feasible and eventually rumors would start to circulate. It was better to get ahead of it with a press release. And then avoid all comment sections for the next few years. Maybe they could tell people she’d fought off a shark while they were at the beach; that sounded appropriately badass and would preserve her reputation better than the lighting rig story or the wild dog. She could already guess at the worst of the comments, accusing her of one-upping Rumi, probably. Or an attempt to replicate her tattoos gone wrong, maybe. Most of their fans were great—supportive, friendly, kind to other commenters and to them. But some of them could get a little…unpleasant. Their lives were very public, so everything they did or said could easily become fair game online.

The buzz of a text pulled her out of her circling thoughts. Bobby, thanking her for the replacement jackets. A few more texts followed, him posing in the blazers and pulling increasingly exaggerated Vogue faces for the camera.

You look great! She told him. GQ Man of the Year.

I’m too pretty to be a manager, he agreed. And, after a pause, How are you feeling?

The honest answer? Fucking terrified. And exhausted, and angry. Ashamed that she couldn’t be stronger, more resilient, more resistant. She was a hunter—nothing should even be capable of scaring her like this, shaking her down to the foundations of herself. And she was tired, tired down to her bones, tired in a heavy, dragging way that sleep couldn’t fix.

Getting better. Still a little tired and sore.

File that under ‘true enough’, she thought grimly. Skirting the edges of a blatant lie, but...close enough to pass, probably.

Zoey passed out thermoses to her, Mystery, and Baby. “Tea’s done! Everyone ready?”

“Ready,” Mira confirmed, pocketing her phone after glancing at Bobby’s reply, telling her to get plenty of rest and let him know if she wanted him to find a doctor. She took the thermos and tried to force a smile.

Zoey was wearing two scarves, one on top of the other. The reason was revealed when she unwound the top one and draped it around Mira instead, carefully wrapping it to make sure it covered her neck but didn’t snag on any of the taped edges of the bandages showing from the collar of her sweater. “There—all set. Let’s go! I want to look for shells and sea glass.”

Mystery stationed himself at Zoey’s side as she waved to Rumi and Jinu and headed for the door that led out to the beach. Mira followed her out, and Baby hopped down from his seat at the counter to follow behind her.

She wasn’t sure if it was a little warmer out this afternoon or if she was just better dressed for it this time, but it wasn’t as awful outside as it had been up on the balcony the day before. Baby still made a discontented sound and tucked his thermos under his arm so he could yank his beanie down low over his ears. Mira raised an eyebrow at him.

“I thought you guys aren’t bothered by the temperature as long as you’re not, like, actively on fire.”

“I don’t know if we can be set on fire,” he said, sounding grumpy and inconvenienced. “But I don’t like my ears getting cold.”

Maybe Abby actually had been cold yesterday, Mira mused. She’d assumed it was just an excuse to try to cuddle up to her. Then she abruptly remembered the conversation that had followed and looked down with a scowl.

The walkway from the house led down a steep set of stairs and then out to the open stretch of sand, interspersed with tough, scrubby patches grass until it gradually gave way to clear sand and driftwood, only a few hundred yards away down to the shoreline. The sand shifted underfoot, her sneakers unsuited for it, and she kept her eyes down to watch her footing and make sure she didn’t trip. Baby drifted closer until he could nudge his elbow into hers. At least he was on her right, the relatively uninjured side, and he’d been careful not to elbow her too hard.

“Sooo…” he drawled, his tone leading. Horrible little gremlin; she shot him a warning glare and shifted out of range of his awful, pointy elbows.

“What?”

“You talk to Abby and Ro yet? Is that why all three of you are sulking today?”

“I’m not sulking,” she snapped, but kept her voice low and checked to make sure Zoey hadn’t overheard. She and Mystery had pulled ahead of them—she was holding his hand and pointing excitedly at some kind of long-legged sea bird; he leaned in toward her with interest and focus in every line of his body even without being able to make out his expression from here.

Keeping her voice down, she added, “Yes, we talked. You could have just told me when I asked you, you know. It would have saved me the trouble.”

He gave her his best maknae expression of exaggerated innocence, wide-eyed and shocked. “And step in the middle of a lover’s quarrel? I’d never.”

She leveled a flat, unimpressed stare at him. “You know damn well that’s not even remotely close to what this was.”

He dropped the fake innocence and looked genuinely puzzled now. “I mean, it kind of is. Are we having the same conversation? What did they tell you, specifically?”

“About the whole revenge plot murder-suicide?” She said pointedly, incredulous. “It was pretty memorable, you can’t tell me you forgot. Why, did Romance tell you something different when you found him?”

“Oh, that.” He waved “the whole revenge plot murder-suicide” away casually. “I mean, yeah, I knew that already. And I figured you’d get mad about it when he told you, but if you’re open to accepting some constructive criticism then I suggest you three just have angry sex about it and then move on.”

Mira tripped over nothing at all; Baby caught her elbow and hauled her back up before she could hit the ground. He rolled his eyes but held her arm until she was steady again. “There’s no way that was shocking advice. You live with Zoey and Mystery and Rumi and Jinu—literally that is the first advice you would have gotten from anyone you asked.”

“Abby was right,” she marveled. “You really are the worst person I know.”

“See? You guys already agree on stuff. So just go fuck about the rest of it and—”

“I’m not interested in a revenge threesome,” she hissed at him. She could feel herself blushing, the cold wind stinging against the heat in her cheeks.

“I highly recommend it,” he told her matter-of-factly. “Ten out of ten, would fuck about it again—”

“Oh my god, stop—”

“But, even aside from my very excellent advice, didn’t they also tell you the rest? That Ro gave up on the revenge thing—which was a stupid plan anyway and I think even he knows that—and they came back so they could get to know you. And they know better than to start shit again. No attacking, no threatening, no taking over the world, and no going into dressing rooms: those were the rules.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “They didn’t, right? No threats, no attacks?”

“No,” she said slowly. “Not...not exactly, no. It wasn’t a great conversation to have, about the revenge-murder plot. And I’m not super thrilled with you for bringing them back with you when you knew what he’d been planning, by the way. But they didn’t actually threaten me when we talked about it; they just told me what they would have done—if Romance was coming for revenge, or if the fight at Namsan Tower had gone differently. I already knew some of it, I guess, we just never actually talked about it.”

He shrugged casually. “Plans change. Ro didn’t even have a real plan when I found him, he was just angry, grieving. Hurting. Honestly, I don’t think he would have survived long enough to become a problem for you. And after, I would have torn them in half before I let them start a fight again; not after I’d already put in the work to get you three to stop attacking on sight all the fucking time. But I mean, I get it—you think I was happy about how that all went down? You think I never pushed around some plans for revenge too? Not on you three; don’t make that face at me. Jinu.”

Mira—who for the record, was certain she had not been making a face—immediately tried to stop having any sort of facial expression at all but ended up frowning at him anyway. “Jinu? What—oh. Because of the Gwi-ma thing. Helping Rumi.”

“Demons don’t work together most of the time,” he told her bluntly. “We’ll attack in force if we have to, when Gwi-ma pushed us to, but we don’t go out of our way for each other. We’re not friends; we don’t hang out together. Ro and Abby are kind of an exception to the rule, paired up like they are, but mostly we keep to ourselves. When Jinu came to me with his idiotic plan I told him to go fuck himself. But he kept coming back, kept trying to persuade me to help him. I could see what he was getting at it, could see how it might work, but it could only succeed if all five of us could work together.

“I knew who Jinu was, and I knew Ro and Abby by reputation. I’d never even heard of Mystery until this; I still don’t know how Jinu found him. It was a risk—any part of it could have gone wrong, and we’d either end up eaten by Gwi-ma or fucking atomized by you three. And then it worked. It worked perfectly, right up until the end. When he couldn’t stick to his own fucking plan. He left us to die for her. He knew her for, what, all of two weeks? Barely? So, yeah, I’m fine with it now. I’ll even agree he made a good call there at the end and it worked out. But right in the aftermath of it? I had some different opinions and I made some different plans. I even thought about helping Rumi pull the idiot out of his little martyr sword-prison so I could kill him myself. But plans change, and I didn’t.”

Mira eyed him thoughtfully. “...Do we need to put Jinu in some kind of witness protection program?”

He flashed a smile, and while it looked genuinely amused there were also fangs glinting at the edges of it. “First of all, there is nowhere he could go that would be safe from me. He and I both know it. And second, I don’t know why I have to keep reminding you of this, but you live in giant fuck-off tower with your group name on the side of it. It’s not like it’d be hard to find him again; anywhere Rumi goes, he’ll show up eventually.”

“...Right.”

“But no,” he added as an afterthought. “No, we’re good. It’s fine. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt Rumi, which means by extension he wouldn’t let Zoey or you get hurt either. That gives us a common goal. As long as we don’t have to work against each other again I don’t think we’ll have any problems. And that was my point with Ro and Abby: you agreed not to hurt them, and they agreed not to hurt anybody. Everyone’s grudges are done with, you can start over now. So why aren’t you starting over?”

“It’s...it’s not as simple as that,” she said slowly, trying to piece together a real answer instead of just snapping at him. Seeing him open his mouth to respond, she added sharply, “And having sex about it is not a solution.”

“Really great start though,” he said idly, and rolled his eyes at the expression she was definitely making this time. “So start small then. Hang out, watch movies and talk. Tell Ro you think all the classical poets were garbage and watch him have a meltdown about it for an hour. Go spar with Abby—without weapons—and then probably fuck.”

“They’re already together,” she pointed out stiffly, uncomfortably aware she was pointing this out to someone currently in some sort of undefined three-person entanglement. “They’re not—they don’t want—that was some stupid revenge thing, before. They don’t want...whatever you, Zoey, and Mystery are doing. It’s not the same thing.”

“I think you should ask Zoey what we’re doing,” he said, equally pointed. “It sounds like it would be very educational for you. Might clear some things up, maybe give you some ideas.”

“I’m going to drown you in the ocean,” she informed him. She’d probably be awarded some kind of trophy for outstanding civic service if she did, or like, an Olympic gold medal in demon hunting.

“Unlikely. Demons can hold their breath for a really long time, if you didn’t know.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. It was extremely horrible to watch. “You should ask Zoey about that, too.”

Zoey was too far ahead of them to overhear, but, appallingly, Mystery wrapped his arm around her and glanced back over his shoulder with an absolutely awful, smug smile. Mira reconsidered her options: drowning herself would be easier and faster, and then she wouldn’t have to live with the memory of this conversation.

“I’m not going to kick them out as long as they don’t try to pick a fight or hurt anybody,” Mira said, ignoring every part of the last few minutes. They’d reached the tide line now and the damp sand was firm, packed solid underfoot so she didn’t have to watch her step quite as carefully anymore. She looked out across the ocean for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “We’ll just keep out of each other’s way. It’s fine. There’s nothing else to talk about, and after things with this new demon are handled everything can just go back to normal. We won’t have to be around each other anymore.”

She looked back over at him in time to catch a glimpse of his expression—exasperation, incredulity—before it smoothed out into something neutral. “Okay. That’s fair, if you don’t want them around you anymore. But you should talk to them about it at least, so they know. And it’d be a good idea to let them keep helping you with your bandages and tracking the poison, as long as that’s still okay with you.”

She eyed him suspiciously. That was the tone of a man made entirely out of ulterior motives; she didn’t trust it as far as she could (currently) throw him. Worse, he was using that tone to agree with her, at least nominally. But he was agreeing, so she nodded firmly and pushed ahead. “I’ll let them help with that, at least until the poison fades enough that I’m healing like normal again. I probably won’t need as much help with the bandages in a few days anyway.”

“Right, tell them that, but you’re also going to tell them you think they don’t really want to be around you and you’re fine with that?” He added in a prompting tone, “And then tell me how that conversation goes, because I am very invested in this now.”

“Pretty sure we already covered that yesterday,” she said flatly, unwilling to play along with him this time. “I don’t think there’s any need to get into it again. I got it, okay? Message received. I don’t want to keep hearing about the failed revenge plot against me. We were getting along a little easier, but they don’t want to be around me. And I was already perfectly happy not to be around them, so now we’re all on the same page about it. It’s fine; it’s done.”

“I think there’s a small chance you’re not as much on the same page as you think,” he told her, and while he was probably trying to stay all neutral and even again, he was definitely laughing a little. She glared at him. “No, really—look, just humor me, okay? Make sure you tell them that. In those words, specifically. You’ve had the epiphany that they were following you around out of some baffling idea of revenge and you want it to stop, but you’re fine with them hanging around platonically. Tell them that, alright?”

“You’re being weirder than usual,” she told him bluntly. “That’s not even what I said. I know they’ve been being dicks out of some stupid revenge-plot related reason, but we’re all just going to ignore that and move on now. And, sure, they can still hang around or whatever; I don’t care as long as it doesn’t involve me directly and they don’t hurt anybody.”

“Close enough,” he agreed. He shook his head with a laugh. “You three are made for each other, you know that? No, what am I saying; of course you don’t know. I mean that in the nicest way possible, by the way, so don’t stab me when you get your weapon back.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m serious. I thought it was just Abby at first—he has a type, right? He’s not subtle about it, even you have to have noticed it by now. Anyone who’s spent more than two minutes around them together can tell Abby has a type. And you and Ro both fit that type exactly. But this week made me realize that Ro has a type too, and it fits you and Abby perfectly.” He snickered. “But no, definitely tell them about how you just want to be totally platonic friends. That’s a great plan and you should do it. Today, if possible; maybe when we get back. Zoey wanted to make popcorn anyway.”

She glared at him and considered trying to throw him in the ocean on principle. It would probably backfire horribly so she didn’t, but she thought about it. “That is not even remotely true. I’m not their type. And even if that was true—which it isn’t—it doesn’t matter anyway because they aren’t my type.”

He came to a complete stop so he could devote his entire attention to giving her a disbelieving stare. She ignored it and kept walking; they’d fallen too far behind Mystery and Zoey anyway. “I’m serious. Being pretty isn’t enough to outweigh the part where they’re carrying around a grudge because I had to defend myself. They aren’t my type and I’m not theirs, don’t be weird.”

“That’s fair if you feel that way about them,” he conceded, but very pointedly. “And if you don’t have any other feelings about them at all, then sure. But Abby? Pretty, competent people who are just a little bit mean and who could beat him in a fight. Frankly, the entire penthouse is a deathtrap for that poor kid; I don’t think he’s had a coherent thought in months. And Ro? Pretty, protective people who are just a little bit oblivious and who he wants to take care of—again, it’s inspirational how he can ever manage to focus around here.”

“I’m not oblivious,” she objected, and ignored him when he said, “HAH,” so loudly that Zoey glanced uncertainly back to check on them. “This is just because of those fucking hashtags, isn’t it? Those things ruined my life.”

Her personal peace had ended the moment fucking #miroabby went viral. Downward spiral ever since, as far as she was concerned.

He paused. “...Hashtags?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what those are, I know you’re better with technology than you pretend to be for Zoey. The tags that got popular from the signing event—rujinu, miroabby, zoeystery; I know you know what I’m talking about.”

He went mh-hm, his voice suddenly high and tight in a very unnatural way. She shot him a suspicious glare. He’d pressed his lips together and furrowed his brow like he was concentrating very hard...or like he was trying not to laugh.

He was, in fact, very good with technology. She’d seen him play dumb for Zoey so she’d lean over him to reach his phone and point things out to him helpfully, until she ended up practically in his lap and he was radiating smugness. But she’d also watched him seamlessly navigate digital menus and search functions on all sorts of devices when Zoey wasn’t around. And the Saja Boys had been very well marketed. Suspiciously so, considering that they didn’t have a manager or a PR team. And, okay, Jinu was actually very clever, not that Mira would ever tell him so, but he texted like a grandpa and he had no idea what social media was. She was pretty sure Jinu still thought ‘the Internet’ was a job title and one singular person was answering his questions when he typed something into a search bar.

“Baby. Be completely serious right now. Tell me you didn’t create those fucking hashtags.”

He concentrated harder. After a pause to, apparently, gather his strength or work through some personal turmoil, he said, “I didn’t create...all of the hashtags. ‘Join the Pride’ was Abby’s idea.”

Motherfucker. Mira sighed deeply, so he’d know he was causing her tremendous personal pain. “… You’re awful, do you know that? You should know that."

“I do know that. You like me anyway.” He said it confidently. But from the corner of her eye, she could see the flicker of an uncertain glance that accompanied it.

Emotional honesty wasn’t their thing, ever, but...ugh, positive reinforcement, or whatever, so.

“You remind me of my little brother,” she admitted after a pause to gather her nerve.

“...How so?” And, in a moment of realization, added quickly, “We’re the same height; you aren’t taller than me just because you stomp around in high heels all the time—”

“Not because you’re a teeny-tiny little pipsqueak, which you are,” she told him. “But because he was also kind of awful. Our parents raised us like they were training employees; we were barely even allowed to be friends, much less like actual siblings. But we used to sneak out of bed and watch movies or shows together sometimes. Things our parents wouldn’t have approved of, since it was frivolous and a waste of time. We were supposed to be focusing on lessons and filial piety or whatever. He liked horror and dumb action movies; we used to make fun of the acting and effects.”

He considered that quietly for a moment while they walked. “...You aren’t in contact with any of your family anymore, right? Zoey mentioned it once.”

“Right. We got caught hanging out and we both got in trouble; we weren’t supposed to even have access to any kind of ‘unapproved media’, but I’d smuggled in some movies. He got shipped off to some boarding school and I ran away to go to an idol recruitment event. I met Celine and started all this, and officially got emancipated from my parents. He’s never tried to contact me.” She shrugged and tried not to show that it still hurt. “He probably couldn’t have when he was younger, I know, but he turned nineteen a few months ago and I still haven’t heard from him. Probably better that way—our parents would give him a hard time if he did, and it would just make trouble for him. Anyway, not the point. I just meant that I do like you. Even though you’re objectively terrible in every conceivable way, and I sincerely hope you know that.”

“Right. I do know that.” He was quiet for another moment, then said slowly, “Things are different now than when I was human, so I don’t know how it works here. But I think you should try to contact him. Maybe you didn’t notice, but you’re kind of a big celebrity now? He might not have been able to reach you even if he’d tried, or might not even know how to try. Once this demon is out of the way and you’ve healed, maybe you should try to call him.”

She considered it. It was, frankly, kind of a terrifying thought—if she didn’t try, she could still imagine that there was a possibility they could reconnect someday. But if she tried and he didn’t want to talk to her...that was it. Though she supposed it would be better to know, one way or the other. “...Yeah. Maybe. Once things settle down and it’s safer. I wouldn’t want to meet him if I might put him in danger.”

He nodded slightly. “Right, good call. Also? I’m a lot older than you. So if anything, I’m a helpful big brother and you should listen to my advice about Ro and Abby too.”

She feigned confusion. “But I’m taller than you, so—”

He caught her wrist unexpectedly, his expression suddenly focused and sharp. He barked, “Mystery,” his voice urgent and cold, and ahead of them Mystery grabbed Zoey as she was trying to turn to look back at them. They vanished in an instant.

“The demon’s coming?” Mira guessed quietly. The force of his grip ground against the bones of her wrist, and his expression was tense and drawn with pain and focus. They’d both dropped their thermoses, but she was considering whether or not they could be used as a weapon. She didn’t like their odds though, frankly. Where was Rumi with a fire extinguisher or Zoey with a pen when you needed them?

“Think so. And I’m trying to teleport us, but nothing’s happening,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. His demon form rippled over him in a sudden rush and he hissed out a sharp, pained sound. “Fuck.”

She’d been wondering why they weren’t teleporting back to the house, so that answered that. She pulled her wrist out of his grip (more accurately: she pulled ineffectively against him until he noticed and let go), then wrapped her arm around him and hauled him with her back up the beach. “Huh. It learned some new tricks. Cool. Let’s go, we’re walking back. Come on, keep up with me—I know you have short little legs, but you can do it.”

He stumbled but was clearly trying to keep himself moving, even as she had to take more and more of his weight as they went. Whatever was happening to him obviously hurt, but he was quiet and tried to keep walking as she held him up. Her ribs and shoulder burned in protest against the strain of holding him up; he was heavier than he looked and they both stumbled their way across the sand toward the house.

He jerked unexpectedly and his legs gave out entirely, sending them both down to their knees in the sand. “Fuck—Mira, you gotta run, it’s here—”

She looked over her shoulder and saw the demon had materialized a short distance away, walking slowly as it followed in their tracks up the tide line. It was still shrouded in smoke but the wind whipped most of it away, revealing the demon’s form for the first time. She had the impression of a tall, thin man, his hands tucked behind his back as he strolled idly up the beach toward them. The smoke was gathered thickly around his face, obscuring him from view, but gleaming demon-gold eyes burned out of the darkness, focused intently on them.

“Shit. Shit, fuck, okay, let’s go, get up.” She threw his arm around her shoulders, heedless of the pain, and locked her other arm around his waist. She pushed up with her legs and managed to heave them both upright, although Baby wasn’t much help now, hanging off her shoulder even as he tried to gather himself up. “Come on, we need to go.”

“No, just—ah, fuck, not you idiots,” he groaned, as Mystery, Jinu, Abby, and Romance all appeared together just ahead of where they stood. They started to run toward her, but only made it a few staggering steps each before whatever the smoke demon was doing flattened them all. Baby faltered again with a grunt of pain and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth; he’d been trying to hold himself upright with her but dropped again when they did, dead weight in her arms pulling them both back down.

The beach house was still a few hundred yards away from where they stood, but even at this distance Mira could hear a door bang open and the distant sound of Rumi and Zoey shouting. She couldn’t see them yet, but she knew they were coming. They weren’t as fast as they used to be now that they couldn’t access the Honmoon. Just like she wasn’t as strong anymore; she could barely lift Baby like this and she certainly couldn’t carry him. She definitely couldn’t move all five of these idiots, and she wouldn’t be able to protect Rumi and Zoey when they got here.

She eased Baby down onto the sand near Jinu and let go. Baby, cursing heatedly the whole time, fumbled clumsily to try to catch her but she pushed his hands away. She caught Jinu’s eye and held his gaze for a moment, projecting the unshakable confidence of her stage persona because it was all she had left now. Of all of them, she thought he would be the one most likely to actually listen to her when she said firmly, “Protect Rumi and Zoey. Okay? Get them out of here.”

She heard a chorus of their voices behind her as she stood and turned to meet the smoke demon—an overlapping clash of “Mira!” and “No!” from Abby and Jinu, a wordless snarl from Mystery, and “The fuck are you doing?” from Baby and Romance hitting a surprisingly good unison; that idol training had really paid off—but she didn’t look back as she walked to meet the demon where he was strolling up behind them. He looked as casual as a tourist, not overtly threatening, but he’d also flattened five of the most powerful demons she’d ever fought without even lifting a finger.

“What do you want?” she demanded. He stopped a short distance from her, just slightly too far for him to reach her. Up close he was very tall, broad-shouldered and cloaked in wispy streamers of black smoke. She planted herself like a barricade between him and her useless pile of idiot demons, between him and the distant sound of Rumi and Zoey getting closer every second. She met his gaze without flinching and lifted her chin, refusing to be intimidated.

He held out one pale, clawed hand to her in invitation. She’d expected a snarl or the discordant overtones of a demonic vocal register. It was jarring and surreal to hear a polite, smooth voice issuing out of the nightmarish void that hid his face. “Come with me. I will leave the rest unharmed.”

The pile of idiots behind her snarled like dogs, but none of them were capable of rising. They couldn’t defend themselves, much less her. They wouldn’t be able to help Rumi and Zoey get somewhere safe either...not while the smoke demon was still here. And on such short notice, there was only one way she could think of to get him to leave.

In the distance, drawing closer with each second, she could hear Zoey and Rumi. Screaming, crying. Hurling threats and pleas in equal measure. They sounded terrified; close enough now to pick out a few words, close enough that she’d probably see them if she dared look back—the way the smoke demon was looking now, his attention shifting past her to look in their direction.

It was an easy choice. She’d always pick their safety over hers. She had to take a step closer to do it, but she took the demon’s hand and didn’t look back at anyone so she wouldn’t lose her nerve.

The world dissolved away from her.

Chapter Text

Mira couldn’t even tell where they’d ended up this time—being teleported around with the smoke demon was debilitating. He made no effort to catch her when she crumpled to the ground, just let her drop and left her to gasp and heave for air on her hands and knees. As bad as it had been to teleport with Abby and Romance, this was far worse. She choked on the taste of smoke, a bitter tar reek filling her nose and mouth, and coughed up thick, oily smoke until she could pull in clean air again.

She finally managed to push herself up to her knees and look around to gauge her surroundings. She had braced for the worst—the demon realm itself, maybe, or some dark, blood-splattered basement in an abandoned building. It took a moment to make sense of it, her brain rejecting the familiar setting at first because it was the farthest thing from what she’d expected to see—he’d taken them to Celine’s home. The ancient training grounds for dozens of generations of past hunters. The massive tree that was planted on a nexus point of the Honmoon swayed gently in the breeze just ahead of them, the afternoon air clean and cold around them.

The demon had walked away from her while she was recovering, his hands folded neatly behind his back. Still shaking and unsteady, she kept her eyes on his back and slipped her hand into her pocket for her phone, but paused when he bowed, low and respectful, to someone she couldn’t see. Celine?

But no—it wasn’t a person at all. He’d bowed to a grave marker; the tablet for Rumi’s mom. He turned back to face Mira and she could see the writing on the tablet just past him: Ryu Mi-yeong.

“I will take that from you for now, please,” he said, holding his hand out again. His voice was deep and calm; pleasant even, if it hadn’t been for the context. He dropped the obscuring smoke now, too, the last of it seeping away from him in blurred ribbons. Now she could see he was a tall, narrowly built man wearing all black, broad-shouldered but slender overall. His face looked somewhat familiar in a way that was hard to place; high-cheekbones and wide eyes framed with long lashes, a straight nose and sharp slash of a mouth in a severe line. In his demonic form his skin was a very pale lavender-gray, waxen and nearly cadaverous. The patterns across his skin were jagged, like slashes of a knife, and so deep in color that they appeared nearly black against the paler contrast of his skin.

His hair fell to his waist, a familiar shade of purple. Even the loose wave pattern of his hair was familiar. Rumi was so like her mother in many ways, but the family resemblance was unmistakable here, too: Rumi’s hair, Rumi’s cheekbones, the shape of Rumi’s eyes burning a deep red-gold. The familiar lift of Rumi’s smile, turning him from severe and threatening to something a little softer and kinder. “Ah—you have some guess of who I am now, I see.”

“You—you’re, you’re Rumi’s…”

“Her father,” he supplied, when she couldn’t force the word out. He inclined his head to her slightly, regal and proud. “My name is Seojun. Your phone, please—it would be terribly inconvenient to be interrupted at the moment.”

Mira shoved unsteadily up to her feet, making a half-hearted effort to brush sand and dirt from her clothes and hands. She pulled her phone from her pocket as it buzzed with another call, as it had been doing since she’d landed in the dirt. Rumi’s face smiled up from the screen to show who was calling; he looked solemnly down at her photo for a moment when Mira placed the phone gingerly in his hand, then tucked it away into the pocket of his long black coat.

“Why’d you attack her?” Mira demanded. “If—if Rumi’s your daughter, why are you attacking her like this? What’d she ever do to you?”

“Not her. Not really. Just you, Mira.”

Well. Shit.

Her expression made him smile again, very slightly. “We have some things to talk about, I think. Inside. Celine isn’t here at the moment, but she’ll be back fairly soon. There are a few things we must clear up before she returns. Come along. Would you like some tea? You look cold.”

“If you’re trying to hurt Rumi or Celine, I’ll—” Mira forced out the words harshly, threatening, but he laughed. The same deep, rolling, threatening sound she remembered from the studio after he’d torn up her shoulders. She suppressed a shudder, her stomach twisting into a knot as she remembered, abruptly, just how useless she was right now.

“You’ll what? Stop me?” Seojun spread his arms wide as though inviting her to try, and she clenched her empty fists around the memory of what it felt like to pull her woldo from the Honmoon, trying...but nothing happened. He regarded her keenly, his expression focused and sharp as a blade. “Would you protect Rumi?”

“Yes.” The word was out before she could even think about it, didn’t need to think about it, but...what could she do?

“Will you indeed? How?”

Great question. No fucking idea, but trust the process, right? Mira would work it out as she went. For now, all she could do was stall for time. He wanted to talk? Fine, they’d talk. Every second he wasted here with her was another second longer for Jinu and his little band of idiots to get Rumi and Zoey as far away as possible. She made herself take a deep breath and found a stable center.

She hadn’t been nervous about a performance in a very long time, but then, this was a very important performance.

“I don’t know. But I won’t let you hurt her.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said encouragingly, condescendingly, and gestured her toward the old house at the base of the hill. “Come along. I’ll make tea.”

It made her skin crawl to turn her back to him, but it wasn’t like she could stop him just by being able to see it coming if he attacked. She turned stiffly and walked down the hill. Over her shoulder, she said, “What do you want?”

“I told you. Just to talk, for now. To you, at least. For Celine...that will depend, I suppose, on what she has to say for herself. But let’s start with you, Mira. I assume by now you have some idea of what I did to you?”

“You poisoned us.” She shot a glare over her shoulder. “All of us.”

He waved an idle hand dismissively. “Oh, barely. A minor side effect for Rumi and...er, the other one, the small one. I forget her name, my apologies; I’m not good with names, I’m afraid. But you, yes. Do you know what it is? Did any of those little demons following you about know? They’re all very young; I wasn’t certain any of them would know enough to guess what it was.”

The casual dismissal of what he’d done to Rumi and Zoey made her seethe with silent, impotent rage, but this wasn’t the time to let her short fuse get the better of her. Play along, she reminded herself. Stall for time.

“They thought it was two different things. One that cut us off from the Honmoon, and one to...to turn us into demons.” She refused to look back at him this time, but as she walked up the steps to Celine’s door she could hear the quiet creak of floorboards on the porch behind her. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end; he must have been directly behind her. “It didn’t work, if that’s what you were trying to do. We’re not demons. We’re not like you.”

He reached past her shoulder and she flinched away before she could stop herself, but he just touched the door lightly and the lock turned on its own with a soft click. “After you. I’m impressed—that’s more thorough than I expected. Those boys aren’t as stupid as they look, I suppose. Very good.”

Mira wrenched open the door and resisted the temptation to slam it closed in his face as she walked inside. He followed behind her and closed the door gently. Unsettlingly, he already seemed to know his way around—he walked past her and led the way confidently into the kitchen.

“Is that what you were really trying to do?” she asked, making a conscious effort to try to keep her voice level and, if not respectful, at least low and calm. Enough to (hopefully) not provoke him into attacking, at least. “Make us demons?”

“Not as such, but what they told you was correct. Mi-yeong used to say I was ‘a stack of cheap tricks in a trench coat’; that is to say, I have an inherent ability to sever other beings from their power—hunter and demon alike. For hunters, that merely means that I can temporarily sever your ability to access the Honmoon. For demons, it means I can cut away any useful attributes they may possess and take it for my own. Doing so will, of course, destroy the demon utterly, but I have always found that to be very useful as well. I have accumulated many useful abilities over the years.”

“The smoke,” Mira realized, recalling how Romance and Baby had both been sure that the smoke was an affectation, not a true ability. They’d had a hard time articulating it, but they’d been as sure as they could be in the circumstances. It made more sense now.

“Yes. And the poison, and a number of other things. The poison will wear off in time, and your connection to the Honmoon is only blocked temporarily. Only a few days, perhaps a week at most.” He filled the kettle and set it on the stove top to heat, then rummaged around in the cabinets until he located tea bags and mugs. “I realize I am asking this as someone who has poisoned you twice this week already, but I hope you will join me for a cup of tea? No more poison, I promise.”

Under no circumstance would she be drinking it, but she’d already resolved to stall for time and play nice as long as possible, so: “Yes, please. Thank you.”

“Of course.” He dropped a tea bag into two mugs and put the box of tea neatly back where he’d found it, tidying up seemingly from habit. Very polite, for a demon. “Now, you already know of the poison, and you know that it can tip a human towards turning into a demon. Typically that wouldn’t affect a hunter, by the way—if you should ever happen to encounter it again in the future, I wouldn’t worry about it. But of course, with my other abilities, it has affected you. You already knew that. Do you understand why?”

Her first guess, ‘Because you’re a fucking dick’ probably wasn’t the correct response. Accurate, but not a great idea to point it out right now. He seemed to be waiting expectantly for a response, his arms folded over his chest while he watched her patiently, so she offered up her second and third guesses. “Something to do with the Honmoon? Or just to hurt us, specifically.”

“Close, anyway. Just you, specifically.”

Cool. Great. Good talk.

He tilted his head to the side thoughtfully, smiling a little. It didn’t make him look kinder this time. “No outcry? No demands that I answer for my crimes? No tearful pleas to spare your life?”

That all sounded exhausting, frankly. She leveled her most unimpressed stare at him, usually reserved for reporters asking rude and invasive questions. “Did you want me to?”

He laughed again, a low rumble of sound that seeped into the cold shadows of the room and made it all just that much darker. “Not at all, but you may if you’d like. One of my many cheap tricks is the ability to observe at great distances—it takes a great deal of effort, of course, and I need something familiar to focus my attention. I was...indisposed for much of the past twenty-four years, trapped by Gwi-ma. And then, remarkably, his focus turned elsewhere. His power grew but his attention divided as the Honmoon began to rupture. I was able to make an attempt to look beyond the confines of my prison for the first time since I was placed there. My very first priority was to find Rumi, of course. What do you suppose I saw?”

There were a lot of options for that, most of them...not great. Some of them maybe bad enough that yet another demon might come after her specifically for revenge due to the events of that night. “Depends on how early into the Idol Awards that was, I guess.”

“What I saw, Mira, was you pointing a spiritual weapon at my little girl.”

Yeah. Yeah, that was one of the not-great options.

He waited, but she had no response for him this time. “No defense for that, either?”

She shook her head silently, heartsick and ashamed. There was nothing she could say to her own defense, nothing that mattered. She hadn’t attacked Rumi, but even now she didn’t know if she would have. If Rumi had lunged toward them instead of away—not to attack, Rumi would never, but if Mira had seen her do it, interpreted it as an attack instead of what it would have been: a desperate plea for help going unanswered...she didn’t know what would have happened. The idea of raising her weapon to one of her sisters was unthinkable, but if she’d thought she had to protect Zoey—she might have. She knew herself well enough to know it was possible—she could have hurt Rumi. Maybe even killed her. It would have absolutely destroyed her to do it, but she would have defended Zoey if she’d thought she had to.

“Hm. Well. It’s to your credit that you didn’t try to harm her, I suppose. If you had, we would not be having a civil conversation right now, you understand. But she turned to you for help, and you turned her away with a threat. Because of who, and what, she is. Because of something beyond her control, something that terrified her but sickened you. You condemned her for her very existence.” He paused, evaluating her face thoughtfully. “You have reconciled since. She has forgiven you, and you have accepted her. But I felt an object lesson of sorts was in order. A chance to experience some of the fear, the uncertainty that she faced. The loss of control.”

Mira pressed her shoulder against the wall closest to her, leaning into it for support hard until it was a dull ache against the joint. There was literally nothing he could do or say to make her feel worse about that night than she already did, but hearing it laid out so bluntly from an outside observer cut her deeply all the same. She breathed, slow and even, and held her composure carefully intact until she could find her voice again. “That’s why you attacked me, and Zoey. Fine. I understand. But why’d you attack Rumi? If you care about her—why did you hurt her, too?”

“Just a small scratch for her and—Zoey, is it? The other one? I’m sorry, I really am dreadful with names. You didn’t think I missed, did you? There in the studio?” He pantomimed an open-handed swipe in midair, shining black claws spread wide—the way he’d swiped at Zoey…and missed by an almost comical margin, she realized now. In the moment, she’d been too terrified to properly notice it, but…yeah, he’d definitely been toying with them then. Baiting her. And it worked, too; she’d reacted before she’d had time to think it through and in doing so did most of the work for him. “I suppose I should apologize for frightening your manager as well. Unintentional, but it was a choice between appearing while he was with you or while that little clump of demons was there, and I felt that would, hm…what is the phrase… ‘tip my hand’ too early? Of course, I didn’t expect him to try to defend you—I shouldn’t have laughed at him then, but the clipboard...an inspired choice, really. I don’t think anyone has ever tried to attack me in such a fashion. Certainly not anyone who lived afterwards, anyway.”

Mira clenched her jaw against the furious outburst that wanted to tear out of her. If he hurt Bobby, even threatened to...she didn’t know what she’d do, only that it was going to be catastrophic. “...Bobby was trying to protect us. He didn’t know what he was up against. Leave him alone.”

He waved this off. “He’s in no danger from me. I have no interest in your manager, provided he doesn’t do anything to endanger Rumi. And quite frankly, you all seem to do quite enough endangering on your own without any outside assistance.”

The irony of the safety lecture was not lost on Mira; sadly, it seemed he genuinely didn’t hear how it sounded. This probably wasn’t a good time to point it out to him either; the fear and uncertainty he’d wanted her to experience? Sure, fine, whatever; Mira could deal with it. But he had obviously either trivialized it or genuinely hadn’t understood how terrified Rumi and Zoey had been this week, too. She drew in another steadying breath, smothered down another furious outburst, and flexed her fingers out of sheer longing for the weight of her woldo, the soothing thrum of the Honmoon at her fingertips. Nothing happened this time, either; the connection remained cold and hollow in her chest.

“Okay. So you weren’t attacking Rumi. Or Zoey or Bobby either. It was just to cut us all off from the Honmoon the first time, and the second time was to poison me. Again. Is that it?”

“Unfortunate, but necessary,” he agreed. “I will, of course, apologize to them both fully. You’re all very talented hunters, but it would be a hassle for me personally at the moment if one of you were to attack me. If it is any consolation, I never had any intention of killing you or harming either of them. And it would take far more exposure to the poison before you would begin to truly turn into a demon. The goal was to frighten—to, perhaps, teach a bit of humility and empathy. Nothing more.”

He lifted the kettle before it could come up to a boil, probably the perfect temperature for green tea even without checking it, and poured it neatly over the two mugs. He set the kettle aside gently and handed one of the cups to her. “A successful attempt, I think. If you ever have the impulse to draw your weapon on my daughter, you will, I hope, reconsider. We will not have another discussion if you hurt her.”

Mira took the mug from him carefully and cupped her hands around it, warming her cold fingers against the ceramic. She was, of course, glad that Zoey and Rumi weren’t here, that they were safe for the moment, but still...she wished Zoey was here to help her find the right words, wished Rumi was here to give her confidence and support she badly needed. “And are you going to try to hurt her?”

He straightened up to his full, intimidating height with a scowl. The shadows deepened and crawled toward him eagerly, until he was swathed in darkness and his eyes burned like embers. (Mira wasn’t good at finding the right words, alright? She knew that already; everyone knew Zoey was better at this shit; she was doing her best.) “Of course not. She is my daughter. Whatever your opinion of demons, I would never harm her. And I know it would upset her if I killed you, so I will not. Provided you continue not to give me any reason to do so.”

Mira didn’t add any of her opinions of demons—that was a complicated subject at the moment—but she believed him. He’d had every opportunity to hurt them, to kill them, and he hadn’t. From the sound of it, he could have obliterated all five of the demons easily, but he’d been careful not to even touch them during that first confrontation, and for the second he’d picked a location where they hadn’t been anywhere nearby. He could have easily killed Bobby, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t even touched him. (Scared the shit out of him though, which she was probably going to hold a grudge about for a while longer.) She eyed him warily, and she still wasn’t going to drink the fucking tea, but she nodded slightly and said, “Alright. I believe you.”

Astoundingly, that seemed to surprise him to hear. He blinked, too startled to even loom threateningly over in the shadows like he had moments earlier—the shadows of the room weren’t pitch black and terrifying now, it was just a dim corner of the kitchen because they hadn’t turned the overhead lights on, the scene lit only by the yellowish light over the stove top and the daylight filtering through the curtained windows. “...Thank you. I didn’t expect that you would, but...thank you.”

That left them in an awkward little pause, where he drank a little of his tea and she continued to ignore hers. He added, a little uncomfortably but forging ahead all the same, “That reminds me—your little collection of demons. Rumi certainly seems fond of them, so I haven’t harmed them even by accident. Do I need to be rid of any of them? I haven’t been watching terribly closely, you understand; that would be invasive and rude. But if any of them are a problem, it would be very easy for me to solve that problem, and there would be no coming back from what I can do to them. In particular, their leader—Jinu. I dislike what I saw of their interactions during the Award show, and I rather dislike him. It is an unfortunate by-product of my abilities that, although there is really quite a lot I could do to him, very little of it would be survivable for him. This is not a detriment to me personally, you understand—I would consider it a bonus, in fact—but it does somewhat limit my options and I thought it might upset Rumi if I unraveled the very fiber of his being. Your opinion?”

What the fuck. “Uh. That would upset her a lot, yeah. Don’t do that. Please.”

He nodded amiably, accepting that answer readily. “I thought as much. If I ever suspect he has harmed her again, I will not grant him the luxury of a warning or a second chance, but...I suppose for now, she may keep him. She is more than capable of killing him herself, if it should come to that, but of course I would handle it for her if I thought it necessary. I am surprised to hear you advocate for him, however. I thought you were very anti-demon.”

Mira’s patience was being tested from all directions this week. Although, she supposed she and Zoey were probably uniquely in a position to sympathize with Seojun in the distinctive category of ‘People Who Want(ed) to Kill Jinu But Can’t Without Upsetting Rumi’. They could form a little club. “It’s fine. I’m...we’re working on it. Don’t kill any of them. Please.”

“How very kind of you. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet. Rumi trusts him; I do not, but I will not intervene again unless I feel it necessary. In my experience, there is little point in threatening demons—generally, it is better to destroy them and be done with it, lest they become a worse problem in the future—but in this instance, I will permit him and his followers to live if Rumi wishes it.”

Maybe it really was time to consider some sort of witness protection for Jinu. Rumi wasn’t going to be happy to hear about this, and Mira was already mentally preparing for the subsequent nervous breakdown she was probably going to have when she found out, but for now, at least, it was enough to hear him verbally confirm that he wasn’t going to kill any of the former Saja Boys. She took a moment to study him, hesitating over her next question, but...well, it was the obvious question. “If you’re really not going to try to hurt Rumi, then...are you here to try to...reconnect with her?”

He smiled wistfully. “If she will allow it, then...yes. I would like that. A chance to get to know her. To be in her life, now that I am able to do so.”

“...And why are you here?” She gestured vaguely at the kitchen. “In Celine’s house?”

At this, his expression went shadowed and cold again. The shadows of in the corners of the room darkened and bled like ink, running and pooling to him again. Wisps of black smoke began to obscure his figure again, pouring from the edges of his outline until only his face was still clearly visible and the whole room smelled of burning tar and acrid chemical smoke. “Celine...ah, Celine. Rumi told you that she went to her, yes? And she told you why?”

“Yes. But Rumi said Celine didn’t take her sword from her though, she didn’t—didn’t attack her or hurt her, didn’t try to at all.” But that was just what Rumi had told them—if he had witnessed it, maybe he’d seen something different? Her stomach was a cold knot of anxiety. “She...she didn’t, did she? Did you see them?”

“I saw.” He observed her silently for a moment, swathed in shadow and smoke. He let out a little sigh and the shadows eased off slightly, the smoke clearing just a bit. “You are afraid. You believe Celine capable of harming Rumi, and you fear she may have tried. I thought it strange when none of you contacted Celine after I attacked you the first time—if you had described the attack, told her you’d lost access to the Honmoon, she would have instantly known it was me. I was expecting it, in fact, and planned for it. And then none of you told her. You all went to great lengths to hide it from her.”

Mira’s mouth twisted, wry and unhappy. “Yeah, well. You saw what she and Rumi talked about last time, right? We’re not in a hurry to get back in touch with her again right now. But she...Celine loves Rumi. I know she does. She...she didn’t try to hurt her, did she? She wouldn’t.”

Would she? Mira couldn’t imagine it, and she didn’t want it to be true. Celine couldn’t have—she raised Rumi, watched her grow up. She’d made some mistakes, sure, but certainly not on that scale. She wouldn’t...wouldn’t hurt her, not like that, not intentionally.

“She did not,” he confirmed quietly. “Or I would have killed her already and been done with it. But I find myself now conflicted. Because Rumi felt she had to die—she believed it to be a solution, the best and only solution. She reached out to you for help, and did not receive it. But when she wanted to die, she did not turn to you, or even to Jinu. She went to Celine. She didn’t receive what she sought there, either, but she believed Celine would. And you hesitated, just now—you wondered, for a moment, if Celine had tried. You also thought her capable of killing Rumi.”

“I—no. No, she wouldn’t do that. She—okay, yes, telling Rumi to hide who she was, that was kind of fucked up, but that’s not the same as—she wouldn’t hurt her. Not on purpose, and not like that. Celine wouldn’t.”

“Maybe not,” he allowed. “She had the opportunity, certainly, and perhaps would have felt very justified in her decision if she had, but still chose not to act. And if the opportunity rose again, perhaps she would still choose not to harm her. Perhaps in time she could accept Rumi for who, and what, she is. But if I let her live, I run the risk that I am wrong, and I do not believe Rumi would even attempt to defend herself from Celine if she were ever to try to harm her. So you see, I find myself in conflict.”

Oh. Oh, fuck. “You can’t kill Celine.”

Very pleasantly, he said, “I think you will find that I can. It would upset Rumi, I’m sure, but she hasn’t spoken to Celine in nearly four months. It would be a bit like...hm, like pruning weeds from a garden. Rumi will be hurt, but she will still have all of her friends with her, yes? You are her sisters, of a sort. She won’t be hurt forever; she would recover in time.”

Fuck, fucking fuck. Okay. Okay. Calm and collected. She could handle this. The obvious point—that he shouldn’t kill her, because that would be morally wrong and she didn’t fucking deserve it—didn’t seem like it would work. His focus was, as far as she could tell so far, limited exclusively to Rumi; Mira went at the problem from a different angle. “If you’re serious about being in Rumi’s life, about getting to know her, you can’t kill Celine.”

He sighed and gave her a disappointed, paternal expression. “You’re protecting your mentor. Understandable. You’re very young and you respect her.”

“I care about Celine a lot,” Mira agreed, because that much was true. She was still messed up over the lying, and yeah, he…actually made a good point about how Rumi had tried to go to Celine, the woman who raised her, to ask to be killed, but. But. It was still Celine. Who cared about them, who protected them, who lectured them about their safety and their health and their eating habits, who stalked their fucking doctor to get health updates, who shut down rude reporters and got rid of overly-touchy, creepy assistants, who had helped her through the paperwork involved in changing her name and excising herself from her family. Who called each of them on their birthday without fail, no matter where she was or what she was doing, to wish them a happy birthday. Who loved Rumi, even as she’d made decisions that twisted Rumi in on herself until she broke under the pressure.

“She made some bad calls, I know. But it’s up to Rumi to decide how she wants to fix it, how she wants to address those decisions. And right now, all this? The attacks, the poisoning, the kidnapping? This is a really bad first impression, Seojun, but it’s still fixable. Once you kill Celine, it’s not something you can fix anymore—Rumi will never forgive you.”

He didn’t respond immediately, but she could see he was thinking about it. Weighing out the truth of her words. Mira was dead certain she was right—Rumi, gentle, kind, forgiving Rumi, would never forgive him for killing Celine, no matter how justified he thought he was. And, fuck, Mira felt like she was in some horrible parallel dimension for even considering inviting another demon’s presence into their lives, but...Rumi deserved the chance to get to know a member of her family, the only family she had left outside of Celine. It would only be possible if he could set his vengeance aside, if his love for Rumi was more important than his desire for revenge.

After a pause to consider his options—which felt like it took ten years off her life with the stress alone—he conceded quietly, “Very well. Celine lives. For now. As long as she doesn’t ever try to harm Rumi either directly or indirectly...I will not harm her.”

Mira sagged against the wall, relief cutting the tension out of her and leaving her loose-limbed and shaken. She took a few unsteady breaths and tried to pull herself together. “Okay. Okay, that’s...that’s good. That’s fair, I think. We should...we should probably go, then, before Celine gets—”

“Oh, she’s here already.” He set his tea aside and straightened up slowly. “Her car just pulled in. She’ll be here in a moment. And I do still need to speak with her.”

“Okay, well, I think maybe that’s a bad idea,” Mira said hurriedly, trying to sound calm and collected but also, fuck, this was a bad way to come back into contact with Celine. “Let’s just go—you should talk to Rumi first and—”

“I won’t mention your little clump of demons to her,” he said mildly. “But, no. I really do need to speak with her. It will only take a moment, so please be patient with me a bit longer.”

Fucking demons; they never listened. Behind her, she heard the door open and close, and the rustle of bags. She set her tea aside in a hurry and turned to the side—enough to see where Celine would be coming in, but not enough to turn her back on Seojun either. She shot him a glare, angry and anxious, and hissed quietly, “This is a bad idea, just so you know.”

“Your objections are noted,” he said, still mild and pleasant, making no effort to keep his voice low. The rustling in the entryway went silent very suddenly. He raised his voice slightly and called, “Celine, do join us for a moment, would you? It’s important.”

Even from a room away, Mira heard Celine’s sharply indrawn breath. Mira heard the click of her heels as she walked slowly to the kitchen, an intense twist of fear knotting up her stomach tighter with every step Celine drew closer.

He’d said he wouldn’t kill her, Mira reminded herself as Celine stepped just inside the doorway and saw the demon standing in her kitchen. He’d agreed not to hurt her. That was the hard part out of the way. Now Mira just had to stop Celine from doing something rash, and everything could be okay.

Yeah. Easy.

“You—” Celine began, her expression thunderous, and then she noticed Mira pressed against the wall just past the doorway and faltered. “Mira? Mira! Get away from him, that’s a demon!”

Celine grabbed for her hand and hauled her away with surprising strength, almost pulling Mira off balance in her scramble to pull Mira behind her protectively. Mira caught herself halfway through the motion and twisted to stand in front of Celine instead, holding her other hand out to block her from moving past.

“Wait, wait, Celine—I know, I know but it’s okay, just stop—”

“You don’t understand, he’s a demon. Whatever he’s told you, you can’t trust him—where are Rumi and Zoey? Are they safe?”

“They’re okay, they’re not here,” Mira said, trying to sound reassuring and comforting. Not something she was good at, but she was trying. She carefully pulled her hand out of Celine’s grasp and took her shoulders. “I know who he is. It’s okay, please just listen—”

“He is dangerous. You need to run—”

“It’s okay, really, please just—”

“I do hate to interrupt,” Seojun said, mostly patiently, but not at all sounding as though he didn’t want to interrupt. “But I have other things to do today, Celine, so please, be quiet. Listen to your protégé; she is trying to save your life.”

Celine wasn’t a hunter anymore, technically—once a new trio stepped into the role, the former hunters no longer had an active connection to the Honmoon. She didn’t have a spiritual weapon anymore.

What she did have, apparently, was a switchblade knife nearly the length of her forearm. She yanked Mira behind herself with a sharp twist and a shove, sending Mira staggering back a step, and in nearly the same motion she threw the knife directly at Seojun.

“Mira, run!” Celine snapped, making a grab for another knife from the block on the kitchen counter. Mira got her balance back and lunged to intercept her, grappling ineffectively to pull her away. Celine was stronger than she looked, damn, Mira should ask her about her workout later.

“Oh, I see; if I attack her, I’m a bad father, but if she attacks me—” Seojun began indignantly as he plucked the knife out of his chest. He hadn’t made any effort to catch or block it, but he didn’t appear to be particularly inconvenienced by it either, even though the full length of the blade had been hilted in his sternum just seconds ago.

“Could you just not right now?” Mira snapped at him without thinking. Somehow, that got through to Celine more than asking her nicely had—she stopped trying to grab for knives and gripped Mira’s shoulder’s instead, staring at her face like she’d never properly seen her until now.

“...Why are you here, Mira? Why are you with him?” she asked slowly.

“I brought her here,” Seojun said lightly, dropping the knife in the sink behind him with a clatter. “I had every intention of killing you, just so you’re aware. But this young lady has been trying very hard to persuade me not to. Would you like to try your luck, perhaps? What defense would you offer for your actions?”

“My actions? You dare say that to me after you killed Mi-yeong?” Celine snapped. She jerked out of Mira’s reach in an abrupt motion and Mira took a step back to give her space.

“Wait, what?” Mira looked to Seojun uncertainly. “Did you?”

If he’d been intimidating before, he was terrifying now. The shadows in the room pooled around him, the dim light over the stove incapable of penetrating the darkness. His eyes burned deep red-gold, blood-tinged like a sunset, and only the white gleam of his fangs, bared in a snarl, glinted out of the shadows that cloaked him now. The air grew thick with oily black smoke, reeking of burning decay.

“You dare to accuse me?” His voice echoed and shook like thunder, the vibration of it rattled through Mira’s chest like standing too close to a concert speaker. “I loved her more than you could possibly understand. Your selfish actions drove her away—”

“You murdered her—”

The air was too dense to breathe properly, weighted with smoke and power. Mira’s eyes burned and streamed with reflexive tears, but she stepped in again and caught Celine’s hands in a tight grip.

“Stop, Celine.” She made her voice as firm and confident as possible, driving the waver of uncertainty out with years of stage practice. She held Celine’s gaze when the other woman stared at her in something like stunned horror, shocked by her intervention. “This isn’t helping. Please, just stop and listen.”

She turned to Seojun, terrifying in his dark isolation, and held her voice steady and firm. “You wanted to talk. Just to talk. I’m listening; we’re both listening. Please, explain.”

A low, deep rumble issued out of the dark, a subterranean grinding that was less like the demonic growling she’d gotten used to hearing and more like the sound of tectonic plates colliding. But the burning coals of his eyes shuttered for a moment as he closed his eyes, and after a pause he visibly gathered himself. The shadows eased again, and the smoke wisped away. Mira tried to cough discreetly and wiped her eyes with her sleeve; Celine pulled away from her again but handed her a clean kitchen towel to wipe her face with. She didn’t speak, and her expression was cold and remote, but she stayed and listened as Seojun began to dredge up his words.

“Mi-yeong cut ties with you—you and the other one, I forget her name now—because she knew you would not accept that she was with me. You recall; you saw us together and immediately tried to kill me.”

“I recall,” Celine agreed, icy. “She believed she could save you somehow. Believed you were worth her effort to try, at least. A kindness you did not deserve.”

“No,” he agreed, inclining his head to her slightly. “I did not. Yet, she still believed. So she distanced herself from you both. And then only days later, we learned she was pregnant. She didn’t dare to tell you, of course, nor go to that obsequious little doctor you all would go to with your injuries. She knew if the doctor learned of her condition, she would immediately tell you both, and she felt it would place herself and our child at risk. So she chose to go through the pregnancy without aid, outside of what I could do to help her.”

Mira couldn’t help but glance at Celine for her reaction, but found her closed-off and cold. Impassive and iced over. Listening, but would she accept anything he said as truth?

“It was...difficult,” he said quietly. “Whether because of the...half-demon nature of the child, or simply because she did not have access to the usual care she should have had for a pregnancy, it was...it was very taxing on her. Rumi was delivered early; I don’t suppose you knew that? Her birthday is nearly four weeks earlier than it should have been. Mi-yeong was...she was recovering, but very slowly. I have a very limited ability to heal, but she was still a hunter, still connected to the Honmoon, and my abilities did not affect her much. I think it was only her connection to the Honmoon that allowed her to survive, and her recovery was...also very difficult. But we were managing, and after six months both Mi-yeong and Rumi were doing well enough that she wanted to try to introduce you. Her sisters, she felt, should have a role in our daughter’s life. I had misgivings, of course, but she was adamant and I could refuse her nothing. She called you first. She trusted that you would come around, given the chance to meet Rumi, to see for yourself—she is perfect, how could anyone not love her at once?”

He stopped there, as though he couldn’t find the words to continue. He looked down, away from them, and closed his eyes for a moment. Celine shot a glare at Mira and made a quick gesture as though to shoo her away while he was distracted. Mira gave her a flat, unimpressed stare and didn’t move.

“What happened?” Mira prompted quietly, since Celine clearly wasn’t going to ask.

He took a deep breath and pulled himself upright again, tall and imposing, but exhaustion lined his face now. “Demons had attacked periodically throughout her pregnancy and recovery. I think they could sense she was weakened. Sent by Gwi-ma, I now know. I fought them, destroying them each time. And each time a new, larger group would appear. The night Mi-yeong arranged for you to meet us, our home was overrun—they were everywhere, and every demon felled was replaced by two more, relentless as the tides. We were separated in the fighting; Mi-yeong to Rumi, to protect her, while I tried to protect them both. Until, very suddenly and without warning, they were all gone at once. It was so quiet, so still. Mi-yeong had fallen, and I rushed to her side.”

He looked up then, his eyes burning with a red tint again as he stared Celine down. “And then you stabbed me in the back. I didn’t even hear you come in.”

“You’re lying.” Celine’s voice shook, brittle and sharp. “All you’ve ever done is lie—to her, to take her from us, and now to Mira. I won’t believe your lies. There were no demons there apart from you. I came inside and the house was empty, destroyed. You had destroyed it, like you destroyed her, like you destroy everything. Mi-yeong was bleeding out under your claws, as helpless to stop you as she ever was. I struck you down before you could take her from us.”

“I was trying to heal her. To stop the bleeding. My powers aren’t meant to be used that way, and it was even less effective on a hunter, but I tried. It was all I could possibly do then.” He turned his attention on Mira for a moment, and she could see him hesitate, but then he reached a hand toward her slowly. “May I? The injuries on your arms—I can show you, if you will allow it.”

Celine’s indrawn breath was as sharp as a blade. “You’re hurt? How? Or—no, I know how. He attacked you and you’ve lost your connection to the Honmoon, haven’t you? And you’d defend him anyway?”

Mira, already rolling up her sleeve and pulling at the tape holding her bandages in place, muttered, “Yeah, well. It’s been a weird week for everybody I guess.”

“What—a week?”

Mira stuffed the bandages in her pocket and held her arm out to Seojun, trying not to think about how the last time she’d done something similar she’d gotten clawed all to hell for it, and held herself very still when he took a step closer. He looked slightly surprised, like he hadn’t expected her to agree even though he’d made the offer, and gave her a grateful little nod. He didn’t actually touch her this time as he ran his hand slowly up her arm from wrist to shoulder in a slow sweep a few inches above her skin.

It hurt, which he definitely could have mentioned first, but Mira kept her expression flat and as close to neutral as she could and examined the results as his hand passed higher. The bruising faded almost instantly, and the ragged claw marks knit together with a sharp, stinging pain. The deepest of the marks didn’t fully close, but they looked weeks old now instead of days old, much closer to being fully healed than she’d expected. She felt the ones on her shoulders sting and itch as they knit under the pass of his hand, and he flicked a questioning glance at her, his hand hovering near her elbow for a moment. It took her a beat to realize he was waiting for permission to place his hand near her ribs—it would be easy for him to claw her open before she could even move or attempt to stop him. She nodded once, quick and jerky, and moved her arm out of the way to let him hover his hand over her injured ribs. Those claw marks were the oldest and she thought they’d have been easiest to heal, but they were also deeper and more severe than the ones on her arms and shoulders. It stung like hell as it healed, and she didn’t quite keep her expression level this time as she bit her lip hard. He noticed and withdrew at once, taking a long step back until he pressed back up to the counters again with his hands raised as though to show he was unarmed.

“You see?” he said quietly. “You have no access to the Honmoon currently, so I am able to heal you a bit. But it is not intended for humans, really, and it is an imperfect process. Even for a relatively minor injury like these, they have not entirely healed. Mi-yeong was much more severely injured, and she was also weakened from her pregnancy despite still having her connection to the Honmoon. There was little I could do, but I did what I could. Until you tried to kill me, Celine. I was sent back to the spiritual realm without even knowing what her fate would be, although I...I suppose I knew, given how she was injured. I don’t know if she would have recovered with my help, but I know that without it, she died. Because of you.”

“She wouldn’t speak of you to me,” Celine said, sharp and cold. “So I suppose we will never know the truth of it now. She just told me to take Rumi. Begged me to look after her, to protect and raise her. And I did as she asked.”

“Oh, yes. You did take Rumi, and you did raise her. In spite of you, she has become a strong, compassionate, brave young woman.” He tilted his head thoughtfully as he looked her over, dispassionate and remote now. “I would be more grateful to you if I did not also know how you have hurt her, by word and action.”

“I did everything I could for her—”

“You taught her to fear herself,” he said quietly, distantly. Celine looked away from him and instead turned to Mira.

“I taught you all to protect yourselves and each other,” she said, low and fierce. “And I—I should have told you all, I realize that now, but I wanted her to be safe.”

“You could have told Rumi she could tell us, if she wanted to. We would have listened to her. Rumi should have been able to make that choice for herself.” Mira sighed and tugged her sleeve back down. “Look, I probably shouldn’t even be here for this conversation, frankly. Rumi should hear this from him, and she can decide what she wants to do about it from there. She’ll call you when she’s ready to talk to you, but me or Zoey will send you a text to let you know we’re okay. If Rumi’s okay with it we’ll send more of an update later.”

Celine just looked at her for a moment—not angry, like Mira had expected, and not defensive. Disappointed, maybe, but subdued. Definitely unhappy. “You want to let him meet Rumi? A demon?”

“I think Rumi can make that call on her own,” Mira said bluntly, thinking of Jinu’s earnest devotion and, inescapably, drawing the comparison to Seojun. Yeah, they were both demons, and yeah, actually Mira wasn’t super thrilled about the upcoming prospect of spending any amount of time around Seojun now that he’d attacked her repeatedly, but all five of the idiot demons had tried to kill them at one time or another and she still agreed to let them come live with them. What was one more demon added to the mix at this point? It was impossible not to see that their devotion, their love, was real. “And it’s not like Rumi didn’t know her father’s a demon anyway. We kind of all figured that one out. But she doesn’t know him, and she should get the chance to decide if she wants to.”

It didn’t feel right to leave it like that, either though. Mira could see the comparison between Seojun and Jinu, and of course Rumi to Mi-yeong’s choices. But, horribly, Mira could see herself in Celine. Knowing Jinu as she did now, she couldn’t imagine attacking him like Celine had. But a few months ago? Yeah, absolutely—she could imagine finding Rumi injured and bloody, fatally wounded and fading. She could imagine Jinu kneeling over her, frantic and focused only on her, like he always was; oblivious to Mira or anyone else. And Mira, finding them that way, wouldn’t have listened to anything he said. Wouldn’t have even given him the chance to try, the opportunity to sense her there before she struck him down. He’d have died, or been sent back to the demon realm, to Gwi-ma, and Mira wouldn’t have ever known the truth of it. She probably wouldn’t have believed him even if he’d had the chance to try to explain.

Celine had made the choices she had to try to protect Rumi, and you know…yikes. Some not-so-great decisions had been made there over the years. But Mira really, sincerely believed that she’d meant well, that she’d tried her best with the information she had, and it wasn’t like Mira herself hadn’t made some not-so-great decisions recently either. So she went to Celine and pulled her carefully into a hug, and said quietly, “I’ll let you know how it goes. Rumi will reach out when she’s ready. Bye, Celine.”

Celine held her gingerly, like she was afraid to touch her, and said very quietly, “Be careful, Mira. All of you...please be careful.”

“We will. We’ll protect each other.” She was right: Celine had taught them to protect themselves and each other. She didn’t have to like the way they went about it without her now, but she’d given them the tools they needed to protect themselves and Mira would do the best she could to protect Rumi and Zoey now.

Seojun left first, and Mira made it a point to keep herself angled between him and Celine. At this point it was a toss up which of them she was trying to keep away from the other, but she was completely certain they should stay separated. He paused briefly just past the doorway, not looking back at them as he said with quiet certainty, “I will not threaten you, Celine. I will merely offer you the courtesy of a warning you did not give me: if you ever harm Rumi in any way, it will be the end of you.”

“Likewise,” Celine said, clipped and curt, but he was already walking out, as silent as a shadow. Mira took a deep breath but didn’t say anything, because why ruin a perfectly good dramatic exit? She followed Seojun out quietly.

(Mira would jump into the ocean before she ever said it out loud, but: as the child of a very dramatic demon and a literal pop superstar, raised by another pop superstar, it was honestly just astounding that Rumi was as grounded and down-to-earth as she was. She’d never make fun of Jinu’s flair for dramatics again.)

Seojun was waiting for her on the walkway, just a few steps away from the porch. Mira closed the door behind herself quietly, took another deep breath, and walked to meet him. She held her hand out for her phone, saying, “Okay, that went...not as horribly as I expected. I should call ahead before we go back so—”

He wasn’t listening. Mira realized it a beat too late. He turned toward her with a distracted glance, saw her outstretched hand, and took it as an invitation rather than a request. He clasped her hand in his, careful of his claws, and in the next instant they dissolved away a second time.

Chapter Text

I should call ahead before we go back so no one overreacts, is how Mira would have finished that sentence, if she’d been able to. Or maybe, so no one freaks out and tries to kill you, which was essentially what happened.

Inexplicably, Jinu had interpreted her request that he take Rumi and Zoey to safety as meaning, “Stay right here in the same fucking location where we were already attacked”. Which...okay, that was a choice they were going to have to have a conversation about later. Seojun took them straight back to Rumi directly, which Mira supposed made sense—he’d already said he had the ability to look for her across vast distances (creepy; that was also a conversation she needed to have with Rumi if he didn’t mention it to her first, probably before the lecture to Jinu), so it made sense that he would be able to travel directly to her. Mira just hadn’t expected to find them all back in the beach house, all gathered in the largest sitting room together.

The only saving grace was that this time he wasn’t wreathed in the choking black smoke, so although Mira was still reeling from being teleported a tremendous distance twice in, what, less than an hour, maybe? She at least wasn’t choking and heaving for air this time. Seojun also didn’t drop her this time either, which was...probably an attempt to be helpful; he was holding her up politely by the shoulders while she found her footing, but it was also absolutely being interpreted as a threat—he was holding her shoulders and, to outside appearances, forcing her to stand in front of him like a shield. Mira would have suspected him of doing it on purpose, but for one thing, no one here was capable of doing any actual damage to him so there was no need for a shield, and for another, he made a startled and disgruntled sound when everyone starting yelling all at once for him to drop her, get away from her, leave her alone, and so on.

They hadn’t been idle while she’d been gone; it was immediately clear that some sort of strategy meeting had been held in her absence. Despite the yelling and generalized panic, they arrayed in groups together as soon as she and Seojun appeared: Abby, Baby, and Zoey to one side, Rumi and Jinu directly in front of them, and Mystery and Romance off to the other side.

Mira had enough time to say, “No, wait,” before it all went to hell.

The Saja Boys still had various abilities aside from teleporting and, you know, being demons—like conjuring solid shapes that could be used to make projectiles (like the hearts they’d used in that obnoxious Soda Pop pop-up concert) and shielding barriers. They generally didn’t use them much these days because there wasn’t any reason to: the projectiles were minimally useful against other demons and anything that got close enough to be deflected by a shield was just going to get shredded under their claws instead. Now, however, they’d hit on the idea of using the shields to block Seojun from flattening them again (although, to be frank, Mira suspected he was just humoring them for the moment; it wasn’t immediately clear whether or not he was even trying to drop them again, but she had a feeling he probably wasn’t). Jinu was shielding himself and Rumi, Mystery was covering for Romance, and Baby was shielding himself, Zoey and Abby.

Romance flung a line of projectiles shaped like darts past Mira at Seojun, his expression savage and intense. He must have been putting in effort to focus where his projectiles went, because at least one of them traced an unnatural curve to swerve around her shoulder and not a single one missed their target. Seojun took the hits without any attempt to dodge or deflect it and didn’t make a sound aside from a tired sort of sigh, but while he was distracted by the darts, Rumi and Jinu lunged forward to grab at Mira.

“Wait,” Mira began again, trying to de-escalate the situation, but Rumi yanked her away from Seojun as Jinu lashed out with his claws.

That did manage to get Seojun’s full attention; he snatched Jinu up with a clawed hand around his throat and held him at arm’s length. Jinu was fairly tall, but Seojun effortlessly held him up off the ground and said mildly, “Hello, Jinu. I’m glad we have the opportunity to—”

Whatever he intended to say got lost behind Zoey’s war cry—Abby launched her like a cannonball at Seojun and Zoey never missed a shot; she had a kitchen knife in both hands and slammed one into the joint of his elbow, the other through the tendons in his wrist. Seojun made a startled sound and dropped Jinu, who grabbed Zoey on the way down and scrambled back with another shield flung up to cover their retreat.

Seojun made a chiding little tsk sound and plucked the knives from his arm, letting them fall to the floor. “Yes, I can tell you trained with Celine.”

“Call ahead,” Mira gritted out, tugging Rumi away from where she was wrapped protectively around her shoulders, and then wavering unsteadily without her support. “I said to call ahead. Specifically for this reason. Hey! Everyone settle down! I’m fine; stop shouting.”

Seojun rummaged in his coat until he located her phone and held it out delicately between two claws. “I take your point.”

Mira waved the others back and inched a little closer to Seojun to retrieve her phone, although she was careful not to get too close again. Not that she thought he would grab her again, but because the others didn’t know that and she didn’t want to scare anybody into attacking him again. He was being very patient about the multiple stab wounds he’d picked up over the past hour or so, but she felt it was best not to keep testing his patience.

“Mira? Are you okay?” Rumi was still holding a fireplace poker like a sword, her expression promising murder over Mira’s head at Seojun. Her eyes were red from crying, and her face was pale and tear-streaked, but her voice was steady. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay. Please put the—the poker down? It’s okay, really, I’m fine. Zoey, you can put the knives away too.” Because she knew Zoey—she definitely had more than just two knives on her right now. Mira pocketed her phone, but not before she caught a glimpse of the screen. Fifty-seven missed calls, thirty-eight missed texts. She winced but that was something to sort out later. For now, she stepped to the side and gestured at the tall demon standing awkwardly behind her. “This is Seojun. He’s, uh…Well, we had some things to clear up, but he’s not going to attack anybody anymore. And if everyone can just sit down and stop shouting for a little bit, I think there’s something he needs to tell you, Rumi.”

Zoey and Jinu had the same realization at nearly the same time; Mira could see it on their faces as they picked out the similarities in Seojun’s features. Admittedly, the hair was a pretty big tip off, they’d just been too distracted earlier to properly notice. They both looked to her, shocked, and she gave them a tiny nod of acknowledgment. The rest of the demons followed suit just a few seconds behind, easing slowly out of their battle-ready stances after glancing to her as though waiting for instruction, although none of them dropped their demon forms. Rumi was the last to pick up the pieces, but that was mostly because she’d stopped glaring at Seojun and was trying to get Mira to move away from him.

“Okay, that’s fine, just—just come back over here with us, and then we can...we can…” And she stopped, suddenly, holding the fireplace poker with a white-knuckled grip as her eyes widened, staring at Seojun.

Reasonably assured that no one was going to try to attack anyone else in the next few minutes, Mira eased away from Seojun again and set a careful hand on Rumi’s shoulder. “Rumi? You want to sit down?”

“Is...he’s…?”

“Your father,” Seojun supplied, and bowed to her with the same respect and reverence he’d given to Ryu Mi-yeong’s gravestone. He straightened and distractedly brushed Romance’s projectiles out of his chest where they’d landed in a cluster. They dissolved into black smoke when he touched them. “Yes. I am Seojun. I would like to speak with you, if I may. I must apologize for my earlier theatrics this week.”

Mira really thought he’d have been better off if he’d just approached Rumi first and explained himself from the beginning. Surely he could have made time to threaten Mira and Celine privately later if he really wanted to? But he didn’t strike her as being the kind of person who readily accepted constructive criticism, and anyway he’d already fucked that chance all the way up, so instead she focused her attention on Rumi. “It’s okay, Rumi. I know it...you know, sounds pretty bad, but really. It’s not as bad as it seems.”

“You attacked us,” Rumi said flatly. She was trying to keep her tone steady, but the iridescent patterns on her skin were flashing to hot magenta and she radiated fury. Her voice slipped a little closer to her demonic register, gaining a ringing, resonant tritone. “You hurt them.”

“I did,” he agreed, mild and pleasant.

It was exactly the wrong thing to say. Rumi leapt at him with an enraged cry, and with a tremendous pull that visibly rippled through the Honmoon she suddenly had her saingeom in hand. Mira jumped after her, and Rumi might have been faster but Mira was still taller and was closer to Seojun than her. She managed to wedge herself into the space between them—because Seojun again made no effort to block or dodge, but unlike Celine and Zoey’s knives, Rumi’s spiritual sword might vaporize him if she landed a hit. There was no way to know if it would be permanent for him if she managed to strike him, but her expression indicated she was very willing to put in the effort to try.

Rumi’s sword couldn’t hurt Mira (probably? Oh shit, right—demon poison; probably should have thought that through) but she pulled up on instinct before she could hit her even by accident. Mira threw her hands out wide to block as much area as possible, scrambling to keep Rumi from doing anything she might regret later and chanting frantically, “Wait, wait, wait-wait-wait—”

“Mira?” Rumi was struggling to keep her saingeom, fighting against the poison still affecting her, too, and in the next moment it was gone in a flicker. She still had the fireplace poker in her off-hand and now she gamely switched it to her right. She held it up at the ready, but she was hesitating now, glancing uncertainly between Mira and Seojun behind her. “What are you doing?”

“I know you’re mad, and I completely don’t blame you, but hear him out first. Okay?”

“If it helps, I only truly intended to attack Mira and Celine,” Seojun said unhelpfully. “Not you.”

And, okay, not that he needed to apologize to Mira or anything, but that? That just wasn’t helping. Mira shot him an incredulous, pointed stare over her shoulder; noticing it, he added, “And I apologize for doing so. I had my reasons, but I will not do so again. May I speak with you?”

Mira wrapped a hand around the fireplace poker and slowly pushed it down. “Rumi. You can tell him to get lost if you want to, but I think you should hear him out.”

Ignoring Seojun for the moment, Rumi let her take the poker away and instead took Mira’s shoulders very gently. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Where’d you go?”

“I’m okay,” Mira assured her. “I’m totally fine. We, um. He took us to Celine’s house—she’s fine too! She’s not hurt either, she’s completely fine, Rumi.”

Mira maintained custody of the fireplace poker after Rumi made a grab for it upon hearing Celine’s name brought in, but she stopped trying for it when she heard that Celine was still safe too. Rumi shot a poisonous glare over Mira’s shoulder at Seojun, who was still waiting patiently for her to make a decision, and finally conceded with a stiff, “Fine. I’m listening. Start talking.”

With some coaxing, Rumi was pulled with Jinu to sit on the closest couch, although she dragged Mira with her and glared at Seojun the whole way. Zoey pulled Mira in close, so the four of them ended up packed together on one couch—Jinu, Rumi, Mira, and Zoey wedged into the corner with Zoey’s arm wrapped around hers. For lack of anywhere better to put it, Mira set the fire poker on the ground by the couch and nudged it away from Rumi with her shoe. Zoey, for her part, had tucked the knives away into her belt (she had four more of them, Mira saw now), which was a terrible idea that was going to end with someone getting stabbed by accident if she moved too much.

The rest of their idiot demons spread out around the couch around them like bodyguards; Baby and Romance closest to Seojun on either end of the couch, and Mystery shifting back to stand at Zoey’s side against the arm of the couch. Abby circled behind them, and Mira lost track of him until he rested his hand on her shoulder, his long fingers wrapped protectively down the curve of her collar as though to hold her in place. Mira patted his hand absentmindedly—Seojun’s presence here was probably scaring everyone more than they would ever admit. All of their demons kept their focus intently on Seojun, claws and fangs still bared, but they held their places and didn’t try to attack him again.

Seojun did not sit, and he didn’t pay any mind to any of the other demons. His focus remained completely on Rumi as he stood tall and straight in the center of the sitting room. He’d never bothered with a human disguise like their demons typically did, remaining unsettlingly and undeniably demonic, but he also wasn’t making any effort at being threatening like he had before. No smoke show, no flashing eyes, no dramatic, sweeping gestures with his claws, no thunderous voice in his own demonic register. Just a man, quietly and patiently explaining to the best of his ability.

He offered Rumi more or less the same story he’d given Celine to explain his absence. The only differences Mira noted was that he’d made only one mention of Mi-yeong’s difficult pregnancy and subsequent recovery, which...fair, actually; Mira probably wouldn’t have brought that part directly to Rumi’s attention either, knowing how quickly Rumi’s overdeveloped sense of guilt might jump to conclusions. He also took the time to fix a very direct, threatening stare on Jinu as he explained, quietly and calmly, what he’d seen as Gwi-ma’s power began to slip. The Idol Awards, Jinu’s plan to split them, and then Mira’s bad judgment call—

“That was not their fault!” Rumi was mad again and back on her feet before anyone could stop her. She stalked forward and jabbed a finger at Seojun’s chest, but she didn’t draw her sword again. Jinu, Mira, and Zoey all scrambled after her, trying in turns to pull her and each other away from him. Rumi shook Jinu off impatiently and Mira, noticing the way Seojun’s attention instantly snapped to Jinu’s hand on her arm, pulled him away from Rumi before he could accidentally get himself killed. Jinu shot her a wounded, disbelieving expression—nice try, but the sad eyes really did only work on Rumi—but subsided when she shook her head at him firmly, deferring to her judgment at least for the moment. “They thought they had to defend themselves! Mira and Zoey didn’t attack me and they didn’t draw their weapons until they saw me break the Honmoon—they were defending themselves! And you attacked them for that?”

“I did,” he agreed again, just as blandly and patiently as before, making no attempt to deflect as she jabbed him in the chest. Granted, he’d already caught an assortment of weapons this afternoon; Rumi’s acrylics probably weren’t much of a threat. The sword still didn’t make a reappearance, but in Mira’s opinion he could make at least a little more effort to remember that he could still be cut in half if he pissed her off badly enough and behave accordingly. “And my point has been made. Hasn’t it, Mira?”

That got a monstrous chorus of growls out of the whole evil boy band, and Zoey reached for her mix of kitchen knives with a murderous intent that would have made Celine proud. Mira still had a hold on Jinu’s arm from pulling him away from Rumi, and now he reversed that grip to pull both her and Zoey a few steps back with him. Romance appeared without warning, as suddenly as though he’d teleported behind her, and Jinu handed her off to him with a neatly executed twist. Romance drew her and Zoey both farther away from Seojun, one hand splayed over Mira’s waist to pull her back with him, and the other hand on Zoey’s shoulder to steer her into Mystery’s waiting grasp before he let go of her.

Mira leaned back against Romance like it had been her plan to end up in his hold all along: always present a united front in front of a potential enemy, even if Romance and Jinu might get a lecture later about dragging her around like this. She summoned up all the remnants of her tattered patience and said evenly, “I can see why he might have had some opinions about me pointing a weapon at you, Rumi. I know we’ve already talked, and I know you already forgave me, but it was still a fucked up situation. I get it.”

“I did too,” Zoey snapped unexpectedly, pulling out of Mystery’s arms so she could face Seojun fully. Mira looked to her in surprise, startled by her uncharacteristically sharp tone. “You’re talking about it like Mira dragged me into something—she didn’t. We were so scared we might hurt Rumi, but we couldn’t let each other get hurt either. We did the best we could not to hurt each other; any of us.”

Seojun nodded, his expression still very mild. “That is true. And I imagine Celine felt similarly about Mi-yeong. And yet, Mi-yeong died all the same. Without me, and without her sisters—we all lost her to a single rash decision.”

That remark landed hard on Zoey—Mira could almost see her coming to the same conclusions Mira had earlier, the parallels between their generation and the previous one, the recursive mistakes that they’d narrowly avoided. A pattern shifting, slowly and not without difficulty, but shifting all the same.

Rumi drew back from him, some of her anger slipping away. She said firmly, “Attacking them wasn’t the right thing to do, no matter what you thought. Mira and Celine don’t deserve to be targeted like this. If you’ve been out since Gwi-ma died, then why did you wait so long to come talk to me? And why like this?”

“Perhaps I should have tried to reach out to you directly first,” he allowed. Constructive criticism 1: Seojun 0. Rumi’s real super power was getting demons to stop being stupid long enough to listen to her. “Some of the delay was entirely my own. I was...recovering from my time as Gwi-ma’s captive. If I had been at my full strength, he would never have been able to contain me. I spent some of my time here in the human realm just gathering my strength, and I also returned to the spiritual realm for a bit for, ah...housekeeping, one might say. Some of the demons who attacked Mi-yeong escaped me in that last fight; I found all who were involved and have corrected that error. Your demons here got rid of Gwi-ma before I could. They were kinder about it than I would have been, but Gwi-ma is gone all the same now and I suppose that is all that matters.”

Rumi took an uncertain step back from him, shocked. “You went back to the demon realm?”

He looked surprised by the level of stunned horror he was now getting from her; it was obvious he could see that he’d upset her but he couldn’t work out why this time. He glanced uncertainly at Mira as though for instruction. Constructive criticism 2: Seojun 0.

Mira, now extremely aware of Romance’s presence behind her, said carefully, “We were told the only ways back into the demon realm involved either Gwi-ma’s direct influence, a tear in the Honmoon, or by having your physical form here damaged badly enough that you had to reform in the demon realm.”

He blinked, then understanding cleared his expression. “Ah—no, nothing like that. That’s undoubtedly true for lesser demons, but I am more than capable of traveling under my own power. Actually, the Honmoon has gone a bit, hm...permeable? It was easier to travel than it was previously. I believe that to be your influence, Rumi; you and your sisters. Your predecessors sought to fully separate the realms, but that was never a realistic goal. The spiritual realm and the human realm are ever intertwined, as life and death must always be so. There is no separating them, really. The Honmoon is finally behaving as it ought; keeping malignant forces out of reach while still allowing spiritual energy to flow between the realms. And demons are, after all, a sort of spiritual energy at their core.”

Mira and Zoey traded a stunned glance with each other. Rumi stared at Seojun, then swiveled to stare at Mira and Zoey, projecting a clear Are you hearing this shit? without actually saying the words. Mira and Zoey nodded, solemnly agreeing that they were, in fact, hearing this shit.

Seojun, observing their exchange, noted, “You were not aware of this.”

“We didn’t—I thought—I thought I broke it,” Rumi said helplessly. “I—the Honmoon is—it was supposed to be golden, but it’s not, it’s...it looks like me, like my patterns, and I thought it was broken—”

Seojun’s eyes flashed and he leveled a hard stare at Mira and Zoey, but his voice remained very calm and low as he inquired, “Is that what they told you?”

“What?” Rumi turned back to him distractedly, then noticed the especially demonic staring he was doing and jabbed at him again. “No! Stop that—of course they didn’t; Mira and Zoey both thought the Honmoon was just different now, not damaged, but I wasn’t...I wanted to believe they were right, but we couldn’t possibly know that for sure.”

“The Hunters have always had a skewed view of their own history,” Seojun said with a sigh. “Mi-yeong and I had many debates about it. Calling it the demon realm, for example—blatantly inaccurate, but that is the term that has always been used, and over time it was accepted as factual. It is not the demon realm simply because demons live there. Many beings reside in the spiritual realm, not just demons—it is more than Gwi-ma built it to be. Ah, though I suppose I shouldn’t point fingers; I still refer to this as the human realm because the humans live here, after all, but more accurately it should be called the physical realm.”

“So—wait, so the Honmoon now, the way it is right now, that’s how it’s supposed to be?” Zoey asked. She and Mystery were at Mira’s shoulder, and now she reached to hold onto Mira’s arm with one hand. When Seojun’s attention turned to her, Mystery began to make a threatening sound from low in his chest, almost too deep to be audible, but Mira could feel the bass rumble of it through her chest. Romance set his free hand on his shoulder, and from here Mira could see how his knuckles went white with the force of his grip. Zoey, ignoring that, gripped Mira’s arm hard and glanced uncertainly up at her before she turned her focus back to Seojun. “It was always intended to be like this?”

Seojun shrugged lightly. “I have no doubt it was meant to form an impenetrable seal, but I very much doubt your ancestors a few hundred years ago could have fully understood what they were attempting. It was never going to be an obtainable goal. I have seen no evidence that their efforts would have held its structure in a long-term sense. A few hundred years, perhaps, but what is a few centuries to a demon? What you three have created instead is something more flexible, a living, breathing barrier capable of intentionality and discernment. I passed the barrier easily—I am not a threat to humanity as a whole, and my motives were not driven by hatred. Your lesser demons here, they passed through with minor difficulty—they intended no harm, and so even with their minimal power they were able to pass the Honmoon. Demons both more and less powerful than they have been unable to cross from the spiritual realm to the physical realm, because they intended harm and your Honmoon sensed it and stopped it. There are still those who remain on this side of the barrier because they were here already, of course; I have been sweeping them up when I find them, as all of you have as well, but the influx has halted.”

That was...that was a lot to unpack, frankly. As strange as it would have sounded even a week ago, Mira believed him. And it wasn’t just a newly discovered personal bias in his favor because he’d repeatedly called the Saja Boys “lesser demons” with a straight face, not even like he’d meant to be insulting but just as a casual assessment.

They could work on the full implications later (and, like, maybe freak out a little bit about what else in their history lessons as hunters was just straight up wrong) but for now, Mira’s main take-away was, “See, Rumi? The Honmoon isn’t broken. Zoey was right, it’s just new and different now.”

“How does it know?” Zoey wondered aloud. “The Honmoon itself is, what, vibe-checking demons for travel visas?”

They looked to Seojun for an answer. He said pleasantly, “I don’t understand what any of that means.”

Rumi laughed before she could stop herself, clasping a hand over her mouth to smother back a slightly hysterical giggle. Seojun smiled down at her fondly, which Rumi pretended not to notice as she spun and marched back to the couch, herding them back with her to sit with them again. Romance kept Mira ahead of him to block her from Seojun, crowding against her back and using the hand on her hip to steer her path (the straight path, to the couch only five or six feet away from them; the man had no chill whatsoever). He also still had a hand clamped on Mystery’s shoulder, and because Mystery was still wrapped around Zoey, Romance was pushing them both along by proxy. He only let them up once Rumi took over and pulled Mira and Zoey to sit with her and Jinu on the couch again.

Mystery had apparently had enough of Zoey getting close to Seojun without him; as she sat, he sat at her feet, leaning back on her legs to keep her there. Baby and Romance both moved a little closer than they’d been before as they took up their stations on either side of the couch again, although now it looked less like they were guarding the people on the couch and more like the next person who tried to stand was going to get tackled back down. Behind her, Abby leaned down over Mira and rested both hands on her shoulders, and this time put a little bit more of his weight behind it to press her against the couch cushions between Rumi and Zoey.

Message received: no more getting within Seojun’s reach for a while. They were upsetting the lesser demons.

“Okay,” Rumi said, with a hair toss that probably would have launched Jinu into low orbit if she’d still had her full strength. He caught the length of her braid with what looked like reflexive habit and then neatly tidied it over her shoulder, like the supportive dork he was, all without interrupting her flow. “So. You...you got out of whatever prison Gwi-ma put you in, and then you took a while to recover and heal I guess. And then you decided that the best way to introduce yourself was to attack Mira, stalk us, and threaten Celine—don’t do anything like that ever again, by the way. Does that...does that sum it up? Is there anything else you did that I should know about?”

There was a contemplative pause, while Seojun presumably mulled over this fresh perspective on his stellar planning skills, and then he nodded slightly. “A truncated version of events, but...yes, I think that’s reasonably accurate.”

Zoey and Mira traded a glance while Rumi glowered at her father. Zoey’s expression said she and Mira were exactly on the same wavelength: they’d need to keep an eye on Rumi to make sure that self-sabotaging streak wasn’t genetic, because damn. Spoken like someone who’d never done any sort of press training. Clearly making note of the not at all subtle glare Rumi was aiming at him, he added, “Which was rude of me. And will not happen a second time.”

That didn’t earn as much goodwill as he clearly seemed to think it would, but Rumi glared and said haughtily, “You’d better not ever threaten any of them again. We destroyed Gwi-ma and we can destroy you too if we have to.”

He inclined his head to her slightly in agreement. “I see no reason why I should do so.”

Right. Because there wouldn’t be a conversation the second time; Mira remembered. No threats now, just consequences. He didn’t even glance in her direction now, but he didn’t need to—he was right, he’d made his point already. And honestly...sure, yeah. Fair enough. Mira didn’t think she’d have been any nicer about it if their positions were reversed—she and Zoey had cornered Jinu the same week he returned and made it extremely clear what would happen to him if they thought he might hurt Rumi again. He’d taken it well, and he must not have tattled on them to Rumi because she hadn’t confronted them about it.

Rumi glanced uncertainly at Mira, as though seeking her opinion or reassurance on the matter. She leaned into Rumi to bump their shoulders together. “I believe him, Rumi, but it’s your call. Though on that subject, if you’re okay with it I should probably let Celine know we’re okay.”

Rumi winced. “I forgot—yeah, you can let her know. You guys don’t need my permission to talk to Celine, you know; I’m not sure I’m completely ready to talk to her, but you guys absolutely can.”

“I’m going to call Dr. Kwon after this,” Zoey muttered darkly, but wrapped an arm behind Mira so she could stretch all the way down to Rumi to give her a hug. She had to squish Mira up against Rumi’s shoulder to do it, and Jinu was pressed close on Rumi’s other side, so he got pulled into the hug by default and looked quietly pleased about it. He stretched his arm out behind Rumi and Mira to set his hand on Zoey’s shoulder lightly, connecting all four of them with a small touch. Which was adorable, but absolutely wouldn’t save him from Mira’s lecture later when she had a chance to interrogate him about why he hadn’t just grabbed Rumi and Zoey and teleported to the other end of the fucking country after she’d left. Now they knew it wouldn’t have helped, given Seojun’s ability to find Rumi, but none of them had known that when she left.

Mira texted Celine a short message to let her know they were safe and doing well, and after a hesitation added that Rumi had decided to hear Seojun out. There was a long pause before she replied with only Thank you for letting me know.

Rumi and Zoey were both giving her nearly identical questioning, anxious stares when she looked up from her phone. She shrugged under Abby’s hands on her shoulders. “I told her we’re safe and that we’re talking to him. She just said thanks for letting her know.”

“Is she mad at us?” Rumi asked in a small voice. She’d said us but clearly meant me.

“I don’t think so.” But she was definitely going to be, if she wasn’t already—Mira hadn’t meant to say that part about it being a weird week out loud, but it wasn’t going to be hard to piece that together with Mira’s injuries, plus Bobby notifying her about their hiatus. She’d know they’d withheld this from her, just like they’d tried to keep her from finding out about Rumi’s voice months earlier. But that was fine, whatever. Celine could just be mad at Mira about it if she wanted to be, and she didn’t think Celine would risk further damage to her relationship with Rumi by getting angry with her.

(It was impossible for anyone to stay mad at Zoey; the possibility didn’t even occur to her.)

“I think it is safe to assume she will be more preoccupied with being furious at me for my return than anything you might have done,” Seojun said gently. “Don’t concern yourself with her feelings on the matter—your choices are your own to make.”

“She doesn’t know about all of them, does she?” Zoey asked, sitting up straight in alarm and indicating the “lesser demons” with a wave.

“No. I didn’t tell her about Bobby finding out either. I didn’t think that would help anything,” Mira admitted. “It was already kind of...tense. We should probably at least let her know that Bobby knows so he can talk to her if he needs to. Just, you know, maybe give her a little time first. Wait, shit, does Bobby know about...um, anything from the last two hours or so?”

Zoey and Rumi both swiveled to stare at her like a pair of evil owls, which was intensely threatening at close range. She had a notion that the lesser demons might all be staring at her too, but she was ignoring them all for the moment. One disaster at a time, thanks.

“No, Mira, we didn’t call him yet to tell him you let yourself get abducted by the demon that attacked us and terrified him,” Rumi said, very deliberately and pointedly. And, right, okay. Maybe Jinu’s lecture would have to be put on hold until she wasn’t being lectured anymore. “We hadn’t figured out yet how we were going to tell him you voluntarily went with someone who very obviously meant you harm, and we didn’t know where you were or if you were okay, or if you’d gotten killed. We were still working out how to tell him you did something really, really stupid. Very brave and sweet! But very reckless.”

Seojun made a small, amused sound, which was enough for him to catch the evil owl stare next. He waved a hand in a light, dismissive gesture. “Apologies. You just very much reminded me of your mother for a moment.”

Rumi glared at him harder. “You’re going to apologize to Bobby for scaring him, by the way. He absolutely did not have to find out about demons that way.”

“Of course,” he agreed easily, which probably did more to earn Rumi’s favor than anything else he’d done so far. Then he ruined his own progress by adding, “Who is Bobby?”

“Our manager,” Zoey snapped. “He was with us when you attacked in the studio.”

“Ah, yes. With the clipboard; I recall. Mira mentioned him. Yes, I will apologize to him if you’d like. It was not my intention to frighten him, nor to harm him.”

Nope. Just Mira and Celine. Rumi and Zoey both glared at him, clearly remembering the stated goal very clearly and not willing to let it go yet. If he made note of the glaring—and he probably did—he didn’t comment on it this time. Instead, he said gently, “I will leave for the time being. I am certain you all have things you wish to discuss amongst yourselves. But if you will allow it, I would like to return to speak with you again, if I may?”

Rumi hesitated, clearly warring between the impulse to get rid of him and her desire to get to know him better. She took Mira’s hand and squeezed, glancing sideways at her as though in question.

“It’s your call,” Mira reminded her, dropping her voice low. The demons would all hear them anyway, probably, but it was the principle of the thing.

After a pause to consider it, Rumi asked hesitantly, “How do I get in touch with you? Do you...I guess you probably don’t have a phone?”

He looked faintly amused by the question. “I do not. I will obtain one, if you would prefer that method of communication?”

“We can get one for you,” Rumi said hurriedly—probably imagining the same thing that had just flashed across Mira’s mind: Seojun mugging a human, probably with a polite pardon me, and leaving them gibbering in terror and jumping at shadows for the rest of their lives.

“Maybe you can just come back to meet us tomorrow afternoon?” Mira suggested, though she darted a questioning glance at Rumi and then Zoey to check with them. Rumi still looked uncertain but Zoey nodded in agreement, faithfully supporting the fiction that any of them could possibly have stopped him if he chose to return.

Rumi finally nodded too. “I...yeah. Okay. Tomorrow? We’ll try this again. Like you should have done, this time, instead of attacking anyone.”

“I would be happy to,” he agreed, smiling softly. Even in his demonic form, his smile turned him from something otherworldly and terrifying to...well, still otherworldly and at least a little terrifying, but kinder and softer. “I’m glad to finally meet you properly, Rumi, though I regret it has taken so long. I should like to come to know all of you better. It has been nice to meet you, Zoey, and you as well, Mira. And...thank you, Mira. Your support with Celine was unexpected, but appreciated, as was your attempt to protect me earlier.”

“That was for Rumi, not for you,” Mira told him bluntly. “And if you piss her off again I’m not going to help you next time.”

That got her a quirk of a smile and he inclined his head to her in acknowledgment. “Understood.”

“As long as you don’t try to threaten or hurt anyone,” Rumi reminded him sharply, and for a moment her patterns lit with an intense magenta hue as she glared at him. “That is not okay. And we know about your powers now, so you won’t get the jump on us again. But if you’re really serious and you want to get to know me, to know us, then...yes. I’d like to get to know you, too.”

“You have my word,” he agreed. Mira believed him—he’d already said he wouldn’t threaten anyone, and he could probably kill any of them fast enough that it wouldn’t even hurt. But she also believed he was sincere in his desire to get to know Rumi—it was obvious how much he cared about her (to a somewhat psychopathic degree, but in a houseful of demons, it was remarkable the kinds of things that could pass for normal after a while) and Mira had seen the honest grief in his face over Ryu Mi-yeong’s death. So although it was deeply unsettling to know that he very easily could kill any of them if he chose, she also believed that he wouldn’t unless he was provoked. And it wasn’t as though humans couldn’t hurt or kill each other just as easily, so really it was only unique to Seojun for the method.

With that settled, he offered up a pleasant, “Have a nice evening,” and faded away in a ripple of black smoke.

There was a long, tense moment of silence before Zoey said uncertainly, “Baby, can you tell if he’s actually gone?”

“He’s gone,” Baby confirmed, his voice tense and clipped.

“Okay. Thanks. Mira?”

“Hm?” Mira was listening, she was, but also—holy fuck, with the adrenaline all faded and the threats (mostly) handled, she was exhausted all at once. Abby’s hold on her shoulders was helping keep her propped upright now.

“What were you thinking?” Zoey tried to jump to her feet but tripped over Mystery. He helped her back up and watched her pace in front of the couch, his focus intense and unwavering on her as she moved. She was gesturing wildly as she ranted and was, alarmingly, still armed with four more knives. “You just went with him! A complete stranger with dangerous abilities who’d already attacked you twice! And you just left?”

Oh, cool, they were doing this now. She rubbed her hands over her face tiredly, trying to pull her thoughts in order, and sighed, “I know that probably scared you, and I’m sorry for that. I had to.”

“They told us what he said, but if you had just waited—we were almost to you and you just vanished—” Zoey was crying now, but she was also very angry and had knives, so. Maybe no hugs yet.

“I know. I’m sorry I scared you.” But she wasn’t sorry she’d done it. She knew better than to point out that she’d gone with him exactly because she knew Rumi and Zoey had gotten close, but it was true. “He said he’d leave everyone else alone if I went with him, so I did. He could have killed all of you. And yeah, me too, I know that, but...I couldn’t just let him. And the only way to get him to leave was to go with him. Let’s be real, there’s no outrunning someone who can teleport.”

Zoey wiped at her face and hiccuped, like she always did when she was crying hard, and glared at Mira. And hiccuped again, which ruined the effect. She looked marginally less angry now at least. “Is there any point in asking you not to ever do that again?”

“Nope,” Mira told her promptly. Knives or no knives, Zoey looked like she needed a hug. Mira had to tug away from Abby, but he let go as she stood and approached carefully. When Zoey didn’t do anything other than hiccup sadly again, she gathered her into a hug. “I’d do it again. And are we just pretending that if he’d asked you instead of me, you wouldn’t have gone with him and I wouldn’t be yelling at you now instead? We’re both hypocrites.”

Zoey hugged her back. No stabbing either, which was nice of her. “...Okay. Fine. You’re not wrong and I would have. But don’t call me a hypocrite when I’m already mad at you.”

“Okay. That’s fair.” Mira swayed side to side, gently rocking Zoey with her until she stopped standing stiff and angry and just hugged her tightly, her face buried against Mira’s shoulder. “But hey, while we’re all being hypocrites and handing out lectures—Jinu, what the hell, man? Why are you all still here at the stupid beach house? I thought you were going to grab Zoey and Rumi and take them somewhere safer. I was trying to stall him for you the whole time, and then it turns out you just walked like a hundred yards away from where he’d already attacked you once?”

Jinu raised an eyebrow at her, clearly unimpressed with his portion of the lecture. “None of us were going to leave until we knew what he’d done with you. He came here once, so it made sense that he might have returned here again.”

“We were trying to figure out how we could jump him if he came back, or if we could track down your dumb ass instead. And then he just brought you back anyway,” Baby added sourly. He’d moved to lean on the arm of the couch, his arms folded across his chest as he watched them, and beside him Mystery had leaned closer to rest his head on Baby’s knee. “Did you just annoy him until he brought you back to be our problem again?”

In a week or so, when things settled down and he’d started to forget about this, Mira was going to change his name in her phone, then hide it near him and pretend to lose it. Then when he called her to help her find it, he’d see “Lesser Demon Calling”. Vengeance would be hers. But the first step to good revenge was to play it cool for a while (exhibit A: Seojun, apparently) so for now she just shrugged and said, “Yeah, kind of.”

“Are you really okay with him coming back here?” Rumi asked quietly. “I know it was your suggestion, but that was while he was still here.”

“It’s really okay,” Mira reassured her. “I know that was...you know, probably the worst possible introduction he could have made. Like, he managed to up-stage the evil boy band—that’s an impressively terrible introduction. But I mean, by show of hands: who here hasn’t tried to kill at least one person in this room? Nobody? Right. I actually believe him when he says he wasn’t trying to kill me or Celine—I think if he’d really tried, we’d be dead already. I don’t think he’ll hurt anybody. Although, that said, it’s probably best to try to keep him and Celine separated. Forever, probably.”

Rumi managed a strained smile. “...I’m sure that was an awful conversation to get stuck in the middle of.”

Mira had been absolutely certain that one wrong word would end with both her and Celine dead. She’d gone with him expecting to be killed, and she’d been resigned to at least make it useful by dragging it out as long as she could, to give them as much time to prepare and flee as she could possibly manage.

But she couldn’t tell them that. So she forced a deadpan voice and said, “Excruciating,” like it was a joke and not the absolute truth.

Rumi’s expression—pained and tense, verging on tearful again—made it clear that she’d read between the lines. She left the couch and came to enfold Mira and Zoey into a hug, leaning her head against Mira’s gently. Very quietly, she said, “Thank you. For trying to protect us and protecting Celine. And for stopping me when I attacked him. Don’t ever leave us behind like that again, but...thank you for trying.”

Muffled against Mira’s shoulder, Zoey added, “But you’re grounded for letting yourself get kidnapped, young lady. And you get to be the one to explain yourself to Bobby.”

“That’s fair.” Yeah, no. She was going to gloss over the whole kidnapping thing for sure. Bobby loved a good romantic drama; he was going to be so focused on Seojun’s tragic backstory that Mira could just skate past the parts involving herself.

“And we’re going to be on that call with you when you explain it to him,” Zoey added threateningly, emerging from Mira’s sweater to give her a pointed stare. “No glossing over it.”

Damn it. They knew her too well. “...That’s fair.”

Chapter Text

Mira stood under the shower and just tried to breathe, slow and steady. Everyone was safe, including her, the threat of an attack was all but gone (as much as it ever could be, considering that they were hunters), Celine probably wasn’t even that mad them (hopefully), and everything was as settled as it could be for now. There was no reason for her hands to still shake with leftover fear and adrenaline, there was no reason for her to be so cold—a pervasive chill that the hot water was only just beginning to abate. She held her breath and tipped her face up into the hot water for a moment, letting it drown out the clamor of circling thoughts for a moment, then exhaled hard and settled into wash and condition her hair properly for the first time in a few days.

The claw marks on her arm had all closed up and were mostly healed; the ones on her shoulders were a bit deeper, especially on the right side, and remained tender and sensitive to the touch, but only one was still deep enough that it hadn’t closed up completely after Seojun had tried to heal her. Her ribs, too, were still a little raw in a few places where his claws had dug the deepest; she’d had to put a waterproof bandage over her ribs and shoulder, and she’d probably have to change them out for dry ones once she got out of the shower. It was still a vast improvement from just this morning.

She’d shown her healed arm to Rumi, Zoey, and Bobby on a video call while the five demons lurked ominously in the background, trying to emphasize that, no really, Seojun wasn’t as terrible as he definitely sounded, and Mira wasn’t a complete idiot for going with him like she definitely sounded, and everything was totally fine now. Bobby had cried anyway, but that had always been all but guaranteed. Bobby cried easily; they already knew that. It’d still made Mira feel absolutely terrible, which of course was the reason Zoey had made her tell him in the first place. He’d eventually settled down and he was even tentatively curious about meeting Seojun. Mira didn’t tell him that he remembered Bobby as the funny little man who’d swatted him with a clipboard; if they were all very lucky, maybe Bobby wouldn’t ever learn that.

The hot water finally thawed her out enough that she stopped shaking. It eased some of the soreness out of her muscles, although the hot water sluicing over the freshly healed scars was almost too tender to touch and she had to angle to keep the hardest water pressure off of the claw marks. She finally turned the water off and emerged to dry off and change the bandage on her ribs and shoulder, then spent as long as she could stand trying to blow dry her hair. She didn’t have the patience or the arm strength for it right now; in the end, her hair was still damp but wasn’t dripping water everywhere at least. She took a moment to evaluate herself in the mirror—the claw marks were mostly healed and all but the worst of the bruises around her ribs had faded. But Seojun hadn’t been aware of the bruises ringing her right wrist that Baby had left unintentionally, nor the bruise on her hip from the night before or the ones on her knees when she’d fallen repeatedly. All of those had darkened up magnificently, probably made all the worse by the heat of the shower, but she sighed and shrugged at herself in the mirror. It could have been far, far worse.

She had to dress carefully to accommodate the bruises; she had scraped up both knees and hadn’t even realized it until she was getting undressed for the shower earlier, but it abraded against any fabric that touched it. She hesitated for a moment, but she only had one more task left to complete before she could just go to bed for the night, so she rummaged in her unpacked luggage until she found a pair of soft pajama shorts, black and patterned with little pink hearts and stars. They were old and soft from repeated washing, comfortable to sleep in and they wouldn’t touch her knees. She also pulled on a tank top—the one Abby had bought a few days ago, which had made its way into her luggage along with the jackets she also hadn’t packed herself. She rolled her eyes, but...it was comfortable to wear, so whatever. It was hers now. She pulled a long, warm pink sweater over it all, long enough to brush the hems of her shorts and cozy against the chilly air, and inspected the overall result. It was no sleeping bag at the Met Gala (Zoey bet her she wouldn’t go through with it and then Rumi doubled down that she wouldn’t; in hindsight, they’d probably planned that in advance, but it had been worth it just to see the resulting headlines), but it was all soft and comfortable and that was the important part.

After the conference call with Bobby was over (once he stopped crying, and they stopped crying, and nobody was actively, vocally, mad at Mira anymore), Mira had begged off hanging out with them all. She was cold and stiff even if she wasn’t actually hurt, and she was still covered in sand and dirt. She thought she could still smell smoke on her clothes, acrid and sharp like hot asphalt. She wanted a shower and to sleep for at least twelve hours straight, in that order.

Zoey, very pointedly, had asked, “But you’ll still let someone check your bandages and the poison for you before you go to bed, right?”

It was sensible, and more importantly Zoey’s tone indicated that there was exactly one correct answer, so Mira had dutifully agreed, “Yeah, of course.”

She hadn’t forgotten about Romance and Abby, but they’d been relegated to back-burner status with the more urgent drama around Seojun taking up the majority of her attention. She had still noticed that they’d both been suspiciously, uncharacteristically quiet ever since she and Seojun had appeared. They took up their cue there, however, and Abby said, “We’ll check and let you know if there are any changes.”

Romance still hadn’t spoken, but he’d nodded slightly in agreement. His focus had been entirely on Mira ever since Seojun left, his expression unreadable and his eyes glowing more brightly than she’d ever seen; she’d had a bad feeling about all of that, but for lack of any better ideas, she’d just nodded too and Zoey had accepted it. When Mira headed upstairs for her room, Abby and Romance dropped into step with her; this time Abby kept pace beside her and Romance glided silently along behind them.

“Do you want us to meet you in your room in a little while?” Abby asked. “Or we can meet up in the library up here; it’s down on the other end of the hall closer to the pool.”

The library would have been neutral ground for all of them and was probably a better idea. But since the start it had always been the two of them coming to her, first just trying to seek her out and now more recently, trying to protect her while also accommodating her need for space and privacy. So she hesitated, but held firm to her decision and offered up an olive branch: “I want to take a shower and clean up first, but then I can come meet you in your room. If that’s okay?”

Abby readily agreed but looked startled, understandably—she’d never made any effort to seek them out, ever. Boundaries always firmly established and upheld at every turn. But...they’d offered to turn over a new leaf, in a sense, and she thought Baby’s advice had been at least partially correct: she needed to make sure they were all on the same page and there were no hard feelings. They needed to know she wasn’t going to demand that they leave or drive them off, and they didn’t need to vie for her favor just to stay. They were all adults, and they could all put the past behind them and move on. After hearing Seojun explain himself, she’d had sort of a perspective shift on the whole ‘revenge plot’ thing; whatever Romance had initially planned or whatever the original plan under Gwi-ma had been, they’d been willing to put it behind them and let it go. Mira could do the same.

They’d parted ways in the hall, Mira to her room and the two of them to the room directly across from hers, but they’d left their door open while Mira had hers firmly closed. As she stepped out into the hall, growing dark now as the evening settled in over the house, warm lamp light spilled out through their doorway. Shivering slightly, Mira padded across and leaned on the door frame briefly, reluctant to intrude into their space.

They looked up at her as she leaned in. Abby was sitting up in the middle of the bed, but he had leaned over to drape himself across Romance’s shoulders. Romance was sitting on the side of the bed, his feet still on the floor as he faced the door, but he was leaning back into Abby’s embrace. It looked like they’d both taken a shower and changed clothes too; their hair was still a little damp and Abby’s curls were tousled like he’d scrubbed a towel through it and let it air dry that way. They were both wearing the sweat pants she now knew they wore to bed, and Romance had a pale, mint green sweater on that made his hair look brighter by contrast. Abby had reverted to his natural state: shirtless and flexing subtly now that he had an audience.

“Come in,” Abby coaxed, untangling one of his arms from around Romance to reach out to her. “Come sit with us.”

Romance was still being unsettlingly quiet, his focus unerringly back on her now that she was in the room with him again. It was unnerving, but compared to the bone-shaking terror of facing down Seojun on the beach earlier, this was nothing. Mira didn’t try to take Abby’s hand, but she did come closer to sit on the edge of the bed near Romance. His eyes flicked over her and caught on her bruised, scrapped up knees, his expression going sharp and intense as he reached out to gently skate the pads of his fingers over the dark bruises on the knee closest to him. “What happened?”

“Oh, that—it’s okay, it’s just from falling down on the beach. I fell over again after we teleported away from you guys too. Teleporting with Seojun sucks.”

He pressed his lips into a hard line and a flicker of anger crossed his expression before he smothered it back into neutrality. “...I understand why you went with him, but I wish you hadn’t.”

Mira hadn’t actually expected another round of lectures from them, and for the record? She was getting tired of hearing it. She shrugged, casual and affecting at unconcerned. “I wish I hadn’t had to go with him either, but it was the best I could do right then. I don’t know why everyone’s hung up on the part where I went voluntarily—it’s not like he couldn’t have just grabbed me if I said no.”

She thought Romance was about to respond to that, he drew in a sharp breath like he intended to, but Abby tightened the arm he’d hooked around his waist in a squeeze that looked pointed. Romance let the breath out with a little sigh and just said, “Can we check your bandages?”

She had every intention of skipping that for now, but she would at least let him check on the poison so she could text Zoey and Rumi with a clear conscience and then go to bed. “I’ve pretty much healed up, so I don’t need help with the bandages anymore. But you can check on the poison. Hopefully it’s pretty faded by now and things can go back to normal soon.”

Romance wasn’t deterred in the slightest. “May we check anyway? Just to make sure you’re healing properly? I know you said Seojun tried to heal you, but he also said his method wasn’t intended for use on humans.”

He had told them that, referring to Mi-yeong’s injuries. He hadn’t actually brought up healing Mira as an example to Celine; Mira had told them about it on the call with Bobby. Rumi and Zoey hadn’t connected the dots between what Seojun had told them and Mira’s healed injuries, but she wasn’t surprised that Romance and Abby had picked up on it.

If she’d thought they would want to look at her injuries again, she would have put a fucking bra on this time. She sighed—it was terrible forethought on her part, but also nothing new for the week she was having—but agreed reluctantly, “Yeah, you can check this time. But seriously, I don’t think I’ll need any help with the bandages tomorrow. I can pretty much just stick a big gauze pad on it now and call it a day.”

“If you prefer,” Romance agreed, and then pressed a light hand to her shoulder to push her down very gently. “It might be easier if you lie down again—Mira?”

Her nightmare from the night before flashed across her eyes for a moment—Abby holding her down; Romance’s gentle expression and bloody hands. She flinched back hard and he withdrew in the same instant, almost recoiling back against Abby in open shock. For a moment they just stared at each other, and then his expression hardened and went flat.

“What did he do?” he growled—really growled, his voice gaining inhuman resonance and a deep, harsh edge that was so completely unlike his usual voice.

“What—what did who do?” And, realizing a beat later that he could really only mean one person, she added in confusion, “Seojun? Nothing, I told you—he took us to Celine’s house, then back here. Nothing happened.”

Abby said softly, “Ro,” and squeezed him close in a hug again for a moment. Romance visibly gathered himself and reached out, very slowly and carefully, to take Mira’s hand gently, lacing her fingers through his.

When he spoke again, his voice was almost back to normal except for a faint overtone, an extra layer of resonance that human voices just didn’t have and that he didn’t quite seem to be able to help right now. “You have never, even once, been afraid of us—not even when we were actively trying to kill each other. But just then, just for a second, you were frightened. One hour with him, and now you’re afraid of us? What happened?”

Okay, so. She could see how that looked bad, actually. And refusing to explain would only make it worse, even if the explanation was embarrassing, and had the added risk that they might do something very foolish the next time Seojun showed up. Absolutely nothing could make her say the words I had a nightmare and scared myself, but she could offer an explanation without getting overly specific. “Nothing happened, I promise. He really didn’t do anything. It’s just...I had a weird dream last night and I guess it freaked me out more than I realized. It’s nothing though, really. I just—I don’t—”

When she fumbled for words, Romance’s expression turned even more fixed and tense, the hard edge of a snarl curling his mouth—like he didn’t believe her. Like he was considering some ways to make it Seojun’s problem. But Abby, composed and steady, picked up the thread. “Okay. Tell me what went wrong just now and we’ll fix it.”

It was hard to articulate it, especially since she didn’t actually want to say the words. “I just...I don’t want to...not like the other night, at the hotel. Not...lying down like that.”

“Okay,” Abby readily agreed. “That’s alright. Can I move you somewhere else then?”

She assumed he meant touching her to redirect her somewhere else on the bed, or maybe taking her hand, so she nodded in agreement. Proving that Mira didn’t learn from her mistakes either: with permission granted, Abby let go of Romance and leaned over to scoop Mira up effortlessly into his arms and deposited her over his lap. He was being careful of her bruised knees and didn’t drop her, and although she was left straddling his hips again, he’d left his hands tucked under her thighs this time and was supporting most of her weight.

So. Sort of a miscalculation on her part. She really should have asked some clarifying questions before she’d agreed. That was kind of on her; she just hadn’t thought they’d even try to get close again after their talk the day before. Whatever expression she was making made Abby smile at her and he said, “Hi.”

“...Hi?”

“Is this okay, or do you want to move somewhere else?”

She probably should have taken the opening to move somewhere else—literally anywhere else, anywhere other than in someone’s lap, Mira—but she was determined to get through this conversation without any drama or bickering; she was here to acknowledge what they’d told her and accept that both sides were moving on without any lingering weirdness, and everything was fine. Completely fine. They could all be very normal adults about everything for a few minutes while they talked and then she could go to bed.

She tapped at his wrists and said, “Move your hands, but otherwise, yes, this is okay.”

He slid his hands out from under her thighs, easing her weight down slowly, and settled his palms over the top of her thighs instead. Mira inched backwards a little, adjusting her weight back to keep as much pressure off her knees as she could. She tried very hard not to notice that this was a somewhat...precarious placement, because she was being very normal and not at all weird about anything, and settled back to sit over his thighs instead of being directly over his hips. That was...somewhat better, or at least easier to accept without blushing like an idiot...right up until Romance move to sit behind her, also straddling Abby’s legs with his knees pressed to the outside of her calves. It didn’t put any of his weight on her, but it also effectively pinned her in place between them.

Before, Romance had always kept some distance between them. In the past few months he and Abby had been a nearly constant presence near her, but it was rare that he would get close enough to even try to touch her, much less actually commit to it. In the past week he’d hovered just behind or beside her, at times close enough to feel his body heat but far enough not to touch, with a few exceptions when they’d fallen asleep together or when checking her injuries. He wasn’t trying to maintain space between them anymore—he pressed up against her back, his hands settling lightly on her hips to pull her gently but inescapably back against the curve of his body behind hers. It was startling to have him suddenly so close, and she also had a belated realization that he was actually much taller and broader than she was. She’d known that already, of course, but she usually saw him in the context of standing beside Abby, who made everyone look small and delicate by comparison. With his chest pressed up against her back like this, she could feel the lean muscle and solid weight of him even through two layers of fuzzy sweaters.

She was also, against her will, starting to think Baby might have actually been making some valid points when they were walking on the beach earlier. But then again, they were demons and demons were weird—she had plenty of evidence to support that fact by now. So maybe they were just trying to be friendly but overshooting the mark a little? Maybe none of them were even using the same definition of “platonic”; for all she knew that might mean something completely different for demons.

(She stubbornly ignored the fact that she had never, even once, seen any of the others engage in a friendly and platonic cuddle like this. That didn’t support her hypothesis so it was clearly an irrelevant fact right now.)

“Still okay?” Romance checked, his voice a low murmur. She couldn’t see his face to check his expression, but his voice had gone back to normal, loosing that ringing overtone note to fall back into a smooth, intimate hum.

“Yep, I’m fine.” So completely fine. Totally normal. Everything was fine. She busied herself with rolling up her left sleeve to show them that she was healed (and hopefully just quietly distract from the injuries on her ribs) but Abby reached up a careful hand to stop her.

“It’d probably be easier without the sweater,” he said reasonably. “So we can make sure everything is healing right.”

He was right, and he’d said it in a very matter-of-fact, even tone of voice rather than his fake, overly innocent tone that was usually the lead-in to some sort of transparent trap. So why did it still feel like a trap?

She dismissed it as paranoia. She had been personally targeted by a very powerful demon with a grudge for the past week; that would make anybody jumpy. It was probably just leftover nervousness that had nothing to do with them.

She had to shift forward, away from Romance, to get enough room to pull her sweater off over her head. Abby took it from her and folded it neatly while Romance gathered her back in against his chest again. Abby set the folded sweater to the side and then made note of the tank top she was wearing. He tugged lightly on the bottom hem. “Really just decided to steal my shirt, huh?”

“You won’t even notice,” Mira said dryly, instead of pointing out that she hadn’t even been the one to pack it into her luggage. “You only wear shirts so Jinu won’t complain.”

“I actually only wear shirts so Mystery won’t murder me in my sleep if Zoey gets distracted. Baby thinks it’s funny, but Mystery will absolutely hold it against me,” he informed her. He was probably joking, but...that was plausible enough that it could be true.

“I thought you two were friends now,” Romance remarked, his tone wry. “You said you bonded while you were in the demon realm together.”

“I said we have a trauma bond, which is very different. I’m not going to push my luck.” Abby’s focus was divided, however, and his gaze caught on the dark bruises ringing her right wrist. He took her wrist gently, his long fingers easily encircling her arm. “Did Seojun do this too?”

“Oh—no, that was Baby. By accident. He was trying to teleport us away from the beach but it wasn’t working. I guess he told you about that already after I left?”

Abby looked unhappy with the reminder but his touch remained careful and light. “He did. Not sure what Seojun did, but we couldn’t even move—we were trying to reach you, but it was like we were being crushed under a weight.”

Mira nodded slightly. “I know you tried. Sorry; you got caught in the crossfire. He told me he was actually trying not to hurt any of you because he was worried it would upset Rumi if he did. I still think my dad is worse than Rumi’s, like, as a person. But I’ll give him credit for this much: Seojun is much more intimidating than my dad.”

“I guess it was good of him to heal you,” Romance said, although he couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice while he said it and the graveled edge of a growl crept back in. With him pressed up against her back like this, she could feel the vibration of the rumbling growl issuing low in his chest. He skimmed a light hand down her left arm, tracing over the healed but still visible scars. The healed scratches were overly sensitive to the touch and his higher body heat was scalding against the delicate scar tissue. “Especially since he’s the one who hurt you in the first place.”

He’d definitely just done it to try to prove a point to Celine, but he didn’t have to. And she remembered the faint surprise, the quiet gratitude on his face when she’d agreed and allowed him to try to heal her. When she’d said she believed him—like he genuinely hadn’t expected either of them to listen to him, but had come prepared to try anyway.

She took a deep breath to settle her nerves and shifted to lean back against Romance, trusting him to take her weight. He held her steady, one hand on her hip and the other rising to curl lightly around her left arm, fingers spread wide to cover as much of the scars as he could reach.

“He did. Not as much as he could have, but he still went out of his way to target me. As long as he’s serious about not hurting anybody going forward, then I’m willing to let it go.” She couldn’t see Romance at this angle but she met Abby’s gaze, his expression uncharacteristically grave and solemn. She remembered, for a moment, how he’d looked when they all thought she’d killed him: shock and pain and a deeper agony she hadn’t understood then, but could recognize now—he hadn’t been looking at her in that moment, he’d been looking past her at Romance, just for an instant before he’d vanished. Dissolved, he’d told them; sent back to the demon realm on the end of a blade. He’d just let it go, or so he said...and she believed him. She absolutely believed Romance when he’d told her plainly that he’d wanted revenge, but...she was also willing to believe him when he said he didn’t anymore. That he wanted to leave it all behind them. “We fought but it’s done now. We’ll call it even.”

Abby’s hands were settled gently above her knees and she felt the brush of his thumb against her inner thigh as he considered her words, but it seemed to be a thoughtless, restless gesture rather than anything with intent. He’d clearly recognized what she said as an echo of their talk the day before, but he appraised her expression thoughtfully for a moment before he nodded slightly. “Alright. As long as he’s done with his revenge plot. No revenge plots in the house; that was one of the rules.”

“Technically, he also didn’t show up in a dressing room either,” Mira added fairly. “We were in the back hallway in the studio. He did break the ‘no attacking’ rule and the one about threats, but hopefully he’s not plotting world domination now. Maybe he’ll fit in around here after all, as long as he minds his manners now.”

She really, really hoped Seojun would chill out now. For Rumi’s sake, of course, but also for everyone’s sake—he was scary as fuck. Watching the five demons get flattened by some invisible force, something Mira couldn’t even perceive much less figure out how to stop it from happening, had been terrifying. He hadn’t done it again when they returned, but she hadn’t forgotten that he could at any moment, and none of them would be able to stop him right now. “It looked like it hurt, whatever it was he did to you guys on the beach. Baby was bleeding. Is everyone okay now?”

“We’re fine. Baby got hurt because he was under the effect longer, and because he was trying to teleport the whole time. Too much strain. But he recovered quickly; we all did,” Romance assured her. He dropped his hand from her arm to her ribs, pressing lightly to feel through her shirt for the bandage there. “Did it hurt when he tried to heal you? He said it wasn’t intended for humans but he didn’t say what that meant, exactly. And he didn’t try to heal your ribs?”

“It didn’t hurt as much as getting clawed up in the first place,” Mira said with a shrug. “He tried to heal my ribs too, but it didn’t work as well on the deeper cuts. One of the ones on my shoulders didn’t heal completely either. I guess that was what he meant, it healed me, but only a little. It worked pretty well for the shallower cuts and most of the bruising though.”

“Can we check?” Romance asked, his voice careful like he was aware he might be on thin ice with the question. His hands were warm even through her shirt, keeping the pressure light over the bandage and the injuries beneath.

Zoey and Rumi would want an update, especially after Mira’s brief kidnapping this afternoon. And having someone else verify (even though Mira’s summaries were accurate, thank you very much, Zoey) would probably go a long way toward easing some of their anxieties. Mira tugged up the hem of the tank top and knotted it under her bust again. She really had to stop having important conversations while either not wearing a bra or a shirt altogether; this week had established some bad habits purely by accident.

Abby gently peeled back the top of the bandage, a fresh one she’d applied after her shower, and folded it down to show the wounds underneath without removing it entirely. He splayed his other hand over the curve of her waist and hip to hold her steady, his finger’s overlapping with Romance’s over the rise of her hip. Romance skimmed his fingers lightly over the edges of the claw marks and the mottled, fading bruises. It almost tickled; the newly healed skin and nerves underneath acutely sensitive to even the lightest touch.

“I see what you mean,” Romance noted thoughtfully, letting his hand fall to her other hip so Abby could put the bandage back in place. “The bruises look much better, and the cuts have healed much more than yesterday morning. Does it still hurt?”

“Not as much. I’ll have to be careful for at least another week, maybe two at most, but it’s way better than it was.” She craned her head in attempt to give Romance a pointed stare over her shoulder. “Make sure that’s what you tell Zoey and Rumi, too. I know Zoey’s going to ask you for an update instead of me.”

“I’m going to tell them you should take it easy for four weeks, just for that,” he informed her. And before she could retort, he added, “Abby, do you think you can check the poison? I’ve shown you how a few times now, but you haven’t tried it on your own yet.”

Mira turned back to Abby to see him visibly perk up at the question.

“I can try.” And, catching himself, looked to Mira hopefully. “Can I try?”

The change gave her a moment’s pause—it had always been Romance checking, but admittedly that probably had more to do with Abby’s relative lack of experience in discerning the different...energies? Scents or tastes? Whatever it was they were checking, anyway; not the point and she wasn’t going to overthink it now. She didn’t have any strong opinions on which of them checked on the poison’s progress and couldn’t see any reason not to let Abby try. She shrugged. “Sure, if you want to.”

She held her left arm up to him—she was not volunteering anyone to check for poison around her ribs again—and he clasped her hand in his, completely enfolded in his grasp. He brought her arm up to his mouth, and Mira had enough time for the faint sense that she might have miscalculated again before he pressed a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist. He raised his eyes to meet hers as the shift to his demon form passed over him in a ripple. The deeper magenta pink of his hair matched the way his patterns had started to faintly glow, she realized; she hadn’t really ever noticed it until now. The patterns were usually a deeper shade of purple than his skin, a dark plum, but they had already lightened with a faint fuchsia glow as though lit from within. They were bright against the shadows cast across his skin in the warm, dim glow of the lamp, tracing up the contours of his chest and the line of his throat under the sharp angle of his jaw. Every small motion and shift was emphasized, highlighted in bright magenta that led the eye down the broad span of his chest and emphasized the narrow cut of his waist and hips. The hot press of another soft, chaste kiss over the faint remnants of mostly healed bruises drew her attention back up to his face, her own face flushing hot when she realized he’d been watching her stare at his bare chest. His eyes were a brighter yellow than Romance’s in this form, she noted in a dazed way, neon sharp around cat-slitted pupils.

He kissed a slow path up her arm from wrist to elbow, trailing slow, open-mouthed kisses in a heated drag across the sensitive new skin. Mira watched him in a stunned haze, trapped under his sharp eyes and careful hands. Romance wrapped his arm around her waist and said, “Show me,” firmly like a command.

Abby had been reclined back against the headboard, giving Mira a little space even as he held both her and Romance in his lap. At Romance’s instruction he surged up and forward, trapping Mira between the smooth planes of his chest and Romance solid and steady at her back, and then they were kissing over her shoulder. She’d braced her hands against Abby on instinct when he’d leaned into her, and now her hands were pressed to hot, bare skin. Romance still had an arm around her waist to hold her firmly up against him, but his other hand threaded into Abby’s tousled curls and tugged him into place where he wanted him, angled him for a deeper kiss and licked into his mouth hungrily. Abby’s hands flexed against her legs, his long fingers almost wrapping the entire span of her thigh and his thumbs brushing her inner thighs in the same slow rhythm of the kiss Romance led him into.

This was so much worse than just seeing them lean over her to kiss. She jolted away on instinct, but that just pressed her tighter into the curl of Romance’s arm around her waist—and she realized now he’d probably done it on purpose, keeping her securely in place between them during a moment when he knew he’d be…distracted. Leaning away from Romance would mean plastering herself to Abby’s bare chest; leaning away from Abby would mean grinding back against Romance. Moving to the right would press her into his arm around her waist, and moving to the left would just wedge her closer between them. There was no winning.

Her jarring motion distracted them into breaking the kiss at least, which was a solid first step toward being able to flee the room altogether. It didn’t distract them enough to let go of her, or for Romance to let go of Abby; he carded his claws gently through the curls at the nape of Abby’s neck to make him shiver and said in a low, thoughtful voice, “I can tell it’s noticeably faded since yesterday. Well done, Abby.”

Abby flushed a deeper purple at the praise—Mira hadn’t even realized demons could blush, but it was painted all down his face and throat past his chest. The deeper purple flush contrasted the softly glowing patterns...and her own pale hands, splayed wide over the muscular planes of his chest, oh god—

She snatched her hands back to fold them against her chest, mortified by the transgression. Abby didn’t seem to even notice—he was visibly trying to regroup after their kiss. He licked his lips (Mira was distracted immediately by the pink flicker of his tongue against the darker purple-black of his lips, now kiss-bruised and damp; she hated that she’d even noticed but now she couldn’t stop noticing) and gathered himself to say, “It’s, uh—right, yeah. It’s faded a little more. A couple more days, maybe, before it’s cleared out completely? You should heal faster then too.”

Mira seized on this conversational lifeline and nodded with relief. “Good, okay. You’ll probably only have to check a few more times and then I won’t have to be around anymore.”

There was a weighted pause that felt dangerous. Romance had gone suspiciously silent behind her but she couldn’t see him to gauge his reaction. Abby looked hurt. “...Is that what you want? For us to stay away from you? To leave?”

She tried to backpedal. She’d meant it as a reassurance—that they wouldn’t have to keep monitoring her, wouldn’t have to stay close by her or on guard around her. They could just go back to life as roommates, hopefully this time without the antagonism now that they knew each other better. “No, you don’t have to leave, that’s not what I meant. I just mean—I know you’ve been trying to help, and I appreciate it, but you don’t even like me, you don’t have to—to—what; you’re making a face at me. What?”

Abby looked startled and hurt, but also confused; like he was barely following what she was saying but didn’t like what he was hearing. “You think we don’t like you?”

Mira, equally startled and confused, blinked at him. “I...I mean. No? Pretty obviously no? We—you guys had a whole entire revenge plot about me, we talked about it yesterday. And I know you said you were letting it go, I’m not going to keep bringing it up or hold it against you or whatever. It’s fine, we’re all moving on. Right? But it’s—you won’t have to keep doing all this once I heal; that’s all I meant.”

“All this” was accompanied by a vague little wave meant to encompass...whatever they were all doing right now, pressed up close against each other. Abby hadn’t leaned back very much after the kiss; she only had a few inches of space to make little waving gestures and she felt it wasn’t really enough to adequately get her point across. The hurt was fading out of his expression at least, turning into something more complex; surprise and uncertainty, and as he glanced at Romance over her shoulder, just a hint of something like incredulity.

“Mira,” Abby began, with a disbelieving little laugh that was very unappreciated right now. “Sweetheart, no. No revenge plots, remember? Of course we like you. We wouldn’t have come back here if we didn’t—we would have gotten out of the demon realm with the others and then left. We could have gone anywhere; we came back for you, not for revenge.”

Romance pressed in even closer against her back, dropping his hand from Abby’s hair to encircle her waist with both arms. She could feel the light catch of his claws against her bare waist and hips, but he was careful not to hurt her as he pressed her back against his chest. His voice was a low, idle murmur against the curve of her throat as he said, “I have to ask, because I thought we’d made ourselves clear—specifically which part of this makes you think we don’t like you?”

Mira couldn’t think of a nicer way to phrase it—she was actually having trouble thinking at all, with the gentle threat of Romance’s claws on her hips, his lips brushing her neck as he spoke, and Abby’s thumbs making slow circles on her inner thighs—and said waspishly, “Specifically, the parts where you’ve been obnoxious for months and yesterday you told me you wanted to kill me. You know, the subtle things.”

“We don’t want to kill you,” Abby chided, like she was being dramatic instead of quoting Romance. Mira scoffed, skeptical, and Romance amended, “Anymore. We don’t want to kill you anymore.”

“I stabbed you. I almost killed Abby.” And she still wasn’t sorry she’d done it, but she could admit now she regretted that it had happened—regretted that the entire fucked up situation had ever happened. Maybe if things had been different...but it hadn’t been. She’d done her best with the situation she’d been handed.

“And we were trying to kill you,” Abby said with a shrug. “I figure that evens out. You didn’t kill me and Ro recovered.”

“I was angry,” Romance admitted. His voice was low and his lips brushed her shoulder as he ducked his head, confessing quietly against her skin. “I’m not anymore. Abby and I both healed when we reformed in the demon realm. Left a hell of a scar though—on me, anyway; not Abby. But I’m not angry with you anymore. It was never your fault, not really. We started that fight and you finished it.”

“It left a scar?” Mira echoed. She hadn’t thought they could get scars—Mystery and Abby didn’t have any marks from what she and Zoey had done. She’d wondered about Romance, but that was when she thought he’d healed the normal way, not...you know, dissolving and reforming back to the demon realm with Baby, or whatever they’d done.

“It did.” He propped his chin on her shoulder and his voice took on a teasing note. “Want to see?”

She disregarded the tone to consider the question seriously—because yes, she’d already realized that ask him to show her meant he’d have a ready excuse to take his shirt off, but it still sounded like a sincere offer. “...If you want to show me, then yes. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t mind. I wouldn’t offer if I did.” He shifted his weight off to the side a bit, not completely out from behind her, but only straddling one of Abby’s legs and angled against her shoulder. He stripped off his sweater and tossed it over the side of the bed.

She’d already known he was more muscular than he seemed at first glance (being in proximity Abby made everyone look puny by comparison; it was the only time she ever felt short), but knowing that abstractly was different than being confronted with long, sleek lines of muscle. Abby was built broad and heavy: bulky muscle over a tall, wide frame. Romance was a narrow, elegant contrast: lean lines and sharp angles.

The scar was noticeable but not prominent—it had the silvery pale look of an old, fully healed scar, just a bit lighter against his already pale skin. It was a little longer than the span of her hand might cover and about two finger-widths wide. It carved a straight line down his sternum right through the center of his rib cage. Center mass; she hadn’t had time to aim but she’d caught him dead center. A little to the left and she’d have stabbed him straight through the heart.

“Not as visible in my human form,” he commented. “Our human disguise is a perception of our true selves; we look more or less the same in each. But in my real form…”

He let the rippling change of his demon form roll over him, the dim lamp light painting him in smoke-dark shadows and twilight purple, and Mira gasped before she could catch herself.

The scar stood out on his chest, a silvery iridescence like the Honmoon itself had burned into the core of him. It looked almost like one of Rumi’s patterns splashed in the midst of his own—his patterns were the same deep plum shade as the others she’d seen, but his looked almost deliberately placed. They twisted around his torso to gather into spiraling whorl over his heart like a black hole, and against the dark mass of patterns the scar she’d left shone like a star.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he told her, correctly anticipating what her question was going to be before she could even open her mouth. “Not anymore, anyway. When I reformed in the demon realm it was just there. Usually getting hit with a spiritual weapon would disperse us on contact. My best guess is that trying to hold myself intact around it for so long did something; altered my form a little.”

That was unexpectedly difficult to hear. It probably wouldn’t help to tell him she’d only meant to kill him, not like, burn a piece of the Honmoon into him for all eternity.

“It doesn’t hurt?” He’d already said it didn’t, but she needed to be sure. Needed to hear him say it.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he reassured her again. He took her hand and lifted it to press her palm over the mark, refractions of light sparking through her outspread fingers. “I can feel it when you draw your weapon now though. That was...not a great surprise, frankly, the first time it happened. But that doesn’t hurt either, it just feels like a kind of...tug, a little pull.”

His skin was smooth and hot under her hand. She traced a careful fingertip around the edge of the scar where the bright coruscation met the darkness of the patterns. She could feel the slow rise and fall of his breathing beneath her fingers, alive and whole. He’d returned to be a complete pain in the ass specifically to her, but...she was glad they were both back, alive and well and entirely obnoxious.

She pulled her hand away and pressed her knuckles to her legs, just above where Abby’s hands splayed wide across her thighs. “...And you’re okay with all of this? Seriously?”

He shrugged lightly, patterns shifting with the subtle play of muscle. The scar drew her eye, bright colors glinting across his skin with every small movement. “It’s just battle scars where a beautiful woman left her mark.”

But that was his light, airy, fake idol voice, and she gave him a pointed, skeptical stare for it. Honestly...she was a little hurt that he’d even tried. She thought he noticed; he dropped the saccharine tone and said bluntly, “I was angry about what you did to Abby, not to me. And like he said—you didn’t really kill him, and we’ve both recovered. It’s over and done with now.”

As though to punctuate his final statement, he wound his arms around her waist again and pulled her in against him, her back pressed to his chest once more. She let him, but recovered enough of her usual tone to ask pointedly, “If it was so over and done with, why were you being so obnoxious to me?”

“I told you annoying her was going to backfire on you,” Abby told Romance pointedly. To Mira, he added in the virtuous tones of the wrongly accused, “I was never mean to you.”

“You were both super annoying. For months.”

“Okay, maybe, but in our defense it was really funny,” Romance explained unhelpfully. Maybe all demons had a self-sabotaging streak and it wasn’t just Seojun. That would actually explain a lot about Jinu, generally. “You’d get riled up so easily, but you wouldn’t actually do anything about it.”

“I would have, but Zoey was all, ‘Mira, noooo, don’t do murders in the penthouse or I’ll make sad faces at you forever’,” Mira grumbled. “See if I’m ever nice to either of you ever again.”

She could see on Abby’s face when they traded a glance over her shoulder again, and then he shrugged and said, “If I’m wrong about this, you can get mad at me and I’ll apologize.”

“What—”

Abby palmed her jaw, practically cradling her entire head in one giant hand, and pressed in close to kiss her. There was nothing hesitant about it, no chaste, uncertain touch—he pushed his thumb against her chin to nudge her mouth open and licked into her when she gasped, immediately deepening it into something heated and pulling her into his wake. She raked her sharp nails through his hair to pull a low, rough noise out of him and kissed him back with a dazed, breathless need until she had to break away with a ragged gasp—because Romance bit her, not gently; bared fangs scraped across the sensitive, still healing skin on her shoulder and the lightning-quick heat of his tongue a second later to soothe over the sting.

“Don’t be nice to us then, if that’s what you want,” Abby said, pressing the words against her lips and punctuating it with a hard, punishing kiss. “Whatever you want. We’ll work it out.”

“You—” This was asking a lot from her already compromised higher reasoning skills, especially when Romance nipped at her shoulder again, more gently this time, and soothed away the flash of pain with a sweet kiss, the flicker of his tongue searing over fragile, newly healed skin. There were a lot of reasons why this was a terrible idea. She just...couldn’t quite grasp any of the many very sensible reasons right now. No, okay—focus, Mira. She licked her lips and almost lost her train of thought again when she saw Abby’s eyes drop to track the motion with a predatory, hungry intensity. “You two are already together. You don’t—don’t want me—”

Abby pressed his hand to her jaw, using his grip on her to tilt her head to the side with gentle, inexorable pressure to turn her startled attention to Romance as he leaned around her shoulder. Romance kissed her sweetly, softly—until Abby set his teeth against her collarbone and jolted a high, needy sound out of her that she’d never heard herself make before, sharp and staccato. Romance deepened the kiss in response like he couldn’t help himself, rough and biting until she was gasping into him, too, her fingers clenched in the silky softness of his hair. Abby trailed lower to press heated kisses down to the too-low neckline of her stolen shirt. It was too big for her but absurdly too small for him, and she’d just belatedly realized that might have been his goal from the start: whichever of them ended up wearing it, it was a win/win scenario for him. Easily his most successful plot to date; that was a solid 10/10.

“We are together,” Romance agreed, his voice lower and rougher than she’d ever heard him as he drew back from her a little. His claws threaded gently through her hair and he tugged lightly, drawing her in for another soft kiss; almost chaste, as if he hadn’t just had his tongue in her mouth. “And we’ll still be together. But we want you, too. You’ll have us both or not at all. Is that alright?”

Mira hesitated. Doubts and misgivings crowded in as the haze cleared, and she slid her fingers out of his hair to carefully hold his shoulder instead as she gathered herself. “...I’ll fuck it up somehow. I always do. I’m too blunt and sarcastic, and I have a temper.”

“We’ll probably fuck up too,” Romance said softly, brushing a reassuring kiss to her cheek, soft and sweet now despite the claws scratching lightly through her hair and down the nape of her neck. “I’m possessive and I can be pushy—”

“Bossy,”Abby added pointedly.

“You love it when I’m bossy,” Romance countered with a sharp smile, all fangs, and Abby leaned over to press a kiss to his jaw and then a sharper bite.

“I do; not sure how Mira’s going to feel about it. Definitely give it a shot though, I’m very interested to see how that goes.”

Ignoring that, Romance continued lightly, “We’ll probably all mess up, probably more than once. Everyone does.”

“Not me, I’m perfect,” Abby confessed modestly. “But if something goes wrong, we’ll fix it. We’ll talk about it, maybe sometimes we’ll fight about it, but we’ll fix it. Is...is this okay? Will you let us try?”

She still hesitated. It was a bad idea, probably. For a lot of reasons. Some reasons she hadn’t even thought of yet, unknowns and insecurities a spiraling disaster in her head.

But. But. The biggest hurdle—that they were diametrically opposed as hunter and demons, and there had been some sincere attempts to kill one another in the recent past—had already been cleared. Did she have any doubts more dire than that?

“Okay.” It emerged as a whisper. She had enough courage to say it but not enough to push it out any stronger. “...Okay. We’ll...we’ll try. I can try.”

Abby kissed her again, slow and sweet as though in reassurance. “Will you stay here with us tonight? Just to sleep, I promise. We can take things slow.”

It made her flush—particularly because he’d said take things slow but his thumb inched up her inner thigh until he was sweeping a slow touch against the hem of her shorts where they’d gotten rucked up high, almost to the crease of her hip, and she was beginning to suspect those little touches hadn’t actually been as thoughtless and aimless as they’d seemed. But she nodded and agreed, firmly, “Just to sleep. But...I’ll stay.”

They readjusted to lie on the bed—Mira between them, with Romance between her and the door, Abby between her and the window. She rolled her eyes when she noticed it. “We’re not under attack anymore, you don’t have to guard the exits.”

“Habit,” Romance said lightly, leaning in to press a kiss to her shoulder like he couldn’t help himself. He was facing them, his long hair a little disheveled where she’d run her fingers through it. Mira hesitated, but—she was allowed to touch now, right? That wasn’t too much? She reached out and combed her fingers through his hair, carefully neatening it until it lay in a gentle sweep across his shoulders. His hair was as soft as spun silk through her fingers. Backlit by the lamp on the bedside table behind him, he was cast in soft shadows, but the bright line of the scar down his chest shone with the soft prismatics of the Honmoon.

“Besides, we like having you here between us, where we can keep an eye on you,” Abby added. He was lying behind her now so she could be on her right side. Her ribs were far better than they had been this morning, but not enough that she wanted to test her luck by sleeping on the claw marks. He was pressed up against her back, radiating heat, and he’d curled his arm across her waist to keep her close. She’d never actually gotten around to unknotting the hem of the tank top and it was still up high around her ribs; the direct skin contact with him was more than a little distracting.

“Keep an eye on me?” she echoed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You keep finding new ways to get attacked by demons without us. It’s very stressful,” Abby said mournfully.

Normally she might have said something indignant to the effect of Like it’s my fault I was being targeted? But...it was, actually, kind of literally her fault this time. It was nice to hear that Rumi and Zoey didn’t agree, but Mira could see Seojun’s point. Not that she was happy about it, but...yeah, it was at least partially her fault. Slowly, she said, “I get attacked by demons a lot. You know that already, right? I’m still a hunter; that part doesn’t change just because we’re…together or whatever. It’s been a really long time since any of us got hurt like this, but it might happen again in the future. It’s not something I can change, even if I wanted to.”

“We know,” Romance agreed quietly. Unspoken but heavy in the air around them: they would probably all outlive their hunters eventually. Rumi was kind of a wild card, being half-demon, but in most respects she was just as human as they were. Jinu was over four hundred, and there was no reason to think he couldn’t just as easily live another four hundred years after they were long gone; Rumi probably wouldn’t match his lifespan. Zoey and Mira certainly wouldn’t. All of them knew it, but it was one of those things none of them talked about.

“We’ll be with you though, as often as possible,” Abby said, low and intent behind her. Neither of them had gone back to their human masks and he was careful of his claws when he pressed his palm over her heart, his long fingers splaying upward to the curve of her throat. “That last group hunt turned into kind of a clusterfuck, but for the most part we’ve been successful working together, haven’t we?”

“We have,” Mira allowed. That much, at least, was true.

Even that first group hunt, which hadn’t even been intended to be a group event. But Jinu was still sticking close to Rumi then because none of them were sure how far from her he could go after spending almost two months as a sort of sword spirit, and Mystery just appeared places sometimes like he lived in Zoey’s shadow, and there was no point in trying to get rid of Baby unless he wanted to leave or Zoey told him to, and then Romance and Abby had tagged along too, and by that point Mira had just sort of given in and resigned herself to the reality of having the entire traveling circus along for the hunt.

Abby and Romance had gotten on her nerves consistently for the first hour or so—constantly trying to flank her, trying to flirt, trying to pull her into conversations and debates and generally making a nuisance of themselves...but as soon as they’d found a mass of water demons haunting the pond of a small public park, everyone had snapped to attention. It had gone surprisingly well—no one had gotten hurt, and no demons had managed to escape from them. By any metric, it was a success.

“And you won’t let yourself get abducted again?” Romance added, his voice a little sharper and harder. His eyes shone a little brighter in the dark with a flash, like a flame flickering higher before being banked low again. “I know you felt you had to go with him today, but in the future you will at least try to keep yourself safe?”

“Well. I mean, I always try, but I can’t make any promises,” she admitted. “It’s my job to protect people—and to protect Zoey and Rumi. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

She’d even made an attempt to protect the idiot demons today; she didn’t point it out to them. Romance already looked a little mutinous and further wounding his pride definitely wouldn’t help ease the situation. Arguably, she hadn’t been all that successful at protecting them anyway. None of them had been seriously hurt, but she’d still left them behind as snarling pancake demons in the sand. Like angry little hotteok—a comparison that absolutely would not go over well, despite how accurate it was; she kept that to herself.

“Will you let us help you then?” Abby asked, pressing his luck but also pressing a light kiss to her neck, which admittedly helped his chances considerably. He couldn’t keep using that against her forever, but...it was still pretty effective at the moment. “Without yelling at us, preferably, but I guess whatever works for you.”

“That probably depends on how annoying you are when you’re trying to help,” Mira said fairly. It was best to be realistic—she hadn’t been bluffing about having a temper, although they probably knew that better than most by now. “But maybe.”

Romance made an amused sound and gradually lost some of his nettled pride. “Our first fight already.”

Abby shifted his hand away from her heart to tangle his fingers in the strap of her tank top, and to his credit he even managed to do it without groping her tits on the way up. “No, our first fight is going to be about this shirt, which I think I want back now.”

“Too late, it’s my shirt now. If I give it back I won’t have anything to wear except that jacket Romance bought, and that thing is awful.”

Romance sighed, resigned, and said morosely, “There’s just no pleasing some people. Fine, I’ll wear the jacket if you don’t want it and you can give Abby his shirt back. And I guess you’ll just have to be topless then. Don’t worry, we’ll both be very supportive.”

She laughed and tugged lightly on his hand, his fingers laced through hers, to pull him closer to her and Abby. “Don’t push your luck today, but...maybe later.”

There was still so much left unsaid, and this...this relationship between the three of them was still objectively a terrible idea, but...laying tangled together in the dimly lit bedroom, somehow all of the worries and doubts seemed farther away. It was a problem for some later date. There would surely be arguments and fights in the future, and some of them would probably get ugly at some point. Their friends were all going to be hideously, infuriatingly smug and knowing, which was going to drive Mira up a wall with irritation and probably wouldn’t affect either of them at all. Nothing had really been settled in long-term sense, and probably wouldn’t for a very long time. But for today, at least, the worst of their problems had fallen away into the shadows of the day and they could turn a new leaf. Right now there was just the three of them together, quiet and still. And for today, at least, that was enough.