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Chapter Thirty-Four

K i s a

“I didn’t know goodbyes could hurt so much,” Hajun whispers as he stands with Kisa on the newly repaired tenth deck of the SRC Flatliner, his eyes filled with tears. Kisa tries to smile at her friend, but her face crumples as his does.

“Me, neither,” she whispers, pulling him into a tight hug. His soft black T-shirt, so different from his usual stiff scrubs, wrinkles under her embrace. “You’ll have fun, won’t you? Don’t let yourself miss me too much.” She feels him nod.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “For everything.”

“You deserve it all, Hajun,” Kisa replies, holding him tight, breathing in his cinnamon cologne. “For as long as you want it.” She allows herself to hold on to him for a few moments longer before she slowly, gently, steps away.

“Kisa,” Somi says, and the dam of emotions in Kisa breaks again as the gumiho steps forward, dark eyes unusually glassy. Somi’s short hair flutters in a morning wind. “I guess this is goodbye—for real, this time.” Her red-lined lips tremble and her knuckles shine around the handle of a suitcase. “I’m glad we could do it over. I’m happy, so happy, that we can part as friends.”

“Me, too,” Kisa says, scrubbing a tear away. “Somi…I need you to know that what happened last time was never your fault. Hani never blamed you, and neither do I. For what it’s worth, I’m— we’re —sorry, so sorry, for everything.” As Somi shakes her head, Kisa practically drags her into a hug. Somi hesitates before wrapping her arms around Kisa and squeezing her hard enough that she nearly gags.

“You’ll visit?” she asks as Kisa struggles for breath.

“Yes,” she wheezes. “Of course. As long as you’re here.”

“Good,” Somi sniffles, stepping away. Hajun grabs her hand, looking worriedly at the crying gumiho. “If you don’t, I’ll be forced to take some drastic measures.”

She believes it. “You’ll know where to find me,” Kisa replies, and she can’t help but to smile as her friends nod, their faces softening.

“I want you to have these,” Somi says, giving her the suitcase. As Kisa’s brows raise, Somi bends to unzip a portion, giving Kisa a glimpse of dozens of battered romance books packed together. “They were yours to begin with, and they should be yours at the end, too.”

Kisa’s eyes blur with tears. “Oh, Somi,” she whispers. “Thank you.”

The gumiho smiles, even though she’s still weeping. “I think they’ll make good additions,” she says. “Don’t you?”

“Definitely,” Kisa chokes out around a sob.

The red thread around her little finger—no longer substantial, and back to its regular thinness—gives an insistent tug before shaping itself into a clock. TICK, TOCK, it tells her in looping red letters that are distinctly impatient.

Right. She takes a deep breath. Seokga is almost here, having left the previous night to sit on Okhwang’s throne as interim-interim-interim heavenly emperor (as he calls it) and bring Kisa’s wish to fruition.

She felt it happen, the exact moment her soul was unbound from the SRC Flatliner and bound to another place instead. A sort of lightness in her body that she forgot could exist, a feeling of vast potential—that she was about to go home.

She forgot what that felt like.

“Be happy, Kisa,” Hajun whispers as the Red Thread of Fate quivers in joy and Seokga appears out of slightly undulating air to take his place next to Kisa. Just his presence beside her sends Kisa’s heart thumping quite a bit more loudly than before.

“I will,” she promises as she takes Seokga’s hand. She already is.

The last things she sees on the SRC Flatliner are Somi’s and Hajun’s small, teary smiles before the world disappears around her…

…and re-forms into a world smelling of old paper and ink. Kisa bites her lip to contain her shout of joy as she takes in the worn mahogany walls crammed with yellowed scrolls and leather-bound volumes, spinning around on the dust-covered, uneven planks of the well-trodden floor to stare at the precariously balanced towers of books that nearly scrape the domed ceiling hundreds of feet above. It is a maze of literature, a forest of forgotten books. The book towers are the trees, the softly falling motes of dust their leaves, illuminated by grimy windows from which sunlight—real, pure, dazzling sunlight —streams. Bats hang from the darkness-obscured wooden beams above, and moths flutter from book to book, as if they believe themselves to be nectar-drinking butterflies. The forest stretches on and on, growing deeper and darker through narrow corridors and swooping staircases that look rickety at best. Despite the cold, despite the stagnant air, the Heavenly Library is the most beautiful thing Kisa has ever seen.

She turns to Seokga and presses a shaking hand to her mouth.

His green eyes glimmer in both hope and concern. “I told you,” he says. “Cold, dusty—”

“And messy,” Kisa agrees, but she’s smiling, joy blooming in her chest. “It’s nothing that the Dewey decimal system and a crackling fireplace can’t fix, really.”

“I have to admire your tenacity,” he murmurs, drawing closer. Her breath hitches. “But are you sure, Kisa, that this is where you’d like your soul to be bound?”

For a gwisin must always be bound to one location or another, whether it be the place of their death, an active haunting site, or a point in the underworld like the SRC Flatliner. Without a binding, a gwisin will wander. They may wander for centuries without becoming lost to themselves or the physical worlds, but wander long enough and it will happen.

Seokga’s binding will be gentler than Yeomra’s. She will be able to dance in the sun, or visit her friends atop a rushing underworld river, but eventually, she will always be called back here. Here, to this new world. Her forest of forgotten books.

Kisa knows that there are stars in her eyes as she takes in the library, as she feels the secrets surrounding her like a shimmering blanket. There is no telling where the Heavenly Library ends. It is an entire realm in itself, and one in which she is content to stay. “Oh, yes,” she whispers. “This is home, Seokga.” Her fingers brush over his lips. “With you.”

—I love her—so much—can barely breathe—Kisa—Kisa—Kisa—

As the morning sunlight streams into the library and envelops the god and the gwisin in its shimmering glow, Kisa presses herself up to her tiptoes and kisses Seokga with all of the deep, endless love that swirls within her soul.

Somewhere, far away, the god of laws and kept promises smiles.

For an oath has finally been fulfilled.