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"So, harvesting the soul of a previous hunter and using the power to destroy Gwi-Ma... I didn't realize that that was your backup plan," Jinu said, knowing he was probably hastening his own demise, but he was sick of the silence. His words fell like pebbles into a deep well. Rumi didn't even bother to turn her head.
She hadn't said a word since she had destroyed Gwi-Ma in a crimson blaze and transported all the other demons back to the top of Gwi-Ma's now extinguished temple. The rest of the Saja Boys had fled the moment they realized where they were. Jinu hadn't bothered. If she wanted to find him, she would. She was technically his boss now.
Most likely, she was standing there trying to figure out the most painful way she could execute him to make him into an example. He wouldn't even blame her for it.
"This isn't a nice place, is it?" she finally said softly. She wasn't wrong. Without Gwi-Ma's coruscating light, the demon realm laid out before them was a ruin wreathed in fog. "I never really thought about it before, but that's why demons are always trying to leave."
She began to pick her way down the stone steps, the glow of her patterns allowed him to keep her in sight as he descended behind, keeping his distance. She paused several meters from the first row of huddled demons crouched by the steps of the dais. No one would mourn Gwi-Ma's destruction, Jinu was sure about that, but at least they had understood what to expect from him. Nothing good of course, but the devil you knew...
"Do any of you have experience building?" Rumi asked aloud.
All the demons closest glanced at each other in terrified confusion, and Jinu, for how dire the situation was, couldn't help but find the humor in this great menagerie of bulging eyes and fangs and claws who all uniformly cowered before a young woman still dressed like a popstar.
Finally, one goblin, perhaps slightly braver, or more likely stupider, than the rest spoke out, "What would you have us build, your—your..." he stumbled, grasping for a proper address. "...your dark majesty?"
Jinu could tell from the subtle workings of Rumi's face that this was not the title that she would have preferred. "Do you think it would be possible to build a palace?" She glanced around at the surrounding desolation. "Maybe something in the style of Gyeongbokgung? Not the whole complex, but at least some of the buildings?"
This request was met once more with cowed silence until the goblin who had first spoken fell to his knees. "Of course, we would do anything that would please your unsurpassable highness. And we would learn how to carry out any task you would deign to assign to us. It would be the honor of our lives to serve you in any way that would give you pleasure. However—" Here the goblin gulped and began to bend his upper body so close to the ground that it was surprising that his words could be made out at all as he concluded meekly: "...we currently lack the materials and tools for such a project."
Rumi didn't immediately fly into a rage and decapitate the goblin as it seemed all, including the goblin himself, expected. Instead she glanced back at the dais, pointedly not in Jinu's direction. "To start with, you could dismantle this ugly thing and use it as foundation," she said. "I'm sure I can figure out a way to source the rest of what we need."
The goblin, realizing he might yet be spared, jumped to his feet and cried, "It shall be begun right away, my great and terrible mistress!" He led the charge of a few dozen demons to surround the base of the dais and began at once to clumsily tear at the stone with tooth and claw.
"It might be easier if you start from the top," Jinu pointed out to the crowd before they managed to make the whole thing collapse on top of themselves.
There was a general murmur of agreement before they all raced up the steps, more like a group of eager school children than murderous monsters. Jinu glanced back at Rumi who watched their exuberance with her mouth curving into something, if not quite a smile, than the least foreboding expression he had seen from her so far. This was probably his best chance.
"What do you need a palace for?" he asked.
She still didn't look at him, but after twisting her mouth a little to the side she finally answered, "If I am going to be in charge of the demon realm, then I need some place where I can live and work and make plans. I may not have wanted the job, but I'm not going to be an amateur about it."
The cool, collected figure before him seemed so at odds with the sobbing, distraught woman of recent memory that it made him pause. Was it possible that Rumi had been the one playing him all along? Maybe getting Gwi-Ma to overreach himself by coming to the human world had always been her goal. She must have known that he would betray her... Only, no, that was way too convoluted.
It had been real. He knew it had been real: the way she had looked at him even when she had been shouting at him, desperate to find the good that she imagined she had seen. Now that look was gone forever and he only had himself to blame.
"I want you to call all demons back from the human world. The more of them working on this, the faster it will get done," she said.
Jinu had the disorienting realization that he had just received a promotion.
"I... will see that it's done," he couldn't resist poking the tiger by adding a bow and a mocking, "my dark mistress."
Now finally Rumi looked at him directly, her expression blank and for a moment Jinu wondered if he had just earned a public execution after all. Then her mouth quirked up and she let out a breathy, but still recognizable laugh. It wasn't a cheerful sound, but she didn't look murderous, and Jinu felt like he could be called an expert on when she looked truly murderous.
"Sorry," she wiped a hand across her mouth as if she was equally surprised by the sound that had come from it. "I guess, I wasn't expecting you to still be annoying even when we're on the same side."
"Are we on the same side?"
"Well," she looked around at the gloomy landscape, a resigned sadness creeping into her eyes. "I don't think there's any other side that is going to take us now."
Before Jinu's sense of self-preservation could stop him, he reached out for her hand. Her fingers, he realized, tapered into claws now, just like his. "I'm glad to be on your side."
Rumi looked down with surprise at their clasped hands, and then met Jinu's gaze with an ironic slant of her eyebrows that seemed to say, given his track record, there was probably no one else stupid enough to want him. She didn't pull away though. "Let's give the backup plan a try."
As it turned out, the skills needed to put together a successful idol act and the skills needed for a significant building project were not all that different. A lot of it came down to logistics and people management.
Sourcing the materials was simple with the Honmoon still in complete disarray. For personnel, Rumi took notice of demons who seemed to actually know what they were doing and put them in charge of specific projects suited to their talents. Jinu noticed over time these selected demons starting to wear finer robes and hats as if they were real imperial officials. Even Rumi, when she wasn't moodily staring off into the distance, started to notice the burgeoning bureaucracy forming and asked if he wanted a crest to attach to the front of his robe so he wouldn't feel as if he were being outdone.
Jinu didn't feel the need for the distinction.
As it was, the other demons lowered their eyes and spoke low when he passed. He knew what they assumed about his relationship with the new demon empress.
Rumi's terrifying reputation kept the demons in line for the most part, even when it came to her instituting two unpopular rules: the first, unsurprisingly, was that no demon was to lay a single claw on the two current hunters. Without Rumi or an intact Honmoon, they were largely ineffectual, but still caused Jinu plenty of headaches changing out the work schedule to accommodate demons who needed to recover from being forcibly banished.
It was the second rule that puzzled him: No demon was to ever harm a child. Rumi had loved her fans, but he had never noticed her being particularly sentimental about children before so why the emphasis? When he'd obliquely asked for her reasoning, she had treated the inquiry as absurd before quickly turning the conversation to building layouts.
In quiet moments, he found himself worrying.
What would Rumi do when her reputation as a hunter no longer earned her easy obedience? Already, from time to time, he would hear dissatisfied mutterings about why they were spending all their time and energy on building a palace when they should all be overrunning the human world and feasting. These discontents were easily enough dealt with, but for how long?
If faced with an opposition, would Rumi's reign of relative benevolence come to a swift and bloody end? Or would she remake herself into an even greater tyrant than Gwi-Ma? Jinu couldn't say. They worked closely together on the palace, but she did not confide in him.
Despite his other concerns, the building project at least was an undoubted success. It made swift progress that exceeded their initial more modest expectations. Jinu still knew instinctively where Gwi-Ma's monument had been, but by the time timber and hanji and clay were being absconded from the human world any remains of it had been thoroughly scavenged and re-used. In its place lay the great hall, its double-tiered stone foundation raising it higher than any other building. Its curved roof line gave an impression of a bird in flight.
Inside the compound was full of the sound of work: timber being cut or sanded, stone being chiseled, workers on break chatting together in small groups, and couriers running to and fro with harried expressions yelling at everyone to get out their way. Bursts of laughter could even be heard from time to time. The bustle made for a strange contrast when the main activity for centuries had been skulking around hoping Gwi-Ma forgot about your existence for as long as possible. Jinu could almost imagine that the last four hundred years had just been an ugly nightmare and he was back serving at the palace.
Without warning, Jinu found himself cast from his thoughts and shoved to the ground. A large goblin pulling a cart full of clay tiles bellowed and cursed him for not getting out of his way quickly enough. The goblin bent back a leg to give Jinu a kick for good measure when he saw exactly who it was that he had knocked to the ground. At once the goblin fell to his knees and began to grovel, seeking pardon for his unforgivable insolence.
Jinu came back to his feet more annoyed at himself for getting so caught up in his own introspection and leading to this embarrassing scene. He managed to dismiss the blubbering goblin and continued on his way. Another contrast. The first few decades of his banishment to the demon realm had mostly consisted of other demons telling him how he still stunk like a human and getting a great deal of entertainment out of pinching him hard as if to check the tenderness of his meat.
He felt a nudge at his side and saw that the tiger had appeared. He scratched it behind its ear. "I must be running late," he said and began to make a more decided path towards the northern hall. The guards posted outside made no move to stop him as he slid back the door and entered.
He moved quickly past the empty partitioned spaces, waiting to be made up into a hearing room or a banquet hall or whatever kind of space was required until arriving at the one permanent space which Rumi had turned into something between her private study and bedroom.
He entered without announcing himself and found her sitting as usual at a low desk reviewing documents. The traditional feel of the room was compromised by the large western-style bed that lay in the corner. Jinu could only imagine how it had been transported here from the human world. The strange juxtaposition of style extended to Rumi herself. While she wore a casual silk dressing gown, above the neck she was still fully done up with a full face of makeup and her hair braided and coiled on top of her head with ornaments on either side of her temples and above her forehead. It was the incongruity of a doll whose head some mischievous child had swapped onto the body of another.
Clearly the papers she was reviewing must have come while she was in the middle of getting ready for bed, an assumption confirmed by the two attendants who stood unhappily behind her, clearly wanting to say something but unwilling to annoy a demon queen.
Given the lack of celestial bodies there wasn't any easy way to measure time in the demon realm, but Rumi was human enough that she had instituted arbitrary partitions of time. Before Jinu had only ever reckoned the passage of time whenever he was briefly allowed to return to the human world and each time would realize with horror just how much time had passed. In the demon realm, a decade could feel like just one long, horrible day.
Despite being the one to instate time, Rumi felt no compunction about working long past when by her own rules she should have rested.
Jinu waited to be noticed, but the tiger wasn't so patient. It padded forward, making the attendants cringe back in fear. Rumi looked up in confusion at their vocal alarm which was replaced by delight when she saw the tiger and lifted up her hand for it to nuzzle. Her expression cooled when she noticed Jinu by the partition, giving him a nod of acknowledgment and then told her two attendants that they were free to go.
They bowed low and did not argue as they escaped, giving the tiger a wide berth. Their footsteps paused as they passed Jinu to exit the room. He knew if he met their gaze that their assumptions would be plainly written on their faces, so he didn't bother. Instead he watched as the tiger knocked its heavy head against Rumi, who didn't seem bothered by the prospect of getting tiger fur all over everything.
"If you want, I can also leave and give you two privacy," Jinu said, once the attendants had taken their leave.
"Don't tempt me," Rumi said, but there was no heat to it. She took a hand off from petting the tiger and gestured at the papers on her desk. "Here, come take a look. I just received these from Jihae."
Jinu's stomach sank. Jihae was a water demon interested in creating a garden in the demon realm. So far Jinu had been able to hold off any serious planning despite Rumi's enthusiasm, arguing that the main hall and all the infrastructure required should take priority. Rumi had been persuaded, but Jinu knew with the rest of the building going so well that it was only a matter of time before it all came to a head.
Still, there was nothing for it. He came over to the desk and looked over the schematics. Despite his reservations, Jinu was impressed by the technical sophistication on display. "It's an irrigation system," Rumi said, too eager to wait for Jinu to review all of the documents. "He's come up with something really clever. Let me show you. There's actually an underground spring not too far from here..."
"Even if there's water, it won't change the fact that flowers and trees can't survive without sunlight," Jinu said.
"Wait here," Rumi said, and darted behind a partition. He and the tiger shared a glance as they waited, listening to the shuffling as she came back with a large clay pot in her hands, a green sprout of some kind poking out of it.
"With a combination of enriched soil, making some adjustments to the growth lamps, and choosing for a species with very low light level requirements, this has survived almost twice as long as any of the others," Rumi said proudly, setting the pot in front of him.
Jinu inspected the little plant closely, and while, yes, it was alive, he could tell it wasn't healthy. The leaves drooped, the stem looked frail, and even the shade of green was beginning to take on a yellow cast. Jinu didn't know that much about plants, but he did know death. He would give the little plant a few more days at best.
"It's progress, anyway," Rumi continued. "I already have some ideas of how we can increase the chances for more delicate plants..."
He looked up and Rumi's face fell and then hardened without him having to say a word. He hated it, the animation in her face fading, but he wasn't going to lie to her.
"The very air of the demon realm is toxic to life," Jinu said. "The only kind of energy that actually does anything down here is the power of souls. Unless you're willing to sacrifice humans day and night to keep your plants alive, a garden will never be possible."
"You don't know that for certain though," Rumi argued. "Even if Gwi-Ma said something like that, he could have been lying."
"I've been here four hundred years and never seen anything grow. Nothing good, anyway."
Stubbornness flashed across her face as she set herself down next to him, frowning at the plant. "How does the power of souls even work? Do they just get used up and burn out like light bulbs?" she asked, and spread out her hand towards the plant with a look of ferocious concentration. He could see threads of blue light start to weave itself around the little plant. The leaves seemed to perk up under the treatment, almost as if they were waving. Rumi smiled.
"Rumi, wait—" Whatever warning he was about to give was lost as the threads of blue warped into ragged crimson streaks that seemed to streak towards Rumi. She pulled her hand back, but that didn't stop whatever energy this was from doubling back onto her. She winced, doubling over. Without thinking he wrapped his arms around her to keep her from slumping to the ground and hitting her head.
She gave a grunt of pain, but at least she was still conscious. "What was that?" she asked. Jinu let go of her, leaving a hand on her shoulder to steady her as she rubbed a hand to her head. Her patterns were lit up a bright hot pink though even as he watched the intensity of the color began to fade.
"Maybe you should be more careful before trying to give your soul to a plant," Jinu said dryly.
"It wasn't my soul," Rumi muttered. She spread out her hands, taking in the intricate lines that traced across the skin as though they belonged to someone else. "I thought it might be possible to free her. The previous hunter."
When Rumi had come into the stadium, almost impossible to make out through the glare of crimson light that surrounded her, Gwi-Ma had accused her of harvesting the soul of another hunter, and had called her a murderer. Jinu supposed he had hoped to make Rumi break down in guilt and despair. She had torn Gwi-Ma to pieces instead.
"I hadn't meant to do it," Rumi said low enough that for a moment Jinu didn't know if he had actually heard it until she continued, "She wanted to try to fix things by covering it up again and I got so angry... I didn't know I could just take a soul like that." She looked up at him, eyes pleading. "And there's no way to just— just release it? To just let her go and be at peace?"
"I really don't know much about souls," Jinu said carefully. He didn't want to crush her, but also couldn't give her false hope. False hope could be so much crueler than despair. "Once they're absorbed, I think, that's it. Just like you can't retrieve the sunlight from a plant. What's done is done, Rumi. There's no reason to make yourself miserable over an accident."
"I thought demons only deserved to live with our misery."
He didn't flinch, but it's a close thing. "I still don't understand why you didn't kill me like you did Gwi-Ma."
"You don't?" Rumi asked, with a small bitter smile. "You told me once that you were the only one who could understand me."
"I was lying to you."
"Then why have you stayed?" Rumi asked.
"Where else could I go?"
"Anywhere you wanted. I won't stop you. At least one of us could be free."
"That's not how it works."
"Then tell me how it works."
"I know why you've ordered us to leave the children alone."
That drew Rumi up short. She hadn't expected that turn in the conversation, and for that matter, neither had he. It took her a few moments to finally respond, "Do I really need a reason for a rule like that?"
"No, though it is a good rule to have in place to protect the next generation of hunters to reconstruct the Honmoon."
She looked away. "So I was right," Jinu said. "All this with the palace, it's just a distraction. You're wasting time until the hunters can have a second chance to seal all demons away forever."
"Do you think we deserve anything more than that?" she asked softly.
Jinu couldn't restrain a laugh because they really did deserve each other didn't they? "I think you may need to work on this habit of yours of keeping secrets from everybody. Someday it might get you into trouble—"
Her mouth covered his, cutting him off, though whether out of desire or merely a desire to make him shut up, Jinu couldn't say. He didn't particularly want to question it, after all, he was a fundamentally selfish person.
She had a hand tight in his hair, her chest pressing against his as she deepened the kiss. He wrapped his arms once more around her, the silk of the dressing gown cool beneath his hands in contrast to the warmth of her face and mouth. How long had he wanted this? From the first night they met? The thrill in those moments when he became the sole object of her focus even with all the danger that came with it. He wondered how the sword at his throat had turned into a hand tearing at the neckline of his robe.
She shifted the angle of her head and Jinu felt a sudden bloom of pain and the tang of blood. Rumi moved back so sharply he might have toppled over if he hadn't loosened his grip. "Are you alright?" he asked, registering the blood on her mouth, darker than rouge.
"I cut your lip," Rumi said, lifting the sleeve of her robe to press against it, no doubt staining it. What would the demons who took care of her laundry think? Jinu couldn't help but worry stupidly.
"It doesn't hurt," Jinu said, only slightly muffled. His reassurance did nothing to ease the tension in her face. He was telling the truth, it had been a clean cut and the taste of blood didn't dampen his arousal. He raised a hand to her cheek, pressing down enough to feel the jaw and teeth beneath. "It seems like you're still not used to the fangs. You should get more practice."
Surprise on her face shaded into something he knew less how to categorize. Her eyes, large and dark, focused in a way that reminded him most of when the tiger found something of particular interest. Speaking of the tiger, he turned his head slightly and saw it was sitting just a few feet away staring at them. "Do you think I should tell him to leave or..." he trailed off realizing the implication.
Rumi also seemed to catch the expectation there, her face flushed. "I can't—"
"Yes, right, of course. Just forget it," Jinu said, taking his hand back, and started getting back to his feet.
A hand closed around his wrist, pausing his escape. "I was going to say: I can't do anything while my hair is still up." She gestured at the great mass coiled on top of her head. Somehow Jinu had forgotten and was now impressed that she had been able to maneuver at all without accidentally taking out one of his eyes with one of the dangling ornaments. "Could you help?"
Touching her hair really shouldn't have been anything compared to what they had just been doing, and what it seemed like Rumi was interested in getting back to. Jinu swallowed as the consequences of his impulses began to catch up to the reality of the situation. It was far too late to try to find a village matchmaker. Four hundred years in the demon realm hadn't exactly prepared him for modern romance.
He was quiet for too long and she released his wrist. "It's fine. It's late and you should get going."
"No, no, I'll do it. I just probably won't be very good at it."
Her mouth quirked up. "I believe in you," she said. "It's simpler than choreographing a concert. Just start with removing the ornaments and then unpin the wig."
"It's a wig?"
"I have a lot of hair, but not this much. They did a good job, didn't they?"
"They did," Jinu agreed. Looking at it closely he noticed now that the shade wasn't quite an exact match for her real hair. As carefully as he could he removed the large, round ornaments, laying them on the table. Then he moved onto the far less ornate pins that held the wig in place.
The tiger must have realized that the humans were too preoccupied to give it attention. Jinu looked over in its direction again to see only the strange distortion that followed whenever it transported itself. Jinu had visions of future private moments looking over Rumi's shoulder and seeing two large glowing eyes watching. He was not going to mention this possibility to Rumi.
"It must feel heavy, and take a while to put all this on," he said, returning to the task, as he shifted his seat to get at the where the pins held the braided hairpiece in place near the base of her skull.
"You get used to it. I've done shoots before with elaborate headpieces, so it was one of the more normal changes to adjust to." She bent her head forward so he'd have better access.
"What's the strangest thing about the demon realm?" Jinu asked, trying to remember how he felt early in his exile before the human world itself had so altered that the stagnancy of the demon realm felt, if never comfortable, at least familiar and predictable.
"Besides the complete lack of natural light and all the demons?" Rumi asked.
"Yes, besides all of that," Jinu said. He couldn't repress a sense of real triumph as the braided hairpiece finally came free, and now the stabilizing cushion on the top of her head came off as well. Rumi tilted her head in all directions for a moment, and made a sound of pleasure that Jinu forced himself not to think about. Then she returned to her previous position, allowing him to finish. All her real hair was coiled and pinned neatly at the back of her head and comparatively easy to undo.
"I think it's the smell."
"The smell?"
"When I was a kid I always imagined the demon realm smelling like sulfur, or rotten eggs, or sweaty socks. Whatever I thought was grossest at the time."
Jinu laughed a little at that. "So what does it smell like?"
"Like a cemetery: earth, mist, and a little melancholy."
"I didn't think melancholy had a smell."
"I've spent a lot of time in cemeteries. It does."
"I'll take your word for it then," Jinu said, untwisting the last coil so now her truly ridiculous amount of hair ran down her back. "There you go: free at last."
She turned her head, smiling at him as she lifted her hand and began to card and braid her hair.
"Can't let it down for a minute?"
"If you ever had to have Celine brush a snarl out of your hair, then you would understand," Rumi said, then shifted herself so her back was fully to him. "Could you bring over the jwagyeong for me? It should be by the bed. My makeup wipes are in the lower compartment."
Jinu did as she asked, finding there a shelf clustered with neatly organized ceramics and elegant boxes. He felt the strange collapse of time as often happened in the demon world. The same Jinu who could recognize the lacquered box with a turtle shell pattern of leaf scrolling on its hinged lid for what was could also recognize the bright yellow packaging of Ariul cleansing wipes tucked away inside. He set both on the desk by Rumi.
She quickly propped up the concealed mirror and grabbed a fresh wipe, scrubbing her face with quick efficient movements. Jinu knew he should assert that she looked even more beautiful without any makeup on. He couldn't help but notice how pronounced the circles under her eyes were.
Rumi must have read at least something of his thoughts, giving a brittle smile. "Is the spell broken?" she asked.
"I was just thinking how much money I could have made selling a photo of your bare face to the press," Jinu said.
Rumi hummed and looked as if she were doing her own calculations of what such a photo could bring in. "A lot less now, probably," she said, and there barely seemed any bitterness in it, just a tired, practical admission.
"You should get some sleep."
She rubbed at her face. "I think you're right." She stood, moved towards the bed, pulling back its covers, and glanced back at Jinu. "Are you coming?"
Jinu wondered whether this meant they were seriously dating now.
He undressed, trying his best to not think too deeply if this was going to mean him waking up to her attendants staring at him when they returned. Rumi was already under the covers by the time he slid in on the other side of the bed. This wasn't the first time he had ever laid down on a western style bed, but it was the first time there had been an expectation that he would sleep in one. He felt a bit unmoored in the wide open sea of bedding. He wondered if he had courage enough to reach out and find Rumi's hand.
A hand reached out and touched his chest. Rumi drew close again, her mouth on his. Time seemed to disjoint. When he had lived in the palace there had been plenty of nights that he had drunk himself into oblivion trying to forget what he knew he would only remember all the more bitterly in the morning, but this was far headier than any wine.
It felt as if he blinked and now she was on top of him, and somehow she had shoved down what was left of his clothes so they were pressed together skin on skin. He didn't have enough time to consider whether she simply no longer wore modern underwear, or if she had quickly divested herself of it when she had gone under the covers and which idea he found hotter before she had a hand on him and completely derailed any coherent thought he might have been capable of.
At least his member had caught onto what was happening faster than Jinu himself and was already hard by the time she was lowering herself onto him. She was so warm and how was it possible that she was already this wet? He wanted to tease her for it, for how uncomfortably aroused she must have been while he had helped her with her hair, but he couldn't manage to say anything while also keeping himself from coming right away.
He managed to get a hand close to where they joined, pressing against her clit, appreciating the sharp hitch of her breath even though the angle wasn't perfect. It all became a haze, and Jinu could only assume he came at some point, not that he remembered any particular moment of completion, but because there was an after where Rumi was splayed out on top of him, kissing his neck so delicately he only felt the lightest pressure of the sharpness of her teeth.
It was real, Jinu realized in a way that he hadn't allowed himself to consider once Gwi-Ma had slunk back in and reminded him exactly what kind of man he actually was. Rumi hadn't been wrong when she had said it was real. The tragedy of it was that it still hadn't been enough to save them.
Rumi was already half asleep on top of him so it wasn't hard to maneuver her slightly, her arm across his chest, face nuzzling into his shoulder.
"You were about to tell me, weren't you? What you really did after you agreed to my plan." It figured that this was Rumi's idea of pillow talk. She must have gone over everything that had happened those several weeks before the Idol Awards. Playing out different possible scenarios like a child pressing down on a bruise.
"What does it matter? I couldn't do it."
"At least you tried. I didn't even consider telling Zoey and Mira." Her voice cracked slightly at even saying their names. "I'm still angry at what you did, but the plan was never going to work whether you had carried out your side of the deal or not. The Honmoon was never going to fix my patterns, that was Celine's delusion."
Jinu was dangerously close to saying something stupid like there was nothing to fix, so he asked instead, "You really don't think the Honmoon is broken forever?"
"Of course not," she said, pressing the side of her face against his collarbone as though searching for a heartbeat that wasn't there. "While humans still live, it can always be reformed. It might just take a while." It was sad to hear her talk about a hope that no longer included her in it. He lifted his free arm and placed his hand over hers.
"When the hunters come, I'll still be here."
There was a long length of silence and he assumed that Rumi must have finally fallen asleep until he felt more than heard the words: "You've made promises before."
Jinu couldn't blame her for the doubt, but somehow it was only now that all hope was lost that he felt confident in the truth of what he said: whether from future hunters or rebelling demons, or some other crisis that hadn't yet come to pass, whatever ending waited for Rumi, he wouldn't let her face it alone.
"I'll be there at the end."