“Shit,” Ethan hisses and claps his hand over my eyes.
Shit is right. With my spirit eyes open, the green fire still burns brightly in my physical eyes. I exhale a long breath and close my spirit eyes. I wait until my magic settles beneath my skin again.
I open my eyes again, but everything is dark. I tug on Ethan’s wrist. “You can take your hand off now.”
He complies—slowly—staring at my face. He huffs a sigh of relief to find the green fire banked. “How does that work anyway? Are you looking into the future or something?”
“Pffft.” I laugh. “Looking into the future? Don’t be absurd. No one can see the future. How can anyone see something that hasn’t been written yet?”
“I’mbeing absurd?” He glares at me, mouth gaping. “After the day I’ve had, I wouldn’t be surprised if unicorns are real.” I hold up my index finger to confirm the existence of the magical creatures, but he grabs my hand and pushes it down. “Besides, looking into the future isn’t that far fetched. There are such things as fate and destiny. When something is meant to be, it might as well be written in stone.”
You would rather die than accept your destiny?The Seonangshin’s words ring in my ears.
“Bull. Shit.” I snatch my hand out of his grasp. “There is no such thing as destiny.”
“Suit yourself.” He shrugs, and my upper lip curls in irritation. “If not the future, what exactly did your spirit eyes show you?”
My mind flashes back to the moment I saw two layers of gi flowing through Ethan. But that’s not possible. I shake my head to clear it. “I guided my spirit eyes to the border between the two Koreas to search for a way into the North that wouldn’t get us shot.”
“And did you find us a way in?” He leans toward me, his face alight with fascination.
I sit up in a sudden panic, and he shifts back before our foreheads crash. “Are you claustrophobic?”
“No.” He cocks his head to the side.
“Okay, good. Then yes.” I yawn and lie back down. My eyelids feel like they’re weighed down by iron ingots. “I found us a way in.”
“That won’t get us shot?” he asks wryly. “Sunny?”
Yes, but I’m too far gone to respond.
LITTLE PRINCE
“My little prince.” The lady-in-waiting knelt down to wrap her arms around the boy, her eyes sliding closed at the feel of his warm, small body. “Did you have a good day at school?”
“Mom, why do you always call me that?” The boy crinkled his nose, pulling out of her embrace much too quickly. “School was fine.”
“Always with thefine.” She ruffled his hair. “What does it even mean? Thisfine.”
“Finemeansfine.” He dropped his backpack on the floor and trailed after her to the kitchen. “Finealso means that I can’t wait to grow up and be done with this school business.”
The lady-in-waiting poured the boy a glass of milk when he climbed onto the stool at the kitchen island. She pushed a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies toward him. He promptly stuffed a whole cookie into his mouth. She smiled, her eyes misting. Sometimes she couldn’t believe he existed—this miracle—grumbling about school and eating cookies like any other boy. She couldn’t believe thatshegot to be his mother.
She spun away from him and turned on the faucet when her tears threatened to fall, overcome by the memory of another mother’s tears. She washed the lone coffee mug in the sink and turned back to the boy, her emotions under control once more. He didn’t need to know any of that yet. The heartbreaking sacrificesalready made for him and ... those yet to be made. No one person should bear the weight of that responsibility alone, but it was his to carry one day.
She looked at the boy’s narrow shoulders and gangly arms. It was much too heavy, and she feared he would falter beneath it. But that was just the mother in her. He would rise triumphant over all, as foretold. Still, she wanted him to be free for as long as possible. For as long as she could protect him.
She smiled at him—she couldn’t look at him and not smile—and said, “Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up. Stay my little prince for a while longer.”
“Mom.” He rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide the grin that curved his lips. “Okay, fine.”
The lady-in-waiting soaked up the boy’s sweet smile like it was sunlight. “Fine.”
CHAPTER TEN
“I can’t take you any farther,” the taxi driver says in Korean.
“This is fine.” My Korean is slowly coming back to me. “You can drop us off here.”
