Jia ran as fast as she could. Were they really going to try to burn her house down? That seemed more than a little extreme for just some old grudges or attempts to gain clout. Both Eunae and Eui seemed to agree that it was possible, though, and Jia wasn’t about to take her chances. While most of her important possessions were safely stored away in her ring, that didn’t mean she wanted to lose everything that wasn’t. Besides, having her home destroyed raised some uncomfortable memories about being driven out of Nayeong.

As they arrived in the central square of the campus, something felt off. Jia stopped and looked around in confusion, which caused Eui and Eunae to stop as well, giving her questioning looks.

“Something is wrong. It’s too quiet, where is everybody?”

Eunae and Eui began looking around as well, finding the square completely abandoned. The campus was generally not that crowded, since it was much too large for the population of only two hundred or so people. However, to see nobody in the central hub of the academy was unusual. You’d have to pass through it to get just about anywhere.

Eui shrugged, though she had a nervous expression on her face.

“Maybe it’s just a slow day. Come on, we have to hurry!”

Jia nodded, and followed after her friends as they made their way west towards the girls’ dorms. She still felt uneasy about the total absence of other students as they ran, but it wasn’t like there was anything they could do about it. The uneasy feeling spiked suddenly as they started on the road to the dorms, and Eunae called out urgently.

“Wait, stop!”

She was a fraction too late as a series of small formations etched onto the paving stones around them lit up, and Jia ran headlong into an invisible wall of force. It reminded her of her first arrival at the academy, when she had panicked and ran into the shield formation in an attempt to escape. This was clearly a much smaller scale barrier.

Eui punched the invisible barrier angrily.

“You have got to be kidding! What the fuck is going on right now?”

“Oh, I assure you this is no joke, Miss An. You upstarts have been getting much too full of yourselves, and it’s time you finally learned your rightful place.”

The voice came from behind them, and Jia turned around to see Zheng Long’s smug expression staring back at her.

“You!? Haven’t you already learned your lesson? Also, aren’t you supposed to be under house arrest?”

Zheng Long shrugged and shook his head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Lee. I just happen to be on the way to my alchemy lesson with Master Yan. What a coincidence that we should encounter each other like this!”

Jia didn’t believe his flimsy excuses for a second. For one, he was pretty far out of his way, and for another there was already a small crowd of boys from Qin falling in line behind him, including Han Yu—clearly this had been planned.

Eunae grimaced as she tried to inspect the formation that held them.

“Who made this formation for you? I can count on one hand the number of people in the academy skilled enough to create a formation of this complexity, and none of them are from Qin!”

Zheng Long scoffed.

“Do you think we’re the only enemies you’ve made here? Walking around like you have every right to be here, cozying up to the most powerful and influential disciples, then hiding behind your connections and brutally oppressing the few who were brave enough to stand up to you? All this, and it turns out you were never meant to be here in the first place—your invitations were stolen from those who rightfully earned them.”

Was that the narrative now? Zheng Long’s story seemed to change so often that Lee Jia was having a hard time keeping track. She scowled furiously at him.

“So what now? I suppose you convinced Tae In-Su to make this trap for us, but to what end?”

Zheng Long laughed.

“Oh, but you’re mistaken, we aren’t behind this at all! We just happened to stumble across some fellow disciples who appear to have gotten caught in someone’s little prank, isn’t that right?”

The group of boys chuckled and nodded along.

“We’re here to help! I’m sure we’ll get you out of there in no time! It might be dangerous, though, so we’d best not rush it. Let’s make sure nobody tries to tamper with the formations until we’re completely certain that it’s safe to do so, shall we?”

Lee Jia narrowed her eyes. They were working together. She could have believed it was just terrible timing, but Tae In-Su’s potential involvement and the fact that Zheng Long had apparently gathered this crowd just to stall her were enough to convince her. They were here to delay her from stopping the attack on her house.

“Eunae, can you contact Rika?”

Eunae shook her head.

“I already tried, the formation is blocking my speaking stone.”

“Damn. Can we break this formation from within?”

Eunae frowned.

“Possibly...but it will take a long time.”

Eui scoffed.

“I’m pretty sure I could break through this in a second if I used Six Arms of Asura.”

Jia hesitated for a moment before shaking her head.

“No, breaking our punishments is playing right into their hands. We’re on thin enough ice with the instructors as it is, and if we get kicked out of the academy, we’re literally dead.”

Eui growled in frustration, but didn’t press the issue further. Jia’s mind worked furiously as she tried to think of a way out of the situation. It seemed hopeless—she was trapped for now, and with the Qin students blocking the way, there was no chance of getting help from outside.

Was the only option to call their bluff? Let them burn down the dorm and then try to make an effort to reveal those responsible and bring them to justice? Jia didn’t like it. Like Hayakawa said, the more people got away with harassing her, the bolder they would get. A few people getting punished for arson wasn’t enough—especially when they had no guarantee that they’d even be able to catch the ones who did it.

Jia looked around frantically, searching each face for someone—anyone who might be sympathetic enough to be convinced to help. She saw nothing but smug, mocking expressions, matching those of Zheng Long and Han Yu. Then she found what she was looking for—well behind the group of boys, unnoticed and forgotten. Jia met the wide, terrified eyes of Yan Yue.

When Lee Jia and the others had rushed off, Yan Yue didn’t think much of it. If anything, she was happy to be ignored. Perhaps if she meandered her way back slowly enough, they would already be distracted enough by each other’s company not to notice when she got home.

Yue did not like the idea of inviting Seong Eunae into their home, but she knew that she had no say in the matter. Although she was resigned to having to associate with her on some level, it didn’t change the fact that Yan Yue was absolutely terrified of Eunae. It wasn’t just the history of Eunae’s predecessor, or the briefings Yue had been given in preparation for coming here on their ill-fated mission—though really, that should have been enough.

No, what scared Yue was that she understood the implications of Eunae’s power. After all, she too was trained in the magic of the mind—or she had been. At her peak, Yue’s song had been able to shove aside another person’s consciousness—force them into a dream of her making while she was free to manipulate their bodies to her will. That was a key distinction—the mind was subdued.

According to everything Yue had been taught, the mind and soul were inviolate. They could be attacked, damaged, even destroyed by a powerful enough cultivator. Demons were known to trick the minds and consume the souls of their victims, but to completely warp and control a mind—alter it to one’s whims? Impossible. Or it should have been.

Eunae had that impossible power, a power only wielded by the Fox Princess, Seong Heiran before her, and before that—the great fox spirit, the Kumiho herself. It was a power that went well beyond simply tricking or subverting the mind, or controlling the body. The bewitching gaze of the Kumiho was said to warp one’s very soul, twisting it irrevocably into a horrible mockery of what it once was. Her gaze didn’t control people—it killed them and replaced them with something else.

And Jia invited her over for tea. Actually asked Eunae to use the power on her for practice. As if any kind of training could possibly hope to defend against that. It was bad enough that Ienaga Yumi kept partnering them for sparring—Yue trembled with anxiety every time—but now she had to worry about having that monster in her own home.

Yue hugged her arms and shuddered. She knew she was being unreasonable. As a person, Eunae was as sweet and friendly as anyone she’d met, albeit she had a calculating edge to her that Jia seemed to be completely oblivious to. It was just so hard to think of her as a person when Yue knew that there was the potential for such calamity hidden just under the surface of that bubbly facade.

Her dark thoughts were interrupted by some kind of commotion up ahead. Out of habit, Yue quickly moved out of sight to investigate—which was silly, it was probably just a fight or something. She had been trained for infiltration though, and she was technically still on mission—though it had gotten so far off track that she’d be surprised if Yan Hao survived his next meeting with her father.

It was a group of boys, mostly from her homeland, though she noticed that a few of them had the distinct tanned skin that was common in Yamato. She didn’t see any half-spirits, but it’s not like there were many of them to go around, and she’d just left most of the ones she was aware of back at the lecture hall. A few of the boys had split off to watch the roads—poorly—apparently in an attempt to prevent any interference with—

“Oh, damn it.”

Yue saw her two moronic brothers-in-craft mocking Lee Jia, An Eui, and Seong Eunae, who they had caught in some kind of barrier. They must have gotten the cooperation of one of the half-spirits for that—there was no way they would have ‘lowered’ themselves to learning the techniques of Goryeo. Yue was sure that the hypocrisy of relying on those same techniques was lost on them.

Why, though? What was the point of just harassing them like this? Especially going through the trouble of setting up sentries to prevent interruption—Yue was missing something. Hesitantly, Yue brought out her speaking stone. As Jia had asked, she had given it to Seong Eunae to reattune, but then kept it for herself afterwards. In Jia’s typically scatterbrained manner, she had forgotten to inquire after it. Now, Yue used it to try to get a better grip on the situation.

“Seong, can you hear me? This is Yan Yue, what’s going on?”

Yue’s voice was a whisper. She knew that half-spirit hearing was good enough to hear her, so she could communicate without alerting anyone else.

“Yue!? What the hell? Where’s Eun-eun!?”

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Takeda Rika started shouting from the other side, desperately muffling the stone against her chest and glancing around furtively to see if she’d been heard.

“Shh! Takeda, is it? Listen to me—Jia, Eui, and Eunae have been caught in a trap. I’m not sure what it’s trying to accomplish, but they need assistance.”

“Shit! They’re probably keeping them busy while the girls here do something to the house. They’ve already started drawing formations, and I’m getting kind of nervous—I thought Eun-eun would be here by now.”

Oh, that wasn’t good. A coordinated effort, then. Yue cursed internally—Jia was as good at making enemies as she was at making friends.

“You need to stall them for as long as possible, Takeda. Is anyone else with you?”

“Uh...no, it’s just me. I might be able to get Hana or Yuuko, but it will take a few minutes.”

Yue bit her thumbnail. She had no idea if they had that kind of time, but if Zheng Long was willing to stall them with something as clumsy and audacious as this, then they probably didn’t.

“No. You need to act now. Buy as much time as you can—I’ll...”

Yue hesitated. She’d what? Even if she discounted the lookouts—who she could confidently bypass—there were at least half a dozen disciples there. She was just one person, and she couldn’t use her techniques. A month ago she could have just knocked them all out with a song, but now?

“Y-Yan, are you still there? What are you going to do?”

There was a tinge of desperation in Takeda’s voice. She obviously wasn’t used to this kind of conflict. The fact that she was willing to trust Yan Yue’s word alone was proof of that. As Yue tried to think of a solution, by sheer coincidence, her eyes met Lee Jia’s. She saw the light of desperate hope in Jia’s eyes—go out, to be replaced with disappointment. Such a powerful indictment—communicated with nothing more than a half-second of eye contact—was like an arrow through Yue’s heart.

“By the Emperor, what the hell is wrong with me?”

“Yan?”

“I’ll figure something out! Just delay them!”

Yue cut off the speaking stone’s connection before Takeda could give away her position. As Yue moved forward, she felt her heart racing, and had to grip her hands together to stop herself from shaking. This wasn’t like her at all, but what had playing things safe ever done for her? Led her to betray the one person who’d ever treated her as something other than a commodity? Caused her to lose everything she’d ever worked to achieve? To hell with it all, then! Today Yan Yue would take control of her own destiny.

She just hoped she wasn’t driving it straight into the ground.