"I'll ask you again," Seungcheol said. His voice was deceivingly light for the darkness it contained. "Who is your master?"

Hyungwon looked away. That way, if Seungcheol slapped him, his head had nowhere to go. "Changkyun."

It was a kick to the side this time. Since Hyungwon had been instructed to sit on his knees, he fell over, unable to brace himself with his hands bound behind him. His head hit the floor with a sickeningly hollow sound, and he closed his eyes, squeezing them tight in the hopes of forgetting the pain that echoed through his skull like the vibrations of a grotesque bell.

"How many times have we been through this?" Seungcheol growled, pulling Hyungwon back upright by his hand. "Changkyun doesn't exist. You belong to no one but me. The only orders you follow are mine."

"Why do you even need me?" Hyungwon asked in a small voice. He'd been wondering for a while.

He forgot to turn his head this time, and the subsequent slap snapped his head to the left, almost throwing him off balance, but he quickly adjusted with his knees, knowing that it would only be more painful if he hit the ground again.

"You do not speak unless I ask you a question," Seungcheol hissed. "I'll ask you again. Who is your master?"

"Changkyun."

Blood bubbled past Hyungwon's lips from the next blow.

***

The next witch they visited was different from Hoseok. He lived in isolation near the foot of a mountain range, and when Changkyun knocked on the door, he opened it and greeted them with a soft-spoken voice.

"I'm sorry," he said as he welcomed them inside. "I don't get many visitors. I'm afraid I can't offer you much in terms of hospitality."

"Don't trouble yourself," Changkyun said. "We won't be here for long anyway."

"What have you come for?" the witch asked, looking around at their strange party before looking back to Changkyun. "Word has reached me, even out here. Trouble is stirring up, is it not?" He paused. "Does your visit have anything at all to do with the upcoming nyayana?"

Changkyun nodded, his eyes dark and serious. "Hyunwoo, I have need of your help. I wouldn't ask if it were not urgent."

"You know I don't care about witch politics," Hyunwoo said, his eyes quiet and reflective as he looked at Changkyun, his head tilted. "But the things they say about you are all rather bad."

"Truth is a matter of relevancy," Changkyun returned, tilting his head in admission. "A friend to one is an enemy to another."

Hyunwoo nodded, remaining quiet as contemplated Changkyun's words, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but Taehyung believed that he sided with Changkyun if only because he hadn't said otherwise. "And you, Shin Hoseok," Hyunwoo said, looking over at the witch in question. "You side with Changkyun on this matter?"

"I do," Hoseok said. While he had been all mirth before, he was now solemn.

"You realize the position this puts you in?" Hyunwoo questioned.

"I do. The consequences are my own to receive. I've made my choice, and I'll stand by it."

Hyunwoo turned back to Changkyun, troubled. "What is worth the risk to you, Changkyun? You've remained invisible for the last hundred years or more. So why now?"

"Seungcheol has something of mine," Changkyun said. "It's imperative that I retrieve it."

Hyunwoo read Changkyun's eyes before his widened, but only slightly. "It's the boy you've been looking after, isn't it?"

Changkyun tensed but didn't reply.

"I've heard whispers over the years that you disappeared to raise a child. So they were true?"

"He isn't my child," Changkyun said after a moment. "I took him in and raised him. And now Seungcheol has taken him from me."

"You may perish before you get to see him again, if you're really planning on going against the head coven," Hyunwoo warned.

"If I am unable to save him, then my life isn't worth anything to anyone," Changkyun replied.

Hyunwoo nodded slowly. "So this is why you went out to seek a coven of your own, is it?"

Changkyun nodded, his hair falling in his eyes. "Yes. And I want you to join it."

Hyunwoo stared at Changkyun for a long time, his eyes shifting from left to right as he processed and decided. Finally, "All right. I will join you, for now."

Changkyun nodded. "Thank you," he said before repeating the ceremony he had done with Hoseok, swearing in Hyunwoo as a member of his coven.

Hyunwoo got up from his knees and nodded at Changkyun before turning to gaze at Taehyung. "You're a human, are you not?"

Taehyung nodded hesitantly. Witches still scared him a good deal, and it seemed that witches hanging out with other witches was far more formal than how Changkyun and Jooheon had been in their own apartment. "I am."

"Then why are you with them?"

"Hyungwon is my friend," Taehyung said after a moment, looking over at Changkyun for a second to catch the tension in his frame before looking back at Hyunwoo. "I want to help get him back."

Hyunwoo stared at him, and Hoseok put an arm around Taehyung's shoulders. "Taehyung, meet Son Hyunwoo. He specializes in psychological magic, mainly memory manipulation. He says he can't read minds, but I don't know if I trust that because he always seems to know what you're thinking."

"I'm just good at guessing," Hyunwoo protested lightly. "People are rather easy to read if you know how to listen."

Taehyung wondered exactly what Hyunwoo had read in Changkyun that had convinced him to join their ramshackle group. Taehyung himself had a hard time knowing what Changkyun was thinking, but as he watched the male gaze out the window with pained eyes at the lone mountain rising behind them, he thought he had a pretty good idea of who Changkyun was thinking of.