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"Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

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June, 1907
Rue Saint-Lazare
Marseille, France

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Areum's breath faltered—not entirely from the press of the crowd, though the jab of an elbow in her ribs certainly did not help. No, it was something else entirely that constricted her chest, a potent brew of exhilaration and terror. The air thrummed with a heavy, primal rhythm, alive with the growl of voices raised in fury and the surge of bodies moving as one, a great tidal force crashing against the shore of some invisible line. At eight years old, she didn't have words for it, but she could feel it—an electric hum beneath her skin, a scent in the air sharper than sweat or fear. Desperation mingled with hope, and beneath it all, a simmering hatred, acrid as smoke. 

They hate us because we demand that which should have been ours all along. 

Shouts erupted around her, tangled in a snarl of curses, and she flinched when a stone arced through the air, a physical punctuation to the venom spat from whetted tongues. She had been schooled in all the ways that men abhorred women, but it was still disturbing to witness firsthand. That they would trample them into the ground under their horses and their pistols before they let them speak their mind was absurd, but then again, her mother had always said men were ludicrous creatures. 

Her mother, whose hand gripped hers, an anchor pulling her forward through the heaving throng, and Areum clung to it as if it were the only thing tethering her to the earth.

Kang Iseul was not like other parents. That much had always been clear. When the women of the union professed their disapproval—What kind of mother takes a child to such places?—Iseul would only laugh, a sound as refractory as a banner snapping in the wind. How else will she find her place? she would say in a challenge. Better early than late. And so Areum had trailed after her to meetings and marches, absorbing the heady conviction that poured from her like wine from an overflowing cup. 

But today was different.

Through the chaos, Areum risked a glance upward, catching Iseul's profile framed against the roiling mass of bodies. For a moment, time slowed, the riotous noise falling away as if she'd been submerged underwater. There was only her mother, her picket raised high like a torch against the darkness, her declaration a clarion call cutting through the tumult.

The girl's breath caught again, not from fear this time, but in awe. It was simply a condition of daughterhood—to see divinity in one's mother, to hold her as the first and most formidable of deities, but this was something more. Iseul stood like a storm given human shape, her power undeniable and undeniably contagious. The fever of her certainty seeped into Areum's bones, warming her like a hearth against the bitter winds. 

She didn't fully understand why they were here, not yet. Her brother always argued against it, but he was not here to stop them. This was their shared rebellion, their sacred rite. And when this was over—when the shouting subsided and they joined the other women at their favourite café, where Areum would sit glowing under their praise for being a brave little girl—she would know that this, too, was part of the ritual.

Then the dream shattered, yanked from her grasp along with her mother's hand. She hit the ground hard, the world tilting as her palms scraped against the jagged pavement. Pain bloomed as a boot trampled her fingers, and she bit her lip to stifle the scream clawing its way out of her throat. Her vision blurred, but her eyes, obstinate in their focus, refused to stray from the scene ahead.

Her mother was no longer the tempest leading the charge, her picket cast aside like a broken mast. Two officers flanked her, and though their faces blurred in the chaos, one detail remained stark: the twist of a sneer as one man drove his baton into her abdomen. Iseul doubled over but did not break. To shackle her was to wrestle with a hurricane, an impossible feat, though the officers made their attempts with clumsy brutality. Iseul lashed out, her feet striking like the crack of thunder, curses spilling from her lips in a symphony of belligerence—French, Korean, English—a chaotic hymn borne of every back alley and underground haven she had ever called home.

For a fleeting moment, one officer fell away, clutching his shin in pain, and Areum's heart surged. Surely her mother would return to her now, would gather her up from the dirt and press kisses to her bruised knuckles as she always did. But no such comfort came.

Instead, Iseul's hand dove into her pocket, emerging with a matchbook that glinted in the fractured light. The moment stretched, a fragile thread strung taut. A flick of her wrist, and in the instant it took for the officer to regain his balance and slam her arms behind her back, the match had already been struck.

Then everything stopped. Or it didn't—the crowd still raged, cresting in a wilder frenzy, but for Areum, time unravelled. The world narrowed to the fire in her mother's hand, the way it leapt to life, devouring the hem of her stolen trousers in an instant and climbing upward with voracious hunger. The officers howled, but the woman between them remained silent, her mutiny now spoken in the tongues of flame.

Areum could not look away. She was frozen, transfixed by the sight of her mother standing at the heart of the inferno, her form wreathed by her very own pyre. For one terrible, glorious moment, she looked holy—like a saint ascended in a halo of golden light. But the halo was only fire, the light was pain, and the air reeked of charred fabric and finality.

Even saints were mere mortals, consecrated only after they had been snuffed out. 

Then everything grew too bright, too fierce, and finally, Areum's resolve disintegrated. She told herself it was the fire that made her shut her eyes so tightly, not the way her mother's glory faded, replaced by blackened ruin. She did not open them again, not even when hands—foreign, unfamiliar, unwelcome—lifted her from the ground and carried her away from the guttural screams of the dying men and the searing silence of her mother. 

And in the darkness, behind her closed lids, Kang Iseul burned, eternal, unyielding, and divine, the first and final god her daughter would ever believe in. 

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The funeral was a private affair, a muted symphony of grief, and Areum couldn't remember much of it—only fragments that refused to settle in her mind like leaves scattered in the wind. There wasn't a casket, which was well enough because it wasn't as though they could have afforded one, and the urn that held her ashes felt too much like a commonplace ornament and not the final resting place of such a gallant woman. 

Throughout the entire affair, Areum kept her gaze resolutely averted from the photograph they had chosen. It was a clipping from a newspaper, taken not long before her mother's final blaze of defiance, and she looked too alive in it. She half-expected her to step out of the frame, laughing as though it had all been a trick, but the picture remained static. This wasn't one of the magic papers her brother brought home, the ones with images that moved. This was reality, and in reality, her mother could no longer move.

Later, there would be more articles, more voices clamoring to claim Iseul as theirs. The critics would call her reckless, a zealot who set a dangerous example. Her supporters would call her a hero, a martyr whose fiery act had emblazoned their cause on the front pages for days. Among the circle of women she had lived and worked with, she became a relic, a saint to be revered in hushed, sacred tones.

None of it mattered to Areum. Hero or zealot, martyr or fool, none of it could erase the truth: her mother was dead. And as for the question of whether she had been mad, Areum thought it a daft thing to debate. 

Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity, sweet girl. 

But even courage meant nothing now. It only made her angry.

Her mother's bravery had given the world a reason to lay claim to her, to carve pieces of her memory for themselves, but Iseul had not been theirs to take. She had been Areum's—her mother, no one else's. Yet now they sobbed, tore at their hair, and wailed as though they had lost something precious, while Areum herself sat silent, her tears locked away where even she could not find them. Perhaps they thought her a selfish, unfeeling child, too indifferent to cry. Perhaps they thought her too young to understand the gravity of the act, and in this, they might have been correct.

Areum didn't understand. She couldn't. All she heard was talk of sacrifice, of how Iseul's death had been for the greater good, for the future of their cause. But what use was there in dying for a future you would never see? The dead could not march in protests, could not hold picket signs aloft or shout slogans outside the gates of power. The dead could do nothing but linger in the memories of the living, waiting to be exhumed.

If her mother had truly been a hero, she would have stayed. She would have waited to see the end of her fight, to see the victory she had dreamed of. If her mother had been a hero, she would have come back to her. 

But she was not, so she did not, and Areum, too, remained still, her fists clenched in her lap, face stoic as though carved from stone. She was the only one who had a right to grief, yet she could not even manage to mourn. 

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Her brother's arrival made everything worse. No one knew how to reach him in that faraway school of his—no address, no reliable messenger. Only their mother had managed to pierce the veil of his world, sending letters through the peculiar owl that roosted on her windowsill every few weeks. It was one of her mysteries, one that Areum never questioned but took for granted, like all the things she seemed to know when others didn't.

Nonetheless, fate had its own timing, and by no sheer coincidence, Nathanial returned to the slums of Marseille the day after Iseul's passing, brimming with trepidation. He knew something was wrong, even before he spotted the pallor of mourning swathed over her lodgings like an unwanted shroud. The tarnished silver pocket watch she had gifted him when he first embarked on his schooling—a trinket he had begrudgingly accepted yet secretly cherished—had fallen silent. Its enchanted hum, a charm his mother had woven to rouse him each morning for class, had become a small but constant tether to her care. Though he often dismissed its necessity with teenage bravado, its absence now tolled like an omen. The watch had not simply ceased its ritualistic buzzing; it had shattered, its fragile mechanism undone in the very hour her life had slipped away.

At seventeen, Nathanial might have clung to the comforting fiction that the spell had merely waned with age, but deep down, he knew the truth that lurked at the edges of his denial: magic lingered only as long as its caster drew breath. And so, dread spurred his reluctant steps back to the place he had longed to leave behind—a home defined by hardship and tethered by a bond he could never truly sever. Iseul was the reason he stayed, even when every fibre of his being begged him to flee.

Yet the door, once her sentinel perch, stood silent. No stern reprimands greeted his unannounced return, no admonitions for abandoning school a month too soon. Instead, strangers loitered in sympathy, their averted gazes weighted with unspoken pity. It was then, amidst the oppressive quiet and those voiceless condolences, that the truth struck with undeniable clarity. Spells ended when their caster died, and his mother, reckless and fierce, had always lived too close to the edge. At last, the peril she had so often danced with had caught her in its grasp.

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Areum didn't know who had told him. She didn't know how he had reacted, nor whose ears had borne the brunt of his initial fury. She only knew that she was in her mother's bed willing forth tears that would not come, same as she had been for days, when his footsteps echoed down the hall. 

He already knew. Those unmistakable, brisk, and deliberate strides revealed enough. 

The door slammed open. They shared the room with four other women, but the girl had been granted the rare solitude of their absence, a kindness that had felt like both a blessing and a curse. Now, as her brother stood framed in the doorway, she almost wished for someone to intrude, if only to shield her from what would follow.

He reached her in two quick strides, his fingers biting into her arm as he hauled her upright. He was unrelenting, and she winced but did not pull away. She couldn't. Nathanial's face was too much like their mother's, a face she could never find in the mirror and so she dared not look away in case it eluded her again. 

"They're lying," the boy hissed, the words trembling with denial. He shook her once, twice, his hands gripping her shoulders as if the truth could be wrung from her. "They're all lying, aren't they? This is some sort of joke. Some stupid, stupid joke."

The laughter that followed was brittle, like glass shattering against stone. It might have convinced someone else. It might have masked the tears that gathered on his lashes, but Areum saw through it. She always did.

She couldn't meet his gaze, fixating instead on the golden crest embroidered on his pale blue robes. The fabric was silky and pristine, almost painfully so, as though untouched by the reality of their world, and she hated it. She hated the way it gleamed, untainted by grief, unlike her brother's face, which contorted in anguish.

Nathanial jostled her again, his grip tightening. "Say something!"

But Areum could only shake her head. What could she say? What words could soothe whatever was raging in him when she, too, was lost in it? Her silence only fed his anger, and his teeth clenched so tightly she thought they might crumble to dust.

He let her go as abruptly as he had seized her. Then he began to tear through the room as if possessed, as if his frantic search could summon their mother back into existence. Drawers were yanked open and slammed shut, their meagre contents scattered, and their old wooden dresser was overturned, the crash of breaking trinkets making Areum wince.

She opened her mouth to speak, to entreat him to stop, but no sound came. What could she say that would reach him in this state? Their mother had always been the one to defuse him; he had inherited her tempests after all, and Areum knew she was no match for them. All she could do was wait for him to exhaust himself.

Eventually, Nathanial stopped. His chest heaved with exertion, his shoulders rising and falling, and his dark hair, usually slicked back with precision, now fell in unruly strands around his face, framing fathomless irises that burned with accusation. Areum noticed, almost absently, that his hair had grown longer since she had last seen him, now brushing the edges of his shoulders. Their mother would have made him cut it, she thought, an ache swelling in her chest at the memory.

"They say she was at one of her stupid rallies. They say you were with her."

Areum nodded, though her throat had gone dry, and her tongue felt heavy and useless. She knew what was coming next.

"Then why didn't you stop her?" he demanded. "They say she did it to herself. Damnit, she set herself on fire! Why didn't you stop her?"

His sister's lips trembled, but she pressed them thin, as though that might deter the effect of his words. It didn't. He might as well have whipped her. 

Why didn't you stop her? 

Guilt festered like rot in the pit of her stomach, the accompanying bile rising in her throat. She should have done something, anything. Sometimes, if she tried very hard, she could make things move without touching them. It wasn't perfect—she nearly went cross-eyed in the process—but it worked. Her mother had always warned her against it, warned her never to do it where anyone might see, but if she had tried, if she had ignored the warnings... perhaps she might have been forgiven for it. Surely, saving her life would have been worth the risk. Surely no one would have noticed in the chaos.

"Iseul the Martyr," Nathanial spat the title as if it were poison. "Their very own little Joan of Arc of Saint-Lazare, they call her. But they're lying, you know. People like us don't get inaugurated as saints. They'll forget her in a week. Just another number, another headcount. A corpse on which to build their futile efforts."

"Don't say that," Areum whispered, though his words only echoed the doubts she already harboured.

"Then why didn't you stop her?" 

"I..."

"Are you that dull?" he snapped. "You might as well be like the rest of these filthy—"

He stopped short, but the unfinished sentence lingered, its meaning clear. Areum's face burned as she looked away. She knew what he had been about to say. She had always known what he thought of the people who lived here, of the world their mother had chosen for them. The word was forbidden in their household—Iseul liked to delude herself into thinking she had raised considerate children—but hearing it, even unfinished, made Areum's stomach churn.

Her brother hadn't always been like this. She remembered a time when he laughed more than he glowered, when his wrath had not yet curdled. There had been summers when he darted barefoot through the cobblestone streets with the other children from the home, his hand clasping hers as they weaved between market stalls and played in the shadow of the church bell. He had been the one who carried her home night after night when she complained of sore feet and blisters, even when his own were equally chafed. He had been the one who let her eat the last of his sticky toffee that their mother occasionally splurged on, and the one who hummed off-tune lullabies to her when their mother disappeared for several nights at a time. 

Back then, it hadn't mattered that they all wore hand-me-downs and spoke in patched-together dialects, understanding each other only through the universal language of childhood naïveté. Back then, Nathanial had been one of them.

But the years had changed him, and not gently. His school had poured new ideas into his head, ideas he clung to with a fervour that made Areum feel small and adrift. He had started to look at the people around them, the ones who shared their struggles, and see only shadows of what they could be—of what he thought he could be, if only he could escape them.

The arguments with their mother had commenced not long after: his pleading, her resistance. Nathanial had implored her to leave it all behind—the cause, the protests, the endless fight for something he could not fathom. They were just another set of chains holding them down, keeping them in the slums of Marseille when they could have been free. A better life, he'd called it. The life we deserve. We can do what they can only dream of.

But Iseul hadn't listened, and the boy's resentment hardened. He had finally been proven right, or so he believed. Her stubbornness had cost them everything, leaving them to fend for themselves. 

Almost unconsciously, he pulled his wand from the folds of his robes and Aruem blinked owlishly. She should have been afraid, she supposed. The expression on his face was dangerous, unrecognizable in its intensity. But she wasn't. That childish part of her, the one that still believed in games of tag and shared secrets, refused to be frightened. He was her brother. He looked too much like their mother. He would never hurt her.

She peered at the instrument in his hand, the polished material gleaming faintly in the dim light. "You're not allowed to have that out."

"No one is here to see." The edge of his savagery cut through every syllable. "No one would see what I would do."

"What would you do?"

The boy's fingers curled tighter, his knuckles stark against his skin. He felt the wood press into his palm, a reminder of the power it held—and the power he now held. His thoughts churned, spiralling into depths he hadn't dared explore before. 

She let our mother die. She watched her burn, encouraged her with her compliance. She let it happen.

The notion bloomed unbidden in his mind: maybe Areum should have died too. Maybe the gods or fate or whatever vindictive cosmic force governed their miserable lives had chosen wrong. He knew the spell—of course, he did. A single, incantation, and she would simply cease to exist. No blood, no evidence, just silence. The idiots in this place wouldn't know how to question it; they didn't even understand what he was, let alone what he was capable of. 

Could he do it? Could a brother kill his own sister? With both Aruem and Iseul gone, what would remain of him? What would he be if not someone's son or brother? 

Free? 

Forsaken. 

His breath hitched, a knot of doubt tightening in his chest. He wasn't sure of the answer. What unnerved him was that he didn't immediately recoil from the thought, that the mere idea of it didn't hollow him out with revulsion. He should have felt something—guilt, horror, anything—but instead, he felt a deep, gnawing frustration.

Why didn't she cry?

He glared at the younger girl as if he could strip away the blankness on her face, pierce the indifferent mask she wore so stubbornly. Her stillness enraged him. She was only a child, too young to shoulder this, too fragile for the weight of it all. And yet, she didn't weep, didn't crumble, didn't fear him, not even now, not even as he felt the wetness turn frigid on his own cheeks. 

He wanted to tear her apart, to gouge out her impassive eyes and see if anything lay behind them, if she was truly made of flesh and blood, or if some mechanical force animated her. He wanted to dig past the pristine alabaster shell of her face, to reach the raw nerve endings and fragile bones beneath, to make her feel something.

He wondered if their mother would have cared. Her darling daughter, her precious little lamb—while Nathanial was left to seethe in the shadows of her favouritism. Would she weep for her beloved girl if he sent her to whatever hell she had crawled to? Would she look upon him and finally see him?

"I could kill you."

"Okay."

The fight drained from him in an instant, and a sharp breath escaped his lips. He realized with a jolt that he wasn't even sure if he wanted to hurt her—or if he wanted her to hurt him. To scream, to strike him, to rage and cry and make him feel as though he weren't alone in his affliction. The wand slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor. 

It was the way she said it, with no fear or hesitation—how could she accept the prospect of her own demise so easily? Death frightened everyone. It had always frightened him, the idea of dying nameless, a shadow among shadows, forgotten by all, lost to the ebb and flow of a country that consumed its own.

To die in a crumbling hole in the wall such as this was even worse, where even the rats scuttling in the corners were more familiar to the city than a man like him ever could be. He could not bear the thought of being forgotten, of being swallowed by the sea of ordinary. 

Nathanial stared at his sister, trying to understand, but she was as inscrutable as ever. Her calm maddened him, but he could not kill her—even now. Old grudges crumbled to dust under the innocence of her credence. She was a child with no one else in the world but him.

Instead, he dropped to his knees, the sudden movement shaking the air between them. For the first time in years, they were at eye level. He reached out and pulled her into a crushing hug, his arms trembling as they wrapped around her. His face buried into the scratchy fabric of her dress—one of their mother's old ones, hastily hemmed to fit her smaller frame—and inhaled the faint scent of their shared childhood.

"Why didn't you stop her?" he choked out forlornly. "You should have done something."

It wasn't an accusation anymore. The cruelty had bled away, leaving only raw desolation and a self-directed loathing so deep it felt bottomless. He hated himself more than he hated her, for to hate her would be to hate the stray dog that lingered by the butcher's stall every evening, patiently waiting for scraps that were never guaranteed. One could never hate something so patient. The dog never begged, and neither did Areum. 

"Why do you not mourn her? She loved you most. Why do you not grieve?"

The girl shrugged, the motion so small it was almost imperceptible. Then, with that same eerie sobriety, she said, "You can do it, you know. If it'll help you, you can do it."

Nathanial pulled back just enough to look at her. "Do what?"

"Kill me. If you want to. If it'll make you feel better, you can. I won't hate you. I promise."

The words were putrid on her tongue but she forced them out all the same. If he wanted to hurt her, let him. If he wanted to cast her aside, she would let him. She deserved it, didn't she? If their mother was dead, then surely she should be too. Another condition of daughterhood she had learned early: a girl must never stray too far from her mother. To do so was to entice the devouring world into dissecting you for its own amusement. 

She wasn't destined for anything, not like Nathanial. He was the one meant for something greater. He was the one who always boasted of escaping, of pulling them from the muck of their beginnings once he was somebody, once he had achieved something that mattered. But what did she have? What did she deserve? If her brother could leave, could break free from the chain of her existence, maybe he'd stand a chance at the life he had always imagined. Maybe without her shackling him down, he could finally have everything he ever wanted. Their mother would want that. Her mother would want him to be happy. She loved him most after all.

"Go on," she repeated. "Best get it over with, before Madame Kang comes in to see you."

Her brother laughed. He actually laughed then, though the sound was watery, like it came from the bottom of a well. 

"You don't mean that," he refuted. "Surely you do not mean that."

"I do."

The boy snickered again, in disbelief and despair. 

Their mother had always said that Areum bore her suffering too silently, even as a babe. So quiet was she that, on particularly bitter nights, they feared she had slipped away unnoticed. It was a miracle, really, that she had survived infancy at all. She did not cry when hunger gnawed at her belly like the rest of the children, nor when the cold cracked open their blue skin. She had not even uttered a word when the butcher's dog sank its teeth into her scrawny wrist—mistaking it, perhaps, for a soup bone. She still carried the scar.

Nathanial inhaled deeply. The air in the room was thick with the stench of decay, the damp mildew that clung to clothes that never quite dried, and the sourness of too many bodies crowded in too small a space. He could escape all this, at least for a time, when he was at school. There, he scrubbed the filth of the slums from his skin and cloaked himself in the wealth of his peers, as though by their mere presence, he could shed the shame of his origins. His blood was noble, he knew this as surely as he knew his name, and it was only his mother's folly that had kept him from reaping the true rewards of that heritage.

Not anymore though. She was gone, leaving behind only one thing he could use as currency to buy their way out of his misery. 

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September, 1907
Rue Saint-Lazare
Marseille, France

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The frost had come early that year, creeping through the threadbare walls and settling into Areum's bones. It lingered in the chill of the morning air, gnawing through her thin bedclothes until her skin felt vitreous. Her nose was red and snivelling when Nathanial appeared at her bedside, shaking her awake with a roughness that startled her out of her half-slumber, and she blinked up at him, bleary-eyed and confused, though not surprised—his visits had become sporadic at best, more like the erratic tides than a dependable presence.

Where had he been spending his days? Certainly not here, in this dreary hovel with its overcrowded rooms and perpetually sodden corners. When he did appear, it was always with a purposeful air, his words brimming with a confidence that she could not muster. He had promised her change—promised her that things would soon be "as they should have been years ago." She hadn't asked for specifics; she hadn't the energy or interest to do so. His schemes were his own, and whatever triumph gleamed in him today felt distant, like a faint flicker of light too far down a tunnel to offer her warmth.

She would have been up at the crack of dawn too with the other children if not for the fever that had kept her abed these past few days. They would have been out by now, running about the docks with eager cold-nipped fingers, looking for errands to run for the merchants and dockworkers who came to port. Areum hated being idle; it left her with too much time to think, and the bulk of her thoughts was often heavier than the tasks she could find. Without her mother around to contribute in her myriad of ways, she had to earn her own keep, though it was easier said than done. She wasn't strong enough to haul crates like the older boys or learned enough to take up clerical tasks like Nathanial used to before he left for school. 

The room was empty, save for the two siblings and Madame Kang, the elderly matron who ran the household. Madame Kang pressed a cool, wrinkled wrist against Areum's forehead, clucking her tongue in disapproval.

"Your sister is still feverish, boy. What could you possibly want her for in this condition?"

Nathanial met her with a withering glare, the kind he used to silence dissenters, but this woman was no ordinary adversary. She stared him down with an equal measure of scorn, unyielding as an ancient oak, until he broke first.

"She will not be your problem for much longer," he muttered.

Madame Kang frowned, folding her arms across her chest. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"I've found other accommodations for her."

"Absolute nonsense! You cannot expect to keep her in whatever unsuitable lodgings you have seen fit for yourself. She is a young lady, and such an arrangement would be entirely improper."

Nathanial snorted at her use of words. Young lady?  His sister was the furthest thing from it, but if today went well, then she might very well one day be such a ridiculous thing. 

"There will be someone by to see her soon," he responded, waving a hand toward the girl with a sardonic glance at the dark, tangled strands that cascaded down her back and brushed against her knees. "Perhaps we might get her cleaned up. Cut some of that hair."

Areum instinctively reached out to touch what he had so carelessly pointed out. Mother had always liked her hair long, braiding it with such care, and adorning it with trinkets she foraged for. But now, with no one to tend to it, she had to make do with what she could manage herself, though she feared it would not be enough. Sooner or later, Madame Kang would grow weary of the tangled mess and shear it off like she did with the other children when lice appeared. Only Iseul's meticulous efforts with turpentine and kerosene had saved her daughter's hair from the same fate so far. 

The matron, sensing the young girl's discomfort, drew her closer, her arm wrapping protectively around her shoulders. "Who is coming to see her? She is a child, she couldn't possibly know anyone."

Nathanial's lips curled in annoyance. "An old friend of Mother's. Wants to do her a favour," he replied impatiently.

"And do I know of this friend?"

"If he likes what he sees, you will be paid for your services."

Suspicion crept into Madame Kang's gaze, a reproachful sneer twisting her lips. "I was not aware I was offering any services."

The boy let out an exasperated sigh, his words almost curt as he stepped closer to her. "May I speak to you outside, please? It is of vital importance."

The woman hesitated for a moment, attention lingering on Areum. "Back into bed, child. You need your rest." Then she was out the door, leaving the girl to stew in her thoughts. 

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Areum did not know what serpent's tongue her brother had used to coax Madame Kang into compliance, but it mattered little. What mattered was the ruthless, unfeeling way they pulled her up—her fever still clinging to her like a second skin—only to be scrubbed within an inch of her life. Hot water was a luxury not for the likes of them, so she was doused in ice-cold, stagnant water that stung her skin like needles. Her fingernails were clipped so brutally close to the quick that her nailbeds bled, but the pain barely registered in the whirlwind of her mind. Then, she was shoved into a dress—worn by one of the dead girls who had passed through this place before. The dress was more fitting than any of her mother's had been, as its original owner was closer to Areum's age, though it still clung awkwardly to her narrow frame.

Then they marched her through the narrow corridors with grim precision, as though she were a cow being led to slaughter. Her throat tightened, her chest constricting with fear, but she did not utter a single word of protest. She had learned long ago the futility of fighting, the weariness of pushing back against what was inevitable. Madame Kang, to her surprise, seemed almost hopeful, her hands gentler than they had ever been, as if this were some grand affair she was preparing for, while Nathanial practically bounced on his toes with excitement, his face alight with an eagerness that filled Areum with dread.

To her shock, her brother had been right. There, waiting for her downstairs, was a man she had never seen before. He looked to be about her mother's age, his face pinched with the sort of discontent that only a life of privilege could breed. He seemed... shiny. Yes, that was the word that settled into her mind. He was too polished, too gleaming, like a coin freshly minted, before the grime of the city had a chance to settle on it. He wore a cravat too tight around his throat, making his face flush beneath the tight fabric, looking as though he belonged more in a theatre, under the warm glow of chandeliers than in this dingy little parlour, and Areum felt a quiet, almost pitying giggle bubble in her chest. The simpleton was wearing cufflinks too—gold, no less. He would be lucky if they lasted the day before the street children would strip him of them.

The man seemed uncomfortable in the modest surroundings, his eyes sweeping over the room with disregard. Every so often, he pulled out a pocket watch attached to a chain, flicking it open, only to sneer as he checked the time, as if he could not bear to be in a place so far beneath him. His disgust was palpable, and yet, Areum could not bring herself to care. 

Nathanial stepped forward first, his posture stiff and formal in the only decent attire he owned—the pale robes of his school uniform. He practically bowed to the man, as though he were some kind of king, and Areum almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of it.

"Nathanial, Monsieur," he introduced himself with ingratiating politeness. "Nathanial Carrow. I wrote to you."

That wasn't his name. Why would he lie? Was her brother so ashamed of their history, that he would discard it entirely? Nevertheless, his pitch was rehearsed, unwavering as he spoke, and Areum saw no hint of guilt or hesitation in his face. And it was enough to soften the disdainful lines etched into their guest's expression.

The transformation was astonishing. The grimace that had seemed so deeply ingrained melted away, and his entire demeanour slackened. When he removed his ridiculous top hat, his golden hair, tied neatly in a knot atop his head, gleamed under the sunlight seeping in through the grime-caked window, reminding Areum of melted butter. She couldn't help it—a snigger escaped her lips, brief and breathy like a bird's chirp. Her amusement teetered on the edge of hysteria, fever and fatigue bubbling to the surface, but Madame Kang's pinching fingers quickly silenced her. Perhaps the fever truly was getting to her.

Nathanial's voice broke through her disjointed thoughts, smooth and composed. "Monsieur Rosier? Are you quite alright?"

The man—Rosier—swayed for a moment, as if unsteady, before stepping closer to the boy, scrutinizing him with an intensity that made him waver. Areum watched her brother's fingers twitch, his composure faltering momentarily. She had never seen him hesitate before. He was always sure of himself, brimming with conviction, but now, under this man's inspection, he looked unsettled.

As Rosier's fingers brushed against his cheek, Nathanial cringed away. When he had sent out the first batch of letters he hadn't even expected a response, much less an acceptance of his invitation, yet here this man was, standing in the last place he would ever be. All this time, he had been bracing himself for the warranted indignation and outrage. Surely this man would see through the ruse, but nothing came. No fury, no disbelief. Instead, there was only a longing so unabashed.

Their mother had more secrets than she let on.  

At last, Rosier cleared his throat hoarsely as he stepped back, seeming to gather the fractured pieces of himself. "You're Carrow's boy, yes?"

"Yes," Nathanial nodded. "I explained it all in the letters."

"Yes, well... I didn't think—it wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible, but I had to come, you know. I had to see for myself."

"I assure you, I was being most truthful. If you wish for proof—"

"Your face is proof enough, boy," Rosier interrupted with a scoff. "I always did tell Carrow it was a mercy you took after her and not your wretched father."

Whether or not he meant them to, his words struck Nathanial in the tender space between his ribs, and though he gave no indication of a reaction, Areum shuddered in his stead. She knew her brother too well. He was a tinderbox waiting to ignite, and this man had come far too close to striking the spark.

"With all due respect, we are not here to discuss my father," the boy finally ground out. "We are here to discuss my sister's. That is why you are here, are you not? To see for yourself?"

Rosier's expression shifted, and his shoulders slumped. Nathanial seized the moment, his chin tilting upward imperiously, and with a firm grip, he latched onto Areum's wrist. His fingers curled tightly as if to claim her as his weapon, his evidence, and despite Madame Kang's thinning lips, he wrestled his sister from her side.

Areum moved reluctantly, her steps sluggish, her head bowed as though it weighed too much to lift. She refused to look at their visitor, even when he knelt before her, his sharp eyes searched hers.

"She..." Rosier addressed her brother. "She is your sister? Carrow's girl...my..."

"Mother only ever had two children."

The man nodded, as if trying to digest the confirmation. His hand flexed, clenching and unclenching as unspoken emotions rippled across his face. A part of him felt a desperate urge to weep, though pride and disbelief held the tears at bay. It could be a lie of course, a calculated fabrication to manipulate him, yet something within him clung to the hope that it was not.

Iseul Carrow had been a sadistic woman even at her best, but she had granted him a parting gift—a single photograph now buried in the depths of his journals back at the manor. But the image lived vividly in his mind, nonetheless; the babe in it was a sallow-faced creature, with a thin, unhappy mouth and eyes the green of pistachios—his eyes. She was not like the rosy, cherubic infants that filled the nurseries of his social sphere, no—but that had probably been Iseul's intent. Only she knew best how to wield unkindness like a scalpel, carving her pain into him even from afar.

Look at her. Look at her and know you will never get to see her. 

Except she had been wrong. He was here, and she was close enough to touch, despite Iseul's best attempts to keep him away. Blood did not betray blood, and family had a way of making its way back to you. After years of relentless searching, he had almost given up on ever finding them, but the reward for his patience had finally been granted. A pity then, that it had taken yet another casualty to bring him to it. 

It was the same set of eyes that avoided him now, and the girl's narrow mouth—set in a half-scowl—was unmistakable. She was small for her age, if he remembered her years correctly, and he wondered if she knew the truth. It was unlikely of course—deception was her mother's most potent capability. 

Carefully, he peeled off his gloves, the motion betraying the tremor in his hands as he extended one toward her, palm open, fingers hesitant.

"Henri," he murmured. "Henri Rosier. And what are you called?"

Areum didn't answer, ducking her head even lower, and renewed her attempts to escape the shackle that was her brother's hand around her wrist. 

Even so, Henri was not deterred, and his tone grew even more coaxing. It took every ounce of patience in him not to snatch her up and flee this abysmal establishment right then and there. He did not wish to frighten her of course, but every moment they spent here was another victory for Iseul as she laughed at him from the afterlife. What sort of venom had she filled his child with, that the girl wanted nothing to do with him? What sort of poison had she weaned her on in all the years she had sole ownership of what should have belonged to him? 

"Perhaps we might take a walk, just you and I. I would like to speak to you, and I'll buy you a treat in exchange for a conversation. Would you like that?"

The child shook her head. 

His gaze was not the ravenous hunger of the men her mother had warned her about, the sort that lingered too long, stripping you bare without a word. She used to say that men's eyes told truths their tongues would never dare, and Areum had learned to see those truths far earlier than she should have. Like the way the cobbler down the street leered at the girls who passed his stall, the ultimate portrayal of a man starving for all the wrong things.

But this man was not like that. His yearning was for something else entirely—something dead, and that made it worse somehow. His admiration didn't strip her, but it sought to mould her into something she wasn't, something she could never be. It was not the simple want of someone who desired what you already were, flawed and tangible, but the aching appetite of someone who had buried a piece of himself long ago and thought, just for a moment, that he saw it alive in you.

Areum hated that look, that awful, mournful expectation. It settled on her shoulders like a shroud, heavier than anything Madame Kang had ever draped her in for the funeral. She wanted to scream at him, I am not her! Whoever you seek, I am not her! But the words would not come. 

"Will you deny your father the pleasure of your company even after all these years?"

"My father is dead." Her response was so instantaneous, that Rosier winced. 

"Is that what your mother told you?"

She hadn't, but Aruem was not going to say that. It had just been the simplest explanation, the easiest truth to carry. The streets were crowded with children who bore no family names, and their own residence was a graveyard of women abandoned for innumerable reasons. The world had no shortage of men who fled from responsibility, their shadows stretching long and empty behind them. Why should her father be any different?

Her mother never spoke of him, not even in passing. It was as though he had never existed, a ghost not worth summoning, and while she suspected Nathanial knew more than he let on, she had never pressed him for answers. What would be the point? Why dig through the ashes of a man who had never cared enough to warm them with his presence, who hadn't been there when their mother had coughed blood into her hands for weeks, who hadn't stood beside her to tend to her brother's wounds—wounds that wept as ruefully as he did—after the baker decided he was no longer worthy of delivering his loaves?

Areum had long ago decided she owed such a man nothing, not even her scorn. They had survived without him, stitched themselves together with scraps and defiance, and they would continue to do so. If this was Nathanial's stupid plan to drag them out of their situation—this half-baked ploy of trickery—she very much wanted to hit him. 

"Our father is dead," she repeated. 

"Your father is not dead," her brother snarled, fingernails digging into her skin. "He is right here and you will go with him, wherever he wants to take you. You belong to him."

A person belonged to no one but themselves. 

Another lesson Iseul had drilled into her head since the moment she was sentient. 

"He is dead, so he can't be here." Areum kept her head hung, hoping that if she didn't acknowledge the weight of their combined expectation, it might disappear. "I want to go back to bed."

"I have travelled all this way just to see you, child, from two cities over. All I ask is a moment of your time," Henri attempted to cajole the sullen girl—his sullen girl. "You will enjoy yourself, I promise, and if you do not, I shall bring you right back."

"I don't know you. Your promise means nothing."

Areum's lips curled in frustration, her patience worn thin by the fever fogging her thoughts. A low, involuntary whine commenced in her chest, an infantile sound she knew her mother would have scolded her for. She was too old to whine, she'd been told time and again, but the itch in her throat and the ache in her clenched jaw were unbearable. Her teeth chattered despite her efforts, and her head spun as she tried to make sense of the situation unravelling before her. She didn't understand why this buttery man was here, nor why Nathanial seemed so desperate to keep him there. She just wanted them all gone.

"Please..."

Without thinking, she spat at him. "Well, you can go right back!"

The moment the words left her lips, she regretted them. The man froze, stunned into silence, and Areum's heart plummeted as she braced herself for the inevitable blow. It would be no less than she deserved. She'd heard it often enough from the dockworkers—that children bruised easily but healed even quicker, making them perfect targets for an outburst. Her former employers had never hesitated to clobber her for mouthing off, and here she had gone and spat at this posh stranger. Surely, he would bury her head in the ground for such insolence.

But instead of anger, the man laughed. The sound flabbergasted her, rich and warm as he dabbed his cheek, and then the edge of her mouth, with a pristine handkerchief. The gesture made her skin crawl with suspicion. Men who raged openly were less frightening than those who swallowed their temper whole, letting it simmer just beneath the surface. At least with the former, you knew what was coming; with the latter, the wallop came when you least expected it.

When the man made no other sound, Areum dared to speak. "Are you going to hit me?"

Rosier's face blanched, his golden complexion draining as he looked first at Madame Kang, then back at her, his lips parting but failing to form a response. His shock only deepened when the matron pinched Areum's shoulder sharply and hissed, "Apologize, child."

Areum's attention bounced between the two adults, her insubordination watering down due to her growing unease. Reluctantly, she muttered, "I am sorry."

The man's lips twitched. "Are you truly?"

Well, if he wanted honesty, she would give it to him. "I am not," she returned flatly, squinting as she finally lifted her head to look at him. Let him show his true colours. Let her see just how far he would go to mask his wrath.

Madame Kang gasped in horror. "Areum!"

To their surprise, Rosier's grin only widened. "So that is what you are called?" he mused. "A lovely name. No doubt your mother's genius."

He would give her a new name in due time, of course, one worthy of their shared lineage, befitting a child of Henri Rosier, but for now, he would let Iseul have her satisfaction as he addressed the girl by the name she had bestowed upon her. 

Madame Kang sniffed, straightening her posture. "She is named after me," she interjected, her tone clipped. Then, narrowing her eyes at him, she added, "And what is your business with her, monsieur? Best hurry it along—we do not have all day."

Rosier turned earnest, his earlier amusement giving way to solemnity. "I only wish to speak with her," he beseeched. "The boy must have told you everything. Please, if it is coin you require, I will ensure you have all you want, but grant me a few moments alone with her. That is all I ask."

Areum's head shook in frantic denial, but her protests fell on deaf ears. Nathanial was already leading Madame Kang out of the room, his movements brisk with purpose. Panic surged within her, and she stumbled forward, clutching at her brother's cloak in a desperate bid to follow.

"Stay here," he reprimanded firmly, wrenching her hand away. "Just talk to him. You have to."

His usual confidence was replaced by a desperation that made her stomach twist, and he looked at her like a gambler placing his last coin on a precarious bet. He did not even know if this Henri Rosier would treat her kindly; fathers came in all shades of cruelty. But he was banking on the man having enough pride, enough sense of ownership, to reclaim the child stolen from him. The simple fact that he had travelled all this way to see her proved that he held more regard for bastards than most men. If he took her in, perhaps Nathanial too could ride along on the coattails of her good fortune.

"I don't want to," Areum argued. Her knees wobbled beneath her, and she clutched the hem of her threadbare dress. "Please don't make me."

The stranger's perusal pressed against her spine, and fear clawed its way up her throat. Surely, he would strike her now. He'd held his temper long enough, but with Nathanial and Madame Kang gone, there would be no one to stop him.

She directed her appeal toward the matron instead. "Don't make me stay. Please. I'll work harder. I'll earn my keep better. I'll go out to the docks right now, just—just don't make me stay."

Her voice cracked, high and panicked. At least she knew the rhythm of the dockworkers' blows, and they could be soothed with wet mud smeared over her skin, a temporary balm for familiar pain.

Nathanial watched her with a strange curiosity, his brows drawing together as if trying to decipher some hidden meaning in her fear. Would she finally cry? Would this be the moment that broke her iron resolve? She looked on the verge of it, her pinched brows shooting high, her lip trembling violently. But her eyes remained obnoxiously dry.

Madame Kang's hands brushed lightly against her shoulders. "You do not have to earn your keep, sweet girl. This is an opportunity for you, and I urge you to take it."

The words felt like a knife twisting in her gut. The older woman's touch slipped away, and then the door clicked in her face, leaving her alone with the man who would take her away. 

Her breathing came in shallow, uneven gasps. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to vanish. Or maybe if she didn't acknowledge him, he would leave.

But he didn't.

Instead, she felt something heavy settle over her shoulders. Her eyes flew open, only to see his thick, woollen coat draped around her, and its warmth was a stark contrast to the icy dread pooling in her stomach.

"You look sickly, child," the man chastised. "Surely, you cannot be happy here."

"But this is my home."

Henri Rosier nearly chuckled at the vehement sentiment. This was indeed Iseul Carrow's daughter, parroting the very same words she had said to him all those years ago. He only wished the chance to know more about the child, to unearth the pieces of him she surely contained. She was his girl too, she had to resemble him in some way. 

"You have another home, if you wish to see it. You have a sister too, though Vinda has been keeping her distance as of late."

"This is my only home."

"I see." Henri deflated. "And what if I told you it would contain everything you could ever want?"

"How would you what I want?" Areum asked after a pause. 

"Don't all children want the same things? Playthings, pretty trinkets, affection? Someone to love them?"

"My mother loved me. Will he be there? Can you bring her back?"

A muscle in Henri's jaw convulsed. Even in death, Iseul had her claws buried in the living. "There is little I cannot offer you in this world, child, but even I cannot bring back the dead."

Areum shrugged. "I didn't think you could."

"But if there is anything else, anything at all. Just say the word and—"

"Will my brother be there?" she cut in. 

"Is that what you want."

"I cannot go anywhere without him. Mother says I must look after him."

Henri knelt before her once again, his finger hovering over her dry cheeks, his heart cracking anew when she flinched at the motion. "He is older than you are. One would assume it is he who must look after you."

That thirst of his had returned, and she could see just how badly he wanted to merge her being with the caricature he had in his head. 

"It would only be a home if my brother was there too."

And maybe that had been the truth for as long as she could remember, but she realized how important it was to her, now more than ever, because her brother's face was the only place left in the world where she could glimpse her mother's too. And maybe that made her just as cruel as the man who had come to take her away, both of them wishing to resurrect the dead in someone who was already alive. 

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A/N: And we are back. It took me forever to properly plan out how I wanted to start off the story, but we finally made it. Welcome whack-ass siblings with whack-ass dynamics and old-timey France where child labour laws were not a thing lmfao. I did try my best with the historical research but this is fictional so let's pretend any inaccuracies are intentional lol. Might have gone a bit overboard with the lore and now I've grown weirdly attached to Iseul/Henri's history lmfao but more on them later. Fingers crossed I'll actually stick with this story since I have some sort of idea where it is going. 

As usual, the validation gremlin in me would love to hear yalls thoughts on the chapter, so leave a comment please and thanks <33 appreciate all the support and interaction!!