(title hidden — not yet read)

(summary hidden — not yet read)

Two days after Hwanji's revelation, Yumi wakes back in her own world and stands at her wagon window watching the rising crops climb the morning. She has spent her day in Painter's body sitting in his room while he roamed Kilahito testing Design's lengthened leash, and is rueful at how easily he stepped back into freedom. Her own first instinct is still to crush longing flat and file it away. *Abuse*, she thinks, *is a more effective form of captivity than a cell will ever be.*

A knock — a knock — interrupts. Liyun enters in a ceremonial tobok and kneels in a posture whose technical apology fools no one. *How did you find out?* she asks. Painter, glancing at Yumi for permission, fabricates an anonymous-note story so smoothly it half worries her. Liyun swallows it. Yes, the reform movement exists; yes, Liyun kept it from her; yes, she will continue to. The reformists still serve the people in their own way, she says — Yumi has been trained well and the petulance will pass. When Yumi asks, through Painter, whether reformist yoki-hijo ever visit their families, Liyun grants that some do for a few weeks a year — and that Yumi would have hated it. *You would have been miserable.* She leaves. Painter says, low, that he hates the woman. Yumi asks him please not to. Liyun raised her, however badly. The horror of the lesson is that all the duties remain regardless of which faction one belongs to.

Yumi stalks out to the cool spring and dives. She floats on her back staring up at the floating-plant sky and tries not to cry. Painter eases in and floats beside her without speaking. Eventually she thanks him for pushing for the truth even though he only did it out of stubbornness; she wonders whether the spirits really care which side of the schism feeds her, or whether they care about anything she does. She asks what it is like to be able to decide what each day looks like. Painter admits it has never been easy for him either — he has always felt like he was watching the world through glass, never inside it — and she answers, eyes closed, that she understands invisible walls. Their hands drift together, and when her fingers brush his the now-familiar shock-warmth bursts up her arm and rocks her upright. *Let's break the rules*, she says, eager. *Even Liyun agrees I can do that.* He blushes; she splashes him and clarifies it was not what *he* was thinking. He proposes instead that they sneak into the scholars' tent — illegal, transgressive, and conveniently next to where they are already required to spend the afternoon alone. *Let's do it.*

At the orchard shrine, the moment Chaeyung and Hwanji are out of sight, Painter cloth-wraps his clogs (a trick from at least three dramas), strips the outer tobok down to the silken under-layers a worker might be seen in, and walks slowly across fifty yards of hot stone toward the tent. Yumi, invisible to everyone but already terrified, sheds her own outer layers in solidarity and scurries beside him jumping at every distant sound. *Hurrying ruins the illusion*, Painter insists, although he runs the last few yards himself. They press to the trunk of a chained shade tree behind the tent.

Painter climbs into the tree to wait. Yumi tries to walk through the canvas wall by formally petitioning it — she is, after all, a soul addressing the soul of a wall — and the wall politely pushes her back. Painter hisses that she has already poked her hand through it. She remembers what Design said: ghosts touch what they expect to. Closing her eyes and stepping forward without thinking, she walks straight inside.

The tent is luxuriously appointed — thick rugs, fine cushions, a bar of liquors and serving boys — but at its centre squats the stacking machine with its panels open like a slaughtered heart. Gyundok, the pencil-headed lead scholar, paces and insists they try the vacuum pumps again. Sunjun, greasy from actually working inside the thing, says it is the power source. Gyundok insists the father machine never had such problems; the other three exchange a glance. *The Incident*, Gyundok says, *hasn't been an issue for years.* It seems to have been an issue. Honam, lounging in pillows with a fruit, points out that their machine that draws spirits requires a spirit to start it. Nobody will volunteer to be the primer. Finally a fourth bearded scholar shrugs and kneels: it is a small machine. He presses his hand to a plate at its heart.

Two lines of light spring into existence between his hand and the plate. One vibrant magenta. One liquid azure. Hion lines — unmistakable. Yumi leans forward to be sure, and a matching pair forms from *her* own face to the plate. The machine lights up; the scholars cheer. Sunjun does not. He is staring at where she stood. *There's a spirit in here*, he says, and pulls out a needled box on a wire that physically chills her where she stands. The needle on the dial swings to her and follows as she scuttles around the tent. *Dig out the capture device*, he shouts. Yumi closes her eyes and jumps through the wall.