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Liyun kneels bleary-eyed at the shrine and delivers the rolled map of Torio that Painter has asked for, calling it one more in a string of unusual requests. He thanks her sincerely — having come, over the last weeks, to understand the pressure on a warden — and she leaves close to tears. With Yumi beside him he studies the map's scale, then paints from memory at the same scale a copy of Masaka's drawing of the shroud's walled circles. He overlays his thin paper on hers. The fit is exact. Every walled circle in the shroud sits over a Torio town; the biggest is Torio City itself, the queen's seat. The narrator notes for the reader that both nations are tiny — less than fifty miles across, the two cities under five miles apart on these maps. Two lands, the same ground, overlapping.

The question of what to do is unchanged. The machine has to come down. Painter still favours walking in and smashing it; Yumi has a better resource — the *truth*, in her own voice. A yoki-hijo is the highest authority in any town she visits. They will give the scholars no other option.

Outside the shrine Painter repeats Yumi's words to Liyun, Hwanji and Chaeyung: the spirits have asked the yoki-hijo to destroy the scholars' machine, because it is harming them. He needs the village's help, today, to make the scholars give it up. Liyun warns the cost aloud: Yumi will likely be removed from her position, condemned as jealous and unstable, and probably spend the rest of her life serving under lock and key; the warden herself will be disgraced. *I know*, Yumi says. *I know.* Liyun bows deeper than usual. *We are your servants.* Hwanji is delighted — she never trusted these particular scholars, not like the ones who helped her home village with crop disease — and is sent to fetch the bailiff. Within half an hour the bailiff and twelve strong men with hammers are marching through the town behind Painter and Yumi.

Painter tells her gently, as they walk, that the machine cannot replace her. It can summon a spirit; it cannot make art. *A rainbow isn't art, beautiful as it might be.* Art is intent. Human creation. He does not care how well a machine piles rocks — it is the fact that *she* does it that matters to him.

Then they reach the tent and Gyundok steps out. Painter commands surrender of the machine by the authority of the spirits. Gyundok does not look surprised or angry. He looks *regretful*. He calls into the tent; Sunjun pops out, sighs, activates a device. Honam hands Gyundok a pair of goggles. Gyundok affixes them and looks straight at Painter — *the descendant of the nomads. You've done quite well for yourselves, as a people. Tell me — what is it you think is happening here, boy?*

Painter freezes. They knew. Yumi pulls closer to him and Gyundok looks at *her* too — the goggles, somehow. Painter offers a guess: different dimensions overlapping. *Excellent theory*, Sunjun says politely. *He'd have made a good scholar.* The two others roll the machine out of the tent on a plank.

Painter orders the bailiff to take the machine. Nobody moves. He turns — Liyun, Hwanji, Chaeyung, the bailiff, all twelve hammer-men — all of them are standing motionless. *Not even blinking.* He shakes Liyun by the arm and her shape, clothing included, begins to dissolve into wisps of darkness. Her eyes go to white pits drilled in her head. He jumps back, wiping his hand on his tobok.

*What did you think they were?* Gyundok asks.

Painter grabs a rock and rushes the machine; Gyundok catches his arm — surprisingly strong — and the blow Painter lands on the lead scholar's head only causes *his* face to bleed away into smoke. The buildings darken too. The light in the sky darkens. *All along?* Painter says, pained. *They were just puppets? Nightmares, with no thoughts?* No, Gyundok answers. The machine lets them be *themselves*; it's hard work, walking the line between memory of what they were and the reality of what they have become — and they have to be kept from understanding their own natures, otherwise there are *complications*.

The thing that had been Liyun turns toward him and drops onto four legs. The shape it grows into is the lupine stable nightmare he has been hunting. Liyun *is* the stable nightmare. It steps toward him; he stands between it and Yumi — and for a flicker the thing seems to recognise him, before Gyundok cuts in. *What is it you think you're protecting, child?*

He turns. Yumi is on her knees, distorting — less than the others, but unmistakably the same kind of transformation, her skin curling into smoke as she rakes at her own arms. *Nikaro. What is happening to me.*

Gyundok takes him by the arm. *Tragic*, he says. *I admit, this was an excellent ploy by the spirits. Connect one of the girls to an outsider to anchor her soul? Prevent us from altering her memories?* The machine needed time to charge — the power source did not work — and *some rogue spirits had to be captured.* The scholars thank him for helping return them to their prison. *The machine is lord now. I'm sorry.* They throw a switch. A cold wash, then a distinct *snap*.

The Connection breaks. Painter is hurled away — the scene shrinks behind him; he tumbles into blackness like into an ocean, still travelling, an arrow in flight; a blur of hion lines flashes by; then buildings; then he hits something and his joints pop like leather stretching. The pain subsides and he is lying in his apartment, drenched in sweat. Inside his own body for the first time in weeks. With Yumi nowhere in sight.