I sat very still, barely breathing. I could hardly believe I had already passed the Fifth Scenario. But 55%? What was with that meagre number?

  I couldn’t say I was entirely surprised, though. It seemed as though the others had experienced so much more than I. Jesse had –

  Somehow, thinking of her made me uneasy. I pushed the thought away.

  Those damned errors again. What the hell did they mean? What ‘clue’ was the game referring to? How many times had it been now? Was this a bug that the game devs needed to fix?

  Seriously, what was the point in all this speculation? Without anyone to answer me, they were basically rhetorical.

  I sighed and lay back on the flagstones.

  For the first time, I looked up at the ceiling.

  The starry eyes of the night sky stared back.

  It was beautiful.

  How had I never looked up at the roof of the lobby before? A glimmering wheel of stars turned slowly above me, slim clouds of blue and red and green spiralling through the darkness. I stared and stared, the world falling away. Nothing but the void and the stars existed for uncountable, blissful time.

  I blinked, and the moment broke, and I was in a room with a stone floor and ten doors and the illusion of a beautiful night over my head.

  Sitting up, I contemplated the doors without seeing them. Nine closed. Five were chained shut. Four were unchained. One was open.

  What next?

  I tried to think of all the fairy tales I knew. Cinderella, done. Red Riding Hood, done by Peach… although did that mean that no-one else could undertake that scenario?

  What else was there… Did Beauty and the Beast count? Sleeping Beauty?

  I had stood up and walked to Door Six by this time. It was better not to think too hard. I closed my eyes, and saw the stars behind my lids.

  Player Striking_Red_Crane connected.

  How? How?

  I turned wildly around, as if expecting him to be standing behind me. He wasn’t.

  What I did see was the interior of a farmhouse. Exposed wooden beams above, warped floorboards below, early morning light entered through a series of tiny windows set along the walls. The walls were white-washed, rough, and cool to touch. Pictures of the Virgin Mary hung between each window.

  “Maria? Come and have your breakfast. We have a busy day ahead.”

  At the sound of that name, I turned, expecting to see one of my friends, but the person who had spoken was an older woman, her pale brown hair shining with silver strands and mostly covered by a faded headscarf.

  She looks nothing like my mother.

  “Oh… Yes, Mother.”

  A heavy clattering of boots heralded the arrival of another, a tall, stringy man made entirely of lean muscle and weathered skin.

  And I doubt my father looked like this either.

  The man nodded stoically to me, then seated himself at a handmade dining table, while the woman laid out bread and cheese. I drifted to the table and took an empty seat.

  The table was long, long enough for many more people to sit at. But there were only the three of us. Of course, the brothers were already gone.

  The father bowed his head to say Grace, and I followed suit.

  Did this game just fucking send me an emoji?

  “Maria, eat now.” The woman’s voice was low and melancholic. Her eyes seemed to want to drift over to the empty seats, but she trained them back on her plate.

  The man ate silently.

  “My brothers…” I began, not entirely certain what I was about to say, but before I had even finished the sentence, both people’s eyes had turned on me, wide, shocked.

  “How… How…?”

  “Where did you hear such a thing?” the man demanded, his gnarled fist meeting the tabletop. The plates danced frantically for a second.

  He might as well have hit me. The air was knocked from my lungs.

  “Calm… Calm down, dear…” The mother crossed herself.

  “How can I be calm? The neighbours must have been gossiping!”

  The woman twisted her hands. “She was bound to find out, one day.”

  “Are you planning to tell her everything?”

  “No… No…”

  I tried to clear my throat.

  “You should at least know…” she said, her hands fumbling with a beaded necklace that I managed to identify as a rosary. Wood and bone, wood and bone, silver, wood and bone, her fingers traced the beads.

  “You had seven brothers. When you were born, they went to fetch water for your baptism and never returned.”

  Seven.

  That would likely mean that the four male players were all changed into ravens. What about the three women, then? Who were they playing?

  Wen Yong was with them. I wanted to Pray for their safety, but apparently the Grace from earlier had been considered a Prayer and I didn’t think I could try Praying again so soon. Angelic Voice would only work if the other players were listening, and I had the guts to sing for them.

  “Where… Where did they go to get water?”

  “The farm well. We… We searched. There was no sign of them. Other than the water jug… it had fallen into the well.”

  Gabriel’s Ring had levelled up. Now it seemed I could see more information about a person’s internal state.

  “M-Mother… What…?”

  Two sets of eyes turned on me again, pale irises that made me feel sick with anxiety.

  How dare you question me.

  How dare you talk back.

  Be quiet.

  I shook my head at the table. “Nothing.”

  The mother dropped her rosary beads and coughed. “Finish your breakfast.”

  We worked until well into the summer dusk. I gathered strawberries and blackberries, fed pigs, sheep and chickens, and sowed cabbage seeds as the father dug long furrows. By the end, my hips and lower back were a little sore – if my Endurance had been at a normal level, I would have been unable to move.

  We had a simple dinner, then the mother sat me down to fix tears in clothing and darn socks. I watched her from the corner of my eye, trying to imitate her neat stitches. My work ended up being acceptable, neither too untidy nor particularly impressive. At last, I was sent to bed.

  I lay still under the patched blanket, waiting until the man and woman fell asleep. Several times, I began to rise, but one or the other would turn, or cough, and I would immediately press myself flat to the straw mattress again,

  The moon was high by the time I slipped into the balmy night. Running down the moonlit paths towards the well, rabbits scattered through the black and silver world before me.

  The well was a ring of stone. I tried peering into its depths, but saw nothing.

  Now what? There was no clue to be found here. I turned my back on the well and gazed out across the farm, fields of ripening barley a still silvery ocean into the distance. Where would I go, if I were a bird?

  No, if I were Lee Wai Meng, or Calvin, where would I go?

  My stomach swooped in anticipation.

  “Angel’s Flight.”

  With a soft thwump, a pair of huge wings unfurled behind me.

  Each pinion feather was as large as my leg. I ran my hands over the barbs, feeling the soft whiteness of them against my skin. I felt at once both impossibly tall and incredibly small, the soft glow of the wings towering over me.

  Ten minutes.

  I leapt skywards.

  The wings pushed me upwards rapidly, air rushing past so fast that my eyes stung. Each wingbeat was silent, and I was able to hover – from where I hung in the warm air, I could see far across the countryside in all directions.

  To the east, where the sun would soon rise, was the high teal spire of a church.

  I flapped my wings, racing the dawn.

  In the moonlit churchyard, the caws of ravens ricocheted between stone statues. Black feathers lay everywhere as two ravens fought each other bitterly across the grass.

  I raised my hands. “Divine Wrath!”

  A bolt of lightning lanced out of the clear dark sky and struck the raven that was Wen Yong, sending him spiralling away like a scrap of cloth.

  The remaining six ravens turned their heads towards me, and in the gleaming black eyes of five of them, I could see a pale golden glow.

  I landed. “Dispel Curse.”

  The ravens shivered, twisted, screeched, and slowly rose, humans expanding from birds. Peach flung herself at me as soon as she could stand, although she stumbled as she did, almost missing me entirely. “Mik Tsaam! Ah Tsaam, you’re so pretty! Where’s Calvin? Is he with you?”

  Jesse’s hand found mine. There were cuts on her face, slashes inflicted by a blunt bird’s beak. “Mik Tsaam, you look like an angel.”

  “Ha… Haha, you’re very flattering. Calvin isn’t here with you? Wait, I thought the ravens were supposed to be my brothers.”

  “Ah Tsaam, shut up and listen to me!” Unexpectedly, Lee Wai Meng lunged at me. I had never seen him so serious. “We can only maintain human form for ten minutes. ‘Dispel Curse’ isn’t enough!”

  “What?”

  “You have to stay silent for seven years. You can’t laugh or talk.”

  I stared at him in horror. Jesse and Peach both grabbed him simultaneously. “WHAT?”

  “I… I can reduce it by half, to three and a half years… But that’s it! You can’t talk or laugh.”

  “What fucking dumbarse scenario is this?” Jesse roared. “Wasn’t the last one bad enough?”

  I wanted so desperately to ask her what had happened after we had parted, but there was no time. “Striking Red Crane –”

  “I’ll deal with him,” Jesse said.

  “He was planning something just now. I don’t know what, but he was luring you into attacking him.”

  “Noted,” she said grimly.

  “And that person…”

  One of the people in the group was a person I didn’t recognise. He stared at us all with bewildered, pale eyes.

  “An NPC,” Peach whispered.

  “And you’re here, I see,” I said to Han Sung-hyuk. Physically, he looked little different to the last time I had seen him, although he seemed to have added more bits of silver jewellery to his outfit. His face was drawn, though, and older, it seemed.

  By his side, Angry_Birb clung to his elbow, sniffling. As harsh as it sounded, I was surprised she was still alive.

  I was completely speechless.

  “Mik Tsaam?” Jesse asked, seeing my expression.

  “That… You… Are you…?”

  “Am I what?” Angry_Birb asked nervously, voice pitched high and girlish.

  “How much time do we have left?” I whirled on Lee Wai Meng.

  “Four. Mik Tsaam –”

  I seized Angry_Birb by the arm.

  “Sung-hyuk-ah!” she cried pitiably. “Help me!”

  He looked between the two of us. “What’s going on, Maria?”

  “We don’t have time for this!” I shouted at Angry_Birb. “Do you want me to tell everyone right here?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Angry_Birb whimpered. “Sung-hyuk…”

  I flared my wings in the last few moments I had left of them. The light of Michael’s Crown blazed, a halo of avenging fury around my head.

  “You’re a netkama!”