The palace was a beautiful, gilded cage. She saw princes everywhere, each a different shade of danger. The Eighth Prince, Wang Wook, was a gentle breeze—warm, kind, and offering her a dry robe when she shivered. His smile was a promise of safety. The Third Prince, Yo, wore cruelty like a crown. And the terrifying Fourth Prince, So… he was the shadow that haunted the corners.

Hae Soo sat alone, the cold palace sprawling around her. She had arrived desperate to go home. But now, watching the moon hang heavy over a world she’d only read in history books, she realized something terrifying. She wasn’t just an observer anymore. She had seen the humanity in the monster. And in this brutal, beautiful place, that simple act of seeing might just be the most dangerous thing of all.

The water was shockingly cold, not the gentle bath she’d anticipated. Go Ha-jin, a twenty-first-century woman broken by a lover’s betrayal and the numbing grind of Seoul, felt the river close over her head. As she sank, she saw a child, a stranger, reaching for her with desperate, dark eyes. She grabbed his hand.

Hae Soo, forgetting she was a time-traveler, forgetting she was a powerless orphan, lunged. "Stop it! It’s just a picture!"