“I married an agent? I actually married an agent... and was about to do it again...! Disgusting bastard. They’re all the same...!”

With a savage glint in her eyes, Sonia lunged as if erupting from a coffin. But her still-numb body buckled and collapsed into his arms. Lee Wooshin, now pale, instinctively reached out to catch her.

“Ugh...!”

A now-familiar scent surged up her hypersensitive nose. Ever since he’d stopped wearing cologne, Wooshin’s skin had always carried the same smell.

But even in the chaos swirling through her head, Seoryeong bit her tongue with all her might. If she failed to suppress her emotions now, every resolve she’d clung to would turn to scrap paper.

The newly awakened Sonia’s memories still dominated her mind, but the betrayal from her husband remained just as vivid.

Get a grip, Sonia. You’ve always beaten the agents. This is just another fight.

She slyly shifted the conversation.

“Ju Seolheon. I saw the Deputy Director, Ju Seolheon...! She’s the one who brought me here—!”

“...It’s okay now. It’s me. Breathe slowly.”

“She—she brought me—!”

“Shhh— Calm down. You must be very shaken.”

Wooshin gently stroked her back, but the cheek pressed against his felt oddly cold.

“As you saw, Agent Han Seoryeong, the NIS is involved now. We need to get out of here immediately—”

That’s when he trailed off.

“Spit it out.”

Frowning, Wooshin pulled away and held out his hand.

“Don’t swallow that, Seoryeong.”

Her mouth was filled with the sharp tang of blood from biting too deep. She couldn’t even swallow the mix of saliva and blood, just held it there, round and clenched. The man, catching the scent, cupped her jaw.

Suddenly, her nose stung. Without meaning to, Seoryeong spat out the bloody saliva and squeezed her eyes shut.

“That woman... she used my face...”

His finger slipped into her mouth. Eyes narrowed sharply, Wooshin held her jaw and inspected the bitten spot. Clicking his tongue, he hauled her fully out of the coffin where she was flailing.

“If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you. We need to leave now.”

“Why...?”

“The situation’s not looking good.”

Seoryeong hastily shut ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) the coffin lid. It was an instinctive move—to keep him from seeing Ligai’s prosthetic eye case. Wooshin set her down and spoke urgently.

“There’s nothing good about getting mixed up with the NIS here. Didn’t you hear Hur Channa’s frantically burning hard drives? Blast Corporation is under raid right now.”

“...!”

“The Special Security Team’s also being investigated, and the whole Archdiocese is crawling with NIS agents. If we get caught, we’ll be stuck in interrogation for days. Then we’ll miss the flight.”

“I don’t have my in-ear....”

Seoryeong touched her bare ear with a stiff, wooden hand.

“The Orthodox event’s been temporarily suspended. That’s already been ordered by Director Kang, and the security teams are pulling out. We need to head to the airport too. Is the antidote working?”

“Then what about Ligai Viktor—”

She quickly spoke before he could lift her onto his back.

“The client’s in danger.”

“What?”

“I told you—Ju Seolheon is using my face...!”

“......”

“I don’t care about the raid. But why would she disguise herself as a bodyguard unless it was to get close to the target...? Of all these people, I’m the one guarding Ligai—!”

Seoryeong’s voice rose with a vague, nervous urgency. Truthfully, she remembered very little about Ligai, aside from the moments just before escaping the Winter Castle.

But those sunken eyes, that face marked by self-harm.... That broken man who kept attempting suicide—she felt like she had to see him at least once.

If Ligai really was that man from back then—what happened to the other brothers in Sakhalin?

And Kiya...

As the thought of Kiya surfaced naturally, her pinky began to throb on its own.

If they were separated at ten, shouldn’t the past have faded by now? Why is it only you still trapped in that Sakhalin monastery? Staying there would only dig up horrible memories. A surge of inexpressible sorrow and fury swelled in her chest.

At that moment, her shoulder hit the wall and her lips, caught off guard, bit down hard.

“Seoryeong, you’re doing it again.”

“Ugh...!”

“You ignore people calling you and just let your head wander.”

His hot tongue licked along the teeth marks. She turned her head away at the unwanted shiver, but his lips chased hers with persistence. Her mouth was forced open, and his tongue shoved in all the way to her throat.

His sulky glare was more serious than usual. Wooshin sucked hard at the blood in her mouth as if trying to devour every last trace of it. Then he lowered his head to her eye level and murmured coldly.

“You haven’t looked me in the eyes properly once. Makes me look like some lowlife trying to force himself on a woman who doesn’t want him. When it was our shitty Seoryeong who proposed first.”

“......”

“Why do you keep making me feel starved for affection?”

His thirsting eyes closed and reopened slowly.

“So what are you planning? Going over to her side?”

“......”

“If she really was using your face, you need to get the hell out of here now. Who knows what she’ll pull. And you’re not even in shape...! Who’s worrying about who here? Did you not notice the workers around here acting weird?”

“Then bring me my face, at least.”

“What?”

Seoryeong wiped her wet lips with her sleeve.

“If she’s going to do something awful with my face, like you said—then I refuse to get framed again. Based on experience, the NIS has no problem pulling stunts like that. Who knows what trap she’s laying for me this time. I’ll rip my face off her myself.”

She grabbed his collar with both hands.

“Then we’ll go. Together.”

When she looked up and demanded it, Wooshin’s smooth eyebrows lifted. Her knees buckled as the paralysis wore off, and he caught her waist immediately, muttering he’d go crazy because of her.

As his hands firmly supported her waist and hips, a heat welled up in her throat. Torn between the warmth she wanted to cling to and the resentment that wanted to slap it away, she pulled him into a tight embrace. Then, eyes wide open, she whispered venom onto her tongue.

“...I love you.”

His back stiffened. He stopped breathing.

“Thank you for saving me. I’m sorry if I made you anxious.”

There’s no such thing as salvation in this world. Seoryeong rubbed her forehead against his shoulder. It was the first time she’d ever confessed those words aloud, yet her tongue already felt blackened.

“You’re all I have now.”

Han Seoryeong’s everything—was you. No matter what anyone says.

“Don’t you trust me?”

A bone-crushing strength rushed into her. Pinned to the wall again, Seoryeong offered her tongue to the man who hungrily sought her lips.

Their noses pressed together, panting with tension. He cupped her cheeks and angled deeper. Someone’s low, anxious moan wrapped her entire body in a suffocating grip. But as her jaw tilted back and heat flooded her stomach, only a crimson fire came to mind.

This happiness was never mine to begin with. How could I have dared dream of living a normal life with these kinds of memories?

It’s not just this man I need to let go of.

The name Han Seoryeong.

That, too, must be laid to rest.

Only now was it clear where she had to return to.

“――”

A faint vibration trembled through the wall.

A single gunshot.

***

Ju Seolheon, having placed the owl back in the coffin, leaned against the door and took a deep breath.

A flood of tangled emotions surged through her. But she clenched her fists and strode down the corridor, her heels clicking with composed purpose.

She reached for her hip and checked the silenced gun. It had been thirty-three years since her last field deployment. This body-swap operation—she was personally commanding it and moving on the ground—might very well be her final mission.

―...Deputy Director, are you really going to let Agent Lee Wooshin go just like that?

A cautious voice came through one ear—Na Wonchang’s.

“Forget about him.”

―......

“Wooshin might have quit the state, but at his core, he’s still an agent. He’ll have to carry that owl for the rest of his life, protect it no matter what. In some ways, that path is even more brutal. Affiliation doesn’t mean anything anymore.”

And no one knew better than she did just how brutal that path was.

Last night, she’d met with Lee Wooshin and handed him a forged passport prepared for the owl, telling him to get out of Korea. That cocky punk never even treated her like a superior, so who knew how much of her advice he’d actually take.

The Bird Box was nothing but a smokescreen. Just a decoy operation—one of the lower branches of the mission she’d been running since 33 years ago.

“......”

At last, a foreign bodyguard opened the door and scanned Han Seoryeong up and down with suspicion.

Ju Seolheon tucked her wrinkled hands behind her back and passed the man by. She hesitated slightly at his demand for the key in Russian, but brushed it off by saying she was in a hurry.

The room beyond was pitch black, not a single sliver of light permitted inside. Her hand trembled slightly as she pushed open the heavy door. Still, she recognized her man—curled up and shriveled—as soon as she saw him.

“Ligai....”

Her voice trembled as she slowly approached.

Operation codename: Red Veil.

In 1990, a mission given to a rookie agent just twenty-three years old—her first and last assignment.

It was to make contact with a graduate student at Moscow State University.

Ligai Viktor.