Somewhere on the outskirts of Seoul—a forgotten neighborhood wrapped in dust and moss.
Sunlight spilled over crumbling brick walls, soft and milky, like breath left on cold glass.
The cracks were filled with green.
The wind passed through the alley in silence, swallowing every footstep.
The only signs of life—a washing machine draining far off, a dog barking in the distance.
A faint insistence that the alley still lived, even if it didn't move.
The car pulled up near the alley's mouth.
Ahead of them, a man in a worn coat slipped into a dilapidated two-story house.
He moved like someone afraid of being remembered.
Celeste stepped out first. Her voice rose, quiet but certain—cutting clean through the stillness.
"Mr. Park… is that you?"
The man froze. Turned, just slightly—mistrust in his eyes.
And then, without a word, he ran.
"Hey!"
Noah gave chase without hesitation.
His shoulder skimmed the narrow wall as he moved, body low, swift.
He cut across the alley—hooked a leg—and the man crashed forward.
Thud.
The sound was sharp, final.
And then—steel.
A flash of metal burst from the man's coat, the glint of a folded blade, held by hands that were shaking but not unskilled.
He turned—too late.
The knife caught him high, carving a shallow but ruthless cut along the side of his thigh.
Fabric tore. Warm blood followed.
"Shit…"
Blood trickled down his thigh, dark and warm, soaking into the fabric of his pants.
His balance slipped, and one knee dropped to the ground.
The security team rushed in, wrestling the man down.
"Get off me! I don't know anything, I swear!"
His voice cracked, his eyes darting everywhere—everywhere but her.
Celeste approached.
No urgency.
No sound.
She knelt in front of him, slowly.
Looked at him.
That was all.
And something changed.
The air shifted—not colder, not heavier, but stranger.
Like standing at the edge of a memory you're not ready to relive.
Noah felt it.
Her ability.
It didn't announce itself. Didn't force.
It simply…unraveled people. Softly. Without asking.
The man's eyes blurred. His lips trembled.
He tried to swallow the truth—but it rose anyway, like breath returning to the lungs of someone who had forgotten how to breathe.
"…Yes," he whispered.
"I contacted the couple in the UK. But I didn't know who they were. Someone told me to do it."
Celeste didn't blink.
The man continued.
"It was Mr. Kim," he murmured.
"We met in prison. He showed up again the day I got out—just appeared like he'd been waiting."
"Said he was running errands for someone up in Gangnam… a club, I think. He told me I'd get ten thousand dollar—if I sent one message, just one, and passed along an address."
"That's all I did. I swear. I didn't ask who it was for. I didn't want to know."
Noah watched from where he knelt, blood soaking quietly into his sock.
Celeste had done nothing. No commands. No threats. No tricks.
She had simply looked.
And in that gaze—something deeper than fear had made the truth give in.
There was something cruel about her power.
But it was beautiful, too. Like watching ice crack under sunlight.
Lies couldn't breathe in front of her. And some confessions didn't feel like surrender.
They felt like release.
She carried that weight like a crown she never asked for.
Noah looked down at his leg. Then back at her.
A woman who could summon silence in a place where even the wind had stopped moving.
And for the first time—he understood.
A little more of the world she came from.
And the years she must have survived just to speak this gently.