This Time, I Keep You Close

Taesu slips through gates from the inside, making maps that should not exist, while the court keeps using him like a tool it can throw away. Every path he learns costs him something, and the cracks in his memory are getting worse. Then Juno walks back into his life with a calm face, a hidden name, and three years of silence between them. Taesu remembers enough to hurt, but not enough to trust. The borrowed gloves in his sleeve and the worn notebook Juno once gave him keep pulling him toward a person he cannot afford to want. He is useful to everyone, wanted by no one, and one old promise still sits in his hands like a blade.