The door opened onto the school courtyard, and the first thing Jin smelled was the forest.
It was everywhere here. It came in over the walls from the trees Mirim had grown across the city, green and wet and cool, and after a night and a day of smoke and blood and burned paper lanterns, it hit him so hard he had to stop for a second just inside the door and breathe it in. Under his feet, he could feel the ground humming the way it always did at home, the quiet pulse of all those roots running under the stones.
The second thing he noticed was that the courtyard wasn't empty.
He'd thought it would be. It was late, well past midnight, and Yerin had brought the last of the Seoul families home hours ago. But the lamps along the walls were lit, and there were people sitting on the steps of the main building, and every one of them stood up when the door opened.
