Page 117 of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

He nodded. “You’re wrong about one thing though,” he said back softly. “You said the machine would replace you. It can’t.”

“But—”

“It can summon spirits,” he said. “But it can’t create art. Art is about intent, Yumi. A rainbow isn’t art, beautiful though it might be. Art is aboutcreation. Human creation. A machine can lift way more than Tojin can—doesn’t make it less impressive when he lifts more than almost any human being.”

He smiled at her. “I don’t care how well a machine piles rocks. The fact thatyoudo it is what matters to me.”

She smiled back, brushing her hand against his, causing their arms to radiate warmth. But then they reached the scholars’ tent. It was time. The machine wasn’t in its place out front, but they often rolled it into the tentfor brief maintenance. As the group arrived, the lead scholar—Painter couldn’t remember his name—was stepping out, wearing his tall hat. He froze when he noticed them all.

“Scholars,” Painter said. “By the authority of the spirits themselves, we have come to destroy your machine. Step aside.”

The scholar cocked his head, then called into the tent.

“Sunjun! They’re here!”

Sunjun, the most engineering-minded of the scholars, popped out of the tent. “Already?”

“Indeed,” the lead scholar said. “Looks like it’s time for a confrontation.”

Sunjun sighed, then took out some device and activated it. Painter couldn’t see what it did, but this wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for. They didn’t seem frightened, or even surprised. More…regretful. Perhaps they were stalling. Honam poked his head out of the tent, then handed the lead scholar something. A pair of goggles. He affixed them to his face, then looked at Painter.

“Stand aside,” Painter said. “And relinquish the machine.”

The lead scholar instead studied him. “So,” the man said. “This is the descendant of the nomads. You’ve done quite well for yourselves, as a people. Tell me. What is it you think is happening here, boy? The division between our nations? The fact that you have entire cities nearby that can’t visit ours?”

Painter froze.

They knew?

He felt cold. Yumi pulled closer to him, and the scholar looked at her,seeingher. It was the goggles maybe?

Painter swallowed. The bailiff and the others had frozen. Even Liyun just stood there. Completely motionless. Were they waitingfor something from him? Their orders were to go in and destroy the machine if the scholars refused to surrender it. Yet nobody moved.

“Different dimensions,” Painter finally said to the scholars. “That overlap somehow. That’s what’s going on. We exist in the same space, but can’t see each other or interact, except in specific ways.”

“Oh, that’s anexcellenttheory,” the lead scholar said. “You hear that, Sunjun?”

“Sure did,” Sunjun said as the two other scholars rolled their machine out of the tent, onto a large plank that sloped to the stone ground. “The theory has problems, but it’s pretty good for a kid without any real context. He’d have made a good scholar.”

“Indeed,” the lead scholar said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Painter said, pointing. “Bailiff, take that machine.”

“Painter,” Yumi said, “maybe we should get more information first.”

“First,” he said, “we at least…” He trailed off, noticing that the bailiff, the city officials… Liyun, Hwanji, and Chaeyung were all just standing there. He noticed for the first time that their immobility seemed unnatural. They weren’t even blinking.

“Liyun?” Painter asked. “Chaeyung?”

“I regret to be the one to reveal it,” the lead scholar said, “but you haveno ideawhat is happening here, child.”

Painter seized Liyun by the arm, shaking it. And her very shape—clothing included—began toshift. Darkening. Giving off wisps of blackness. She looked at him, and her eyes had gone white. Like…like holes drilled in her head.

Painter screamed, his voice joining Yumi’s own cry. He jumped away, wiping his hand on his tobok.

“What did youthinkthey were?” the lead scholar asked as the machine started up.

Painter, desperate, grabbed a rock. He rushed the machine, but the scholar grabbed his arm. Contrary to what Painter had assumed before, this man wasstrong. In desperation, Painter slammed his rock against the man’s head.

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