The rain hammered against the taxi windows as Seoul's lights blurred into watercolor streaks. Daliah Goldenrod pressed her forehead against the cool glass, her stomach tight with anticipation and dread in equal measure. The audition letter crinkled in her coat pocket, a paper promise of everything she had fought her mother to achieve.

"National Theater, yes?" the driver asked in accented English.

Daliah nodded, checking her phone. Twenty minutes until her audition slot. Twenty minutes to prove that her father's death ten years ago had not been in vain, that her love of ballet was not the curse her mother claimed it to be. She could still hear her mother's voice from their last argument three days ago, sharp and breaking: *He was coming to watch you dance when he died. How can you still want this?*

But how could she not want it? Dance was the only place where her plump body felt weightless, where her five-foot-five frame could expand to fill a stage, where the grief of losing her father transformed into something beautiful. In New York, she had been good. Here in Korea, she could be extraordinary.

The taxi lurched suddenly. Daliah's head snapped forward as tires shrieked against wet asphalt. Time fractured into crystalline moments: headlights flooding through the windshield, bright as stage lights. The driver's shout. Her own hands bracing against the seat. The deafening crunch of metal meeting metal.

Then, nothing.

Daliah opened her eyes to darkness and the smell of earth. Not hospital antiseptic. Not burning rubber. Earth, rich and loamy, mixed with something floral she could not name. Her body ached, but distantly, as though the pain belonged to someone else. She tried to move and found herself lying on grass, staring up at a night sky so thick with stars it looked like someone had spilled diamonds across black velvet.

*Where are the city lights?*

She pushed herself up, and the world tilted dangerously. When it steadied, she saw trees she did not recognize, their branches reaching like calligraphy against the stars. Beyond them, the curved silhouette of a roof, its edges sweeping upward in a way that seemed both foreign and familiar from history books.

A twig snapped behind her.

Daliah spun, her dancer's balance saving her from falling. A figure emerged from the shadows, slight and dressed in pale hanbok. In the moonlight, the person appeared young, with delicate features and alert eyes that assessed her with startling intelligence.

"Who are you?" Daliah demanded, though her voice came out smaller than she intended. "Where am I?"

The stranger's eyes widened, taking in Daliah's modern clothes, her short hair, her dark brown skin. For a long moment, they simply stared at each other.

"You should not be here," the stranger finally said in Korean. Daliah understood, though she had only studied the language for six months. The words seemed to bypass her ears and plant themselves directly in her mind. "This is the palace grounds. If the guards find you..."

"Palace?" Daliah looked around wildly. The building she had glimpsed was closer now, its architecture unmistakably traditional, unmistakably old. Not a reconstruction. Not a museum. "What palace? I was in Seoul. There was an accident."

The stranger stepped closer, moving with a grace that reminded Daliah of dancers she had known. "Seoul?" A pause. "You mean Hanyang? Are you ill? Your speech is strange, and your clothing..."

Daliah looked down at herself. Jeans. Sweater. Modern coat. Her audition clothes, slightly rumpled but intact. No blood. No sign of the crash except the phantom ache in her bones. She raised her head and met the stranger's eyes.

"What year is it?"

The question hung in the air between them, absurd and terrifying.

The stranger's expression shifted from suspicion to something that might have been concern. "The thirteenth year of King Sunjo's reign."

The name meant nothing to Daliah, but the implications crashed over her like a second collision. Impossible. Insane. Yet the stars above held steady, and the night air carried the scent of wood smoke and incense instead of car exhaust and concrete.

"I am Hong Sam-nom," the stranger said, and something in the careful way those words were pronounced told Daliah this was not the whole truth. "You are clearly far from home. Whether you are mad or something stranger has occurred, you cannot be found here like this. Will you trust me to help you hide until we understand what has happened?"

Daliah thought of her mother's face, angry and afraid. Her father's empty seat at her recitals. The audition she would never dance. Then she thought of the headlights, the moment of impact, and the impossible sky above.

She had crossed some threshold she did not understand, and there was no road back visible. Only forward, into this strange night, with this strange person who looked at her with unexpected kindness.

"Yes," Daliah whispered. "Help me."

Hong Sam-nom moved through the darkness with the certainty of someone who had mapped every shadow. Daliah followed, her breath visible in the cold air, each step taking her deeper into impossibility.

The palace grounds stretched vast and labyrinthine. They skirted walls where carved dragons seemed to writhe in the moonlight, passed gardens where bare winter branches created skeletal archways. Daliah's modern sneakers whispered against stone pathways that had been worn smooth by centuries she could not have witnessed. Yet here she was, walking on them.

"Stay close," Sam-nom whispered. "The guards change position soon. We must reach the outer buildings before then."

Daliah wanted to ask a thousand questions. Instead, she focused on moving quietly, using the controlled grace that years of ballet had ingrained in her muscles. Her body understood discipline even when her mind reeled.

They rounded a corner, and Sam-nom's hand shot out, pressing Daliah back against the wall. Voices carried across the courtyard. Two men in uniform strode past, their torches casting wild shadows. Daliah held her breath, feeling the rough stone cold against her back through her sweater. The guards' conversation faded, and Sam-nom tugged her forward again.

"You move well," Sam-nom observed quietly. "Quietly, for someone so... out of place."

"I'm a dancer," Daliah replied, then wondered if that word even translated properly. "I was. I am?" Verb tenses felt slippery when past and future had somehow tangled.

Sam-nom glanced back, curious. "A dancer? Like the court entertainers?"

"Different," Daliah said, though she was not sure how to explain ballet to someone from whatever century this was. "It's... it doesn't matter now, does it?"

They reached a smaller building, tucked away from the grand structures. Sam-nom produced a key and unlocked a door so quietly it barely breathed. Inside, the space was simple but tidy. A sleeping mat rolled in the corner, a low desk with papers weighted down by smooth stones, books stacked with careful precision. A single candle, which Sam-nom lit with practiced efficiency.

In the flickering light, Daliah saw her guide's face clearly for the first time. Delicate bone structure, intelligent eyes, and something unguarded in that momentary expression before Sam-nom's careful mask slipped back into place. This was someone accustomed to hiding.

"You live here?" Daliah asked.

Sam-nom nodded, gesturing for Daliah to sit on a cushion. "I work in the palace. I transcribe documents, run errands, make myself useful enough to be kept around but insignificant enough to be ignored." There was a wryness to those words that suggested layers of story beneath them.

Daliah sank onto the cushion, her legs suddenly weak. The adrenaline that had carried her through the flight was draining away, leaving only the crushing weight of her situation. "This can't be real," she said, though without conviction. "I should be in a hospital. Or dead. Not... wherever this is."

"The thirteenth year of King Sunjo," Sam-nom repeated patiently. "Though I wonder if that means anything to you. Your Korean is fluent, but strange. Your face..." Sam-nom hesitated. "I have never seen anyone who looks like you. Your skin, your features. Where do you come from?"

"New York," Daliah said. "America. And it's not the year that's my problem, it's the century." She watched Sam-nom's face for comprehension. "I was born in 2004. I'm twenty years old. The year should be 2024."

The silence stretched between them, broken only by the candle's soft hiss.

"Two hundred years," Sam-nom finally whispered. "You're saying you've traveled two hundred years into the past?"

Hearing it spoken aloud made Daliah's chest tighten. She pressed her palms against her eyes, fighting the panic that threatened to crest. "I don't know. I don't understand. There was a car accident. Metal and glass and light, and then I woke up here. It's impossible."

"Yet here you are," Sam-nom said gently. "Impossible or not."

Daliah lowered her hands. Sam-nom was watching her with an expression that combined sympathy and calculation, as if weighing options and outcomes. "Why are you helping me? You don't know me. I could be dangerous."

A slight smile crossed Sam-nom's face. "You're terrified and lost. Also, you asked what year it was. No spy or intruder would ask that." Sam-nom stood, moving to a small chest in the corner. "Besides, I know something about being out of place. About hiding what you are to survive."

There was weight in those words, secrets acknowledging secrets. Daliah thought of the way Sam-nom moved, spoke, carried themselves. The almost-but-not-quite masculine presentation. The careful word choices.

"Sam-nom isn't your real name, is it?" Daliah asked quietly.

Sam-nom froze, then slowly turned back. Their eyes met, and Daliah saw the flash of fear there, quickly controlled. "What makes you say that?"

"The way you said it. Like it's armor, not identity." Daliah held up her hands, placating. "I'm not threatening you. I'm just... I see you. Whatever you're hiding, I won't expose it. You're helping me. That matters."

The tension in Sam-nom's shoulders eased fractionally. "My name is Hong Ra-on," came the whispered confession. "But here in the palace, for my safety, I am Sam-nom. A young man. Insignificant. Invisible."

"Ra-on," Daliah repeated, tasting the name. "Thank you for trusting me."

Before Ra-on could respond, voices erupted outside. Shouts, running footsteps. Both women froze.

"Someone breached the eastern wall," a guard's voice carried through the walls. "Search every building. Find the intruder!"

Ra-on moved to the door, pressing her ear against it. Her face had gone pale. "They know someone entered. They will search here soon." She turned to Daliah, decision crystallizing in her eyes. "Your clothes will give you away instantly. You need to change, now. I have extra hanbok, but..."

"But what?" Daliah demanded.

Ra-on's expression was grim. "But we need to decide. Do I dress you as a woman, which will raise questions about who you are and why you're here? Or do I dress you as a man, which might be safer but require you to play a role you do not understand in a culture you do not know?"

The footsteps were getting closer.

Ra-on moved with decisive speed, pulling clothing from the chest. Daliah stripped off her sweater and jeans, the modern fabric pooling at her feet like evidence of a crime. The cold air bit at her skin.

"Quickly," Ra-on whispered, thrusting undergarments and layers at her. "The binding cloth first. You must flatten your chest."

Daliah wrapped the cloth around her breasts, pulling it tight enough to hurt. Each layer of hanbok that followed felt simultaneously foreign and surprisingly practical. The weight of the fabric, the way it moved, the restriction and flow. Ra-on's hands were efficient, tying and tucking with practiced ease.

"Your hair," Ra-on muttered, producing scissors.

Daliah's hand flew to her short natural hair. "It's already short."

"But the style is wrong. Let me fix it." Ra-on worked quickly, adjusting and pinning until Daliah's hair resembled something closer to a young man's topknot. "Your face is round enough, soft enough. If you keep your head down, do not speak unless necessary, you might pass. But your eyes..."

"What about them?"

"They are too direct. Too bold. Men of low status do not meet the gaze of their superiors. You must learn to be invisible." Ra-on stepped back, assessing. "You are now Hong Dae-sung, my younger cousin from the countryside, visiting to seek work. You are simple, quiet, and unimportant. Can you be that?"

Daliah looked down at her transformed body. The hanbok disguised her curves, though her plump figure would still be apparent to anyone who looked closely. "I can try."

The footsteps stopped outside the door.

Ra-on grabbed the candle and set it by the desk, then shoved Daliah's modern clothes under the sleeping mat with her foot. She positioned herself at the desk as if she had been writing, and gestured sharply for Daliah to kneel in the corner, head bowed.

Daliah dropped to her knees, heart hammering. She forced her breathing to slow, using techniques from performance preparation. The floor was hard beneath her knees. She stared at the grain of the wooden boards and tried to make herself small.

The door swung open without ceremony.

"Hong Sam-nom," a gruff voice declared. "All quarters are being searched. Stand and account for yourself and any others present."

Ra-on stood smoothly, bowing with precise deference. "Guard Yang. I am transcribing Minister Kim's correspondence, as ordered. This is my cousin, Hong Dae-sung, arrived this evening from Geumsan. He seeks employment and shelter until I can present him to the household administrator tomorrow."

Daliah kept her head down, willing herself to be nothing, nobody. She felt the guard's gaze sweep over her.

"Geumsan? That is far. Why come now, in winter?"

Ra-on's voice remained steady. "His father died last month. There is no one to work the land, and his mother sent him here in hope of wages to send back. The roads are difficult, which is why he arrived so late."

The lie was smooth, detailed, credible. Daliah marveled at how easily the story flowed. Ra-on had experience with deception.

The guard grunted. "You, boy. Look up."

Daliah's pulse spiked. Slowly, she raised her head, keeping her eyes downcast, her expression blank. She could see the guard's boots, the hem of his uniform.

"Hmph. Looks half-starved. Feed him something, Sam-nom. We do not need another mouth dying of hunger and creating paperwork."

"Of course, Guard Yang. May I ask what intruder you seek? So we may be watchful?"

"Someone breached the eastern wall near the old pavilion. Likely a thief or spy. If you see anything suspicious, report immediately."

"Naturally."

The guard's boots turned away. The door closed. Silence stretched, fragile as ice.

Neither of them moved for a long moment. Then Ra-on exhaled shakily and sank onto her cushion. "That was too close."

Daliah's hands were trembling. She pressed them flat against her thighs. "You are a very good liar."

"I have had to be." Ra-on's voice was tired. "But now we have created a problem. I told them you are my cousin. By morning, others will know. You will need to maintain this role, at least for a time. Can you do that? Can you live as Hong Dae-sung?"

Daliah thought of the binding cloth constricting her chest, the weight of the disguise, the way she had forced herself invisible under the guard's scrutiny. She thought of her mother, who would be frantic by now, wondering where she was. She thought of the audition she would never attend, the life that had been ripped away in a moment of twisted metal and impossible light.

"I do not have a choice, do I?" she said quietly.

"There are always choices," Ra-on replied. "But some cost more than others."

Before Daliah could respond, voices erupted again outside, but these were different. Excited, urgent. Someone was shouting orders. Then a clear, commanding voice cut through the chaos, closer than the others.

"Assemble the guard in the courtyard. I will inspect the perimeter myself."

Ra-on's face transformed, tension and something else, something complicated, flooding her features. "The Crown Prince," she whispered. "Lee Yeong is out there."

Daliah moved to the door, curiosity overriding caution. Through a crack in the wood, she could see figures moving in the courtyard beyond. Torchlight illuminated a young man striding through the chaos with unmistakable authority. Even at a distance, even in the uncertain light, Daliah could see the way others deferred to him, the grace and power in his movements.

Lee Yeong stopped, turning to address a guard. The torchlight caught his face, sharp and handsome and alive with intelligence. His expression shifted rapidly as he spoke, animated, focused, present in a way that commanded attention.

Daliah's breath caught. She had seen royalty in photographs, in performances, distant and untouchable. But this man radiated a different kind of presence. Real. Immediate. Magnetic.

"Stop staring," Ra-on hissed, pulling her back. "If he sees you, if he notices anything unusual..."

"He is your Crown Prince," Daliah said, understanding flooding through her. "That is why you are in the palace. You serve him."

Ra-on's silence was answer enough. The complicated expression, the fear and longing tangled together, told Daliah everything she needed to know about secrets layered upon secrets.

Outside, Lee Yeong called for a report. His voice carried clearly, educated and sharp. The guards scrambled to respond. And Daliah, despite every rational thought, despite the danger and the impossibility of everything, felt something shift inside her. She had crossed time itself to land in this moment, disguised and displaced, watching a prince search for an intruder who was standing hidden just beyond his sight.

The night stretched ahead, full of uncertainties.