#set in

Opening pages from the unproofed ARC (because my editor is still fixing things and I wanted to share today!).

Everi1/ShatteredEndings: Longtime lurker, first time poster, I’m really torn on how to vote for Shattered 5. I’m a Z-wysh shipper, but I don’t know if I can forgive Iris for dumping Jihun! - @ValL0vesM3 @MaxIsBae53 – You can’t come back from that. @xxUwUxx23 – SAME @EveriReader – Jihun would tell you to follow your heart. Until Our Darling says he wants Iris gone, don’t believe the gossip. The eighth reel is the one set up by the original author, and that means keeping Iris.

A decade or two ago my dark, chocolate brown hair might have drawn some attention as I got off the bus near Gongdeok Station in Seoul. My skin was a little too pink to be native, my height still a few centimeters taller than the average Korean woman's, my eyes double-lidded and noticeably western European. Today, no one seemed to notice. A few teens glanced at the bedraggled black and purple wig in my hand and the water-damaged fan sign for the hit TV show Shattered, but if they thought anything it was probably that I was a fan who'd gone to see the cast in their final appearance of the penultimate season four.

Absolutely no one shouted out "Wysha!" as I passed, even though that was the name of the purple-haired, mortal-turned-immortal I'd played since the season three finale. Even fans would have struggled to remember my legal name - Iris Muhly - simply because I was, as they said in Hollywood, an ingenue.

Unknown.

A random extra who wound up playing a major character for one season and was destined for a gruesome on-screen death if I didn't get things fixed.

Bitter cold winds rushed ruffled overhead holiday banners lining the alley as I hurried to my Yeonnam-dong apartment. It had been another very long day, with a four am call time so the principles of the cast could do a six am morning show followed by the teaser trailer for the upcoming fan vote. I'd escaped that at ten and rushed to the salon to get my poor, bleached hair treated, re-colored back its natural brown, and then headed home as the sky turned dark. It was only a little after five in the evening, but it was a bitingly cold December day and the sun was setting.

Somewhere over the sound of rushing cars I could hear someone learning that sound doesn’t carry well when it’s -20C outside. No, not even for cheery Christmas carols or romantic pop ballads about first kisses stolen between snowflakes. The winter weather this year consisted of a freezing drought, brutal winds, and none of the romantic snow the Koreans were all expecting.

"Fine by me," I muttered as I eyed the frozen blue sky. I had a plane ticket for a red-eye out of Incheon airport heading straight back to the good 'ol US of A. Home sweet... spawn point?

It was less about going home to somewhere good or safe and more about being in a place where my work visa wouldn't expire as soon as I was fired. Because my first acting gig was rapidly going from Going To Get Fired to Going To Get Fired And Blacklisted.

Hugging my black coat around myself against the cold I glanced both ways along a narrow street and dashed across the street in a way most likely to 1) get me hit by a passing car and 2) get me fined if any of the CCTV cams were working. Which, they weren't. The agency I'd signed a twelve-month contract with was paying for the apartment here in Seoul and they weren't springing for a luxury penthouse for someone who wasn't an actual star.

I ducked past the shops lining the ground floor - convenience stores, noodle shops, and pharmacies - fighting the wind with each step. Plastering myself to the side of the building I tugged off a thin gray glove long enough to punch in the six-digit door code.

The tinted glass door slid open with a soft whoosh of warmer air.

For the first time all day I could almost breathe easy. Granted, there were fourteen CCTV cams pointed along the entry way for the apartment building and two more doors to get through to get to the communal mail hall, but at least I was safe-ish when the doors locked behind me with a click.

It sounded delusional, but for the past week or more I'd felt like someone was watching me.

I'd pushed it off as a delayed response to eighteen-hour work days on set in front of cameras. Compared to the last fourteen months of filming and promotions this past week had been comparatively easy. The cast had split the interviews and appearances, I'd only been in six of the fourteen live things, done four signings, and only been physically threatened, oh, maybe a few thousand times.

With a glance at the heavily tinted windows I went through the next set of doors to the common area where a bank of TVs displayed everything from the local weather channel and the stock exchange to the celebrity news.

The same picture was on half the TVs: a Korean man so handsome my breath caught even though I’d spent the past fourteen months in close proximity with him. “Michyeosseo,” the word slipped past my lips in an angry huff and I wasn’t sure who was crazier, me or the fans on screen screaming  "J'aime Max!" and "Max Kang, je suis délicieux! Épouse-moi!" and the old stand-by, “Sauve-moi, roi des gargouille!”

I wouldn’t stand out in the cold to wave purple and black dragons at a camera for an anyone. Not even in Paris where all the rosy-cheeked teens were. Not even for pay.

Okay, well, that was a lie. Because I could unreservedly cheer for Max Kang for pay and absolutely had during at least one alternate-universe scene this season.

Shattered, the multinational television show that let viewers write the ending to the universally acclaimed series that started with the novel All These Broken Seasons, was all about merging alternate universe and looking at what could have been. The whole premise was two realities collided and the death of some fey[1] princess meant the people in normal Earth suddenly were confronting the people from a magical Earth.

Max Kang, easily one of the hottest men on the planet, played the big, bad villain: Zjarr Aabo. On the screen of the lobby TV Max was seated right next to the breathlessly hungry host who was eyeing his thin, black silk shirt with the undone buttons as if she could make the others fall off by wishing alone. He probably wasn’t currently sporting the chiseled Abs of Treason he flashed at least once a season, because getting that definition involved extreme dieting and dehydration that wasn’t healthy to maintain, but most of the audience didn’t know that.

Not that Max needed chiseled muscle to make him delicious.

He was a man who’d built his fame playing classic bad guys, and one of the highest grossing Korean actors. Black hair that somehow always looked sexily tousled, wide set black eyes, heavy eyebrows, a broad and expressive face, and the muscles of a man who spent every spare hour in the gym or with the show’s fight trainer. The fact that he could dance and sing was just icing on the slice of Hallyu Wave perfection that was Max Kang.

Light loved him.

There was a glow, and a natural presence that survived even the camera’s harsh glare. When Max stepped into a room every head turned. His dramatic baritone voice was rich and low enough to send a shiver up anyone’s spine.

The evil demon of a man certainly didn't need to look directly into the camera with his ridiculously incomparable dark eyes and wink as his lips curled into a perfect come hither smile that all but melted everyone in his line of sight. 

No, he didn't need to do any of that. 

But he did.

I rolled my eyes as I pushed the button and waited for the elevator. All of this was to sway the vote. No, make it The Vote. With sparkly letters and fancy fonts and everything.

All These Broken Seasons was the best selling fantasy series of the mid-21st century but it had a little problem... the ending didn’t exist.   

Years ago the author had rudely died, or run away, or been kidnapped by Bigfoot. Something like that. One day they were in full contact and posting daily teasers for the untitled final fifth novel, and then they vanished. The jury was still out on what really happened.

Shattered was the answer.

Some studio had the rights, the author’s sudden disappearance gave them an opening, and they ran with it. Four, big budget seasons followed the books with a gratifying amount of accuracy[2] and now the fans got to vote on which ending we would shoot.

Since most the fans currently wanted to shoot me, the ending that promised my brutal death on screen was winning with eighty percent of the votes. Angel Xi, Shattered’s leading lady and the primary love interest of the hero, had oh-so-not-kindly told me that in Cantonese the word Four sounds like the word Death. Angel’s a sweetie like that.

The elevator opened and was empty, thank goodness. I stepped in and stabbed the close button before anyone could hop on.

Most of the building’s residents were polite enough to pretend they didn’t know me. Koreans weren’t fans of small talk as a rule, especially in Seoul, but things had been tense since the tabloids snapped pictures of Kim Jihun crying.

Tears weren’t the problem. Men could cry, and Jihun often did as the tortured, lovelorn hero of Shattered. The problem was that the tabloids had been snapping pics of me and Jihun hanging out for the past year and the world was convinced we were dating. If Jihun was smiling, I’d done something to make him happy. If Jihun was angry, it was my fault. If he was crying, I ought to die for hurting The World’s Darling.

Despite all the tabloid rumors, Jihun and I had never shared more than heartfelt glances on screen. He was my type, but I wasn’t his, and I was smart enough not to chase a man who didn’t want me.

[1] Fae? Fairy? Whatever. She was the typical All Powerful Magic Girl and she died at the end of the first book.