Burn it.
Soon enough, Misu’s face, ghostly pale with terror, flashed down the veranda, disappearing through a connecting gate. And I followed. I wound my way through the crowd and didn’t realize that I was only in my socks until I was running, but I had no time to run back to the side mansion entrance to retrieve my sandals. As soon as I passed through the gate, I hid behind a wooden beam, watching Misu scurry into what looked to be the servants’ quarter with its dusty and run-down appearance. Whatever she’d been ordered to burn, I’d give her no time to do so. I raced forward, threw the door aside, and stormed in.
Misu was shoving fabric into a sack.
I grabbed it, a material so soft I knew it was silk, but she refused to let go.
“Hand it over,” I ordered, and when she continued to cling, I opened my mouth wide and bit her wrist, my teeth digging into her skin as her shriek exploded in my ears. She dropped the fabric and scrambled away into the corner, clutching her hand to her chest. The whites of her eyes gleamed.
“Please,” she begged, “don’t look at it. There are things better left unknown. Leave, just leave.”
The lantern light flooded in through the open door, illuminating the deep blue silk. I shook out the material until hanging before me was a man’s robe. Silver tiger embroidery glinted in the light, the emblem worn by military officials. This was an inspector’s uniform.
I stared at Misu, who rocked back and forth. “Whose robe is this?” I asked.
“Please go back. Please. I’m begging you.”
“I have come here by Commander Yi’s orders,” I reminded her. “Tell me whose robe this is, and he will let you live.”
Misu’s eyes widened more, if that was even possible. I could almost see her mind jumping back and forth between Tell her and Do not dare as her gaze darted from the robe to me to the door then back to the robe again.
“The truth!” My voice sounded nearly frantic. “Tell me the truth!”
Silence fell, a few seconds too long. Then Misu whispered, “I should have burned it when she first told me to.”
My heartbeat rammed against my chest. “Go on. You must tell me the truth, everything you know. It will save you. But if you hide something from me and the commander discovers it, you will be interrogated.”
“What do you wish to know?” Misu whispered.
“When did Inspector Han arrive at the House?”
“An hour after midnight.”
The inspector had no alibi … I could hardly breathe as I forced myself to ask the next question. “When did he leave the House?”
“I do not know, but I know he did not return to his residence that night. He returned here a little before dawn. One of the servants, she saw Inspector Han in poor condition and brought him to Madam Yeonok.”
“Why did the servant bring Inspector Han to your mistress?”
“They are on close terms. I heard him call my mistress imja, ‘dearest,’ and he’s known her since he came to the capital as an orphan. A little over a decade ago. And it is my mistress’s dream, you see, to be bought and kept as his concubine.”
The remark about Inspector Han’s past tugged at me, yet my mind was already rolling in a different direction, too fast for me to stop. “You said a servant found Inspector Han in poor condition. What happened next?”
“The servant notified the mistress and had him smuggled into a private chamber for the sake of his dignity. It would look poorly for the public to see him so.”
“How drunk was he?”
“Not drunk…” Her eyes remained fixed on her hands, which she was wringing together. “He was covered in blood.”
I turned the blue robe around in the lantern light and finally saw dark stains. Dried blood crusted the sleeves and the hem, and it was smeared all over the torso area. “Blood,” I whispered, and before accusation could settle in, I reminded myself of Ryun’s statement about the horse accident. The blood belonged to the horse.
“I saw blood all over Inspector Han, and I thought it was because he was wounded. He looked like he was dying,” Misu blurted, as though relieved to be finally telling someone. “He seemed unable to stand, and what is more, he was shivering violently as though he had a fever. Telling my mistress he couldn’t feel his hands, and saying over and over again, ‘She is dead.’”
She.
Ryun had referred to the inspector’s wounded horse as a “he.” Was I remembering wrong? I ran a hand over my face, cold with sweat, then rose to my feet again and paced around, trying to walk out the jitters. “And why did you try to hide this robe from me?”
“Madam Yeonok asked me to hide this robe and fetch a clean one. I ran around the House until I found spare attire.”
“It was white?”
“Yes! Then my mistress told me to burn this uniform, but I told her, ‘Who knows when you might need power?’ She knew too that the inspector was losing interest in her. And what better way to bind herself to him than with his secret? So we kept the robe in here ever since.”
“And Senior Officer Shim was there too? You didn’t mention him.”
“He arrived around dawn.”
So Officer Shim had lied for the inspector—to hide what for him?
There were footsteps outside, and someone called, “Misu? Misuuuu.”
Misu clamped her hands over her lips. “You need to go,” she said in a harsh whisper. “And that robe, give it here!”
I clutched the robe tighter and strode out of the room, not daring to lift my face as I passed by whoever had been calling out Misu’s name. I did not know where I was heading, everything shaking within me, but I continued to walk. One moment I was wandering through a deserted courtyard, and the next moment I was outside on the street, approaching the South Gate. Torchlight glowed high above, like a fallen star, as a watchman walked along the parapet. Then all at once my feet stopped in their tracks, and I found myself staring down at the spot where Lady O had lain.
I saw it now, the pieces fitting together too perfectly.
Shortly before dawn, Soyi had seen Inspector Han heading somewhere, not back home but—as I had learned—back to the House of Bright Flowers. The darkness so deep, the innkeeper and others had not seen the blood on him, and suspecting nothing, they had thought him drunk with wine rather than drunk with shock and terror.
She is dead, she is dead.
I covered my face with my hands. Only moments ago I had wished the inspector’s downfall, if it meant that he would never lay a hand on my family. And now I had in my hands a weapon made of blue silk and blood. I could destroy this man. Me, a mere damo.
THIRTEEN
SECRETS. HOW HEAVY they are, Older Sister had once told me as she’d run her hand across her scalp, pulling free a fistful of hair. They have ruined me.
I had once tried to pry these secrets out from my sister’s husband. Was my sister a criminal? A runaway adulteress? But he had replied, She’s trying to protect you from whatever is hiding in her past. Something made her scared.
I ran my hand down my thick hair, wondering if this would happen to me too. Perhaps the secret would feel so much like death that strands would fall out, leaving bald patches of despair. I wasn’t meant to keep the evidence to myself, yet I didn’t know who to trust, who to confide in. Perhaps many secrets began like this, with fear.