he closed the box with one last stroke. “The way the character ‘meum’ was written in the criminal’s letter stood out most to me. Its brushstroke order was peculiar, and this distinguishing characteristic repeated itself throughout the letter.”
“How was it p-peculiar, s-s-sir?”
“It was written in one stroke, when it ought to have been written in two strokes, or three or more by the unlearned. But just one stroke? Very rare. No such errors existed in Ahn’s writing. Oddly enough, it was identical to Shim’s handwriting.”
His words reopened a gash. The stinging resentment returned, though duller this time, less intrusive. Why had it taken the inspector so long to notice the similarities in an obvious brushstroke mistake? Officer Shim had shared his written reports with the inspector several times.
“W-why did you not second-guess Officer Shim right away, sir?” I asked, and withheld myself from adding, If you had, this investigation might have ended long, long ago.
“Whenever a murder occurred in the past, I’d never had to suspect one of my own. It was always others who were culprits.”
One of his own … I would never understand this. The bureau was home to Inspector Han and to the other officers, who would face knife-wielding killers together, who would spend nights without sleep while tracking down a criminal, sharing their life stories in whispers over rice wine. They had chosen to walk the same path that twisted through no-man’s-land, and most likely, they would reach the very end together. Always together.
“I could not sleep, I could not eat, consumed by the cases of Lady O and the priest,” Inspector Han continued. “I relied even more on Shim to keep me sane.”
I nodded my head while my brows remained crumpled together. This answer would have to do—
A distant whistle looped and twirled, piercing the stillness.
For a moment I thought the whistle had come from our team, but by the way Inspector Han froze, as did the entire line of officers ahead, I knew the sound had come from somewhere beyond. Tension tightened the air around us, and officers were already reaching behind for arrows.
“Spread out,” Commander Yi’s rasping whisper echoed. “Do not let Officer Shim escape.”
The quick-footed officers scattered in all directions, leaving Inspector Han and me swallowed up in isolation. Dread gouging into my chest, I tried holding tighter on to the saddle horn, afraid that at any moment, something might leap out and knock me off the horse. Instead, my fingers would not move, trembling with exhaustion. Cracks had formed in my red skin, strength draining out in quick waves.
Inspector Han’s warning drifted into my ears. The cold might kill you.
With the back of my hand, I rubbed my eyes as a dreamlike haze edged the corners of my vision. It cast a fog so thick over Inspector Han, blurring him into a shadow even though he walked near me. I looked around. The sharp lines of the ancient trees were also blurred, bleeding like ink with too much water.
Then I heard it.
A growl reverberating from deep within the chest of a gigantic beast, a rumbling noise that shook the branches and sent tremors though me. But every time I turned to look, the echoing growl came from a different direction—from the mist lurking ahead, from the rock right next to me, from the sky high above. Panic clutched my heart. “D-did you hear that, sir?”
“Hear what?”
“A tiger.”
“Seol-ah…” A note of concern edged Inspector Han’s voice, and I realized that my mind was tipping into delirium. “There are no tigers here—” The rest of his words froze in midair. Stretching out his arm, he gestured at me to be still.
It took a moment of squinting and rubbing my cloudy vision to see a figure stepping out from behind a tree. The forest was barely illuminated by the moonlight that streamed through the gnarled branches, revealing a crescent of Officer Shim’s face and the blue-white gleam of his blade, drawn partially out from the scabbard.
“Why is it you?” came Officer Shim’s strained voice. “Why did you come this way, Inspector?”
“To arrest you.”
“I do not know what Damo Seol told you, but she is a liar. She’s the one who betrayed you.”
“No. She’s the only one who chose to do what was right. Now put down your weapon, Shim. You can fight me, but you will not escape.”
The blade rang as Shim withdrew it entirely, and yet a shadow of reluctance weighed his brows and blunted the sharpness of his gaze. “So be it