Soyi’s gaze haunted me as I watched the damos untie her wrists and legs, then drag her back to the prison block. Her bound state flooded me with a sense of pity and almost guilt. I would be returning home soon, while she might never leave this place.
The interrogation now over, the spectators dispersed, looks of disapproval or pity etched into the lines of their faces. I was ordered to clean the blood off the interrogation chair. Soyi’s blood. As I did, I noticed the young noble still lingering.
Our gazes met across the police courtyard.
He did not look much older than me. Nineteen, perhaps. He was handsome in a too-perfect and hostile way, like the beauty of a winter’s night: moonlit snow, gleaming icicles as sharp as fangs, and a bone-chilling stillness.
With a gasp, I ducked my head and rigorously scrubbed at the splattered blood. Even when the redness rubbed off, I continued wiping at it, all my attention centered on the footsteps approaching me. On the shadow looming over me.
Swallowing hard, I peeked up. My heart slammed against my chest when I saw the young noble towering above me.
“Are you Damo Seol?”
Immediately I jumped to my feet, held my hands together, and bowed. “Neh.”
“You are the damo assisting with Lady O’s case, I hear.”
“I am, sir.”
“You must have seen her corpse.” He gazed down at me with an air of too-sweet friendliness, and his left cheek twitched. “What did she look like?”
I blinked, caught off guard by his question.
“Is it true?” he pressed. “The rumor that she was a great beauty?”
“I—I cannot say, sir.”
He arched his brow. “It is not a tricky question, girl.”
His prompting lifted the dead woman out from a pool of memory. Her bluish face surfaced, the staring eyes, the purple bruise over her gaping mouth, the dark hole where her nose ought to have been. Death had drained Lady O of every ounce of beauty. It was impossible to imagine who she had once been when all I could think of was what had happened to her—sliced, stabbed, murdered.
“Sir,” I whispered. “I cannot imagine what she looked like before she was … killed.”
Before he could ask any more questions, Senior Officer Shim stalked over, and I had to withhold a breath of relief.
“Finally!” The young noble’s voice pierced the air. “I did want to speak with you, Officer Shim!”
The much older Officer Shim looked like a stray dog that had to fight daily for food. Tall, seemingly scrawny, his face emaciated. Yet he possessed surprising strength and was far more streetwise than even Inspector Han himself. I took a step back and hid behind him.
“Young Master Ch’oi Jinyeop.” An uneasy edge slid into Officer Shim’s voice. “Why are you still here?”
“You look as though you have not slept in days.” The young master snapped his fan shut, then held his hands behind his back. “I hear that once a murder occurs, police officers do not return home for weeks, too absorbed in the investigation to rest.”
Officer Shim kept quiet, still waiting for an answer.
The young master let out a breathy laugh. “You dislike small talk as usual. Very well. I came to inquire if it was true, the rumors of her affair.”
“I am not permitted to share information freely.”
“Inspector Han’s order, I suppose? You obey everything he says. If the rumor is true, perhaps Lady O deserved to die. A woman who cannot be honorable … it is better that she die than live and bring dishonor to her family.”
“Your father must be ashamed to have a son like you.”
Officer Shim’s remark startled me, but what surprised me more was the young master’s calmness. Amusement glinted in his eyes. “What irony, hearing such an insult from a seoja, a bastard abandoned by his own father.”
A muscle worked in Shim’s jaw. “Whether the victim was deserving of death is not up to anyone to decide. No man or woman, noble or slave, ought to be killed without the sanction of the ruler.”
The young master’s gaze shifted to the space behind Shim, and I followed his gaze and saw Inspector Han passing by, too occupied to notice us.
“There goes your master, Officer Shim.” With one smooth motion, he flicked open his fan, airing his manicured face again, and under his breath he said with a smile, “Only dogs and horses long for a master.”
The young master strode away with long and measured steps, his manservant scrambling behind him. Once he was far enough away, I said