me to scramble away. He grabbed my collar and dragged me, tugging so hard the fabric turned into a noose around my neck, squeezing my throat shut as I stumbled across the floor. A moment later, I was in the air, crashing down the steps and rolling onto the courtyard. Saliva tinged with coppery blood rolled in my mouth as I tried to reorient myself.
“Who do you think you are, inyeona?” Ky?n spoke with deadly calm. He had called me many nasty things in the past, but never this, never a bitch. He was standing near the burning cauldron, his face pale with murderous rage. “Do you think that you are more than a slave just because you impressed the inspector that one time?”
My stomach sank with his every step toward me. His boots crunched, crunched across the dirt, and everything in me coiled tight, waiting for him to kick me. Instead, he crouched before me and craned his neck so that we were eye to eye.
“Learn your place.” His hand smacked me across the back of my head, so hard I saw white spots. “It is serving tea”—another smack. And he went on this way, as though trying to shove a lesson into my skull. “Not solving crime.” Smack. “Aigoo, aigoo. Look at you. So proud and arrogant!” Smack. “Who do you think you are, little girl?”
I remained on all fours, breathing shallowly as I swayed against the pressure of each strike. The back of my head burned with humiliation, and my eyes stung with tears, with an emotion I’d never felt before: hatred. If my brother were here, or even the inspector, they would have put Ky?n in his place. But they were not here, only officers who had stepped out of the building to watch and gloat. I had no one but myself.
Officer Ky?n raised his hand to smack my head again, but I ducked, then scrambled to my feet. “Who do I think I am?” I echoed, my voice sounding like steel, and yet my knees were knocking against each other. “I am a girl who knows how to hold an arrow steady. Don’t blame me for your inability to shoot one properly.”
He stared at me, his eyes blazing with disbelief as he stood up. “Say that again, inyeona!” he snarled, spittle flying from his mouth.
“Inspector Han said that I could ask him for anything, for saving his life. Perhaps I will ask him to send you out of the bureau.”
“Hah!” Something like madness drifted into his large eyes, each as large as a mouth ready to devour me whole. “You think he’ll give me up for you?”
“Do what you wish with me then, if you don’t believe it. Shame me. Beat me. Slap me.” I fumbled with my uniform, then pulled out the norigae ornament and held it up to the torchlight. The amber terrapin gleamed, the tassel of blue strings swaying. “Inspector Han gave this to me, and he is a man of his word. Everyone knows that. So whether he wishes it or not, I swear to you—if you lay a hand on me, I will ruin you.”
Officer Ky?n took a step back, then another. “There is an old saying: ‘Ilsan bulyong iho.’ ‘One mountain cannot abide two tigers.’” The words trembled out of his lips, repressed fury infused into a whisper. “You and I, Seol, one of us must go. And it will not be me.”
His gaze darted around at his spectators, all embarrassed for him. They all knew that no servant would make such a large threat if it were a lie. When he turned to me again, something shifted in the pools of his eyes.
“I was going to let it go, for Inspector Han’s sake. But now I think he doesn’t deserve my loyalty at all.” A new light burned in his eyes as he grinned. “I was in charge of collecting more testimonies and found my way to a drunkard at the inn who saw it all.”
I stood my ground, still clutching the norigae, my only source of safety. I was safe, I convinced myself. Inspector Han would take my side—
“Inspector Han was the blue-robed man who crossed paths with Maid Soyi. Isn’t it strange that he didn’t mention this encounter? Like he had something to hide?”
My pulse beat faster, a franticness dizzying me. “Y-you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You think you know something?” he hissed. “Everything’s in your head, it’s all an illusion. And I’ll make sure