honor, which had been used as the murder weapon. Her daughter was not only a heretic, but an adulteress who’d borne a son out of wedlock. Violence could have resulted from an accumulation of shame and anger in the heart of a mother …
A scream ripped through the silence. Startled, I nearly dropped the knife. “What is that?” I asked a passing servant.
“Maid Soyi,” she whispered. “She’s been screaming at the guards to let her out.”
“Why?”
“It is her turn again. Not yet, but in the afternoon. I think she knows … Inspector Han seems to be at his wits’ end. He’s using torture this time to interrogate her.”
She whispered the terrifying technique that would be used. The juri-teulgi method, where one’s knees, bound together, would be forced by sticks in opposite directions, again and again, until the leg bones curved. Blood drained from my head, leaving me dizzy as I steadied myself against the counter. I had to go speak with Soyi before it was too late.
* * *
Whatever had happened in the prison block, or within Soyi’s mind, it had worn her out until she seemed as translucent as a ghost. The moment I stepped into the wooden cell, swamped in shadows, Soyi’s lips would not stop moving.
“I dreamt of skeletons, and when I woke up, I heard the guards talking about graves, and then just yesterday, I felt something under the straw mat. Look, look what I found.” Soyi opened her palm and showed me a tiny bone, perhaps belonging to a rat. “Isn’t that strange? It is a cluster of coincidences, little links I see each day that somehow all seem to connect with one another, leading somewhere.”
“Leading where?” I whispered.
“Gods, I don’t know. Wherever it’s going, I don’t want to go there. I just want to be left alone.” Her hands darted out and, grabbing my injured hand, she squeezed it.
My mouth dropped open, my face contorting with pain as I snatched my arm back. “Ow!” I yelled so loudly it seemed to wake her up from a spell. Something of her old self returned at the sight of my bloody, bound-up hand.
“So it is true,” she whispered, her breathing slowing down. “I overheard everything.”
I held my hand, cradling it. “Overheard what?”
“Your inspector is like every other aristocrat. His kindness is conditional. So long as you please your inspector, do what he tells you, he will treat you like his sister. But upset him, and you become again a mere slave to him.”
Silence filled my mouth. No words rose in his defense, because Soyi was right.
Then the translucent, ghostly look returned to her eyes. “Don’t let Inspector Han take advantage of your loyalty, as Lady O took advantage of mine,” she hissed. “She made me do things I didn’t wish to do. She promised to return my nobi deed and free me from servitude if I obeyed her.”
I stilled, afraid that I might disturb this moment. “Like what?”
“She made me deliver letters to Scholar Ahn, and I’d go back and forth, terrified of being caught. I dreaded it, each time she asked me to sneak out for her—”
“Wait,” I whispered. “You knew Scholar Ahn was the lover all this time?”
“I…” It dawned on Soyi what she had confessed. “I mean…”
Right then, the prison doors flew open. I gasped and turned around to see Hyeyeon barging in, grabbing the whimpering Soyi, and dragging her out. Inspector Han stood at the far corner of the prison block. Watching me. Steadily. Like he had been there in the shadows all this time. Like he had heard everything.
* * *
In the main police courtyard, Soyi’s two knees were bound together, and two sticks passed between the legs, which two floggers pulled in contrary directions, forcing her bones to curve. Then the sticks eased, allowing the bones back into their natural position, and Soyi’s scream crumpled into a whimper. I bit my lip to keep myself from yelling out, “Stop this!” It was too cruel.
“Why did you not confess earlier to me that you knew Scholar Ahn was the lover?” Inspector Han demanded. “You were already in trouble and might as well have revealed everything else.”
“I … I did not wish for you to know that I was delivering the letters.”
“But why? The letter delivery doesn’t implicate you in the murder. It implicates Scholar Ahn.”
“I was scared.” Long strands of black hair fell over Soyi’s blanched face. “That is all.”
“Tell the truth and do not cause any more confusion.”