Chapter 20: The Bell Tower

She found me at sunset.

I was sitting on the steps of the scroll pavilion, trying to braid my yin like Cha taught me and failing miserably because my brain kept replaying a drop of sweat sliding down a collarbone. Somebody tapped my shoulder with the end of a sword sheath.

I looked up.

Seo-ah. Hair down now, blue ribbon in her hand instead of in her hair. A plain gray robe instead of the tight blue one. Cheeks still a little pink, like the fire chamber hadn’t totally worn off.

"The instructor sent me to my dormitory," she said.

"I know. I was there."

"I went." She shrugged. "I stayed for almost a quarter hour. Then I got bored."

She held out her hand.

"You’re my guide. Guide me somewhere. Somewhere without instructors."

I looked at her hand. Small. Calloused on the palm from sword grips. Steady.

I took it.

The academy bell tower was off limits after dark. Which is exactly why it was the best place in the whole academy.

We climbed the stairs inside it — narrow, spiraling, dusty — until we came out at the top, under the big bronze bell, with a stone ledge running all the way around and the whole city spread out below us. The river was gold from the sunset. Lanterns were coming on in the markets. Somewhere far off you could see the black tile roofs of the Gwak family compound, and further, the sad sagging roof of the Blue Willow Inn.

Seo-ah sat down on the ledge with her legs hanging over a four-story drop like it was nothing.

I sat down next to her. Carefully. Not like it was nothing.

"You’re scared of heights?" she asked.

"I died once," I said, before I could stop myself. "Didn’t love it."

She gave me a strange look. I laughed it off.

For a while we just sat there. The sun went down. The sky went purple. Bats came out of the eaves of the bell tower and swooped around us.

She was close. Not touching. But close enough that when the wind blew, her hair brushed my arm.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"You keep asking that."

"You keep saying yes." She looked at the city, not at me. "In the fire chamber. Before the door opened. You were going to kiss me."

"...Yeah."

"Why?"

I thought about it. Really thought.

"Because you looked at me like you were curious," I said. "Not hungry. Curious." I shrugged. "Nobody looks at me like that."

That was true. Every woman since I woke up in this body looked at me through the system. Through that oil being poured on whatever spark they had. Hungry. Desperate. Reckless.

Seo-ah didn’t have the system. Seo-ah just had... Seo-ah.

She was quiet. Then she shifted closer on the ledge. Her shoulder pressed against mine.

"I’m still curious," she said.

The wind picked up. She shivered. I don’t know if it was the cold.

I put my arm around her. Just around her shoulders. She leaned into it like she’d been waiting.

Her head ended up on my shoulder. Her hair smelled like orchids and dust. Her hand was resting on her own knee.

Then it wasn’t.

She was just getting more comfortable. Shifting her weight against me. And her hand slid off her knee and landed on my leg. Right on my thigh.

And then, when she leaned in a little more, a little higher.

She went completely still.

So did I.

Because her fingertips were resting right on something that had been very, very awake since the fire chamber. And there was no hiding it. Not on a stone ledge. Not this close.

Shit.

I tried to shift away. Just a little. The ledge didn’t have anywhere to shift to, unless I wanted to fall four stories.

She didn’t move her hand.

She didn’t take it away either.

I felt her breath change against my neck. One deep breath. Then a lot of short ones.

"...Mu-jin," she whispered.

"I know. Sorry. It’s just—"

"Is that because of me?"

I could’ve lied. Blamed the fire chamber. Blamed the headmistress. Blamed the four other women I’d been with in four days.

I didn’t.

"Yeah," I said. "It’s because of you."

She didn’t laugh. She didn’t tease me. She just let her hand stay exactly where it was. Barely touching. Very still.

And I felt myself twitch under her fingers. Once. Couldn’t stop it.

She felt it too. She made the smallest sound. Like a gasp she swallowed halfway.

"Seo-ah," I said quietly. "You don’t have to keep your hand there. If it’s weird. You can just move it, and we’ll pretend nothing—"

"I know I don’t have to," she said.

She still didn’t move it.

Instead she lifted her head off my shoulder and looked at me. In the purple dark, under the bronze bell, with bats swooping all around us. Her eyes were huge. Her lips were parted. Her cheeks were burning.

"I’m a capital disciple," she said. "I’ve been taught since I was six that I can do anything I decide to do. As long as I decide it properly."

"And?"

"And I’ve decided."

She kissed me.

It was clumsy. She’d never done it before, and it showed — her nose bumped mine, her teeth clicked against my lip, she pulled back with an embarrassed little "oh" and then came right back in, more carefully. And the second time, it wasn’t clumsy at all.

The second time, she put her free hand on the back of my neck, and kissed me like she was learning a sword form. Slow. Precise. Paying attention to everything. Trying something, feeling how I reacted, then doing it again a little better.

And her other hand never left my lap. It just pressed a little warmer. A little braver. Following along with the kiss like it was part of the same lesson.

I didn’t push it. I didn’t grab her. I didn’t do anything except kiss her back and let her lead.

No system. No ping. No numbers. No [Desire +20].

Just a girl who’d decided, kissing me under a bronze bell four stories above Hangju until we both forgot to breathe.

When she finally pulled back, her lips were swollen and her hair was a mess and she was smiling so wide it looked like it hurt.

"That," she said breathlessly, "was better than the fire chamber."

"Way better."

She looked down at her own hand, still in my lap. Like she’d forgotten it was there.

She went bright red.

But she didn’t move it right away. She left it there one more second. Very deliberately. Then she pulled it back and put it in her own lap, folded neatly with the other one, like a good capital disciple.

"That was enough deciding for one day," she said.

I laughed so hard a bat flew into the bell.

BONG.

The whole tower shook. Every lantern on the academy grounds started swinging toward us. Somebody down in the courtyard shouted, "WHO’S IN THE BELL TOWER?"

Seo-ah grabbed my hand.

"Run, guide."

We ran.

Down the spiral stairs, out a side door, across the training yard, over a low wall, laughing the whole way like idiots. At the edge of the academy grounds she kissed me one more time, quick and hard, and then she was gone, running back toward the dormitories with her blue ribbon flying out behind her.

I stood there with my heart pounding and my lips buzzing.

The system hadn’t said one single word the whole time.

And it was the best kiss I’d had in two lifetimes.

I took the night ferry back. Stayed far, far away from the docks. Walked the long way around through the market, where there were lights and people and nobody could jump me in an alley.

I was still smiling when I climbed the stairs to the top floor of the Blue Willow Inn.

Then I stopped smiling.

Ayla was standing outside my door with her sword drawn.

Yeon-hee was next to her, holding a lantern, face pale.

And nailed to the middle of my door with a rusty iron spike was a boar’s tusk. Long. Yellow. Curved. With a scrap of paper tied to it with red string.

Ayla didn’t look at me. She was staring at the tusk like she wanted to kill it.

"Is from your friends," she said. "The pigs."

Yeon-hee held the lantern up so I could read the paper.

Four words. Bad handwriting. Ink smeared like it was written with a thumb.

WE KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP.

Behind me, I heard footsteps on the stairs.

Clack.

Seo-rin came up onto the walkway, abacus in one hand, a lit pipe in the other. She looked at the tusk. Then at the three of us.

"Well," she said. "That was faster than four days."