Chapter 26: The List

"Bro," Tae-man whispered. "You have three broken meridians and a cracked rib. You can barely walk."

"I can walk."

"You walked into a tree on the way here."

"It was dark."

"It was a BIG tree."

We were crouched in the bushes behind the women’s dormitory. Two stories. Black tile roof. Every window dark except one. Second floor. East side. A single candle glowing behind the paper.

She’d left it lit for me.

Tae-man looked at the window. Looked at me. Looked at my ribs, which were wrapped so tight in Yeon-hee’s bandages I could barely breathe.

"The capital girl," he said. "The MINISTRY’S DAUGHTER. Bro, if you get caught, it’s not Elder Gu’s thugs. It’s the actual government."

"I know."

"They’ll cut your head off. Like, officially. With paperwork."

"I know."

He stared at me for a long moment.

Then he sighed, crouched down, and laced his fingers together into a step.

"Ten days, huh?" he said quietly.

I looked at him.

"Laundry women," he said. "They know everything." He jerked his chin at the window. "Go. I’ll keep watch. If anybody comes, I’ll make a goose noise."

"You hate geese."

"Which is why nobody will suspect it’s me."

I put my foot in his hands. He boosted me up. I grabbed the edge of the roof, gritted my teeth so hard against the pain in my ribs I thought I’d crack a molar, and dragged myself onto the tiles.

From below, very softly: "Bro. Good luck. I mean it."

I crawled across to the east window and tapped twice.

It slid open before I finished the second tap.

Her room was tiny. Way smaller than the fire chamber. A narrow bed. A desk. A sword rack. A trunk that said YUN in gold paint. Everything in perfect order, like Seo-rin’s room, except for one thing.

The floor was covered in paper.

Crumpled sheets. Dozens of them. Some with writing. Some with just one or two lines crossed out so hard the brush had torn through.

Seo-ah was standing in the middle of them in a thin white sleeping robe, hair down, blue ribbon tied around her wrist instead of her hair. Barefoot. She looked like she hadn’t slept since the infirmary.

"You came," she said.

"You asked."

She looked at my ribs. At the bandages showing through my collar. Her face went tight.

"You’re hurt."

"I’m fine."

"You’re not fine. I can hear you breathing from here." She took a step toward me. Stopped. Looked down at the paper on the floor. Went pink.

"What’s all this?" I asked.

"Nothing."

I bent down — slowly, carefully, ribs screaming — and picked one up.

In her small, neat capital handwriting:

Things I have decided:

1. I will choose the first person.

2. It will be someone who asks.

3. It will be someone who would stop if I said stop.

4. It will not be decided by my father.

5.

Number five was crossed out. Five times.

I looked up at her.

She was bright red. Her hands were clenched in fists at her sides.

"I’m a capital disciple," she said stiffly. "We plan things."

I didn’t laugh. I wanted to. Not because it was funny. Because it was the most her thing I’d ever seen, and it made my chest hurt worse than my ribs.

"What’s number five?"

She looked away.

"I couldn’t decide how to write it."

"Try saying it."

She was quiet for a long time. The candle flickered. Somewhere outside, very faintly, I heard Tae-man shuffle in the bushes.

"Number five," said Seo-ah, "is that I want it to be someone who looks at me like I’m the only one in the room. Even if I’m not." Her voice shook. "Even if there are five other women. Even if I’m leaving in ten days. For one night, I want to be the only one."

I put the paper down.

I walked over to her. Slowly. Through all the crumpled pages.

I took her face in my hands.

"You’re the only one in the room," I said.

"That’s not—"

"Seo-ah. Look around. You’re the only one in the room."

She looked around. At her tiny room. At the paper. At me.

And she laughed. Wet. Shaky. Surprised.

"That’s cheating," she said.

"It’s true, though."

She kissed me.

She untied my robe first.

Very carefully. Like she’d practiced. Maybe she had — maybe that was one of the crumpled pages. She peeled it off my shoulders and stopped when she saw the bandages. Touched them with just her fingertips.

"Does it hurt?"

"Everything hurts."

"Do you want to stop?"

"Do you?"

She shook her head. Firm.

Then she stepped back, took a breath like she was about to start a sword form, and untied the sash of her sleeping robe.

It slid off her shoulders and pooled on top of her crumpled list.

She stood there in the candlelight with her arms at her sides and her chin up. Shaking. Not hiding. A girl who trained with a sword every day since she was six, and you could see it — the strong shoulders, the lean stomach — and everything else that tight blue training outfit had been fighting to hold in since the day I met her on the headmistress’s stairs.

God.

In my last life, I would’ve died to see someone look at me the way she was looking at me right then. Terrified. Brave. Choosing.

"Say something," she whispered.

"I can’t."

"Why not?"

"You’re too beautiful. My brain stopped."

She went red from her ears to her chest. Then she laughed again and covered her face with both hands. Then she uncovered it and took my hand and walked me backward to her narrow bed.

We lay down. Facing each other. Knees touching. Same as the fire chamber, except nothing in the way now.

I didn’t rush. I couldn’t have even if I wanted to, with my ribs. I just kissed her. Slow. Her mouth. Her jaw. The side of her neck, where her pulse was going like a war drum. Her shoulder. The top of her chest, very gently, and she gasped and grabbed my hair.

"Is this okay?" I asked against her skin.

"Yes."

"This?"

"Yes."

"And this?"

"Mu-jin," she said, half laughing, half breathless, "you’re allowed to stop asking every time. I wrote it down. Number three. If I want you to stop, I’ll say stop." She pulled my face up to hers. "I haven’t said stop."

No system.

No window. No number. No ping. No Harmony.

Just her heartbeat under my hand, and the candle, and the crumpled list on the floor, and the way she said my name when my hand slid down her side and over her hip and she arched into it like she’d been waiting her whole life for someone to touch her there.

She was shaking. So was I.

She pulled me closer. Her leg slid over my hip. Her eyes were huge and dark and locked on mine.

"Slowly," she whispered. "Like the bell tower. Like you’re learning a form."

"Like I’m learning a form," I promised.

She nodded. Took a breath.

And I leaned in—

Creak.

We both froze.

The floorboard. In the corridor. Right outside her door.

Then footsteps. Slow. Even. Measured. The footsteps of someone who walks the same route every night and knows exactly which boards creak.

They stopped.

Right outside.

Seo-ah’s whole body went rigid against mine. Her fingers dug into my back.

Through the thin paper door, the candle in the corridor threw a shadow. A woman. Tall ponytail. A sash cinched tight around a waist I’d know anywhere.

And from the bushes outside the window, faint and desperate and very, very fake—

"Honk. HONK."

The shadow turned its head toward the window.

Then it turned back to the door.

And Instructor Cha Mi-ran’s voice came through the paper, very calm, very quiet, very cold:

"Yun Seo-ah. I can see two shadows on your wall."

A pause.

"Open the door."