Chapter 21: New

Ayla wanted to kill them.

All of them. Tonight. She was already strapping on a second sword.

"I go to the docks," she said, pacing her carpet. "I find the pig with the neck. I find his friends. I cut. Problem finish."

"You can’t just kill six people," Yeon-hee said.

"Why not?"

"Because the magistrate’s office will investigate, and the magistrate’s office will send a clerk to write it down, and the clerk will be my HUSBAND."

Ayla stopped pacing. "...Ah."

The four of us were crammed into Ayla’s room with the door barred and the lamp turned low. Ayla pacing. Yeon-hee sitting on the bed with her medicine bag in her lap like she was ready to stitch someone. Me on the floor with my back against the wall. And Seo-rin at the little table, abacus in front of her, pipe smoke curling up toward the ceiling.

The boar’s tusk was lying in the middle of the table like a centerpiece.

"We could tell the magistrate," Yeon-hee tried again. "Officially. That Elder Gu hired—"

"Elder Gu plays go with the magistrate every tenth day," Seo-rin said without looking up. Clack. "The report would be lost before the ink dried."

"Then what?" I said. "I just hide in here forever?"

"Not a bad idea," Ayla said. "I like."

Clack.

We all looked at Seo-rin.

She pulled a thin gray ledger out of her sleeve — a different one, not mine — and opened it to a page near the back. She turned it around so I could read it.

Rows of numbers. Dates. And a name at the top.

Pyo Gwang-chul. "The Boar."

"The man who runs the Black Boar," she said, "borrowed four hundred silver from the merchant guild two winters ago to buy his gambling house. He has paid back exactly ninety. He is very, very late." She tapped the page. "The guild has been patient. The guild is about to stop being patient."

I stared at the number.

"Elder Gu paid him twenty silver to break my legs."

"And the guild can call in three hundred and ten silver whenever it likes. Or forget about it for another year. If certain things... don’t happen." She closed the ledger. Clack. "Tomorrow afternoon, you’re going to run your first errand for me. You’re going to carry this ledger to the Black Boar’s gambling house. And you’re going to stand there while I explain arithmetic to a pig."

Nobody said anything.

Ayla slowly unstrapped her second sword.

"...Okay," she said. "Bookkeeper is scarier than me."

"Bookkeeper is always scarier than you," said Seo-rin.

I slept in Ayla’s room that night. Everyone agreed it was safest. Ayla slept with one arm around me and the other around her sword. Every time a floorboard creaked, she was awake before I was.

It was the best sleep I’d had in two lives.

In the morning she went out to buy sword oil and "look at the docks, only look, I promise, only look," and I went back to my own room to change. The tusk was gone. Somebody had patched the hole in my door with a square of red paper and a little stamped seal. HONG. Of course.

I was just pulling on a clean robe when somebody knocked.

Not three sharp knocks. Not a clack. Two soft little taps.

I opened it.

Seo-ah.

Blue ribbon back in her hair. Gray robe. A cloth bundle in her arms that smelled like sesame buns. And a face like she’d run the whole way and was trying very hard to look like she hadn’t.

The system didn’t say a word. It never does with her.

My heart said plenty.

"Guide," she said, a little out of breath. "I brought breakfast."

"How did you even find this place?"

"I asked a laundry woman." She held up the bundle. "She was very helpful. She also told me about the tusk."

Of course she did.

Seo-ah looked past me at the square of red paper on my door. At the little splinters still sticking out around it. Her face went pale.

"They were here," she said quietly. "At your door. While you were sleeping."

"I wasn’t sleeping here."

"Where were you sleeping?"

I didn’t answer fast enough.

She looked at the door next to mine. Then back at me. Then she just shook her head and pushed past me into my room.

"The headmistress told me to stay away from the docks," she said, setting the buns down on my three-legged stool. "This inn is basically ON the docks. I’ve disobeyed her twice now in two days." She turned around. "I’ve decided I don’t care."

We ate sesame buns sitting on the edge of my bed. She asked about the Black Boar. I told her about Seo-rin’s ledger. She thought that was brilliant. She asked about my ribs. I showed her the bruise, mostly yellow now.

She touched it. Very gently. With just her fingertips.

Then she didn’t take her hand away.

We were sitting very close. Her knee against mine, the same way it was in the fire chamber. Her hand flat on my ribs. Her eyes on my face.

"Can I ask something?" she said.

"You always ask that."

"In the bell tower." Her cheeks went pink. "My hand. On your... You said it was because of me."

"It was."

"Is it now?"

I didn’t have to answer. She could see.

She looked down. Her breath caught. Then she looked back up at me, and her eyes were huge, and she said, very softly:

"It’s new. All of this. I want you to know that. I’ve never... with anyone."

I looked at her. Really looked.

She was beautiful in a way that stopped people on staircases. Capital academy. Ministry father. Sword on her back. A girl like that, twenty years old — there was no way nobody had ever tried. No way she’d never been in a dark garden at some Ministry party with some nobleman’s son.

But the way she was sitting there, with her hand trembling on my ribs, her lip caught between her teeth like she was working up the courage for a sword exam...

It wasn’t an act.

It was real.

"We don’t have to do anything," I said. "I mean it. We can just eat buns."

"I know." She smiled a little. "You keep saying that. It’s why I trust you."

Her hand slid off my ribs. Slowly. Down. Onto my lap.

And stayed there.

Soft. So soft. Nothing like Ayla’s sword-hard grip or Seo-rin’s cool precise fingers or the way Instructor Cha’s palm pressed down like she owned you. Seo-ah’s touch was careful. Light as paper. Like she was afraid she’d break something.

I throbbed under her hand. Couldn’t help it.

She felt it. Her breath hitched.

"Does that hurt?" she whispered.

"The opposite."

"It feels... tight. Your robe. Is it uncomfortable?"

"...A little."

She bit her lip. Looked at the tie of my robe. Then at me.

"You can loosen it," she said. "If it hurts. I don’t want you to be in pain."

I searched her face. No teasing. No game. Just a capital disciple who’d decided something and was too stubborn to take it back.

"You sure?"

She nodded once. Firm.

I pulled the tie loose. Slowly. Giving her every chance to change her mind.

She didn’t.

When her hand found me again, there was no cloth in the way, and her whole body went still. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth fell open a little.

"It’s warm," she breathed. Like it was the most surprising thing in the world. "It’s so warm."

I couldn’t say anything. I just breathed.

She held me like that for a long time without moving. Just learning the weight. The heat. The pulse. Her thumb resting very lightly, barely there, and every time I throbbed she made a tiny sound in the back of her throat.

"Your hands are too soft," I managed. "It’s unreal."

"Is that good?"

"Too good."

That made her brave. Her fingers tightened. Just a little. Testing. Watching my face the whole time to see what I’d do.

My hips lifted off the bed. A sound came out of me that I’d never made in either life.

"Did I hurt you?" She loosened right away, panicked.

"No. No. Do that again."

She did.

Then she did it a little differently. Then differently again. Slow. Careful. Paying attention. Exactly how she kissed me in the bell tower. Like it was a form, and she was going to get it perfect if it took all morning.

I couldn’t stop looking at her face. The wonder in it. The flush spreading down her neck. The way her lips stayed open.

"You’re shaking," I said.

"So are you," she whispered.

She leaned in and kissed me. And her hand kept learning.

I’m not going to tell you how long that lesson took.

I’ll tell you that by the end, a capital disciple who’d never touched anyone before breakfast had become very, very good at something they definitely don’t teach at the main academy. And that she was so proud of herself she laughed out loud, and then hid her face in my shoulder, and then laughed again.

And I’ll tell you the system stayed completely silent through the whole thing.

No ping. No numbers. No Harmony.

Just her.

We were lying on my bed afterward, her head on my chest, the sesame buns forgotten on the stool, when someone knocked on the door.

Clack.

Seo-ah sat up so fast she almost fell off the bed.

"Baek Mu-jin," said Seo-rin’s voice through the red-papered door. Very calm. Very dry. "Afternoon’s come early. Put your robe on. We’re going to see the pig."

A pause.

"And tell the capital girl," Seo-rin added, "that the laundry woman charges a copper for directions. She owes me one."

Seo-ah stared at the door. Then at me.

"How does she know I’m—"

"She knows everything," I sighed, and went looking for my robe.