Seoyeon didn’t sleep at all that night.  By the time she reached her room, she was seething at how rudely Captain Park had spoken to her and torn between telling her father straight away or waiting until the morning, when she wouldn’t be getting him out bed and had had time to figure out a reasonable excuse for being in the library, but she knew that her father would prefer not to see her throwing a tantrum and so she slammed the lantern down on her bedside table and sat fuming on her bed instead.

By the time she’d calmed down, she’d become aware of the howling gale storming outside the windows.  The shutters rattled frighteningly loud, so vigorous that it looked like the hinges were going to break, and she ended up huddled in her blankets on the centre of her bed, eyeing the windows fearfully while the lantern burned beside her, the soft candlelight driving back the phantoms of her imagination and making the room a more comforting place to be.  The storm didn’t abate until early morning, and Jieun found her still balled up in the middle of the bed, her eyes red from lack of sleep.

She must have looked terrible, because Jongdae gaped at her for a solid minute when he saw her and didn’t even rebuke her for not figuring out a stew recipe, which Seoyeon had completely forgotten about.

“Let’s go to the apothecary garden,” he suggested when he caught her trying to stifle a yawn.  “Fresh air might do you a bit of good.”

Seoyeon wasn’t sure about it doing her any good, but it did keep her awake longer than she’d thought possible.  Jongdae didn’t bother pushing her, most likely because it was clear that she was too tired to function, and he kept the tasks and instructions almost childishly simple.  Once he’d cheked over a few things with the gardener, they started by watering the plants.  It was mundane, routine work that required very little brainpower and Seoyeon occasionally sloshed herself with freezing cold water.  Her hands were icy by the time Jongdae pronounced them done.  Seoyeon hoped that meant they were going back inside, but he dashed that immediately by handing her a small knife and taking her back over to the flowerbeds.

He named the plants one at a time as he showed her how to cut them, not moving on to the next one until they had a small bundle of leaves or stems or flowers (sometimes roots) that he was satisfied with to put in a basket beside them.  He obviously didn’t think she’d be able to take on board any more than that, though he appeared not to be able to resist telling her about some of the properties of each plant as he crouched beside her and watched her work.

“This one’s very good for cuts and scratches — helps stop infection,” he told her as she hacked tiredly at a thin-stalked plant with tiny, fern-like leaves.  Seoyeon thought he’d said it was yarrow, but her memory was not playing ball and she didn’t particularly care what it was in any case.  Jongdae was busy tying string around bunches of lavender she’d cut a little earlier.

“Once you’re done with this one, I think we’ll go in,” Jongdae went on.  He plonked the last bundle of lavender into the basket, and then looked over at her, narrowing his eyes.  “Why are you so tired?  Bad night’s sleep?”

Seoyeon bit back a yawn.  “There was a huge storm the whole of last night and it kept me up.”

Jongdae nodded sympathetically.  Seoyeon passed him a handful of yarrow and he straightened it up neatly to tie together.  Unable to keep the yawn further, Seoyeon paused and covered before turning back to the yarrow, eyes watering, and trying to figure out which other leaves she could cut.  She was so tired that she just spent a while staring at the plant and the still-damp soil she’d recently watered.

She frowned.

“Wait,” she said slowly.  “Why did we need to water the plants?”

“Sorry?”  Jongdae dumped the yarrow in the basket.

“That storm went on all night,” said Seoyeon.  “I know it rained.  I heard it.  It was hailing viciously, too.  Why did we need to water the plants?  There’s no cover.  The earth was…”  Her frown became thoroughly confused.  “The earth was completely dry when we came out.  That shouldn’t have been possible.  The storm only stopped shortly before sunrise and the sun’s too weak to have dried off a top layer of earth this quickly.”

Jongdae sat back on his heels, lips pursed.  Then he reached out and carefully removed the knife from Seoyeon’s hands.

“I think we should stop here for now,” he said as another yawn escaped Seoyeon.  “You’re clearly shattered.  Go back to bed and see how you are at lunchtime.  We’ll make a decision then about what to do for the rest of the day.”

“I’m not imagining things!” Seoyeon protested as he stood and pulled her to her feet, slipping the basket handle onto his free arm.  “I’m really not.  Captain Park was out in the rainstorm last night — just ask him…”

Her voice trailed off with the realisation that she didn’t know if Captain Park would actually corroborate her.  It wasn’t just that she found him unpleasant: she wasn’t sure what his motivations were, and he was altogether just