Playlist here

The radio wasn’t anything too special-looking, Jandi concluded with disappointment after she was finally allowed back into the house, the radio safely tucked into her clothes. Crouching in the closet of her room with only the tiniest sliver of light coming from the cracked door, she strained her ears to make sure no one was coming. Better safe than sorry. Jongin had made it clear this was not something she was supposed to have, after all.

Turning the radio over in her hands, Jandi frowned at the simple dials and cracked display, wondering if it was even functional at this point. Where had Jongin gotten it from? The model was old, that much was clear, and she couldn’t imagine any self-respecting shop in the Capital selling something like this. If anything, the radio seemed more like a piece of memorabilia passed down in some middle-class family.

Hardly daring to breathe, Jandi turned the volume dial to the lowest possible setting and pushed the power button. The little radio flickered to life with a quiet buzz, and she leaned in closer, heart pounding.

Nothing.

The only sign the radio was even working was the faint crackle of white noise. Jongin can’t have given me a broken radio as a joke, right? Jandi frowned. As prone to cracking jokes as he was, Jongin had seemed extremely serious when he had given her the radio. Surely not!

She fiddled with the dials, hoping she was only on the wrong frequency. A few more twiddles. No luck. Groaning, Jandi face-planted into a neat stack of scarves and tossed the faulty machine into another heap of clothes. Was she doing something wrong? Was there a trick to the radio Jongin had forgotten to tell her about? What was she even doing accepting radios from strange men?

She cast the radio another forlorn look, then sighed and tucked it into a boot so ugly and dusty she doubted even the maids would take a second glance at it. I’ll just have to ask Jongin about it if I get a chance to see him again.

***

The sun was setting, casting the Capital into long shadows, yet Kyungsoo still wasn’t home. Jandi knew it wasn’t her place to ask, or even really to care, but she wondered idly if he was still at Kim Joonmyun’s place negotiating for funding. Would extra funding even save the campaign at this point? According to the news, Kyungsoo might get cut in the primaries.

It wasn’t as if asking the serving staff at dinner would have been fruitful, even though Mansoo was absent again at mealtime. Whatever event her father-in-law had hosted earlier that day had set the staff on edge, and she could hear them all whispering faintly in the kitchens as she ate. Munching as quietly as she could, Jandi strained her ears.

“... called today… said…”

As quietly as she could, Jandi scooted her chair closer to the kitchens, prepared to turn her attention back to the food and feign ignorance if anyone came in.

“That’s not even true. I’ve heard they’re all terrorists who hate the wealth of the -”

“No, I’ve heard -”

“That’s ridiculous, where did you hear that? They’re just trying to set sis-”

“Oh girls, be quiet! The Young Mistress is out there, and you know it’s been made clear she isn’t to find out about any of this. You’re talking so loudly she might be able to hear us.”

Jandi frowned. Drat. So someone, either her husband or father-in-law, had given explicit instructions to keep her in the dark.

“Now I know she’s been quiet around us, but those orders wouldn’t have needed to be given if she wasn’t a nosy one. And I know you all think the events of today mean you don’t have to be as careful, but that’s not true. I’ve been here long enough to know that men like him have eyes and ears everywhere.”

A few reluctant grumbles ensued, but the conversation came to an end anyway. Stabbing her vegetables mindlessly, Jandi found herself missing home more than ever. Back home, things were simpler. There weren’t secrets and danger hiding in every corner, not like this hellish place, and the mysteries she had encountered in Geumdo always had answers. What are they doing at home right now? she wondered for the thousandth time. Do they miss me as much as I miss them? Are they listening to the radio, waiting for mention of my new family? Are they as starved for information about my new life as I am?

Back home on a warm night like this one, Jandi would probably be sprawled on the bed with her siblings, tired out from a long day of work, listening to the radio or reading a book out loud. Her siblings’ favorite had always been the heavy book of ancestors’ names and histories that every family kept meticulously annotated, often by a hired scribe in the cases of illiterate families. The Book was a tie to the past and the future, proof that a certain family branch had existed and given rise to others, and Jandi knew their Book was one of her parents’ most prized possessions.

Three, of course, having an overactive imagination, had often requested stories about various ancestors on those hot, lazy summer nights. With an imperious stab of his finger on a random page, he would demand a story about the selected ancestor that Jandi would graciously create out of thin air, sometimes accepting shouted requests from her siblings and weaving them into her tales (“a sword! Or a magic stick!”). Oh, how she missed those days.

Pushing the last bite of cooked carrot around her plate, Jandi sighed then froze. A Book! Of course! I’m an idiot, surely a family as important as the Do family must have at least one copy of its Book floating around somewhere, if not two or three!

As a matter of fact, Jandi knew there was a library inside the Do mansion because she had seen the lights on and peeked inside one night when Kyungsoo was home. The brief glimpse she had caught revealed shelves upon shelves of books, more than she had ever seen in one room before; she had never dared to enter on her own for fear of her father-in-law catching her and being displeased, but with Mansoo so absent recently, Jandi found herself feeling very much emboldened.

Besides, chances were that the Do Book would be in the library. Jandi knew the Do lineage could be tracked back for many, many generations, and their wealth and education assured that each ancestor’s life would have been thoroughly documented. Most likely, the Do Book was not a single volume, but a collection of papers, probably bound into multiple volumes and kept on display. If there’s anything to be lear