For the first few days after Jennie returned from her mission, she hardly seemed like herself. She participated in all the required activities, but without her usual competitive drive. At night, she could barely stand to have Jisoo touch her. Something was wrong, and Jisoo was determined to find out what, but it seemed like nothing she did would entice Jennie to open up. In desperation, and knowing Madame Park would be of no help, she turned to Irene for advice.

"It's going to be hard," Irene said. "Sometimes the things you see or do on a mission really mess with your head, and there's nothing anyone can do. Just let Jennie know that you love her and you're there for her no matter what, and eventually she'll come around.

This was not exactly what Jisoo had been hoping for, but in the absence of other options, it was all she could do. She noticed that Jennie was bathing several times a day, and several times when Jennie thought no one was looking at her, Jisoo caught her staring at her hands. 

A couple of days later, Solar returned from her mission. She was in good spirits and said all she had had to do was fetch a package for Madame Park, which none of them ever found out what it contained. Somehow Solar's good spirits seemed to depress Jennie even more. That night, as they were lying in bed, Jisoo reached out to cuddle Jennie, only to have her pull away.

"Don't touch me," Jennie said. "Just go away. I don't deserve you. Just leave me alone. You don't know what I've done, and you couldn't still love me if you did, so just go away now, while you can still think well of me."

Jisoo sat up in the bed and gave Jennie her most determined stare. "I'm not going away, so stop that right now. I don't know what you've done, but that's because you won't tell me." She paused and, when Jennie didn't say anything, she went on. "I love you. No matter what you've done or what you do, I love you."

At this point, Jennie started laughing, a haunting maniacal laugh. "You can say that because you don't know what I did. You sit here in the academy and do your fencing and your scientific boxing and your precious mathematics and you never think about what we're learning all these things for!"

"Why don't you try telling me what you did, and you can see," Jisoo said.

Jennie shook her head. "If I told you, I don't think I could handle the way you'd look at me if you know what I've done."

"Try me," Jisoo said. She reached out and took Jennie's hand. "When I say I love you no matter what, I mean it."

Jennie tried to pull her hand away, but Jisoo held her tight. Finally, seeing that Jisoo wasn't going to give in, she relaxed her hand and laid back, staring at the ceiling. "Fine. But don't say I didn't try to protect you from this." She fell silent for a moment, then took a deep breath and started talking. "When I left on my mission, I was sent to a university in Busan with a letter of introduction to one of the chemistry professors. When I got there, I was to pretend to be a writer from a magazine 'for the smarter sort of woman' and to interview him about his work. Soon it was time for dinner. During the meal, I slipped a sleeping draught that Madame Park provided into his wine. I sat and ate dinner with him, watching as he drained his glass of wine. After dinner, we adjourned to the drawing room. He sat down in a chair by the fire and asked me to read to him from a collection of short stories. Before I had finished the story, I noticed that he had apparently fallen asleep. I read for a few more minutes, to make sure he was asleep. When I looked at him, I noticed that his face had turned blue. I held my mirror in front of his face and saw that he wasn't breathing. I pressed down the feelings of panic that were threatening to overwhelm me and made my way to his office. I gathered up all the papers on his desk, then took them to the guest room that has been assigned to me and secured them in a hidden compartment in my suitcase. Then I went back to the drawing room, called the servants, and exclaimed over the professor being dead. They tried to revive him, but without success, then called for the doctor, who p