Jisoo sighed as she put the almanac away. Her second week at Madame Park's was over and she was finally starting to get used to this place. More to the point, she had gotten used to the other women in her class. She had learned that Moonbyul was dreading her eventual marriage because she was dreading the idea of having . When they got closer to their graduation, she was planning to ask Madame Park if there might be some other sort of assignment that didn't require her to have . She had learned that Hwasa and Wheein did much more than cuddle when they went to bed at night. Sometimes, when the house was particularly quiet, she could even hear them. She had asked Moonbyul what it was they were doing, but Moonbyul just grimaced and asked her to place not make her think about that, and she had not yet gotten up the courage to ask anyone else.

She had learned that Rose was easily the kindest of all the women here. She hoped that Rose was able to make it through her training at Madame Park's without losing that kindness, but she didn't waste time worrying over it - she barely had time to worry about herself. Lisa was the cleverest of the women, particularly when it came to doing anything that required skillful use of her hands. In lockpicking class, Lisa had picked her lock, memorized the contents of the message in her box, and re-locked the box before Jisoo had even managed to get her box unlocked. Solar was the smartest of all of them, but not always to be trusted. Even though Madame Park repeatedly reminded them that after graduation they would all be on the same team ("and what team is that?" Jisoo wondered), Solar persisted in not telling the truth, or at least not the whole truth, whenever she thought it would benefit her. Fortunately, she had a number of small indications that tended to give away when she was lying, so Jisoo was never entirely as deceived as she might have been.

And then there was Jennie. Jisoo had learned early on that every interaction with Jennie was a competition, because Jennie made it into one. Not only in class, where Jennie sought to be the best in all their tasks, but even in things that one would would not normally think of a competitive: If they were eating soup, Jennie would eat it most daintily. If they were having light after-dinner conversation, Jennie would be the cleverest and most diverting. Singing, dancing, drawing, playing cards, needlework - it was all a competition to Jennie, and the more of them she could best at any particular task, the happier she was.

There were a number of different reactions to Jennie's competitiveness. Solar and Lisa fed into it, always ending up competing with Jennie at whatever they were doing. Rose just always did the best she could, and accepted wherever she landed in the rankings with a quiet equanimity. Hwasa and Wheein were just concerned with graduating - so long as they passed their courses, they didn't care where they ended up in the rankings. And Moonbyul. Moonbyul had the most interesting strategy of all. Moonbyul quietly ignored Jennie's efforts at inciting competition. She always did just enough to get by - never more, never less. But the way she was able to manipulate the scores so adroitly led Jisoo to believe that Moonbyul was much better at everything than she let on, and that she could have easily been competition for Jennie, if Madame Park had been more evenhanded in the rankings.

Ah, the rankings, which determined so many aspects of life in the Academy. As Moonbyul and Rose had predicted, Jisoo had not remained at the bottom of the rankings for long. At the end of her first week, she had been promoted to fifth , just behind Rose and just ahead of Wheein and Hwasa. On a walk one day, Rose had confided to Jisoo that she felt confident that Jisoo would be advanced in the rankings yet again, moving Rose in the bottom half of the class, after either the next scientific boxing class or the next fencing class.

Scentific boxing and fencing had been the biggest surprise of Jisoo's time at Madame Park's. Not merely that they were being taught such skills, but also that Jisoo seemed to have a natural gift at them. In the last scientific boxing class she had knocked Solar down again, this time without resulting to "dockside brawling," as Madame Park referred to it. And in fencing that same day, she had managed to fence Jennie to a standstill, neither of them able to score against the other. Jennie was starting to lose her temper, and Jisoo was hoping that this might enable her to score a point on her, when Madame Park declared the match a draw and ordered them to put up their swords. That evening in the drawing room, Jennie had soundly trounced Jisoo in backgammon - it was as if she could not go to bed that night without reestablishing her superiority over all of the others.

As Jisoo walked from the library down to the drawing room, she pondered the many things she had learned, just in two weeks at Madame Park's. Besides scientific boxing and fencing, there was geography, current events, toxicology, combat medicine. "Tomorrow," she thought, "we shall begin on cryptology."

When Jisoo walked into the drawing room, Madame Park looked up from her book. "Ah, Kim Jisoo. So glad you have finally joined us. You have, I trust, finished your extra geography work?"

"Yes, ma'am," Jisoo said with a curtsey, "I had added each country's major imports and exports to each country in my list."

"Very good," Madame Park said with a nod. "Begin learning those things tomorrow, because the next day we will start quizzing you on them. Once you have learned that, you will have caught up with your classmates in geography. For tonight, though, join Rose and Lisa by the fire and work on your needlework."

"Yes, ma'am." Jisoo retrieved her needlework basket from the shelves at the end of the room and joined Rose and Lisa. She didn't particularly feel like sewing tonight, but she'd rapidly learned not to question Madame Park.

Current events class was broadening to include history as well. "You cannot tell where someone is," Madame Park said, "unless you know where they have been." And that is how Moonbyul had ended up at the front of the class reciting the things she had learned about the Opium War.

"The Opium War began as an effort by the British to force China to open their ports to international trade," she began. She then discussed the Daoguang Emperor and his efforts to preserve China's territorial integrity, Lin Zexu's confiscation of the goods in the British warehouses in Canton, Queen Victoria's decision to send the British navy to intervene, and the mysterious explosions on board several British ships that led to the British retreat from Canton and the subsequent peace treaty, which allowed trade between the British and Chinese, but only on terms highly favorable to China.

"Very good, Moonbyul," Madame Park said, sounding both pleased and surprised. "You may return to your seat."

After Moonbyul was sitting again, Madame Park stoo