The next few days, while they waited for replies from Madame Park and Madame Young, were spent in visits to the park, lessons for Suyeon, and various other activities of the sort that intelligent young ladies enjoy when there are no men around to spoil the fun. Finally, on the sixth day after Jisoo and Joy's tea with Jessica, two letters arrived: One from Madame Young for Joy and one from Madame Park for Jisoo. They were both thick letters, encoded with the strongest possible ciphers. It took Joy the better part of an hour to decrypt hers, while it took Jisoo slightly longer, despite her superior mathematical skills, because hers was quite a bit longer.

"Well," Jennie asked, when Jisoo had put down her pen and burned the original letter, "do we get to find out what they said?"

"Certainly," Jisoo said. "I'm quite curious to hear what Joy's letter said as well."

"Madame Young has given her approval for my marriage!" Joy said, her excitement quite evident. She had been hoping that her mission, when it came, would be a pleasant one, and to have it involve a marriage that seemed likely to be interesing and to be conducted in such close proximity to Jisoo was quite satisfactory indeed.

Jisoo pulled out her memorandum book and checked something. "Today is not one of the days that Jessica receives callers, unfortunately," she said, "so you'll need to write apprising her of your happy news. There's still time to get it in the afternoon post today."

Just then, Suyeon stepped into the parlor. "And if she writes quickly, there will still be time to get in the afternoon post after she eats lunch," she said. "Lunch is ready."

After lunch, Joy went to write her letter to Jessica. Jisoo told Jennie and Suyeon that she needed a little time alone and then she'd be back out. She went to her room and pulled the sheet of paper with the personal section of Madame Park's letter on it out of her sleeve. She hadn't mentioned this section of the letter when telling the others what Madame Park had to say. For one thing, she hadn't had time to fully decrypt it - applying the cipher that had decoded the other parts of the letter to this section had revealed another enciphered message. Fortunately, Jisoo recognized which cipher she should use to decode it, and in a matter of a few minutes she had decoded Madame Park's message. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she read the whole thing through, then read it again. Most of it was general expressions of good rules for missions - things they'd covered at the academy - interspersed with expressions of confidence in her abilities that Jisoo could never imagine having received while she was at the academy. Then she reached the last sentences of the message and read this: "You asked for my advice, so I'll give it. Whether or not you choose to follow it is up to you. My advice is this: As soon as travel can be arranged, send Jennie back to the academy. I know the nature of your relationship with Jennie, and while I generally approve, I have noticed an unfortunate tendency for you to take a subordinate position where Jennie is concerned, which I feel could be harmful to your mission. Jennie must leave your house before Captain Lee's ship returns to port - that is an order - but is also accompanied by a suggestion that this leave-taking happen sooner rather than later. I fear that by getting to spend this much time together, you and Jennie are becoming dependent on each other, which serves only to weaken both of you as agents, which I cannot allow. If you find yourself unable to tell her to leave, write back and I will write to her ordering her to return to the academy. However, if you choose to handle the situation this way, know that I will think poorly of your choice and it will be necessary for me to take future action to keep you and Jennie apart so as to prevent a recurrence of that situation. I am confident that you will make the right choice."

After consigning all of the papers to the fire, with the exception of the scrap containing Madame Park's final sentences, which she tucked into her sleeve, Jisoo came out of her bedroom to find Jennie sitting alone in the parlor. "Where are Joy and Suyeon?" she asked.

"Joy needed to buy some things, and she asked Suyeon to accompany her, to help her better learn her way around Busan," Jennie said. Before Jisoo had a chance to ask the question that immediately came to mind, Jennie was already answering it. "I didn't go with them because I was sure that once you had read the personal section of your letter from Madame Park, you'd need to talk about it."

Jisoo carefully schooled her face to avoid showing the shock she felt. "How did you know there was a personal section to her letter?" Jisoo asked, crossing the room to sit next to Jennie.

"You generally did a good job of concealing it," Jennie said, "and had I not happened to glance over in time to see you slide a piece of paper up your sleeve, it never would have occurred to me to look and see that your decryp