I gnaw bites right off. The food plays like a symphony on my tongue, and I go back for more. All the amazing meals I took for granted in my life were not as good as this one. I know if I eat too fast, I’ll get sick, but I can’t seem to slow down. I suppose this is why Euyn eats the way he does. He was starved once in here as well. Deprivation clings to you while excess gives up the moment it stops.
Hana eyes me. “You know, I find it odd…”
I wait for her to continue, but she casually strolls around the cell. I can’t tell if she’s giving me a chance to eat or letting silence sink in. Either way, I rip off a chunk of bread. It will help cut the richness of the food.
“What do you find odd?” I finally ask.
She comes to a stop. “That you haven’t mentioned saving my brother.”
I choke on the bread and have to take a moment to drink some water.
How does she know? Nayo was the first indenture I bought. Hana’s death was fresh on my mind, and her brother was the last child sold by my father and therefore the easiest to locate. I’d worried that Nayo had been purchased by my uncle’s pleasure houses. It would’ve been much more difficult and expensive to buy his freedom from a place like that, but he was sold as a private pleasure boy to a nobleman in Leep. Nayo was there for around a month before I finally negotiated a price for him.
The boy was never told I bought his freedom. I was specific about that. I never wanted the sale traced back to me.
How does she know?
Hana rolls her eyes and sighs. “How many people do you think have the means to free a pleasure indenture? And it certainly wasn’t out of the goodness of his owner’s heart.”
She curls her lip, and I’m quite certain that the noble who bought him is now dead. I try to find sympathy for the murdered man, but there’s only one kind of person who would be the highest bidder for an indenture sold by my father—no one worthy of pity.
“Nayo was given a gold bar worth a thousand mun and put in a carriage to Tamneki,” Hana says. “Why?”
She sharply focuses on me, her hands behind her back.
I’d worked through an intermediary to maintain anonymity, paying with my generous annual allowance. My instructions had been to give Nayo enough money to start a life somewhere far from the southern region. I didn’t want to risk my father finding him. I thought he’d naturally flee to Khitan, but after he was freed, I didn’t inquire. For the first time, I felt good about something I’d done, so I moved on to finding the next indenture.
Not long after I bought out the second contract, my mother discovered what I was doing. She is the one who helped me hide it from Seok and locate three others—the last being when I was in Rahway. She said if I was going to do something so foolish, I should at least not be foolish about it. But I could tell that she was proud.
Hana waits for an answer.
“To free him,” I say.
Her eyes scan from side to side. “For what purpose?”
I shrug. “That was the purpose.”
Her expression hardens. “What was the real reason?”
She thinks I’m trying to deceive her because I am Seok’s son, and therefore I must have another motive. There is no goodness in my bloodline in her mind.
She’s not terribly wrong. We have been rich and powerful for centuries, and no family stays that way without dirtying their souls.
“What is the play? What do you want?” She steps closer. “What is Seok planning?”
“Hana, Seok doesn’t know,” I say. “The point was to free Nayo and give him some money to start over again. I couldn’t ever replace what was taken from him, but I believed that his sister was dead and that he would needlessly suffer in Leep. I wanted to help because I could.”
Hana exhales, hard eyes narrowing on me. She swoops down and picks up the rest of the food. I want to tackle her and rip the sack from her hand, but I hold myself back. Barely.
“When you’re ready to be honest, we can try again,” she says.
Panic floods me. I need that food. But also, I need answers.
“Where is Sora?” I ask.
Hana whips around, anger transforming her beautiful face into something truly frightening. But she contains herself at the last moment. She stands straight. “Khitan. And you might want to cooperate if you care about her at all.”
“What?” I ask. “Why do you say that? Is she in danger?”
