Notes.

And I'm officially announcing that there are only five chapters left until the end of this arc (and picture me holding up banners with a paper conical hat on my head to celebrate) !

CHAPTER LXVIII

" You can't tell what people are like from what they do. You can do a bad thing even through you're not a bad person. Bad people could do good things accidentally. You can't really know, is my point."

(Catriona Ward, "The Last House On Needless Street")

a. Backstab

Dong Soo's head stayed on his shoulder the whole night, or most of the night. From time to time, it slipped forward, but Woon held it in its place each time, by a roll of the collarbone or by pushing it back very gently, with the palm of his hand. When Dong Soo woke up after having been repositioned for the fourth time, Woon offered him to place his head on his lap, where he would enjoy a less precarious balance, but obtained a firm refusal from him, expressed essentially as a prolonged yawn.

After observing the effects of the clearing, Dong Soo had indeed thought it safer to rest in a position conducive to a quick awakening and an accelerated transition to standing, and had leaned against the same tree against which Woon had seen him settle, before being dragged into the center of the clearing, which had deployed a considerably more elaborate stratagem for this occasion than on the very first night Woon had spent in the vicinity of the one near Sokcho.

It had replicated the shape of their common dormitory at the mountain training camp, even imitating its smells of wood, heat and sweat. The beds had been the same, arranged exactly as they had been during the boys' eight years of training. Woon had found the window located a little high up, through which always passed a thick ray of light that, in summer, never failed to wake them up despite their tiredness.

From the cracks in the walls to the boots next to the beds, everything had been as he remembered the dormitory, and soon he had realized that the whole building had been imitated around him, including the study and dining room. On his bed, Dong Soo was busy changing the bandages on the wound inflicted on him by Chun's blade. He was twelve years old. Woon had gone to him instinctively.

Dong Soo's head inevitably fell from the support of his shoulders again, and Woon caught it carefully in his hands and placed it on his lap, where it spread a living warmth, the same as the one of Dong Soo's chest when Woon had felt it pressed against his own, in his bedroom. Woon had taken a seat against the same tree trunk as him, stretching one of his legs out in front of him and keeping the second folded in order to get up more easily if needed.

They hadn't brought any transport yo, because the latter took up a lot of space and cluttered them up a bit too much, making them more visible to the soldiers patrolling the city, which was not the purpose of their expedition outside the capital. They had finally opted for sleeping on the ground, simply taking an extra layer of woollens to protect themselves from the cold.

My master and I don't sleep, and we can keep watch during the night, Mago had suggested. She had added that both Dong Soo and Seung-Min could, in the worst case, require to sleep with their heads on their laps in order to get a better rest. Both had expressed reservations and said they were used to harsh conditions, and Woon had recalled the many times he had found Dong Soo curled up on the floor with Cho-Rip beside him, sleeping the sleep of the just.

The day they had escaped from the bandits with Yoo Ji-Seon, they had offered her their straw beds, which were supposedly more comfortable, but she had declined and preferred to curl up, like Woon, against a tree. He thought he had seen her watching the surroundings that night with the same determination as when she had aimed her arrows at the robbers.

Do you want me to tell her you're back ? Dong Soo had asked him, just a few days after they had met again at the Spring House. Woon had shaken his head. The thought of confronting Ji-Seon caused him an emotion almost as dense and laborious as when he had heard Seung-Min say Dong Soo's name in the gardens of the entertainment house. While alive, he had never really dared to approach her, preferring to look at her from afar, and being dead hadn't seemed to help the matter much. Dong Soo had respected his choice. Woon had no doubt that he would have brought Ji-Seon to him without question if he had demanded it.

In front of them, Mago showed less decorum, and ended the night lying down in the forest soil, her head resting on Seung-Min's unfolded legs. Unlike Dong Soo, who took a little while to fall asleep and spent most of the night in a state of light drowsiness, Seung-Min had less difficulty in falling asleep, and his eyelids closed the moment his back was supported by the appreciable solidity of the tall, slender trunk of a large pine tree, the surface of which was covered in places with jade-colored moss.

He only woke up on one occasion, when Mago started to lie down on the ground to immerse herself in the collective consciousness, after having collected some leaves to arrange a makeshift pillow and having cleaned her sleeping area in accordance with her habits.

"If you want, you can put your head on my lap," Seung-Min had suggested to her in a sleepy voice, pointing a lazy index finger at the aforementioned place. "You'll be more comfortable."

The reversal of the proposal she had first made seemed to throw Mago off balance, and she stared at Seung-Min for a moment with a look of utter bewilderment. Woon thought at first that she would reject his offer in her own way, claiming for example that the forest floor was quite mossy and therefore relatively comfortable compared to other surfaces on which she had been resting, or that she did not wish to disturb the soldier's torpor by imposing her presence, or at least that of her head.

He felt Dong Soo's head bobbing against his shoulder, lifting slightly, and he guessed that he was also taking part in observing the scene and waiting to see Mago's response. After what appeared to be, from the frown on his student's face, a frantic deliberation, she finally nodded, then shifted and swung to reach Seung-Min's legs, against which she gently dropped her head.

He didn't protest at her touch, and even seemed somewhat reassured to have Mago near him. I told you he was ready, Dong Soo remarked later, as they were walking down the mountain paths back to town.

They packed up camp as soon as the first light of day was visible in the treetops. They took paths farther away from the usual routes through the Cheonmasan forests, in order to limit the risk of encounters with a patrol. During the night, the slightest creak had made Dong Soo flinch, and Woon had repeatedly pressed his cheek against his hair or his hand against his shoulder, whispering that everything was fine and that he could continue to doze in peace.

He knew that Mago, despite her immersion in the consciousness, remained alert and ready to react if necessary. She had placed her sword next to her, within easy reach and half out of its sheath, as he had advised her during his lessons in Qing. Dong Soo had turned on his side in his sleep, and his face had come right up against Woon's belly, where he had seen the appendage pierce his insides. There was no scar, and no pain either.

Woon had folded his legs slightly to keep Dong Soo's head close to his stomach, and had regretted that he hadn't untied his hair so that Woon's fingers could slip into it. In Qing, during the evening immediately after leaving the temple between the mountains, and burying the monk, he had resorted to wormwood once again. It had shown him Dong Soo, not to change anything, and the latter had been kneeling in front of him, hands wisely placed in fists on his thighs. Woon had done nothing but stroke his hair and bring it against his nose and mouth. He had felt Dong Soo's hands along the skin of his back, his breath against his neck.

Near Hanyang clearing, he had wanted to fold himself in half, to cover Dong Soo completely, to hold him in the shadow of his body. They had returned together, a few days before, from that smoky place located north of Hanyang.

"I'm sorry," Dong Soo had said carefully as he was walking to his side, after waking up curled up against him (like a dragon), under the draperies of crimson and blood. "I was harsh last night. I didn't mean to hurt you. I got carried away."

(we will never forgive ourselves)

Woon had been lost in the contemplation of the hangings that night, in the deep red of their fabric. Dong Soo had slept with his cheek against the scar of his heart. No one had come to disturb them, no one had made the slightest remark, and the passage of women and visitors, walking and whispering very softly without paying attention to them, had made him feel as if he had become totally invisible to them, like Dong Soo.

No one sees us, he had thought, while stroking the hollows between Dong Soo's fingers, feeling the dryness of the skin there, the cracks, the signs of time. The realization had been a dark relief, a damaging desire (we could leave, Dong Soo had said, two decades before, just you and me, no one would find us, no one could blame us, and oh, Woon had wanted it so badly for a split second, so powerfully that he had felt as if all his foundations were crumbling at once).

"You didn't do anything wrong, Dong Soo-yah," he had replied, like many times before, in the streets of Hanyang. "You didn't hurt me. Actually, you were right."

Dong Soo had turned to him with an almost imploring look. Woon had heard the creaking of his own gouged-eyed corpse, the questions, the doubts, had felt the burning of his scar, the refrain of his youth.

Leaving the clearing early was both a way to reduce the danger of coming face-to-face with the Boogeyman, even though they hadn't experienced any threats during the night, but it was also part of Dong Soo's strategy to allow Woon and Mago to re-enter the city's walls. The two Yeogogoedam soldiers were scheduled to finish their shifts at the end of myosi, so the trick was to get back into town early enough to avoid being blocked by the next shift.

As they reached the northern gates, Seung-Min suddenly noticed that only one of the two soldiers was at his post, holding his spear straight along his body.

"The other one must have gone off to relieve himself," Dong Soo observed with a shrug, but Woon nevertheless perceived a hint of tension in his voice, and the slight stiffening of his shoulders.

Once near the guard, Dong Soo tried to make conversation in a brief and efficient way, seeking to obtain information on the absence of his comrade. The answers of the man were courteous, controlled. He informed them in a friendly tone that his colleague had indeed gone to urinate, and that he would return very soon. During their conversation, Seung-Min stood in the background a little. We'll probably see the other one after entering the city, he said, mainly to Mago, who was following the exchange with a vaguely suspicious interest, he won't be peeing outside in this cold.

Dong Soo cut short his conversation with the soldier by thanking him for his supervision, and went through the doors first. Woon followed him, but almost immediately bumped into Dong Soo's back, who had stopped right in front of the doors.

"Dong Soo-yah?" He called out to him. "Is everything okay?"

"What's going on?" Mago grumbled behind him, and her voice had become infinitely more anxious.

"Don't move!"

The voice came from ahead. Dong Soo turned toward them, and Woon read the distress on his face, the fear, the rage. His eyes were wide with dismay. In front of them, armed, wielding torches, spears, and swords, stood a cohort of about twenty soldiers.

b. Satyagraha

Baek Yun-Seo went to the barracks escorted, or rather supervised, by no less than five soldiers who made it a point to walk around her like a flock of gruesome birds. None of them displayed the long peacock feathers reserved for high ranking officers attached to their ceremonial hats, but they might as well have been adorned with the sooty black down of crows.

Yun-Seo was walking quickly, lifting her chima with both hands. The soldiers were moving at her speed, not appearing to be as tired as she was, but she assumed that their nervous state was less agitated and therefore played less of a role in their level of exhaustion. She had a raging headache, and felt as if her muscles and bones were made of smoke, ready to abandon her at any second. On the way, she and her procession of two-legged scavengers met neighbors, passers-by.

Those who knew her turned and looked at her as one would watch a totally unexpected event unfold before their eyes, and that they would not dare to believe. She suspected that she must not have looked as engaging as usual : the brigades had shown up so early that morning that she had not yet had time to change into more appropriate clothes or even to do her hair and make-up.

As a result, she had a bare face, her hair loosely tied in an awkward bun, and looked as pleasant as a minister who had just been told about the loss of his job (in the end, she thought to herself as she kept walking toward the barracks, the analogy was a perfect fit for her situation). As for those who had never heard of her, they nonetheless turned around to observe her passing, as if she had been the queen or a royal concubine. Usually, these were the only women who could arouse the curiosity of passers-by, except for all those who were surrounded by soldiers, like Yun-Seo.

She had left Yoo-Jin in the care of the cook, who was still in their home when the brigade had entered the perimeter of the inner courtyard. They had come in initially with ten of them (five had remained behind to watch the house), which she had found relatively laughable considering that she was very unlikely to pose a threat to them, at least in the immediate future.

She had not followed any training in combat, had no other weapon than her eugjungo and, it had to be said, the excessively shortened length of the blade of the latter would not have been of any help to her in front of a dozen of trained, armed and, tragically, stronger men than her from a strictly physical point of view, because of the two preceding conditions.

Moreover, they had hastened, immediately after entering her house, to take away the tiny knife and to keep it as far away from her as possible, in the pocket of the uniform of one of the soldiers, that had the face of a horse, and whose eyes Yun-Seo had found frightfully embarrassed. He was standing aside, while accompanying her. The captain was the one who walked closest to her, but even he seemed to keep a cautious distance, and she didn't mind.

To say that she was furious was a notch below the truth : never in her life could she remember being so enraged. She was sure that all her features expressed it as clearly as if she had started screaming in public, and she was glad that those who met her eyes immediately looked away, while the militia who had come to warn her of her husband's arrest were careful not to speak to her, at the risk of paying for her moods.

Yun-Seo would have bet her two arms that they had surely been told over and over again, during their youth, that there was probably nothing more devastating and suffocating than a woman's anger. She also suspected that many of them were married, and would systematically revert to such thought pattern whenever their wives raised their voices, if they were free enough to do so.

Aggressiveness had never been counted among the seven sins of women mentioned in the excruciating Ta Ming Lu, which Yun-seo had heard excerpts from on more than one occasion at the Spring House, when she was still an active courtesan before Yoo-Jin was born. She suspected, however, that many people enjoyed including women's anger in their informal list of inherent faults, and had not hesitated for a second to resort to it to get rid of wives deemed cumbersome or mistresses deemed out of fashion.

The soldiers had come as soon at the beginning of yusi, and had massed in her courtyard, where the brigade captain had called her at first in a loud, clear and severe voice. Yun-Seo was perfectly aware that she was not very respectful ofsome basic conventions, but she had had the vivid impression that she had been a child caught in the act by a parent or more generally an adult.

She had just entered the maru for tea and breakfast, and had her husband, Yeo Woon and Mago's place prepared, guessing that they would probably be hungry upon their return and would crave a hot and varied meal. Yoo-Jin was not up yet. She had flinched when she had heard the voice, which was not Dong Soo's or anyone she knew, and some tea had spilled on the shiny wooden surface of the table. At her request, the cook had gone out to see who the visitors were, and what they wanted from her.

They could have just asked her to follow them without fuss, and not explained that her husband, Baek Dong Soo, captain of an anti-gwishin squad and an official of the Royal Investigation Bureau, had been arrested at the northern gates on charges of willful complicity and concealing enemies of the crown. Gwishins were sometimes referred to as such, especially in official government communications of the last four years.

"Our men intercepted your husband upon his return to the city through the northern gates," the captain had explained to her, looking down on her, which was hardly a figure of speech since he was literally a head taller than she was, and probably surpassed Dong Soo in the process. "He was accompanied by two gwishins, and a man belonging to his militia."

He could have done without any explanation at all. Yun-seo had understood perfectly well, from the second she had heard him call out to her in the courtyard of her house, that the cover she and her husband had been carefully trying to preserve for four years had disintegrated. There was no other plausible reason for so many soldiers to come to her house, especially since Dong Soo and their dead guests had not yet returned. The calculation was simple and obvious.

It had not made it any less sinister.

"Where is my husband now?" She had asked, trying to take an anguished inflection likely to awaken a minimum of compassion in the captain's heart. "Is he in prison?"

"No, milady. Your husband is being held at the barracks, as is his henchman. They're both being questioned right now about their involvement with the gwishins."

She had wondered what Dong Soo had already said, whether he had confessed that his wife was also in on it, or whether he had tried to clear her as much as possible. They had agreed on this strategy years ago, in case either of them were to face further interrogation by the military, but Yun-seo had no way of knowing exactly what her husband might have told the soldiers, and she hadn't felt her position had stabilized enough to be too confident.

She had chosen to assume that the men of the brigade thought she was just as guilty as her husband, while deciding to cautiously avoid any occurrences that might have led them to suspect her further, in case Dong Soo had cleared her and the soldiers saw her as an uninformed woman confined to her role as housewife. It won't work, she had thought, they just need to question your neighbors, your acquaintances, the wives of the bureaucrats, everyone knows you're active, you won't be able to play the model wife for long.

She had thought about the other members of the Yeogogoedam network, about what might have happened at the northern gates, about the rift that had become apparent when Dong Soo had returned.

The captain, who was the only one who had entered the maru after having been authorized to do so by Yun-Seo, had seemed disturbed to discover her still in her night clothes, at her table, and perfectly in control of herself. Can I see my husband ? She had wished, in a slightly plaintive voice, with just the right amount of concern to appear innocent without falling into an excess of despair that would have had the opposite effect.

"We have not received any authorization for this," he had told her.

She had then undertaken to negotiate, subtly, trying not to seem too demanding. I just want to make sure he's okay, she had said, and if you want to, you're welcome to stay and listen to our whole conversation, I won't mind, and I know my husband will be just as cooperative given the circumstances. She had ended up wining a meager five minutes of highly supervised conversation, but had been largely satisfied with them.

It was not the time to play difficult, and Yun-Seo had also become accustomed to adapting to a wide variety of settings very quickly. It was an indispensable skill if one wished to assert themselves as a reputable courtesan. The captain of the brigade was to take her and her entire troop home after meeting Dong Soo. She was informed that she and Yoo-Jin were now under house arrest and surveillance until the results of her husband's interrogation and the investigation were completed.

So they think I'm guilty too, she had deduced. The house arrest could still have been manageable, but the surveillance changed things a little.

She had asked to be taken to her husband immediately, and had left without taking the time to wake Yoo-Jin. Bo-Young, who had overheard her entire exchange with the captain, had volunteered to watch over her son until she returned. For a brief moment, Yun-Seo had considered the possibility that their cook had turned them in, but had dismissed it just as quickly.

It had been several months since Yeo Woon and his student were living under their roof, and she didn't see what would have made the cook wait so long to report them to the police, even in case of major questions about the position the Baeks had offered her, the loss of which was more likely to be a great disadvantage to her than a godsend.

She allowed herself to think that Bo-Young might have been won over by fear of the gwishins, and this supposition raised a touch of doubt in her mind as she reached, still flanked by the soldiers, the barracks and its buildings.

"And the gwishins?" she had asked before leaving, in her most nonchalant tone possible. "They're in prison, aren't they?"

"Both of them," the captain had confirmed to her.

He didn't say more, but Yun-seo had read the words "torture" and "army of the dead" in his eyes. The procedure was still the same, and Dong Soo had described it to her enough for her to know how it worked. Now it was just a matter of seeing what could be saved, of setting up damage control. She had little time to spare, and relatively few options.

Seeing Dong Soo, besides the fact that she wanted to check his well-being and hear his side of the story, would also allow her to decide which mechanisms to activate and which torches to light.

At the barracks, she found her husband confined in a small office, isolated from Seung-Min. He was sitting against the wall when she arrived, and seemed both surprised and infinitely relieved to see her appear. A small crowd had formed in the barracks yard, mostly soldiers asking each other questions and murmuring about the events. As she had agreed with the captain, she let him explain to Dong Soo that their discussion would be heard and reported.

As she had predicted, her husband did not protest and simply nodded his head in understanding. He had dark circles around his eyes, he looked pasty, and his jaw was tensed with anxiety (Yeo Woon). They remained standing.

She took his hands, was gentle and comforting, and did her best not to let her own anxieties show, both for him, but also for their family, their future, their guests. All in good time.

"They were waiting for us at the north gates," he told her. "Someone spoke."

"I thought so. Did they tell you who it was?"

(Seung-Min)

"No," Dong Soo admitted with a sigh. "They haven't until now. I don't know if it's to protect the culprit or not. But I think it was one of the two guards at the door. I can't explain it any other way. Maybe it was for their family, or for profit. Maybe they had no choice."

If one of the guards had spoken, it meant that the entire Yeogogoedam network in the capital was in danger. Yun-seo struggled to control the huge wave of panic that crept up on her at this possibility, and focused again on her husband's information.

"We tried to defend ourselves," he told her. "Seung-Min included. I think we could have gotten away with it if reinforcements hadn't arrived, since Woon and Mago were also armed and trained."

"You killed soldiers?" Yun-Seo understood.

Her husband nodded his head in agreement. The complexity of the situation increased slightly.

"And wounded several. We wiped out most of the militia that came to get us, but reinforcements blocked our path soon after."

"Were there many of them?"

"Very much so. Almost as much as during the coup d'état of the Minister of War fifteen years ago." He gave a short, cold laugh before continuing : "They completely surrounded us in a small street in Hanyang, and they had brought archers with flaming arrows. They were on the roofs. I think they would have killed us if Woon hadn't said we were surrendering."

"So it was him who..."

"Yes," he interrupted her off painfully. "I told him I was ready to fight, and Mago and Seung-Min too, but he wouldn't listen."

"Did he explain why?"

"Because apparently I'm not twenty-three anymore and I can't fight an entire army on my own like I used to. And because I have a wife and a son. That's what he told me."

He explained to her how Yeo Woon had announced their surrender to the soldiers, put his sword on the ground, and told his companions to do the same, declaring that they would submit and be obidient, while raising his hands in the air, palms facing the soldiers.

Mago had refused at first, but then Woon had pointed to the soldiers, to the flames, and had asked her curtly if she wanted to die right away, for good, or mobilize the lessons he had given her to ensure her survival by submitting and accepting to join the army of the dead. She had finally complied, but with obvious reluctantly.

After seeing their weapons being retrieved by his soldiers, the commander of the reinforcement detachment had approached them, and asked Woon if he and Mago were staying at Dong Soo's house.

"No," he had said, and Dong Soo had done his best not to give him a surprised look.

"Where, then?"

"In the ruins of Gyeongbok Palace. It's a sufficiently secluded place, and safe because of its abandonment. My student and I thought that we would be more comfortable there than in a private home."

He protected us, Yun-seo thought, feeling gratitude wash over her. The protection was small, but it was still possible to get something out of it, like a less severe sentence. Woon's version had been immediately understood and corroborated by Mago, and he had given Dong Soo a knowing look, suggesting him to adhere to the lie and maintain it.

Yun-seo found herself hoping that the questions asked to her husband and Seung-min individually would focus only slightly on the gwishins' accommodation, at the risk of exposing the deception.

The commander had then ordered their arrest, and had Woon and Mago taken to prison, while Seung-Min and Dong Soo were taken to the barracks. A messenger had been dispatched to the king and his advisors to warn them of the situation.

In addition, Woon had managed to prevent the execution of Mago, who had been seized by two soldiers and put on her knees for beheading, by emphasizing her skill in martial arts and the services she was thus able to render to the kingdom if she were to join the army of the dead. He was supported by both Seung-Min and Dong Soo.

"They took them away, after that," the latter concluded. "They must be torturing them by now."

"My dear husband..."

"It's all my fault," Dong Soo lamented, burying his face in his hands. "I wasn't careful enough, I should have been more careful. I put you all in danger."

"That's not true," Yun-Seo protested, forcing his fingers apart for him to look at her. "You had nothing to do with it. Someone spoke, but it wasn't you. You didn't mean to hurt anyone."

"Woon is down there, Yun-seo. He's down there and I know what's going to happen but I can't do anything, I can't do anything, I'm stuck here, they're going to hurt him and I can't do anything, it's my fault, I can't..."

"Enough," she interrupted him, listening to his breathing accelerate dangerously, to the frantic flow of his words, and noting how his eyes were widening in horror and distress, peering over his shoulder into the same void towards which she had seen him look so many times, especially when he drank heavily. "It will do you no good to hurt yourself unnecessarily that, and you know it. I'm sure he would have told you the same thing."

She took him by the shoulders, firmly.

"Answer the questions you will be asked, and try to think only about them. It's true that you can do nothing more for the moment, but it won't last forever. Ask for an audience with the king : you served him loyally over the last four years and even before, and I think it could be of help to you. For the time being, we can only hope that Yeo Woon and his student are well. If they are indeed sent to join the army of the dead, then there is still hope. I guess that's what he was thinking when he surrendered."

She rubbed her husband's shoulders, found him cold, and kissed him on the forehead. She was sorry she could not say more because of the presence of the soldiers in the room, but she was able to tell him that she would prepare a meal for him every night until he returned, which was the code they had agreed upon to indicate that she would try to contact the Yeogogoedam network and other allies to plead their case and work out ways to get out of the situation as quickly as possible.

She was anxisous to leave him while he was so agitated, and enjoined him to eat the breakfast that had been sent to him during their meeting. I'm not hungry, he had said gloomily, without looking at her, his hands clenched into a fist against his lips, and all his thoughts were now far away, probably in the prison of the royal palace, or in the torture chamber, with Yeo Woon. Yun-Seo sent hers towards Mago, suspecting that the kid was terrified.

As the captain of the squad sent to her house walked her towards the exit of the barracks, she briefly saw Seung-Min in another small room similar to the one where Dong Soo was being held. He met her eyes, and she smiled at him, hoping that he would find some encouragement in it.

"It was one of the guards," the captain of the brigade told her on the way back, even though she hadn't asked for anything.

She turned her head towards him, surprised by his spontaneous confession.

"What did you say?"

"The one who spilled the beans. He was one of the guards at the north gate. He had been questioned the night before after drinking too much during a party and confessing the whole story to another soldier."

Yun-Seo hold back a sharp remark about the particularly deleterious impact that alcohol seemed to have on her life in general.

"You musn't blame him too much, you know," the captain said.

"Then who, if not him?" Yun-Seo replied. "The soju carafe? The other guard he told the whole story to?"

"I don't know," the captain answered. "But I do know that this soldier has a family, like you, that he has a son, like you. A daughter, too. She's just three months old. I know they threatened him to hurt them if he didn't confess everything. Wouldn't you have acted the same way if someone had tried to kill your son or your husband?"

Yun-Seo refused to answer the whole way, pushing away the confirmation that rose in her throat, and all its awful, unmentionable truth (I would have done worse).