Chapter 4. The Me You Remember

Before Seoyun could think that someone had tried to kill her, she found herself wondering whether she was allowed to touch the wood with her bare hands.

She turned the envelope over. There was nothing more to read. For someone in a hurry, his handwriting was far too neat. An absurd complaint occurred to her: if he didn't want her touching it, he could have sent it in a box.

Still, she didn't reach for it.

She put the envelope on a plate and covered it. Beneath the five names on her sheet of paper, she added a question.

〈Whose place was I standing in?〉

There had been many people at the concert. There was no proof that whoever had damaged the railing had been targeting Elin. Being the last person to put her hand on it didn't automatically make her the center of the story.

Seoyun tried to think of it that way.

But whenever a branch moved outside her window, her head turned.

Theo came the next morning.

Even in a dark gray coat instead of his uniform, his shoulders filled the doorway. He carried a paper bag. The smell of bread reached her first.

“I heard the doctor said nothing hard to eat.”

He set the bag on the table. Inside was soft bread with no sugar sprinkled on it.

“Did you buy it?”

“Did you think I baked it?”

Seoyun shook her head. Theo's mouth twitched.

“That look hasn't changed, even without your memories.”

Her hands stopped folding the bag.

People here sometimes said things like that. Her smile was the same. Her tastes were the same. Her stubbornness was the same. She couldn't tell whether they were complimenting her or checking, and each time her shoulders stiffened a little.

Theo didn't sit down opposite her.

“Can you manage a short walk? Only as much as the doctor allows.”

The night's dew still lay over the garden. Leon brought her a coat, and Theo waited until he had settled it over her shoulders.

“We'll be all right on our own,” Seoyun said.

Leon stopped beside the door.

“There is a bell by the greenhouse entrance as well.”

He followed no farther. After two steps or so, Seoyun glanced back. He was still there. When their eyes met, he inclined his head.

Theo chose the path on the far side of the pond.

“Is this all right?”

He asked before the little fountain came into view. Seoyun hesitated, then nodded. She couldn't spend the rest of her life indoors to avoid the sound of water.

“What I said earlier…”

Theo slowed his steps.

“About you being the same even without your memories. I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable.”

“I know you didn't mean it that way.”

“It could still have made you uncomfortable.”

Seoyun looked at him. He didn't make excuses. The order of this conversation was different from hers; she always began by saying she was fine so that no one else would feel bad.

“Am I very different from before?”

“Yes.”

The answer was immediate.

“How different?”

Theo held a branch aside with one hand, releasing it only after she had passed.

“Before, if you didn't like something, you said so. Now you seem to worry whether you'll hurt someone's feelings before you let yourself say it.”

She caught the end of her coat sleeve.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“If it's hurting you.”

They walked in silence for a while. Seoyun envied the Elin he remembered a little. Had she been someone who trusted that pushing back wouldn't make a relationship end?

At the end of the path stood a wooden post marked with measurements of someone's height. Several lines had been scratched into it with a knife. When Seoyun leaned closer, Theo pointed at the topmost mark.

“When you got this tall, you insisted you'd beaten me.”

Beside it was another mark, a little higher.

“You were standing on your toes.”

“I was?”

“And denied it even after I caught you.”

Seoyun laughed. Listening to an account of mischief she had never committed, she could somehow picture the child. A girl rising onto her toes because she hated losing, hoping the boy beside her would pretend not to notice even though he knew.

“I'm sorry I don't remember.”

Theo took his hand from the post.

“You don't owe me anything.”

He stepped aside for her.

“If you don't like hearing these stories, I'll stop. We can make new ones from now on.”

Seoyun looked at the post once more before walking on. Because he didn't demand the past back, she found herself wanting to know a little more about it.

When they sat on the bench outside the greenhouse, Theo took out a small box. Inside was one of the earrings she had worn the day before.

“We found it on the bank. Haven't found the other one yet.”

She didn't pick it up.

“Could I ask you a little more about yesterday?”

“Of course.”

“Did the person who handed me up to you say anything?”

Theo searched his memory.

“He said to take his hand. At first I thought he meant me, but you already had hold of his shirt.”

Seoyun remembered the fabric she had clutched underwater. The skin that had brushed her palm. The red line wavering indistinctly before her.

“What did his voice sound like?”

“There was the water, and people screaming. I couldn't be sure.”

“Where were the others?”

Theo took a breath before he answered.

The crown prince had come from the platform with a child. The duke had been found at the steps downstream. The master of the Mage Tower had entered the water while holding up the collapsing bridge. Leon had run along the bank looking for her.

“I only saw some of that myself. The rest was in the guards' reports,” he added.

“Are you trying to find the person who saved you?”

“I want to thank him.”

It wasn't a lie. It just wasn't everything.

Theo pointed to himself.

“Can I collect mine in advance?”

She laughed, then coughed. Theo reached out, saw her press a hand to her own chest, and drew his hand back.

“Thank you,” Seoyun said, looking straight at him this time.

“Even if someone else saved me first, you were the one who caught me next.”

Theo didn't answer immediately.

He turned his gaze aside. The tips of his ears were red. Only then did Seoyun go back over what she'd said. It hadn't seemed like anything to be that embarrassed about.

“Well.”

Theo cleared his throat.

“I suppose I was.”

She saw a red line on the back of his hand. A long wound ran from below his forefinger toward his wrist. When he noticed her looking, he pulled down his sleeve.

“Did you get hurt yesterday?”

“It's a scratch.”

“It's opened up.”

Seoyun rang the bell beside the bench before Theo could stop her. When she accepted the bandages a maid brought, he sighed.

“I can do it.”

“With one hand?”

“It only needs tying.”

“Then I'll tie it.”

His hand was warmer than she had expected. The hand that had pulled her up yesterday. Seoyun laid a disinfected cloth over the wound. Theo's fingers curled slightly.

“Tell me if it hurts.”

“It's not that bad.”

“You told me to say so if I was hurting.”

Theo closed his mouth.

Up close, she could see old scars all over the back of his hand. He wasn't someone so strong he never got hurt. He was someone who got hurt and reached out again anyway.

Seoyun slipped a finger beneath the bandage to make sure she hadn't wrapped it too tightly.

He was looking at her.

“What is it?”

“It's strange.”

“Did I tie it wrong?”

“No. You've never concentrated on me like this before.”

Seoyun let go. The end of the bandage came loose. If Theo hadn't caught it, it would have fallen to the ground.

“You moved.”

“I didn't.”

They both knew. It had been her hand that moved.

Leon brought tea to the greenhouse. At the sight of the fresh bandage on Theo's hand, he set down the tray.

“Are you badly hurt?”

“Thanks to her, I'm a patient too now,” Theo replied.

Leon turned the handle of Seoyun's cup toward her. His movement was as precise as ever.

Before looking at the cup, she looked at the back of his hand.

Not a scratch.

Still, that wasn't a reason to cross his name off the paper. Saving someone from the water didn't necessarily mean injuring the back of your hand.

After Theo had left, Seoyun showed Leon the piece of wood the duke had sent.

He looked at the envelope on the plate without speaking for a while.

“I will inform the steward.”

“My parents too?”

“They need to know.”

His answer was firm. Seoyun almost argued, then stopped. She'd seen enough situations at work grow worse because someone had hidden a problem and tried to deal with it alone.

“Then let's tell them together. I'll explain.”

That afternoon, the family and the steward gathered in the study. Seoyun described what she remembered: where she had been standing, how the crowd had approached, how she had stepped aside. The key tattoo was the only thing she left out.

The count studied the piece of wood for a long time.

“How could anyone have known you would stand there?”

Seoyun had thought the same thing. That made it harder to understand.

The steward searched through the records and brought out the seating plan that had come with the invitation. Guests were to mingle freely at first, then be guided to their assigned places when the next piece began.

Seoyun put a finger on the plan.

She had fallen from a narrow passage beside the entrance. Her assigned place had been directly in front of the platform, on the side where the railing was intact.

But when she read the name beside the other place, her fingertip stopped.

〈Duke Valter.〉

Cassian's place had been directly in front of the broken railing.