A light mist of rain swept across the land the following day. Birds chirped in a loud chorus as I hurried into the capital, hands attempting to shelter my hair, my breathing ragged and panicked. I’d spent half the day waiting out the heavy rainfall, and it had stopped when I left home, the skies clearing. But the clouds had returned, gathered dark above me.
Hiking up my skirt, I gave up on my hair and ran faster toward Father’s residence. He would not be in, as he was usually at the Ministry of Justice during the daytime. Gatekeeper Kwon would be at his post—what valuable information could he possibly have? But Mother was right, either way, it was better not to incur Father’s wrath. It would be better to gather information from those around him instead.
I slipped out of an alley, then took Donhwamunro Street. Within a few paces, I caught sight of the police bureau, its flared roof rising above the sea of thatched huts like dark storm clouds. I saw, too, a group of young police officers standing outside, speaking with someone. My gaze gravitated toward the tallest officer, a veil of rain dripping from the brim of his black hat. Then he looked up, and a familiar pair of eyes followed me as I continued down the street. Eojin bowed his head, just a slight tilt. I returned the nod.
The sight of Eojin strengthened my steps as I hurried down the road and into the northern district, the residence of the powerful and wealthy, a cluster of black-roofed mansions gleaming in the rain. I finally arrived before Father’s home, out of breath and cold, but determined.
I banged my fist on the door until the gatekeeper opened it, his brows shooting up. He immediately recognized me, likely from the times I’d stood before this very gate on my tiptoes, hoping to catch a glimpse of Father.
“Young mistress!” Gatekeeper Kwon said. “What are you doing out in this weather?”
I wiped a strand of hair away from my face, and as pitifully as I could, I spoke in a wavering voice. “I wish to speak with Lord Shin. If he is at home, please inform him that I’ve requested his audience.”
“Young mistress.” His worrying eyes looked me over again. “He is not in. He left for work this morning.”
“But … but I’ve come all this way…” I floundered a moment, then I turned my distressed gaze to him. “There is something urgent I wished to ask Lord Shin, but perhaps you know the answer?”
“Yeh? A question?” Hesitance strained his features. “Of course.”
“Did you hear of the Hyeminseo massacre four days ago? Has Lord Shin made any mention of it?”
The gatekeeper quickly glanced around, then he dipped his voice low and said, “We were ordered not to ever speak of it.”
“Why not?”
“Please, young mistress. I would rather not—I know nothing!”
It was then I put to use a strategy I’d thought of while lying on my sleeping mat last night. “Someone told me that they suspect Lord Shin,” I whispered. “Is that why he wishes no one to speak of the incident?” I shook my head, frowning. “I was worried. As you know, if he is indeed involved, his entire household will be punished. You would likely be exiled, or worse—”
“Wh-who says this?” His frantic eyes locked on to me. “That is preposterous.”
“That is what I think, too, and that is why I’ve come. I’m so concerned, ajusshi. Why would anyone suspect Lord Shin? Do you know? I am trying to convince the inspector to punish the person for spreading such rumors.”
“I know Lord Shin is not involved, and Commander Song knows, too!”
My shoulders tensed. “Commander Song?” The name alone sent a flutter of panic through me. “He was here?”
“Commander Song visited to speak with His Lordship over tea. I overheard a little bit. Apparently while Lord Shin was returning home from Concubine Pak’s home, shortly before curfew lifted, he witnessed the murderer fleeing—”
“Wait,” I said. “How did Lord Shin know it was the killer?”
“The commander asked the same question! The killer bumped into him while running away and dropped something. I’m not sure what. Lord Shin simply said it was covered in blood, and that he did not think to pick it up—and that it was no longer there the following day. The killer then rushed off, too fast for him to see much. It was still dark.” He shot another nervous glance around, then he gripped the side of the door, as though prepared to shut and bolt the gate on me. “I should go, young mistress.”
My strength had drained away, setting my knees wobbling. “Thank you,” I said under my breath, barely audible over the pitter-pattering rain. “You have been more than helpful—”
“Please don’t tell Lord Shin I told you any of this!”
“Of course not,” I said, and added, “It would be best to pretend this conversation never occurred. But I will make sure that no one questions Lord Shin any further.”
As soon as I turned, the gate door snapped shut, and I dropped my mask. For a long moment, I stood outside the mansion, anchored there by what I’d just learned. Father believed he had seen the killer, and it was around the time Crown Prince Jangheon was wandering the capital. Was the prince the suspect he’d collided with? Yet Father seemed convinced of the prince’s innocence. Why was that?
My mind stilled before a possible answer: Could my father be the prince’s alibi?
The rain suddenly stopped as a shadow engulfed me, startling me back to the present—to the unexpected sight of Eojin by my side, holding a large straw cloak over my head.
“Inspector Seo?” I said. “What are you doing here?”
He continued to gaze ahead at Father’s residence. Slowly releasing the cloak, which settled around my head, he asked, “What brought you all the way here in this weather?”
“There was something I wanted to clarify regarding my father. My mother told me—”
“Let’s find shelter first.” He paused as rain pelted down on his police hat, drenching his robe, then he glanced at me. “Have you eaten?”
I blinked. “Begging your pardon?”
He gave the cloak a slight tug, and the entire thing fell over my face, threatening to swallow me whole. I at once pushed it back and caught a playful half smile disappear from his lips. “Why are you here, nauri?” I asked again.
“We had spare cloaks in the bureau, and you looked in need of one. It took a while to find you, though.” Casting one last glance at the residence, he turned and strolled away, and I watched him go in puzzlement. “Come, Nurse Hyeon. I’ll buy you a warm meal.”
“Why—”
“I have questions to ask, things to tell you. And this case won’t solve itself if you fall ill.”
I sat under the thatched roof awning of a nearby tavern. Determined not to be caught again with the young inspector, I kept the cloak so pulled over my face that all I could see was Eojin’s robe, a glimpse of his jaw, and raindrops still falling from the brim of his hat.
“So why did you visit your father’s abode?” Eojin asked.
As we waited for our meal, I told him everything I’d learned from Father’s gatekeeper, my voice pitched low for Eojin’s ears alone. And whenever someone passed by, I paused, then leaned over the table to whisper the rest to him.
“Would you not agree with me, nauri?” I said, a bit too aggressively. “My father is the prince’s alibi, which makes His Highness innocent. So my question is, why does the prince not publicize this truth? He has an alibi; he couldn’t be the killer.”
“I imagine that if His Highness exposes his alibi, it would admit he illegally left the palace that night. Perhaps he is more afraid of the king’s wrath than the rumors.” A long pause followed, and I could almost hear the wheels of his mind turning. “And your father … he has strong connections to the Old Doctrine faction. They are the prince’s rival, and your father likely does not wish to be tied to His Highness in any way.”
Our conversation came to a standstill when our meal arrived, black earthenware bowls of gukbap, along with side dishes. My stomach grumbled, and I realized I hadn’t eaten all day. I ate my favorite meat bits first, then took a spoonful of boiled rice soup, then another, and noticed Eojin wasn’t eating. He looked preoccupied, saying nothing until at last he murmured:
“Was it difficult? Growing up as Lord Shin’s daughter.”
The spoon stilled in my hand, uneasiness stirring in my chest. “I’m not really his daughter. Well, I am. But I’m a bastard.”
“He’s still your father. You are still his daughter.”
A mirthless laugh escaped me. “I’m nothing but a vulgar commoner, and that’s all he sees.” When Eojin remained quiet, I regretted how much I’d said, but told myself that I didn’t care. It didn’t matter what he thought of me. We’d partnered to solve a crime, not to become friends.
“My mother always taught me about ‘gong,’ that everyone is equal,” Eojin said, his voice quiet and distant—as though he were speaking of someone from long ago. “She said that every person is born a child of heaven and earth, that none of us are different. History proves it, too; slaves who fought during wartime could rise to become ministers or generals.” A quiet laugh escaped him. “My grandmother suggested that slaves ought to kill their master and burn the record of their slave status, and live free from the whip.”
I peered up from beneath the straw cloak, curious about his strange family. Eojin was sitting straight, his shoulders drawn back, the look of perfect composure, and yet his lashes were downcast.
“I never knew, until Mother passed, that she was a cheonmin, a vulgar commoner. Father had eloped with her, since intermarriage between classes is prohibited. When she died, our wealthy relatives came to slander and celebrate her passing. Father broke every pot and bowl in outrage…” Eojin turned a hand over and stared at the little scars littering his palm—scars that made me wonder whether we had more in common than I’d first imagined.
“I apologize if I offend, but I never liked your father very much,” he said under his breath, now holding a pair of chopsticks. “I’ve watched the way he’s mishandled appeals; he’s corrupt and unfair, prone to accepting bribes. I wouldn’t care too much about what he thinks of you.”
I sat very still, afraid to move, afraid to feel the weight of his words.
Afraid to agree with him.
I’d never thought of Father in Eojin’s perspective before—as a man who fell very short of what was good and honorable.
Eojin used his chopsticks to pick out the delicious bits of meat from his untouched soup and move them into my bowl. Like I was someone he cared for. But of course he cared for me—his informant, his only source of palace intelligence.
Casually, he switched the stream of our conversation. “I’d like to question your father about the Hyeminseo case. But only if you’re comfortable with me doing so.”
“You may…” I said, trying to reorient myself. “As long as he doesn’t connect me to you.”
“Of course. I’ll inform him that a witness saw him that night.”
“Inspector!” A frantic shout pierced the air, cutting our conversation short. “Inspector Seo!”
It was a police officer bolting through the rain-soaked crowd. He had one hand clutching the back of his hat, the other wiping droplets from his face. Before he could see who I was, I lowered the cloak even further over my face. In its shadow, I listened to his footsteps splashing through the puddles, halting right before us.
“Inspector! Thank goodness I found you!” he cried, out of breath. “The entire bureau is looking for you!”
“What is it?” Eojin asked, his voice sharp.
“Commander Song and other officers have gone ahead. I was ordered to find you at once.” He paused to collect his breath some more, and then he spoke on, his voice trembling. “Two men were fishing on Han River when they found a body. It is another palace woman!”
Eojin slapped his hand onto the table, leaving coins behind. “Do not follow. Too many will notice you,” he quietly said to me. Then he disappeared into the blue of falling rain.
I obeyed Eojin for only a few minutes, then rushed to my feet. I had to see the dead woman with my own eyes, for who knew what the commander might do? He might bury the dead before the dead could even speak.
Thick mist hung over Han River, obscuring the huts clustered along the riverbank as well as the long wooden boats docked along the shore, their bamboo sails piercing the sky like hundreds of needles.
I discreetly followed the three silhouettes—Eojin, the police officer, and a damo carrying a stretcher. My thighs burned from the work of stepping in and out of ankle-deep mud. I’d slipped a few times already. The hem of my skirt was soggy brown, and somehow blobs of dark slush had flicked onto my face. The grime slid against my palm each time I attempted to wipe aside my soaked hair.
More human figures soon materialized in the gloom ahead. I heard Commander Song’s voice before I saw him, directing officers to split up into four directions and to travel by foot and by boat to search for evidence. When I drew close enough, I only saw him for a moment, his strong stature and white beard. Then he was gone, his back disappearing through a shroud of fog.
“This way, nauri.” The officer led Eojin and the damo to a boat manned by a weather-worn fisherman. “The corpse is on the other side.”
I hurried closer, and I was able to glimpse the damo’s face. A pair of wide-set eyes met mine. I knew this girl.
“Sulbi-yah!” I called out.
“Uinyeo-nim!” she cried, and her distraught face lit up. Eojin snapped around just then. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
Picking up my skirt, I pushed my legs harder until I stood before Sulbi. “Sulbi-yah, I heard what happened. Do you need assistance—”
“Who are you?” the officer growled. “This is a police matter!”
“I couldn’t help but overhear, sir, that a palace woman has been killed.” I fixed my unwavering gaze on the man, trying not to look at Eojin, whose eyes I could feel boring into me. “I may be of help, as I am a nae-uinyeo.”
The police officer scoffed. “You absolutely cannot—”
“She may join us,” Eojin said.
“She—she may?” The officer stared, blinking like a fish. “Her?”
“Yes, her.”
Without further delay, we made our way to the boat, and my stomach rocked the moment my feet stepped inside, the wooden floor so unsteady it was like I was attempting to stand on shifting waves. But I managed to keep my balance and found a seat next to Sulbi at the far end, while the men sat at the head of the narrow but long boat.
“Who is the victim?” I whispered.
“I don’t know yet,” she replied. “And neither do the officers, I’d gather. They only know she was a palace woman by her dress. They haven’t searched her for an identification tag.”
“Why not?”
“You know the law. Confucian etiquette. Police officers are forbidden from touching women suspects and victims.” Sulbi rubbed her palm furiously against her skirt. Under her breath, for my ears alone, she said, “I am so sick of touching dead women, but women are killed all the time.”
Silence, along with the blue mist, hung over us and the inky black waves. Silence, except for the water rippling around the oars.
“Do you know how she died yet?” I asked my companion, flicking a glance at Eojin. His shoulders looked tense, his face slightly turned our way, like he was eavesdropping. “Or whether she might be connected to the Hyeminseo massacre?”
“I know she was bludgeoned on the head and discovered lying on the riverbank with her face in the water,” Sulbi replied. “The anonymous handbills were also found again, pasted onto public walls nearby.”
“There!” cried the fisherman. “I see them.”
The fog parted like hazy curtains, unveiling a small crowd of police officers huddled on the riverbank, their figures hiding the corpse from my view. All I could see was the top of her hair and the tips of her feet—one with a shoe on, the other bare.
The moment we docked and the men heaved the boat onto shore, Sulbi held my hand to keep my balance steady. As soon as my feet hit the mud, I looked up, and this time the human wall of officers had parted, just enough for me to catch a glimpse of a silk skirt, turquoise blue. A blue so distinct that my chest tightened and breathing became difficult.
It wasn’t just a palace woman.
It was a palace nurse.
My steps quickened, and as the police officers stepped further back for Eojin, I found myself staring down at the body of a young woman, still lying on her front, her face in the mud. No one had flipped her around. Confucian etiquette, Sulbi’s explanation echoed in my ear.
“Help me turn her,” I said, and Sulbi nodded.
Together, we managed to turn her onto her back, revealing blue-tinged skin covered in mud. I crouched and touched her wrist—and a jolt of alertness ran through me.
A faint pulse, a real pulse, beat under the pressure of my fingers.
At once, I tilted her chin and head back. I leaned over her, placing my cheek near her mouth, and looked along her chest.
“She’s still alive,” I gasped.
A shadowy figure crouched right next to me, close enough that the side of his robe brushed along my arm. Eojin.
“She’s alive?” Frowning, he reexamined the victim. “How could she be? Someone held her underwater until she drowned. There are fingermark bruises on her neck.”
“Well, she didn’t die,” I snapped. “The killer must have mistaken her for dead, when she had only lost consciousness.”
“What should we do?” Sulbi asked, looking overwhelmed.
“Could you find out who she is?” Eojin asked.
“Yeh.” Sulbi crouched on the other side of the woman, her trembling hands wandering along the white apron. Hand slipping into a pocket, she then drew out a wooden identification tag. “She is indeed a palace nurse. Her name is Nurse Kyunghee.”
I had never heard of a Nurse Kyunghee. She likely worked on the days alternate to mine. And if we didn’t act soon, we would lose her. But how did one deal with a near-drowning incident?
A rush of anxiety nearly blanked my mind, but I held tight onto the threads of my attention and focused. I flipped through the pages of all that I’d learned, all the pages I’d memorized in my studies. “We need to fully revive her breathing. At once,” I finally said.
Sulbi nodded eagerly. “I can assist with that, uinyeo-nim.” With skilled movement, she pinched the nurse’s nose, then sealed her mouth over hers, blowing into her lungs.
I kept my fingers on Nurse Kyunghee’s pulse, listening closely, and after a long and excruciating few minutes, her body heaved, and a gasp exploded from her mouth. Violent coughs ensued, pink froth foaming at her lips. Agony ripped her expression as she clutched at her chest, struggling for air, like she was still drowning. Sulbi and I remained by her side, trying to calm the wild panic in her eyes.
“What is g-going on?” Nurse Kyunghee cried. “W-w-what happened?”
“You were attacked,” Eojin said gently. “Do you have any memory of what occurred?”
For a long moment, the nurse broke into a fury of coughs, and when Eojin asked her the second time, she at last replied.
“I—I only remember waiting for Aram.” The words rattled as she struggled to breathe. Her red-rimmed eyes darted around. “We always travel to the palace together. I don’t remember anything other than that … Waiting for Aram.”
Aram. The name was so familiar … but why?
“Where is Aram, then?” I asked.
“I—I don’t know.”
“Perhaps she either ran to escape the attacker,” Eojin murmured, “or she never left her home in the first place.”
A ripple of whispers erupted among the officers, five of them in total, standing around us.
Eojin slowly rose to his feet and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, which hung at his side. “Damo Sulbi, do all you can to stabilize Nurse Kyunghee.” He glanced at the other officers. “Two of you, keep guard of the victim; nothing must happen to her. And the rest of you, continue to search for the killer. I will go to the home of Nurse Aram.”
“If you wish, nauri, I will direct you to Nurse Aram’s home,” came a hesitant voice. It was the fisherman. “She lives not too far away.”
“Does she live alone?” Eojin asked.
“Yeh, most of the time. Her father is a fellow fisherman who is almost always out at sea.”
Eojin turned his gaze to me, as though attempting to ask, Do you know her?
I rose to my feet and, dragging up my mud-damp skirt, trudged over to Eojin. Under my breath, face slightly turned to the side so that the officers couldn’t read my lips, I said, “I don’t work on the same day as Nurse Aram, yet her name is familiar to me. I’m not sure why.”
“Come with me, then,” Eojin replied, his voice as quiet. “Perhaps she is still at home.”
“I know both of them, Nurse Kyunghee and Nurse Aram.” The fisherman scurried down the riverbank alongside Eojin and me. “We made an arrangement, you see. Every other day, they would meet me at my boat, and I would bring them over to the other side.”
“They live quite a distance away from the capital,” Eojin observed.
“It isn’t unusual,” I pointed out. “Many nurses are too poor to find housing in the capital.”
“This way, nauri.” The fisherman gestured away from the river, toward a small path that led inland. At the end of the path was a thatch-roofed hut with yellow clay walls, and beyond it, pine trees and the undulating hills.
“So, you saw the two nurses every other day,” Eojin continued. “You must have caught snippets of their conversations when they rode in your boat.”
The fisherman’s steps slowed, and a look of consternation clouded his brows. “The strangest thing is, nauri,” he whispered, “they never once spoke on the boat. Each time I looked at them, they seemed stiff with terror, like I was rowing them to the slaughterhouse.” He shook his head, quickening his steps again. “They weren’t always like that, though.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I remembered them to be such bright and cheerful young women. They used to sit in my boat chatting about their studies, tests, and noblemen who had taken interest in them. And then, one day, they suddenly went quiet. Like the light had been blown out of them.”
“When was this?” There was a sudden gruffness to Eojin’s voice, along with a sharpened focus to his eyes.
The fisherman pinched his brows. “When was it … Let me think … Around last year? Sometime early last year.”
“Perhaps around the new year?”
“Likely, yes.”
Eojin shook his head, as though in disbelief—as though the fisherman had said something profound. I was itching to ask his thoughts when our guide hurried forward and said, “We’re here, nauri!”
Eojin and I stood before the lone hut. Nothing looked amiss, except there were two tracks of footprints in the mud, both heading toward the hut, then away from it. Following the trail, we arrived before the hanji-screened door. Eojin rapped his fist against the door frame.
“Nurse Aram. Are you in?” His voice was firm and resounding. “I am Inspector Seo, come from the Capital Police Bureau.”
We waited.
No sounds came in response. No shuffling, not even a rustle or a murmur.
“It seems no one is home?” I said.
Eojin held the brass door handle and gave it a little tug. The door moved. “Yet her home was left unlocked,” he added.
He slid the door aside, wood rumbling as it opened onto a single room filled with shadows. The gray daylight flooded in and illuminated the back of a young woman slumped facedown over a low-legged table, arms limp by her sides.
“She’s asleep?” The fisherman joined us to peek in, then took a stumbling step back. “She—she must be asleep?”
The frigid darkness lurking within the hut leaked into me, drip by drip, until my blood felt cold and I could hardly move. “We should go in,” I whispered to Eojin.
In one smooth motion, he drew his sword from his sash belt, flicked the hilt out from the scabbard, blade gleaming as he stepped inside. I held my breath, waiting for a sudden motion, a killer leaping out at him. But everything remained still within—the woman slumped over the table, the unlit candle by her side, the baskets hanging on the wall. Everything was lifelessly still.
Eojin crouched before the woman, and I at once slipped off my wooden rain sandals and stepped inside. “Is she alive, nauri—”
I froze. Wetness soaked through my socks, pooling around my toes. My wide-eyed stare adjusted to the darkness, and it was then that I saw it. The black trail of liquid that flowed from the woman’s form and pooled right under my feet. It is just blood, I said to myself as my heart pounded. You have seen blood a thousand times before.
“She is dead,” Eojin whispered, his face half silhouette, half grayish-blue light.
I slipped off my socks, then proceeded in, barefoot and cautious. I cracked a screened window open—more gray light poured into the room, enough for me to see the turquoise blue of the dead woman’s uniform. She had been dressed for work, yet something had stopped her from leaving the house.
Eojin motioned for me to come closer. “Would you help me get a better look?”
He had placed the hilt of his sword under the corpse, attempting to lift her, as he could not touch—though he had touched me before, I suddenly remembered, when he’d helped me over the Hyeminseo wall, and when he had helped me mount his horse. I hurried over to assist, holding the woman’s shoulder as I lifted her head up by the forehead, grimacing at the cold sensation of her skin. She was dead; I didn’t need to feel her pulse to know. A cloudy film had developed over her eyes.
And someone had slit her throat open.
“Who would do such a thing?” I whispered. The same question that had haunted me at the Hyeminseo. “What kind of monster would do this?”
“I’m not sure,” Eojin replied, both of us staring at the corpse. “But of one thing I am certain: Nurse Aram knew her killer. She unlocked the door and permitted the culprit to enter. And she prepared tea for herself and her guest.”
On the table was a teapot I hadn’t noticed earlier, along with two drinking bowls. Both of them were still filled. A whitish substance lay at the bottom of one of the bowls.
“May I lay the corpse back down, nauri?” I asked.
Eojin withdrew the hilt of his sword, and nodded.
I returned the body to its original position. My hands free, I picked up my norigae chimtong and and opened it. I slipped out a silver needle, then picked up the drinking bowl containing the odd substance. I dipped the needle in and watched as a black stain crept up the silver point.
“She was poisoned,” I whispered.
His gaze remained unwavering on the corpse. “How do you know?”
“We use this method often at the Hyeminseo. When we suspect a patient was poisoned, we insert a silver pin into the patient’s mouth.” I held out the needle to him, which he took and examined closely. “Silver tarnishes when exposed to sulfur. And sulfur-based sayak is the poison most easily obtained in the capital.”
“So Nurse Aram was poisoned … likely slipped into her tea when she wasn’t looking. And once she was debilitated—” Eojin motioned at Nurse Aram’s perfectly combed hair, only slightly disheveled at the back—“the killer grabbed her by the hair right here, and raised her head to slit her throat.”
“Three palace women attacked,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. “Three attacked, two killed, along with at least three witnesses. And the anonymous handbills accusing the prince have spread throughout the capital again, I am told.”
“Yes. I believe these acts of violence are all connected somehow.”
“But how…” The answer seemed so close, just beyond the veil of shadows, and I wished I could tear it down. I wanted to know.
I slipped my hand into the nurse’s apron, pulling out her identification tag. She was indeed Nurse Aram.
“Why is her name so familiar?” I whispered.
Frustration gnawed at me. I rose to my feet, and crossing my arms, I stared blankly ahead, trying hard to remember. I had never met Nurse Aram or Nurse Kyunghee before, as we worked on alternate days; we would never have crossed paths. Someone must have mentioned her name to me, then … but who? A memory flickered, brushing along the edge of my mind.
Before I could grasp it, a whisper came from the door. “She is dead?”
Eojin and I jolted around to see Nurse Kyunghee, dripping with river water, her black hair clinging to the sides of her face like seaweed. Her skin still bluish, her eyes as wide and empty as two fresh graves. Sulbi appeared by her side, out of breath.
“I apologize, Inspector!” the damo said. “She insisted on coming. She started screaming, and the officers ordered me to bring her to you.”
Eojin walked over to Nurse Kyunghee, and I watched as a tremor shook her hands, then crawled up her entire body. Her eyes were fixed upon the corpse slumped over the table. Her friend.
“I know why she is dead.” Her voice shook, and then she covered her face with her mud-stained hands. “And I know why I must die, too.”