She came to me on the seventh morning after the archive fire.
I had not summoned her. Baek Soha did not often come to my study of her own accord. Our relationship had always been conducted at a certain distance—respectful, careful, and defined by a mutual unspoken agreement that neither of us would presume too much on the other. She kept to her quarters and her work. I kept to mine. We operated in parallel, like two rivers running close but not yet meeting.
So when Ru Songyi appeared at my study door and informed me that Baek Soha was requesting an audience, I felt the weight of it immediately.
"Send her in," I said.
She entered quietly. That was her quality—a kind of quietness that wasn't timid, but was instead the product of a life lived in careful observation. She was dressed simply, her dark hair arranged without ornament, her hands folded before her in a posture that was composed but not rigid. Her eyes, when they met mine, were steady.
