“How did you do that?” the ghost gaped at Yi Ho. “Are you alive or not?”

  They were hovering above the roof of the hut where Great Prince Seojin and the maidservant had remained. For some reason Yi Ho wanted to make sure that the Manchus had taken the bait and chased after the hunter. As if human affairs still held any meaning for him.

  To be honest, he felt as though he had just died for the second time.

  “How dare you address me like that?” Yi Ho took offense. “I am the Crown Prince of this country!”

  “The heir has not yet been appointed,” the ghost said doubtfully. Even without remembering himself, he seemed to retain some sense of etiquette and now hesitated over what to believe.

  “I am Crown Prince Yi Ho,” he clarified. “Look at my garments.”

  Now that he was no longer constrained by another’s body, he once again wore the heavy belt and dragon embroidery in which he had been buried. Spirits wore either what they had died in or what had been offered to them after death. Fortunately, the Crown Prince had been laid to rest with full honors, and he had not been forced to spend eternity in a plain white under-robe.

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  “Then you are… you are dead, so it seems?” the ghost asked again, his manners visibly returning.

  “I was killed a hundred years ago,” the Crown Prince nodded. “Why do you ask?”

  “I saw you fly out of the body and did not understand,” the ghost clicked his tongue, the wound on his throat twitching. “I would have introduced myself properly, but I do not remember who I am.”

  “That is because you have not yet been guided onward,” Yi Ho reassured him. “When they identify your body and set up a memorial tablet, you will remember.”

  “Truly?” doubt crept into the ghost’s voice.

  “That is the order of things,” the prince nodded.

  “Is there any way to help them?” the ghost bit his pale lower lip. “I feel as though I was doing something important, but I have forgotten what it was.”

  Yi Ho sighed. He did not much enjoy conversing with other spirits. Usually they were rude and limited, fixated on their own deaths. But now he felt a certain nostalgic sadness and decided to continue the conversation.

  “If your intentions are directed toward virtue, you will not commit evil,” he quoted. “Let us think about what we know of the circumstances of your death.”