Xion couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw those color-shifting irises—blue to amber to violet. The royal trait. The possibility of *everything*.

  For years now, he'd made his peace with limitations. His clinic helped people, yes. The small group's charity work saved a few families from starvation. But it was like bailing water from a sinking ship with a thimble—you could work yourself to exhaustion and the ship would sink anyway. He'd learned to find meaning in the small victories, to accept that one person couldn't change a system built on grinding the poor into dust.

  But if what he'd seen was real...

  No. He couldn't let himself think like that. Not yet. Not until he *knew*.

  The morning after their meeting, he sat in his rented room mapping out their search with hands that trembled slightly from exhaustion and coffee. Before him lay a diagram of Kaha'an's districts, a list of contacts throughout the city, and a growing inventory of places to investigate. He approached it the same way he approached difficult diagnoses—eliminate possibilities until only the truth remained.

  Either she was real, or he was losing his mind. Either way, he had to know.

  ---

  Xion's first stop was Master Keelen's apothecary, where the elderly healer listened to his carefully crafted questions with professional interest. "Color-changing eyes? Haven't seen anything like that, young master. Though there was a woman last month claimed she could change her eye color at will. Turned out to be drops made from boiled berries—stained her tears purple for a week."

  Each inquiry yielded similar results. The pretenders were easy to identify—crude tricks, obvious props, performances rather than genuine emotion. None matched what he'd witnessed.

  By evening, when they reconvened at The Amber Leaf, Xion was practically vibrating with nervous energy. Each eliminated pretender meant he *hadn't* been fooled by street theater. Meant what he'd seen might actually be real.

  "Nothing on my end," Silvanno reported. "Though I did track down four of the recent 'Princess Elaras.' One's currently working as an actress in the theater district. Two are in debtor's prison. The last one got caught when her 'color-changing' lenses fell out during a performance."

  Kael nodded. "Same here. The Merchant Quarter turned up three more pretenders. All easily debunked."

  Farleen arrived late, slipping into the booth with an apologetic smile. "Sorry. My father had unexpected guests again."

  Silvanno raised an eyebrow. "Again?"

  "We're all being watched more closely these days, Sil," Xion said, though he noticed Farleen's grateful glance. "It's to be expected."

  "I found nothing either," Farleen added quickly. "Every lead turned up empty or obvious frauds."

  "Good," Xion said, and heard the edge in his own voice. "That means we can expand the search tomorrow."

  Silvanno and Kael exchanged a glance, but said nothing.

  ---

  The next three days blurred together in a haze of increasingly desperate investigation.

  Silvanno used his Water cartel connections to discretely question Noble District household staff. Kael worked the Merchant Quarter with methodical thoroughness. Xion questioned fellow healers and merchants, his questions growing more pointed, more urgent. They ventured into rougher territory—back-room clinics, merchants dealing in less reputable goods, careful inquiries at the safer edges of the Warrens.

  Still nothing. But that was *good*. That meant she wasn't a pretender, wasn't a fraud.

  By the fourth day, Xion knew he looked terrible. He'd caught his reflection that morning and barely recognized himself—dark circles under his eyes, clothes wrinkled, hair uncombed. His friends had stopped meeting his gaze directly, their concern written in sidelong glances and careful words.

  But he couldn't stop. Not when he was so close to *knowing*.

  He worked alone that day, following a lead to the docks district. A grain warehouse worker named Jorik had supposedly "seen things others don't." It was thin, but Xion was running out of options.

  He found Jorik supervising a crew unloading barley, weathered hands moving grain through his fingers with practiced efficiency. When Xion mentioned Master Fen's name, the older man's eyes sharpened with interest.

  "Heard about you," Jorik said. "Good things, mostly. What you want with an old warehouse rat like me?"

  Xion described the woman again—brown cloak, careful movements, that moment in the crowd. Jorik listened without comment, but something shifted in his expression.

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  "Might know who you mean," he said finally, voice dropping lower. "Strange one, that. Seen her around the docks a few times over the past months. Never buying nothing, never selling nothing. Just... watching."

  Xion's pulse quickened. "Where did you see her?"

  "Here and there. Market district sometimes. Down by the old fishing quarter once or twice." Jorik paused, studying Xion's face. "But Master Fen? That one ain't from around here. Walks wrong for the docks, talks wrong for the markets. Too clean for the Warrens, too careful for the nobles."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Mean she don't belong nowhere I can think of. And people who don't belong nowhere usually got good reason for it." Jorik's voice carried a warning. "Might be you should ask yourself why you really want to find her. And what she might do if you succeed."

  The conversation ended there, but the words echoed in Xion's mind as he walked back through the city. *Don't belong nowhere.*

  Where did you hide someone who belonged nowhere? Where did you keep a secret that couldn't be kept anywhere else?

  The answer hit him like cold water. He stopped walking, right there in the middle of the street, as the pieces fell into place with awful clarity.

  The Arol Batae compound.

  It was the only place left. The only place that made sense. Former imperial guard, men who'd sworn to protect the royal family with their lives. If anyone had survived that night, if Princess Elara had been saved, they would have hidden her. Raised her. Waited.

  His hands started shaking again, but this time not from exhaustion. From the terrifying possibility that he might actually be *right*.

  ---

  That evening, his friends gathered at The Amber Leaf with expressions of undisguised worry.

  "We need to talk," Kael said without preamble. "About what you're doing to yourself."

  Xion opened his mouth to respond, but Silvanno cut him off. "You've barely slept in four days. You look like death. And we've checked everywhere, Xion. Every lead, every possibility. There's nothing to find."

  "Maybe Kael's right," Silvanno added, his usual levity absent. "This search—it's not healthy. You need to let this go."

  Farleen reached across the table, her hand finding his. "We're worried about you. You were under extreme stress when Tam was taken. The mind can do strange things. Maybe you need to accept that he's gone, and that this princess thing is just... how you're dealing with it."

  Her touch made his heart skip, and for a moment he almost listened. Almost let himself believe they were right. But then he thought of Tam, of the woman's eyes shifting color, of Jorik's words.

  "There's one place left," he said quietly.

  Silvanno's face went pale. "Xion, no. Please tell me you're not thinking—"

  "The Arol Batae compound." Xion met each of their gazes in turn. "We've eliminated everywhere else. If she doesn't belong in the docks, the markets, the noble quarter, the Warrens—where else would someone hide? The former imperial guard, the men who swore to protect the royal family with their lives. If Princess Elara survived The Rending, if she's been protected all these years, that's the only place that makes sense."

  "That's insane!" Silvanno leaned forward urgently. "Even if you're right—which you're not—that place is impenetrable. And infiltrating it would be treason."

  "You're talking about breaching the most secure compound in the city based on what's probably grief-induced hallucination," Kael added flatly.

  Farleen pulled her hand back, and Xion saw something flash across her face—something sharp and desperate. "Those men chose isolation for a reason, Xion. They're mourning their failure, not hiding some secret princess! They blame themselves for not being there during The Rending. Why would you think they have anything to hide except their shame?"

  Her voice carried an urgency that penetrated even through his obsessive certainty. She was genuinely frightened for him. They all were. He could see it in their faces—the worry, the doubt, the fear that their friend had cracked under the weight of watching too many people suffer.

  But that didn't change the logic. That didn't change what he'd seen.

  "Because we've eliminated every other possibility," Xion said, and his voice came out steadier than he felt. "You rule out everything until only the truth remains. And if I'm wrong—if this is grief or delusion or whatever you think it is—then going to the Arol Batae will prove that. I'll see that she's not there, and I'll know I was wrong. But I *have* to know."

  He looked around the table at his friends. "Don't you understand? I've spent years helping people one at a time, knowing it doesn't change anything. Knowing that tomorrow another Tam will get dragged away, another family will starve, another person will die from a wound I could have treated if they could afford to come to me. I've made my peace with that. But if there's even a *chance*—even the smallest possibility—that things could actually change..."

  His voice cracked. "I have to know. Either she's real and everything can change, or I'm going crazy and I just need to know that too."

  Silence settled over the table. His friends looked at each other, then back at him. Xion could see them wrestling with it—loyalty versus sanity, friendship versus enabling what might be a complete break from reality.

  "I'm going to find out if she's there," he said quietly. "With or without you."

  Kael looked down at his hands, jaw working. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat but his expression pained. "Then you're doing it alone. I won't be part of something this reckless."

  Silvanno met Xion's eyes, and the guilt there was obvious. "Neither will I," he added, softer than Kael. "I'm sorry, Xion. But this has gone too far."

  Xion looked at Farleen, expecting the same rejection. Instead, her amber eyes held something he couldn't quite read.

  "If you're determined to do this," she said quietly, "someone should watch your back."

  Relief washed through him, followed by something warmer. After everything—her desperate attempts to stop him, her obvious fear—she was still willing to stand by him. Still willing to help even when the others wouldn't. Maybe that meant...

  He pushed the thought aside, not wanting to get ahead of himself. But the possibility sat there in his chest, making it easier to breathe. Making the terrifying prospect of what came next feel slightly less impossible.

  "Thank you," he said, and meant it more than she could know.

  As they left The Amber Leaf, Xion felt the weight of commitment settling on his shoulders. The systematic search had led exactly where logic dictated. Either he was about to discover the rightful heir to Kaha'an's throne, or he was about to prove himself completely insane.

  Either way, he'd finally *know*. And after years of treading water, of small mercies and futile kindnesses, that terrible certainty felt almost like hope.

  The grain merchant's son had eliminated every other possibility.

  Soon, he would learn if the impossible was, in fact, the truth.