Isabella looked between them, her expression unreadable but her eyes sharp with understanding. "If Nick notices you searching, he will hide everything. Or move it." She paused. "Or move them."
Solace adjusted her shirt, "Then we start tonight."
Arlenna tapped her fingers lightly against her arm. "We need a plan. We cannot run through halls opening locked doors. It has to be clean, quiet."
Thiago shrugged. "We can pick locks."
Arlenna sent him a flat look. "We are not thieves."
"We are surviving," Thiago countered. "That counts."
Solace closed her eyes for a moment and let her instincts settle. Patterns aligned quietly, the way they always did when something dangerous was taking shape.
"When does Nick leave his wing?" she asked.
Isabella hesitated. "Every night he does a final walk. Checks the halls. Looks at people." Her voice lowered. "Looks at them too closely. After that, he goes to the Eastern wing. Alone."
Arlenna and Thiago exchanged a sharp glance.
Solace's pulse steadied. "That is when we go. We search his hall, his office, the rooms with locks. Anything that feels wrong."
Arlenna nodded. "We do not need everything. We just need one thing he cannot deny."
Thiago smirked faintly. "Oh, I will find more than one."
Solace shook her head. "Do not get caught."
Thiago straightened. "I will not."
Solace turned back to Isabella. "If you know anything else, anything that could help us find proof, tell me."
Isabella looked at the herbs she had been chopping, then at her hands. "There is one place," she said quietly. "I do not know what is inside. But the guards always tense when Nick goes near it. They never look directly at the door."
"Where is it?" Solace asked.
Isabella lifted her chin slightly. "The locked room near the storage hall. The one that always smells wrong."
Solace and Arlenna exchanged a look.
Thiago's grin sharpened. "Found our first stop."
Solace nodded once. "We get evidence. Real evidence."
Arlenna breathed in slowly, steadying herself. "And when we have it..."
Solace finished the thought. "We show Wonek the truth."
Night settled over the castle. Solace, Arlenna, and Thiago slipped through the hallway like they had done it a thousand times before. Not loudly.
Thiago split off first, heading toward the storage corridors. Solace and Arlenna moved in the opposite direction, toward Nick's private office. They did not need to speak. They all knew what was at stake.
The guards outside the storage hall stood with stiff backs and blank expressions, their eyes pointed straight ahead. None of them looked toward the door Isabella had warned them about. That alone told Thiago everything he needed to know.
He moved down the hall with quick, silent purpose and crouched beside a narrow door he had passed earlier. He slid a small, coin-sized stone beneath the crack. He did not know what was on the other side, only that he needed noise, and he needed it to be loud.
He expanded the stone with a sharp burst of power. It ballooned instantly and slammed into whatever lay behind the door.
The crash was enormous.
Metal clattered against stone. Something heavy toppled and smashed into the far wall with enough force to shake the floor beneath Thiago's feet. He stared at the door, eyes widening.
He had definitely overdone it.
Down the hall, both guards jolted upright.
"What was that?"
"Go, go, go."
They rushed toward the door, shouting to each other as they pulled it open and began inspecting the chaos inside.
By that point, Thiago was already halfway down the opposite corridor, moving fast and close to the shadows. The moment the guards disappeared into the wrecked room, he reached the storage door, lifted the latch he had quietly loosened earlier, and slipped inside.
The smell hit him first. Metallic and dusty. Not blood. Not rot. Something older. Something collected.
He lit a small lantern and froze.
The room was lined with shelves. Each one held personal belongings, arranged with unsettling precision. Some items were old and worn. Others were newer, still carrying the faint scent of their owners.
A beaded bracelet meant for a child.
A tiny satchel with embroidered initials.
A cracked wooden flute.
A hair ribbon folded neatly.
A small pendant shaped like a shield.
Paper charms from the Southern ports.
A hand-stitched doll with a single button eye.
Thiago understood immediately.
Nick kept these things.
He collected them.
Trophies.
Thiago's stomach twisted. He forced himself to look away from the shelves and toward the crates stacked near the back of the room. Inside were piles of stamped papers, ripped map fragments, ledger pages, and shipment routes crossing every continent. Hundreds of names written and crossed out. Hundreds of paths ended mid-journey.
Evidence of trafficking. Evidence of movement. Evidence of people who never made it home.
He grabbed the clearest map he could find. Then a clean ledger. Then a small cloth bag filled with the belongings of children. One item in particular made his throat tighten, but he pressed the feeling down and kept moving.
He extinguished the lantern and slipped back out into the hall as quietly as he had come.
Nick's office was too clean. Too organized.
Solace and Arlenna moved quickly through the room, checking drawers, shelves, and locked cabinets. Papers rustled softly as they worked. Books shifted under their hands. A globe scraped faintly across the desk as Arlenna pushed it aside.
Nothing at first.
Then Solace stopped. Something felt off. Her instincts tugged toward a set of drawers built into the wall panel. They looked ordinary, but the air around them felt heavy in a way she could not ignore. Her fingers hovered over the top drawer.
"Here," she whispered.
Arlenna steadied the door and kept watch.
Solace opened the drawer.
Inside were crisp stacks of folded documents. Clean handwriting. Neat records of shipments and travel routes. Nothing criminal. Nothing alarming. Nothing that cut deep enough.
Until Solace noticed a thin piece of paper tucked between two thicker reports.
She slid it free and unfolded it.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She said nothing. She did not blink. She simply handed the page to Arlenna.
Arlenna looked at it.
The color drained from her face.
"No," she whispered.
They both stood still. Solace's hand trembled, not with fear but with a cold, steady fury that tightened every inch of her. Arlenna closed her eyes, bracing herself against the desk to keep her composure.
This paper was enough.
This paper was everything.
"This is what we need," Solace said quietly.
Arlenna nodded. "It is enough. More than enough."
Together they collected the rest of the evidence, then left the office with silent, unbreakable purpose.
They found Thiago in a dim stairwell. He carried a thick bundle of stolen documents under his arm, his eyes sharp and burning with anger.
"I found maps, routes, names. Enough to bury him," he said. "One of the items belonged to a kid. A really young kid. Solace, Arlenna, it is bad."
Solace lifted the thin sheet of paper.
Thiago stopped mid-breath. "What is that?"
She passed it to him.
Thiago read the page.
Air punched out of him as if someone had struck him. He stared at the paper with a look of betrayal and disbelief.
"This cannot be true," he whispered.
"It is," Solace said.
Thiago pressed the page to his forehead, eyes squeezed shut as fury shook through him.
Arlenna steadied him with a hand on his arm. "We need to go to Wonek. Now."
Solace nodded. "This is enough evidence to make him listen, whether he wants to or not."
They found King Wonek alone in one of the side halls, adjusting the wraps on his forearms after training. His posture eased immediately when he saw Solace and Arlenna approach.
"Solace," Wonek said with a warm grin. "Arlenna. Nick said you all were settling in well."
He liked them. Truly liked them. Or rather, he liked what Nick told him to like.
Solace stepped forward with the same steady determination she only used when something mattered too much.
"I need to tell you something," she said.
Wonek's smile softened. "All right. What is it?"
Solace looked him directly in the face. "I think Nick is hurting people."
The smile did not fade. It collapsed.
Wonek let out a short breath that tried to be a laugh, the kind someone uses to push fear away. "Nick? Never. He would die for us."
Solace shook her head. "He wouldn't die for you. He is using you."
Wonek's posture changed instantly. His shoulders locked. His eyes sharpened in a way Solace had never seen.
"Careful," he warned.
Arlenna stepped closer to Solace, quiet and ready.
Solace opened the pouch at her hip and took out everything. The ledger. The map. The bag of children's belongings. And the thin sheet of paper.
She held them out to him one by one. Calm, controlled.
Wonek looked at the items mechanically at first, confusion rising into something darker. The flipped map. The crossed-out names. The doll missing an eye. The ledger lines marked with trafficking routes. The smears of dried blood.
Then Solace offered him the final paper. The one they had not spoken about.
Wonek took it.
He looked at it.
His breath hitched so violently it sounded like it hurt.
He read it again.
And again.
"No," he whispered. "No. This... no."
His face twisted, not with disbelief, but with the kind of denial that tries to rewrite reality. His hands trembled so hard the paper shook.
Arlenna said quietly, "It is real."
Wonek's eyes snapped up. Wild. Unsteady.
"You expect me to believe this?" he rasped. "You expect me to believe Nick... Nick would do this? This is insane."
Solace held his gaze. "It is the truth. He was responsible for Winner and Dinner Hearthwell disappearing."
Something broke in Wonek's expression. His mouth opened, then closed again. His breath came sharp and shallow, too fast, like he could not pull enough air in to stay standing.
He stepped back. "No. You are lying."
"We are not," Solace said.
"You are," Wonek insisted. His voice rose, cracking with panic. "You have to be. You have to be. Nick would never touch those children. He would never..."
Solace spoke softly. "You are afraid to look at what he really is."
Wonek froze.
Then he snapped.
Wonek struck without thinking, his forearm whipping into Solace's chest with a violent, panicked strength. It was a reflex from a man built like a wall.
Solace did not stumble. She flew.
Air blasted out of her lungs in one brutal rush as her feet left the ground. Her back shot toward the floor, but she never hit it.
Arlenna caught her mid-fall, arms locking around Solace's shoulders and ribs with sharp, practiced instinct.
"Solace." Arlenna dropped to her knees with her, pulling her upright. "Breathe. Breathe. Look at me."
Solace tried. Nothing came. Her chest seized, panic flashing in her eyes as her body fought for air.
"Slow," Arlenna whispered, her hands firm and steady. "Slow, Solace. You are okay. In... try to take it in..."
Solace's breath finally dragged in, sharp and painful.
Arlenna did not look away from her, not until Solace's breathing steadied into trembling but functional gasps.
Then Arlenna lifted her head.
And the look she gave Wonek could have cut stone.
Pure, lethal fury.
Wonek stared at his own hand in horror, then at Solace.
"I..." he whispered. "I did not mean..."
"You overstep," he said, voice shaking. "You have no idea who you are accusing. You think a few papers give you the right to decide what he is?"
Solace straightened, breath steady despite the blow. "Wonek," she said quietly, "the evidence is right there in your hand."
He looked down at the paper again.
Tears filled his eyes before he forced them back. His jaw clenched so tight it trembled.
"This means nothing," he said, though his voice kept breaking. "Nick will explain this. He will. You do not understand. He has to. I will talk to him."
Wonek swallowed hard, shaking his head so fast his vision blurred. His hands trembled at his sides, but he still stepped backward, away from them, away from what he had done, clinging desperately to his crumbling belief.
"I will talk to him," he repeated. "I have to talk to him."
He turned sharply, refusing to look at them.
Arlenna whispered, "He is going straight to Nick."
Solace watched him walk off, her voice steady.
"I know."
Wonek was not heading toward the evidence. He was heading toward the man who made him believe it could never exist.