The West Wing was a prison of gold. Their suite was filled with heavy velvet curtains and furniture that looked too expensive to sit on. For the first time in his life, the boy had a bed with silk sheets, but he spent the first night huddled on the floor, unable to sleep in the suffocating luxury.
Edna sat by the window, watching the moonlight play over the palace gardens. She was holding a glass of the King's expensive brandy, her eyes narrowed.
"He knows," the boy whispered from the shadows of the bedframe.
Edna didn't turn. "Egeonu? He suspects. Suspecting is not the same as knowing. To prove you are not Graham, he has to prove who you actually are. And 'Number 42' has no records. No name. No past."
"I am scared, Mother."
Edna walked over and knelt beside him. She didn't offer a hug; she offered a warning. "Fear is a luxury we cannot afford. Tomorrow, the Red-Cap Chiefs will come to inspect you. They will ask you about the history of the river. They will ask you to recite the lineage. If you fail, we don't go back to the camp. We go to the ground. Do you understand?"
The boy nodded, his eyes wide.
Outside their door, a figure stood in the darkened hallway. Egeonu had not gone to bed. He had stayed in the shadows, listening. He hadn't heard enough to hang them, but he had heard enough to know that the woman's voice held more steel than love.
He moved away silently, heading toward the palace archives. He needed the old records—the ones from the mission hospital where the real Graham was born. He needed footprints, blood types, anything that survived the fire.
The war had destroyed much, but Egeonu knew that secrets had a way of surviving the flames.