Din returns uneasily from the Shroud, still shaken by what he saw there and by the revelation forming in his mind. After more Apoth decontamination and blotley testing, Ghrelin is taken away to recover from the augury while Din is released. Outside, Malo meets Din with bad news: Darhi has fled in the night, stolen a large portion of the Yarrow treasury, and now looks even more clearly like Pyktis's contact inside the court.

Din joins Ana, Malo, and Thelenai in Thelenai's office and recounts everything he learned in the Shroud, including the hidden shrine with Yarrow-style ancestor totems and silver regalia. Prompted by Ana, Din finally says the conclusion aloud: Pyktis is probably not truly Rathras at all, but Yarrow, perhaps even a child of King Lalaca. Malo and Thelenai resist the idea, but Ana argues that Pyktis's knowledge of Yarrow, his private shrine, and his treasured silver necklace all point to a man who believed himself to be a hidden prince.

Ana then extends the theory into a full explanation. She proposes that Pyktis was born to a Rathras mother in the High City, registered there under a false or altered history, but privately raised to think of himself as a Yarrow royal heir sent on a secret mission. In Ana's view, King Lalaca planted his own son inside the Empire's Apoth system to sabotage the Shroud from within, but age and forgetfulness later erased the plot from the king's own mind. That would explain why Pyktis returned to Yarrow as a man abandoned by the identity he had lived for, eventually remaking himself as the Pale King. Because Darhi likely knows more than anyone still accessible, Ana turns the investigation toward finding him, and Malo says the wardens may be able to track him by scent if they can obtain his clothing.

As Malo organizes the pursuit, Din prepares for a stealthy chase through the hills, packing lightly and exchanging his usual attire for dark, quiet gear. Ana and Thelenai stop him with a new deduction about Pyktis's methods. Thelenai explains that blotleys were originally intended for blood transfusion experiments because they alter blood and can later leak it back into another host. From that fact, Ana concludes that Pyktis used blotley larvae on Mineti Sujedo to take in Sujedo's blood, then attached them to himself long enough to absorb Sujedo's blood rights and enter the Treasury vault as if he belonged there.

This insight also explains Sujedo's strange wounds: Pyktis likely removed marked skin from the corpse to hide the blotley evidence. Thelenai says the same process must have left Pyktis covered in many stubborn, hard-to-heal blotley welts, giving Din a reliable way to identify him even through disguise. Ana orders Din to pursue Darhi first for answers about Pyktis and the stolen reagents, and if that fails, to return to the High City and seek any man bearing dozens of hidden blotley marks. She warns Din not to hesitate to kill Pyktis if necessary, because he may be too dangerous to capture alive.