Yami saw them first.
He was standing near the front of the small vegetable shop, helping his father close up for the evening.
The baskets had already been pulled back from the street. The leftover greens were piled into one corner while the better vegetables were carefully packed away.
The wooden shutters hung half-lowered over the stall.
Outside, the market had started to thin out. Voices still drifted past the shop, but the lively energy of trade had faded.
They sounded tired now, quieter and more distant, like the city itself was slowly letting its guard down for the night.
Yami was holding a folded cloth in both hands when he looked toward the entrance and froze.
Ozair and Elina walked in.
At first, Yami almost smiled. Then he saw Ozair properly.
Dust clung to his clothes. Dried blood stained the edge of his hairline, and one side of his mouth was slightly swollen.
Elina stayed close beside him, quieter than usual, her eyes still sharp and alert, as if she expected someone to follow them through the door.
Yami's fingers tightened around the cloth. "Father," he said quietly.
Haqi looked over his shoulder.
His smile faded.
—
Inside the small back room, Toviro, Aryan, and Mina had been waiting in silence.
The room was narrow and warm, with shelves along one wall and a low table pushed to the side. It felt even smaller after a day of worry.
Toviro was on his feet, looking at both of them. "You found Mayo?"
"We couldn't find Mayo but we found someone who saw him," Ozair said, dropping onto a crate. "Which isn't the same thing but it's something."
Aryan said, "What did he tell you?"
Ozair looked at the floor for a moment, organizing his thoughts. "The man said he saw Mayo last night being arrested. He was draped across one of the horses, hands and feet in chains, soldiers riding him into the city."
The room went quiet.
Mina repeated it without meaning to, barely above a whisper. "Chained."
Elina moved to her immediately. She gently placed a hand on Mina's shoulder and guided her toward the low seat near the wall.
"Come sit, auntie."
Mina followed without seeming fully aware of it. Her eyes stayed lowered, but Elina could tell she was not really looking at the floor.
She was seeing Mayo instead. Seeing chains. Seeing him somewhere far away from them.
Elina sat down beside her. "It's a misunderstanding. That's all it is. We're going to get him out."
The weight in the room was heavy and nobody tried to lift it too fast, because it needed a moment to be what it was.
Toviro looked back at Ozair.
"Where did they take Mayo?" he asked. "Did you ask that man?"
Ozair nodded. "Yeah, I did. He said anyone who gets arrested spends the first night at the district Guard Station. After that, if the crime is serious enough, they transfer them to the Garrison."
The word Garrison settled heavily into the room.
Just then, Haqi came in from the shopfront, wiping his hands on a cloth. The shutters were closed behind him now, and the market noise dulled through the wood.
"Hey, guys," he said with a tired smile. "You're back."
But the smile faded when he saw their faces. Everyone was too quiet.
Haqi stepped farther inside.
"Did you find your lost friend?"
Ozair shook his head. "We couldn't find him, but we found someone who saw him. Guards arrested him and brought him to the district Guard Station."
Haqi's eyebrows came together. "Arrested? What did he do?"
"Nothing. It's just a misunderstanding."
Haqi glanced at Ozair's bloodied face, then looked around at everyone else and decided he would ask about it later. He gave a slow nod.
Toviro said to Ozair, "Before we talk about next steps—why are you injured? What happened out there?"
Haqi immediately stepped closer.
Only then did he notice the cut near Ozair's head, the dirt smeared across his sleeve, and the bruising around his mouth. His brows rose in alarm.
"What happened to you?"
Ozair scratched the back of his head, then winced when his fingers brushed too close to the wound.
"Well," he said, "we saw someone who looked exactly like Mayo. Same height, same hair, everything. So we followed him."
Elina lowered her gaze for a moment, remembering the sudden rush of hope that had pulled them into the alley.
"But it turned out not to be him," Ozair continued. "Just some older man with the same hair. And right after that, some academy boys ran into us. They thought they were some kind of baddies."
Toviro's stare sharpened.
Ozair's voice lowered.
"They had bad intentions toward Elina, so I beat them."
Ozair looked at the cut above his ear like he had forgotten it was there. "We followed someone who looked like Mayo; it turned out it wasn't him. When we figured that out there were these four boys already in front of us, students from some academy. They had some things to say to Elina, so I said some things back, and then they started it."
Aryan immediately moved to Elina. "Are you alright?" he asked. "Did you get hurt?"
Elina looked up at him and gave a small smile. "No, Aryan. I am alright. They didn't touch me."
Aryan looked at Ozair for a moment. "You did the right thing."
Ozair blinked. Coming from Aryan, that landed differently than it would have from anyone else.
Toviro didn't share the sentiment in tone. "Why is that so easy for you to say?"
Ozair blinked. "What?"
"You beat them," Toviro said. "You say it like you bought bread."
Ozair frowned. "They deserved it."
Aryan nodded.
"I am sure he did the right thing. If they tried something against Elina, then yes, they deserved it."
Toviro closed his eyes for half a second. "Did anyone see you fighting?"
Ozair became quiet. That was answer enough.
Toviro's face fell.
"Ozair."
Ozair let out a weak laugh. It was not real laughter, just the kind people used when they knew things were bad and tried to make them feel lighter by pretending they were not.
"Well, you know," he said. "There was a guard."
Toviro slowly brought a hand to his forehead.
Ozair continued before anyone could interrupt.
"He saw us near them and came to arrest me too. But then some people ran past the alley, and the guard got distracted. I don't know if I should call it lucky, but it gave us the chance to run."
Toviro brought his hand up to the side of his head and pressed it there.
"Oh, great," he said.
Ozair let out the same small, hollow laugh. "It worked."
"For now," Toviro replied.
That was enough to kill the little bit of humor left in the room.
For now.
The words lingered heavily in the air.
Everything about Kabul felt like that. Safe for now. Hidden for now. Free for now. Every moment felt temporary, balanced on a limit they could not see.
Toviro turned to Aryan.
"Let's go."
Aryan understood what Toviro meant immediately and got to his feet without asking a single question.
Toviro looked at the others. "You guys stay here."
He and Aryan moved toward the door.
Before they could take another step, Haqi raised a hand.
"Stop."
Haqi looked at them with confusion and concern. "Where are you going?"
"To the Guard Station," Toviro said.
"Which Guard Station?" Haqi's eyes shifted slightly. "There are seventy-three Guard Stations in Kabul."
For a moment, the room forgot how to breathe.
Toviro said, "The one nearest to here. The district Guard Station."
Ozair stared at him in shock. "Seventy-three? Why is everything in this city so complicated?"
"Kabul is big."
Ozair slowly turned his head toward him.
No one laughed.
The number was too much. Seventy-three stations meant seventy-three possible doors. Seventy-three places where Mayo might have been dragged, questioned, locked, or already moved from. Seventy-three ways to lose him inside a city that didn't care about strangers.
Aryan's voice came out low. "Now what?"
Toviro was silent for a moment. Then his eyes narrowed with thought. "That's simple," he said. "We go to the Guard Station of the district we are standing in."
Haqi blinked.
Then he let out a small gasp and slapped a hand lightly against his own forehead. "Oh, yes. I forgot that."
Ozair slowly turned toward him. "You forgot that?"
Haqi gave an embarrassed smile. "My bad."
"You almost got us cooked."
Haqi quickly raised both hands.
"The seventy-third district Guard Station," he said. "That's this district. That's where you need to go. Sorry, I should've said that first."
Ozair looked at him with an expression that contained a significant amount of stored frustration looking for somewhere to go.
Aryan repeated it quietly. "Seventy third, huh."
Then he looked at Toviro.
"Let's go."
This time, the room was finally ready to let them leave.
Then hurried footsteps came from the front of the shop, and Yami rushed into the small room with a news sheet clutched tightly in both hands, his face lit with the urgency of someone carrying important news.
"Father," he called out. "One of the people who kidnapped the princess has been caught."
Everyone froze.
It felt as though a cold wind had swept through the room.
Haqi was the first to turn.
"What?"
Yami held out the paper. "They were handing these out outside," he said. "People are saying they caught one of the kidnappers."
The room went still.
Haqi frowned slightly. "I heard about that this morning, but let me see it."
He took the sheet from Yami, looked it over for a moment, then began reading aloud.
"Suspected Glimmer accomplice captured near the Western Wilds. One of the individuals involved in the abduction of Princess Amera has been apprehended and transferred to the Garrison pending royal judgment."
Ozair wasn't listening to the words.
His eyes moved to the illustration printed beneath the headline. The inkwork was rough, like it always was on these sheets, but detailed enough to recognize.
The face felt familiar.
Drawn from the front was a young man with reddish-brown hair, his eyes carrying that particular look of someone who had just been told something they didn't understand and still hadn't figured out how to feel about it.
Ozair took the sheet from Haqi's hands without asking.
"Hey," Haqi started to say, then stopped when he saw the look on Ozair's face.
Ozair stared at the illustration, his eyes suddenly going still.
"This face," he said quietly. "It looks like Mayo's."
Elina and Mina were off the crate and across the room before he finished the sentence, Aryan and Toviro came back through the door at the same moment, and all of them crowded around the sheet in Ozair's hands and looked at the face printed there in rough ink.
No one touched the sheet at first. They only stared at it.
The room seemed to shrink around the image.
And the longer they looked, the less space there was for doubt.
The reddish-brown hair.
The dark eyes.
The shape of the face.
Mina's lips slowly parted.
She stared at the picture like her mind was struggling against what her eyes already knew.
"No," she whispered.
Then, more quietly, but with complete certainty, she said, "That isn't a face that looks like Mayo."
Her gaze moved across all of them.
"That is Mayo."