Lei's contact in the city watch finally produced something useful five days after the ambush, and he delivered it with none of his usual lazy humor, sliding into Jian's study with the door barred behind him and a folded report clutched tight enough to crease.
The five days between had passed slowly, tension thick over the entire palace even though only a handful of people understood exactly why. Yuan had spent most of it split between Physician Han's careful early lessons — none of which had produced anything close to the golden light from the garden, mostly just long stretches of Yuan sitting still and feeling faintly foolish — and long, quiet hours with Jian going over what little they actually knew, turning it from every angle, waiting for Lei to bring back something solid enough to act on.
"The missing clerk," Lei said, without preamble, dropping into the room with an urgency that immediately set Yuan's nerves on edge. "Found him. What's left of him, anyway."
