Over the past several days, Sakura continued to listen at Leicho's chamber. If she discovered any pressing fact or interesting tidbit of information, she would wait until all talk had ceased and immediately report the news back to Aleric. Slowly, they began to piece together some of what was happening in the Royal Chambers.

“This news about the King being off on some quest in the Upper Kingdom is disturbing,” Aleric was saying almost to himself after listening to the latest news Sakura had brought down their secret corridor.

“He's probably just leading some expedition, or something, right? I mean, he's the king. He must lead the soldiers now and then, right?” Sakura asked.

“Well, it's not unheard of. But also not very common. I'm just not sure.” Aleric paused to allow his thoughts to settle. Sakura patiently waited. She had become used to the wizened master alchemist's way of calmly sifting through information.

At last Aleric broke the silence in the cramped cell. “I am beginning to wonder if the King might know about Leicho's quest for the Stone. In fact, it may be that he is the one behind it. But if he is...then Leicho, or someone, has broken one of the primary rules of alchemy by revealing the theory of the Philosopher's Stone to the King.”

“Um...but...” Sakura began, unsure if she should say anything.

“Yes, my dear?” Aleric said, patiently.

“But...didn't you tell me about the Stone. Aren't you breaking the same rule?”

Aleric looked at Sakura for a moment in silence, his blank face revealing nothing. Suddenly a smile and a chuckle cracked his serious look.

“Yes, indeed I did. But do not worry. The rule is designed to keep monarchs from knowing about the theory of the Stone. You are not a monarch, nor do I ever expect you to become one. And to add to all of this...” Aleric paused, as if thinking of how to form the next phrase. “I trust you. You are my apprentice's best friend, after all.” He finished speaking with a wink and another smile. Sakura couldn't help but to smile back.

“Still, even if the King is involved, that does not change our task. We need to continue listening, and hopefully they will say something about the location of the Stone.”

Sakura nodded in response and prepared to crawl back into the tunnel to continue her work.

Suddenly, a thought struck her.

“Wait! Sofphis, the guy Master Gin was talking to...he said something about digging! If the King is involved in all this...do you think the new shaft...it might be...”

“Yes!” Aleric almost yelled. “How foolish of me not to have thought of it myself! That would definitely explain the new shaft. And from what you've told me of your work there, they seem to be much more worried about speed than quality.”

“So what do we do? I mean, I'm already helping dig the new shaft. Should I just keep my eyes open, and hope I'm the one to find the Stone?”

“No. I don't think we need to worry about one of the workers finding the Stone. I'm sure as soon as Leicho suspects you're getting close, all the miners will be removed and only trusted Royal Engineers will be allowed down the shaft. No, I think the best thing to do now is for you to keep listening...and I will do my own bit of reconnaissance.”

“What...kind of reconnaissance?” Sakura asked, curious about what the alchemist had in mind.

“Well, let's just say that I've done quite a bit of research on the Stone, myself. I know the things to look for. And, as an alchemist, I'm not limited to what I can see with my eyes.”

Accepting the fact that she probably wouldn't understand it even if she pressed Aleric for more, Sakura turned and began crawling her way up to her listening post.

As Sakura left his cell, Aleric settled himself into a corner. After taking several deep breaths, he allowed his mind and body to relax. Slowly, he allowed his senses to dull away, and he pushed his mind into an ever deeper alchemical trance. He saw nothing and everything. The atomic world poured through his mind, but he allowed non of it to distract his trance. Slowly, he moved his consciousness from the intense magnification normally associated with alchemy, and he zoomed out with his mind. He saw the cell in which he sat clearly—or at least he saw all the particles, molecules, and atoms which made up the cell. Farther he traveled with his mind. Through Sakura's shaft he traveled, until he reached the opening into the new shaft. Past the miners...into the stone...sand and dirt filled Aleric's mind. Scanning and probing. He did not know exactly what the Stone would feel like in his mind, but he was counting on the fact that it would be extraordinary and that he would not miss it.

A crevice. A small break in the rock. Through the narrow vein he traveled. A small opening. There was a strange presence here. Or at least there was—it was gone now.

Back to the head of the shaft. Down again into the rock. He sensed the picks and hammers pounding on the surface. Deeper he delved. Aleric sensed he was reaching the limit of his abilities. The atomic world was becoming muddied by the distance. But just as his concentration was about to be strained too far, he sensed...what was it..was it...

“Water,” Aleric said to himself as he lay down, exhausted.

Sakura was feeling much better. Instead of reporting to the new shaft when her next shift began, she had called in sick. The foreman wasn't very happy with the fact that she would be missing two bells' worth of work, but no one could argue with the fact that Sakura was looking terrible—and had been looking worse and worse over the past few days. And, the truth of the matter was that she did feel terrible. She hadn't slept much in days, and her difficult schedule had finally worn her out. So, she didn't feel too guilty taking the time off from work to sleep.

Feeling rested, and having taken a desperately needed shower, Sakura headed back down the corridors of the Lower Kingdom to the new shaft to steal her way once more into Master Aleric's cell. When she reached the cramped, little chamber, she found Aleric sleeping soundly, himself. She thought about waking him, but decided against it, as she did not really have any news or information to offer. So, once again, she crept up through their roughly-dug tunnel to see if Master Leicho was also taking a nap. To be truthful, Sakura was growing tired of her reconnaissance duties. It wasn't really in her personality to just wait, hoping to hear something important. She wanted action—to feel like she was really doing something. The problem was, there didn't seem to be all that much she could do. Apparently even Master Gin had no idea where Toku had gone, and the old lead Sakura had was this ever-more-confusing business with the Philosopher's Stone, Aleric's arrest, and the King off on some Upper Kingdom quest.

As she reached her listening station, Sakura was happy to discover that Leicho was not taking a nap. In fact, she was discussing something with an unknown voice. Sakura silently tuned in her listening device so that she could hear the conversation clearly.

“...her in one of the solitary cells,” a dark-sounding man's voice was saying.

“Very good, Diffiden,” Leicho Gin responded. “We will keep the girl there until the King tells us what should be done with her.”

“Keep a good eye on her. Aliezar very curious about her. I'm sure there are many experiments he would love to perform.”

“Indeed...if I did not have more pressing matters to attend to, I would certainly like to discover the nature of that light. You say she was a companion of Aleric's apprentice?”

“They were traveling together, Master Leicho.”

Sakura almost dropped her device—Aleric's apprentice, she thought, They must mean Toku!

“Excuse me, Master Leicho,” another voice entered into the conversation.

“Yes, Motomi?”

“We were wondering about the plans in the shaft. We are quickly approaching the coordinates you provided, and we would like to know when the miners should be dismissed.”

“That is excellent news. Diffiden, you will notify the King at once of our progress. I'm sure he will want to inspect the shaft himself before we proceed any further.”

“Very good, Master Leicho.”

Sakura waited several more minutes, hoping even more would be revealed, but nothing more of consequence came from the conversation. Still, several important facts had finally been made clear. First of all, they were close to finishing the work on the shaft. Secondly, the King was somehow involved in all of this. Thirdly, there seemed to be a girl who had been in contact with Toku now close by in another cell!

“I'm finding that girl!” Sakura told herself, and she silently slipped back down the passage to tell Aleric the news.

Aleric was awake by the time Sakura returned to his cell. Quickly she briefed the tired-looking alchemist on the most recent news. Aleric agreed almost immediately that they should try to locate the girl, and a plan was soon hatched that they should start by searching the adjoining cells.

Aleric made quick work of the walls with his alchemy, moving away just enough of the hard stone to peak into the neighboring cells. Disappointingly, they were both empty.

“Okay,” Aleric said, “we're going to have to search down the corridor. I think we should be alright. I haven't heard any guards outside for quite a while.”

The alchemist walked up to his cell door, and once again entered into an alchemical trance. Sakura waited for the door to melt away like the walls. But, after only a few moments, Aleric opened his eyes and turned to Sakura.

“Well, are you ready?” he asked.

“What did you do? The door's still there,” Sakura answered, puzzled.

“Sure. It's much easier to simply move the lock than to transmute the entire door,” Aleric said, a twinkle in his eye. And with that, Aleric gave the door a gentle push, and it swung open without a sound. Sakura smiled in response and slipped out of the cell and into the corridor, Aleric following closely behind.

“You check the left, and I'll check the right,” Aleric whispered in Sakura's ear.

Aleric's was the only cell without a window. All the other doors that lined the corridor had thin openings with a sliding handle so that the guards could see inside. Quickly the duo began examining the cells, hoping they could locate the girl quickly for fear that the guards might return at any moment. The first few cells that Sakura checked were empty. When she looked through the narrow opening of the fourth cell, she saw a figure huddled in one of the far corners, but it seemed to be a man.

What if I do find a cell with a girl in it? Sakura thought to herself, as she opened the window to another empty cell. How am I supposed to know if I have the right girl?

Though she could not have known, Sakura had no need to worry about recognizing Theodora when she found her (for, of course, the mystery girl was none other than Theodora). And Sakura discovered this very fact as she opened the window into the second-to-last cell on the corridor. Inside the room sat a small girl. The remarkable thing about the girl, though, was the faint glow that seemed to come from within her. To you or I, the light shining from Theodora's body would have been barely perceptible. But in that dark dungeon, and to Sakura's very sensitive eyes, the girl in the cell was glowing like a bright, full moon.

“Um...hello?” Sakura spoke through the narrow window.

“Hello,” the girl answered, for the world as if she was at a dinner party and not stuck in a dank, dark solitary confinement cell.

“Do..do you know a boy named Toku?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Aleric!” Sakura half whispered, half yelled down the corridor to where Aleric was still checking cells. As he looked up at her, she gestured wildly with her hands, pointing at the cell in front of her and waving for him to come quickly.

“Please, come with us!” Sakura said as soon as Aleric had opened the door. "We're friends of Toku.”

“I guessed that might be the case,” Theodora answered. “I have a lot to tell you.”

“There will be time for that later. Come on!” Sakura pulled at Theodora's arm, worried that the guards could come at any moment. Quickly they fled back down the hall to Aleric's cell. The doors were put back in place, and silence ruled the corridor once again.

“Now,” Aleric began as the trio sat in a close circle, “what can you tell us about my young apprentice—and about the fact that you seem to be glowing?”

Sakura didn't know what to think. On the one had, she was happy to hear that Toku was alive and safe...at least for the present. On the other hand, this strange glowing girl (who was acting much too familiar with her best friend) was trying to tell her that there was no war with the Upper Kingdom. Of course there was a war! The war was a fact of life. Why else would they be living in the darkness under the earth, eating mushrooms and dried meat for every single meal? And they would not even have the dried meat if they didn't mine gold for the surface dwellers. It was simply too much to believe. And it did not look like Master Aleric was buying the girl's story, either. His face, which was normally very difficult to read, looked noticeably skeptical to Sakura's eyes.

“Hmmm...” Aleric began, after Theodora had finished. “It is clear that someone is being deceived.”

“What do you mean?” Sakura asked, shocked that she would even give the idea a passing thought. “Are you saying that you believe her story—that there is no war?!”

“No, I did not say that,” the alchemist answered. “But logically, either we are being deceived in to thinking that we are at war, or the citizens of the Upper Kingdom are being deceived into thinking that we are not.”

“Yes, that must be it! Everyone up there just thinks they're not at war. What do you say that that..er...Theo...Theo...”

“Theodora,” the glowing girl finished. “Toku said the same thing, actually. But I don't see what advantage one would gain by denying that a war existed. It seems like a good way to lose a way, if you ask me.”

“Who was asking you?” Sakura said under her breath, annoyed much as Toku had been by this outsider claiming to know about something so central to the way of every Lower Kingdomer's life.

“Whatever the case may be,” Aleric said into the awkward silence that had arisen, “I don't see as this changes our primary task. We still need to find the Philosopher's Stone.”

“What are you talking about?!” Sakura suddenly erupted. “I don't care about that stupid rock. Who cares if the King gets the Stone? Good! Maybe he'll be able to use it to put a true end to the war!” Sakura glared at Theodora. “Look, all I care about, and all I've ever cared about is finding Toku. The only reason I was looking for the Stone is because you said it might have something to do with Toku's disappearance. Well, this girl seems to think Toku is up on the surface. So if the King gets the Stone...that's just fine. It will make it all the easier for Toku to come back home. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to find a way to bring Toku home!”

Sakura's face was flushed with anger. Something had broken inside of her. She felt caught in the middle of a political game that she did not understand and did not care about.

“Come on, Theodora! I need you to show me how you got down here!” Sakura said, as she grabbed Theodora by the arm and began pulling her towards her tunnel. As soon as Theodora reached the edge of the wall, however, her faint glowing suddenly erupted into a fiery blaze. Sakura screamed as she felt the tunnel begin to close in on itself, and it was only because Theodora jerked her back away from the hole that Sakura was saved from being sealed into the wall.

“Wha...what just happened?” Sakura asked, breathless.

“I'm guessing that hole was made with alchemy,” Theodora said, almost nonchalantly. “You see, I have this thing with alchemy...where I kind of...undo it.”

“Remarkable,” Aleric said from across the room.

Sakura said nothing. She was still too busy collecting her thoughts after such a close brush with death.

Aleric spent a good deal of time studying Theodora's strange talent. He had never seen anything like it before, and even more amazingly, he had never read about anything like it. Theodora was very patient with the poking and prodding. She would dutifully touch an alchemically altered substance, and watch with less and less amazement as it popped and sparked back into its original form. The more Aleric saw of it, however, the more worried he became. He could not explain it—and to a man accustomed to knowing almost everything, this was a very unsettling experience.

Finally, Sakura became impatient. The anger that had consumed her before had ebbed away, largely due to almost being killed. But, her mind was still made up. She was no longer worried about the Philosopher's Stone. That was Master Aleric's battle. She only wanted to help find Toku, and to her mind, Theodora was now the one who could help her the most with that task.

“Master Aleric, I'm sorry for blowing up at you before,” she began.

“That's quite all right. To be truthful, I understand your feelings. I am worried about my apprentice as well. Only understand that I am bound by higher powers to try to protect the Philosopher's Stone from those who might use it for harm. And, I have my own reasons for distrusting the King with a thing of such immense power. The King and I have a history that began long before you were born.”

Sakura wondered if she should ask what the wizened alchemist meant, but her desire for action outweighed her curiosity.

“Don't worry. You can still trust me,” Sakura replied. “Only, I need to take Theodora with me. I want her to lead me to the Upper Kingdom, and after all...the guards will find her missing soon. It would be best if we got away while they still don't know she's gone.”

Sakura then turned to Theodora, and with a smile asked, “Do you think you can take me back to the Upper Kingdom? I'm just worried about Toku. I know you're friends with him, too. Together we can help him.”

Theodora, who had endured being spoken about with remarkable passivity took Sakura's hands in hers. “I don't know if I can show you the way back or not. But I will try. I feel this may be my job, after all—to lead you from the darkness into the light.”

Sakura tried not to make a face at Theodora's reply. She's kinda weird, she thought to herself. Still, she's willing to help, and that's what matters the most.

“One thing, though...” Theodora said, breaking into Sakura's thoughts. “If I can't go through your tunnel, how am I supposed to get out?”

“Oh, don't worry about that!” Sakura said. “It's only alchemy that gives you problems, right?” Theodora nodded. “Well, most of this tunnel was dug with sweat and engineering. I'll just dig through this wall the old fashioned way. Master Aleric only helped me with the last few feet. Oh...but wait...I did use several alchemical mud-bores when I started. Those might be a problem.”

“No, I don't think so,” Aleric said. “Mud-bores use a very different process than true alchemy. Alchemy is used to make them, but the process they use to dissolve the rock is quite natural.”

“All the same...you should probably let me go first, to test things out,” Theodora added in a concerned voice.

“Agreed!” said Sakura.