The streets of Agrabah shimmered beneath the mid-morning sun, but Helios walked them with no sense of urgency. His dark cloak swayed behind him, boots thudding softly against worn stone roads. Though the heat hung thick in the air, his thoughts remained sharp, focused.

  He had dealt with Addin. He had ensured Jafar remembered nothing. But two loose ends remained — the men Jafar had used to tail him.

  “If I don’t wipe their memories too,” Helios muttered under his breath, “then all of this was for nothing.”

  “Then why don’t you just erase them instead?” Kurai asked, walking beside him with the weightless gait of someone who hadn’t quite adapted to having legs again. “I would have.”

  Helios didn’t answer. He was baiting the trap.

  Sure enough, two shadows peeled off from the edge of the crowd behind them. They thought themselves clever, subtle. They were anything but.

  “I was right to assume they’d follow me,” Helios said simply.

  He led them through the narrowest streets of the market, then deeper into the ruined back alleys of the old quarter. The passage grew darker, and when they reached a dead end nestled between colpsed walls and a half-rotted cart, Helios turned to Kurai.

  “Wait here.”

  Kurai tilted her head slightly, amused. “Afraid I’ll kill them before you get the chance?”

  Helios just opened a dark corridor and stepped through. When he reemerged, he was behind the two men, their eyes still fixed on the pce he’d left Kurai.

  He knocked them both out with clean, surgical strikes — a flicker of darkness curling from his palm like a bde. When they slumped to the sand, Helios crouched and pced two fingers against their temples. A soft, purple glow seeped into their skin as the memory hex activated.

  “The st three days… gone,” he whispered.

  When he stood again, Kurai was already beside him, silently observing. Her gaze drifted between the unconscious men and Helios.

  “So. Done pying guardian angel? It’d be faster to just kill them.”

  Helios gave a dry smirk. “No, I’m done cleaning up Jafar. Killing them is nothing but sloppy and would lead to a future mess.”

  He turned to walk away, but Kurai didn’t follow.

  “Wait before we leave there’s something I want to see,” she said.

  He paused. “What? I didn’t think anything here would interest you.”

  “The pace,” she replied, her voice even. “More specifically... that Queen.”

  Helios furrowed his brow. “Soraya? Why are you interested in someone like her.”

  “I thought little girl Jasmine was supposed to be a Princess of Heart,” Kurai said. “But I felt nothing from her. No blinding or powerful light just a normal heart.”

  Helios nodded slowly, listening.

  “She’s like everyone else — slightly brighter, sure, but nothing like that girl Pocahontas from the previous world. Her heart doesn’t shine the way it should as a Princess of Hearts.”

  “And Soraya?” he asked.

  Kurai’s gaze turned toward the golden pace in the distance. “I felt it from her instead so I believe she’s the one. Her heart is pure and from within I sense a blinding light. If there is a Princess of Heart here... it’s her.”

  Helios looked down. He hadn’t noticed. Of course he hadn’t. He had only ever focused on Jasmine — his knowledge of the game said she’d take the role. But perhaps… perhaps it was an inheritance. One that hadn’t yet been passed on.

  “She’ll die before the events of the story py out,” Kurai added, as though reading his mind. “The title and power should pass to that young girl Jasmine only after.”

  “Then that expins it…” Helios murmured. “If you know that then why do want to go see her.”

  “Don’t worry I don’t pn on killing this Soraya as you feared,” Kurai said. “I’d just like to observe and understand this since the opportunity has presented itself.”

  Helios nodded, summoning a new corridor. “Fine, then let’s go observe.”

  They stepped through and emerged in the outer shadow of the pace gardens. Using the same cloaking hex that once hid him from Jafar, Helios shrouded both their presences. Guards stood near the pace walls but made no move, oblivious to the silent invaders.

  They moved quietly, watching from the hedges as Soraya walked through the garden, a soft breeze pying with her long dark hair. She was ughing with one of her handmaidens, her voice warm, maternal. But more than that — her very presence emanated light, not in a literal sense, but a feeling. A comfort. A certainty. Her heart’s radiance was unmistakable.

  “That’s her,” Kurai confirmed, voice lower, more thoughtful than usual. “Yes, the feeling is even stronger now that I’m in this body.”

  Soraya turned to Jasmine, who was running ahead, flower crown crooked on her head, and knelt to fix it. She whispered something, and Jasmine giggled.

  A moment passed.

  Helios watched, something tight growing in his chest. A mother and child such things reminded him of what he lost and he didn’t enjoy the pain this brought forward.

  “She’s not a part of our pn so just leave her be. Don’t try anything,” Helios said, almost to himself.

  “I won’t,” Kurai agreed. “You worry too much. Every light draws darkness eventually. Lucky for her whatever happens to her will not be from my darkness.”

  They stayed a while longer, unseen. Watching. Then Kurai turned and said, “I’ve seen enough. We can go.”

  As they stepped back into shadow, Helios couldn't shake the thought that lingered behind his eyes.

  How long would this light st?

  And would Jafar be the one to extinguish it?

  Or would it also have something to do with him?