Page 101 of Legacy Elite

I don't understand for a second.

"On its own, that chain is a strong genealogical argument with two soft joints," Faris says. "On its own, a direwolf is an impossible animal with no explanation. Neither gives us everything we would like."

She looks at me.

"But they are not two separate problems, Miss Miller. They are one problem, and they answer each other."

Falken picks it up.

"The historical record says the direwolf form occurred only in the royal bloodline of the Fourth House. No documented exception." He counts it on the table with one finger. "The record says a child of that line was never recovered. Months later, a girl of the correct age connected to that household appears under another name. Her descendants can be followed for more than a century, through multiple surname changes, into the family of a man who crosses an ocean and eventually becomes part of the Miller line."

Another finger.

"And then his documented descendant shifts into a direwolf in front of witnesses."

He stops.

"Each piece has an alternative explanation. Taken together, those explanations become exceedingly difficult to sustain."

Faris nods.

"The evidence meets the historical standard."

And that's the moment I actually believe it.

Not the inventory. Not the names and dates covering half the table. It's Celeste Faris—who gave me a seventy-one, who docked me in front of two hundred people, who stood in this office and told a room full of excited adults to slow down—putting her glasses on the table and saying it out loud.

"So we're done," I say, "with maybe I'm a princess because I'm really fucking big."

Faris closes her eyes briefly.

"That is not how I would phrase it," Falken says.

"It's been working for me."

"Miss Miller." Falken puts both hands flat on the table. "I'd like to say this properly, once, and then we can go back to how you'd prefer to say it."

I go quiet.

"There is no longer a reasonable historical basis to dispute your descent," he says. "You are a surviving descendant of the royal line of the Fourth Great House, and the only living descendant our investigation has identified."

Nobody says anything.

I look down at the table. There's a water ring on it. There's a pen somebody's left with the lid chewed.

I put my hands flat on the wood, either side of the enlargement, and look at them.

Bitten nails. Callus across the base of the fingers from a rope harness. A scar on the left thumb from a tin of beans when I was nineteen.

I don't look royal. I look like me.

"How old was she?" I say.

The room seems to take a second to change gear.

"Sorry?" Falken says.

"The child." I don't look up. "Seven on the form."