The day arrived.
Two days had passed since Selara and Matteo agreed to arrange the eting, and during those two days Trafalgar had done very little in the way of active investigation. There was no point forcing empty streets to cough up answers they did not have. They already had a thod to et Selara's master. They had a place. They had Matteo's old ssage. Everything else had beco waiting, and waiting had always been the part of a plan most people underestimated because it made them feel useless.
Trafalgar did not feel useless. He simply disliked having nothing to cut.
The days passed faster than expected. Cynthia had taken most of his spare ti, not in an intrusive way, but with the simple confidence of soone who had decided he should not spend every hour chewing on dangerous thoughts alone. She had asked for his help with several of the tasks Selara had assigned her, and Trafalgar had accepted because there was nothing suspicious about helping a classmate during an academic event. Convenient, really. Very respectable. Almost innocent if one ignored everything else happening under Aurevane's polished floors.
Cynthia knew enough to be worried. She did not know the full shape of it, but she knew Trafalgar was involved in sothing dangerous, and that was enough for her to watch him differently. She asked how he was from ti to ti, though she never pushed when he gave her little. More than that, she tried to keep the conversation away from the investigation, almost as if she had made it her personal mission to give him a few hours where the word homunculus, Void Creature, and Selara's master did not exist. Trafalgar noticed. And, strangely enough, he enjoyed it. Aurevane's event was not sothing that happened often. The city had gathered engineers, alchemists, inventors, nobles, hunters, rchants, and enough ambitious fools to power a war engine through ego alone. Since Trafalgar did not know whether he would ever receive another invitation here, enjoying the surface of the event was not the worst use of his ti. He liked the engineering displays. He liked watching devices unfold, rotate, hum, misbehave, and reveal the thought trapped inside them. There was sothing satisfying about seeing function made visible, even when the explanation ca from a man who clearly loved his own voice more than the item he had built.
During those two days, Selara also told him and Caelum more about her master.
His na was Esmond.
That alone seed to sour the air when she said it. Not because the na had power, but because Selara carried too much history behind it for the syllables to co out harmlessly. Esmond had been brilliant, vindictive, and patient in the way old monsters often were. Selara warned them that if he ca to see Matteo, he would almost certainly bring hidden intentions with him. A man like that did not answer a ssage from the past out of sentint. He ca because the hook interested him, because he believed he could control the trap, or because he wanted to see who had been foolish enough to bait him. Trafalgar and Caelum both accepted that without argunt.
Matteo did not know Trafalgar and Caelum would be present. That was better for everyone. Matteo might be helping, but trust was not a gift handed out because a man had finally discovered sha after decades of being difficult. He could betray them. He could panic. He could try sothing clever and make the whole thing worse, which was often the natural talent of old academics with too much pride.
So Matteo would know only what he needed to know.
At the start, the room would contain only Matteo, Selara, and Esmond. Trafalgar and Caelum would wait elsewhere inside the house, hidden until the proper ti. Once the door closed and the old man stepped fully into the snare, they would appear.
That was the situation now.
Trafalgar and Caelum were hidden inside Matteo's house, in a side room connected to the eting chamber by a concealed passage. The house was impressive in the way old scholars preferred: controlled, private, layered with wards, and built to make visitors feel that every book on the shelves might be judging their education.
Matteo had not exaggerated the protections. Sound did not travel where he did not want it to. Mana signatures were muffled. The internal doors were reinforced with discreet chanisms, and the eting room itself had been designed less like a parlor and more like a confession chamber for dangerous people. Caelum remained near the wall, quiet and prepared. Whether he wore another man's face or his own had beco almost irrelevant at this stage; his presence carried the sa cold precision either way. Trafalgar stood beside him, listening to the faint movents from the next room through the thin layer of warded stone Matteo had allowed them to use.
Beyond that wall, Matteo and Selara waited.
The eting room had been prepared with unpleasant care. The walls were reinforced beneath their elegant panels, the windows were sealed from inside resonance, and a private ward loop ran through the floor to prevent sound from escaping. It was exactly the kind of room one needed when inviting a man like Esmond to speak.
Or when planning to keep him speaking whether he wanted to or not.
Matteo stood near the center of the chamber, cane in hand, his posture stiff with old anticipation. Selara was nearby, calm in appearance, though no one in that room was foolish enough to mistake calm for ease. The past had followed her here and taken a seat before the guest even arrived.
"He may arrive at any ti," Matteo said. "I should warn you now, in case you have forgotten how Esmond and I parted. Our terms were not friendly."
Selara's answer ca dry. "I know perfectly well. I was present, in case you forgot."
Matteo's mouth tightened. "Yes. Well. Keep it in mind. Sothing may happen."
"I know what he is capable of, Matteo. I am not a little girl. My guard will stay raised while he is near, and I would never lower it around soone like him." Matteo accepted that with a small nod. Perhaps he had expected resistance. Perhaps he had expected anger. Selara gave him neither, which was probably worse for a man who enjoyed argunts because argunts allowed him to feel in control of the damage.
"Go into the adjoining room," he said. "He will likely be surprised when he enters, but I will close the door behind him. Once he is inside, he will not be able to leave easily, and we can ask what we need to ask. We will be borrowing him for a while."
Selara's expression barely shifted. "Do you think it will be that easy?"
"No," Matteo replied, voice flat with experience. "I doubt it. The bastard will almost certainly have twenty thousand precautions prepared, because paranoia is one of the few virtues he ever practiced with discipline."
Selara moved toward the assigned room without wasting more words. She carried herself with the rigid control of soone walking toward an old wound with a knife in hand, but her steps did not falter. Matteo watched her go, and for once, he had no comnt sharp enough to deserve the air.
Behind the wall, Trafalgar heard the shift of movent and adjusted his grip near his sword. He would not draw yet. The house wards might allow it, but timing mattered. Caelum gave no sign of impatience beside him, though Trafalgar could sense readiness in the man's stillness, a killing instrunt wrapped in human shape and waiting for instruction.
Outside the room, beyond the wards, beyond the hidden passage and Matteo's old resentnts, the great house received its visitor.
The bell rang.
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