Book 3, Chapter 43

Yoru sat at the kitchen table while Sorin laid out the facts of his home being invaded and robbed with clinical detachment. He described the body, gave his theories on who it was, and offered up the chain of reasoning that had led him to that speculation.

And he somehow thinks this... this report of his is going to be enough to satisfy me, that I’m not going to want to make sure my family is safe with my own eyes.

Sorin was a machine in practically every sense of the word—an extreme workaholic who almost never took breaks or even slept more than he absolutely had to, a man who didn’t seem to feel emotions like concern or fear or desire. Everything about him was cold and precise, and the closest he got to seeming like a human being was the brief flickers of suppressed annoyance Yoru sometimes thought he saw when someone was being inefficient or making a suboptimal decision.

That did not mean Sorin didn’t care about anyone or that he didn’t understand why other people did. It was just that his priorities were so far skewed from a normal climber’s that he came across as a lifeless automaton built for only one purpose. The difference between him and the machine monsters inhabiting the towers was that his purpose wasn’t to kill every living thing he met.

“Thank you for investigating,” Yoru said once Sorin was finished. He slid his chair back and rose from the table. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

Sorin’s face was a carefully frozen mask. Whether he was disappointed or annoyed or something else entirely, he hid it and simply nodded in agreement. “It’s probably best that I don’t go with you,” was all he said.

“No. My father isn’t even civil to me at this point, let alone to the rest of you. I’ll go alone.” Yoru paused and glanced at Odric, who’d been propped up in his bed and was presumably following the conversation, though his eyes were so heavily lidded that Yoru could have believed he’d fallen back asleep. “I’ll see if I can speak to my family healer. Even if he can’t heal you, he might offer some insight on some other method.”

“Thanks,” Odric said, his voice barely more than an exhaled whisper. Even that seemed to tax the man, and he sagged into his pillows. Only his sister’s supporting hand kept him upright at all.

Vendis would have known what to do here. That was just picking at old scabs though, and he rejected the impulse to dwell on that thought. Losing his best and perhaps only real friend—practically his brother—was a constant background ache he’d been carrying around for months and months now. It wasn’t going away, and it wasn’t going to get any better, no matter what he did.

So he just ignored it and went about his business.

Contrary to what he’d told everyone he was going to be doing, his first stop was not home. Yoru knew his father fairly well, and he knew how the old man thought. Sorin had remarked on the coincidence of a fight breaking out in the very same room their Enchanter’s Cabinet had been stored in. Yoru didn’t think it was a coincidence, and there was an easy way to find out.

Though he’d done his best to distance himself from the Telpike network over the last six months, it was difficult to make new connections when he was always climbing. When he’d found a new enchanter to operate the cabinet for them, the need for someone he could trust meant a narrow spectrum of choices. Everyone he knew was also someone known to his family.

He didn’t think the enchanter had betrayed him, but the mechanics of the cabinet were conspicuous, especially since his father already knew them. Disappearing for extended periods to charge the device with anima could be noted. The behavior could have gotten back to the Telpikes, who would have dispatched high rank investigators to go reclaim the cabinet. And if that had happened, Yoru would have expected it to end up exactly where it had been before.

He’d kept that thought to himself. Sorin especially had a low opinion of Yoru’s father, but the others, perhaps rightfully so, weren’t friendly toward him either. Yoru approached the workshop he’d rented for their enchanting efforts with no small amount of trepidation, hoping he was just being paranoid while becoming more and more certain with each passing second that he wasn’t.

At first glance, the workshop looked the same as always from the outside. The thin layer of dust on the doorstep told Yoru otherwise. Nobody had been in or out in at least a few days. Approaching the building, he paused with a hand on the door and took a moment to listen.

No one inside. No one’s been here. Something’s wrong. Damn it, Father, what did you do?

He pushed through the door, wary of traps or ambushes, but his caution was unwarranted. There were no assassins cloaked in powerful stealth magic lurking just past the threshold, no invisible and intangible trip lines waiting to be triggered.

He wasn’t surprised to find the cabinet missing. Everything else was, more or less, in its place. There was some clutter, but that was just the expected mess of an active workshop in use. Only the layer of dust starting to cover it all told the truth. The room looked like someone had just stepped out for lunch a week ago, then failed to ever return.

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If he hadn’t known the cabinet was supposed to be there, Yoru probably wouldn’t even have realized it was missing. But he did know, and that made him look deeper. That was why he found the brown, dried bloodstain on the wooden leg of the workbench. The wet workers his father had sent hadn’t been careful enough about cleaning up their tracks.

The pieces were starting to fit together now. In a bid to reclaim possession of the Enchanter’s Cabinet, his father’s goons had tracked down and assaulted the enchanter Yoru had hired, then relocated the cabinet back to the estate. Somehow, the Black Hellions had learned about this and quickly put together their own heist plan.

Presumably, something had gone wrong at some point, and they’d been caught mid-burgle. There’d been a fight, and either the cabinet had been relocated to keep it safe after the estate guards had fended off the Hellions, or the Hellions had absconded with the cabinet at the cost of one of their lives.

Sorin would want to know. I’ll tell him, after. I’m going to take care of this myself.

* * *

His home had seen better days. The flames were out, but the gaping hole the explosion had left was nowhere near being repaired. It was an ugly pockmark on the far west side of the main building, sealed against the weather with a thin layer of yellow-gray stone that stood out like an old bruise against the intricate red brickwork around it.

The thick crowds were gone, dispersed by the house guards at some point. Only staff and contractors were visible from the street now. Anyone who lingered to gawk was quickly approached and run off by someone in Telpike colors.

“Keep it moving,” the closest guard snarled at Yoru as he slowed to observe the damage.

This one must be a new recruit. I don’t recognize him, and he obviously doesn’t know who I am, Yoru thought to himself. He ignored the guard and turned off the street to approach the main gate.

“You deaf or just stupid? I said to get lost!”

Yoru would have been content to ignore the guard at that point. It was beneath him to get violent with a mere rank 4. Honestly, the fact that someone so weak was front-facing at the main entrance to the estate was probably a warning sign all on its own that things were not going well. That just made him all the more motivated to quickly find his father.

It was the man leveling his pike at Yoru that forced him to pay attention. More than that, the guard didn’t mean it as a warning. He was already lunging forward, the thick, bladed head of the weapon aimed for Yoru’s shoulder. At least it’s not a killing blow, but this is still a ridiculously aggressive reaction.

It was tempting to let the blow land. If nothing else, the man’s face when his attack bounced off Yoru’s coat without so much as scuffing the leather would be amusing to see. But however stupid the guard was, there was no way he couldn’t feel that his target was nearly twenty ranks higher than him. That kind of loyalty couldn’t be bought with money, even if it was counterbalanced with an incredible amount of stupidity.

Catching the pike with one hand, he calmly pushed it aside. The gate guard refused to let it go, and so he staggered a full step and barely avoided having to take a knee just to retain his balance. Yoru shot a look at him before returning his eyes to the scar on his home. “My name is Yoru Telpike. I need to speak with my father. Feel free to go tell whoever you think needs to know that I’m here.”

Whatever the guard was trying to stutter out, he couldn’t get his mouth under control well enough to actually say it. It didn’t matter, anyway. Yoru was already past the gate before the poor man could even get both feet squarely under him.

Nobody else tried to get in his way, though several did stop what they were doing to watch his progress. More than a few whispered conversations started up behind him, the contents of which Yoru deliberately ignored. He wasn’t interested in the servants’ rumors.

The first person to intercept him appeared shortly after he walked through the front door. It was one of the long-term butlers, a retired climber who’d slowly and meticulously ripped out his entire build after achieving rank 5. All of his soulprints had been replaced with alternatives focused more on domestic duties, which made him remarkably efficient at anticipating the needs of the family he served.

“Master Telpike,” he said, sketching a smooth, shallow bow. “I had not expected to find you here today.”

“Juran,” Yoru said, nodding in return. “I was in the city on business. The... commotion... attracted my notice.”

“Yes, unfortunate, that. To say the patriarch was displeased at the event would be a dire understatement.”

“I’m sure it would be,” Yoru agreed. “Where is he at the moment?”

Juran hesitated, just for a split second, but still long enough for Yoru to catch it. Everyone knew he was disfavored. Even setting foot in the ancestral home of his family was pushing things. Acting as if he were still the scion of the house might be a step too far.

“If you’d be so kind as to allow me to guide you there?” Juran suggested, holding an arm out to indicate the way.

“Lead on,” Yoru said. He fell in behind the butler and asked, “How many were hurt?”

“Your father knows the details better than I. I’m sure he can answer all your questions,” Juran said smoothly.

Translation: I don’t know what I’m allowed to tell you, so I’ll deflect and keep my head down.

Yoru almost felt bad for Juran. It wasn’t the butler’s fault he was caught in the middle of a fight between the family’s patriarch and its heir, if he could even still be called that. Yoru quashed those feelings, though. His father had stolen from him, and there was a confrontation in the immediate future. All of the servants could sense it and knew to stay out of the way.

Yoru knew where Juran was taking him before they were even half way there, so it came as no surprise that they stopped outside his father’s suite of rooms. “One moment, Master Telpike,” the butler said smoothly. “Allow me to announce you.”

“No, thank you. You’d best clear out now, Juran. This is liable to be... loud.”

The old butler didn’t need to be told twice. With an uneasy glance at the door, he gave another—deeper—bow, then turned and fled down the hallway as fast as propriety allowed. Yoru gave him a silent ten count to get some distance, then pushed through the door and entered his father’s rooms.