We avoided street parties and the siren call of pub music. At one point in our journey, a sea of lights rose into the sky to join the stars. A hundred thousand paper lanterns, carried by little candles, they floated to the air—then they were caught by the winds and went out towards the ocean, marking the apex of the Lantern Festival. From here, things would only degrade and degenerate as weariness and bad decisions erode people’s sensibilities.

At the end of the journey, we came across a gated property in Seaside.

I took a long moment to stare at the house worth at least two to three million spirits chips. Kayson triple-checked his phone’s information as we looked at the manor. He seemed as confused as me before confirming that, yes, this is where the Lieutenants of the Fourth Division were instructed to appear.

Bruno gave a slight whistle. I was flabbergasted by the pristine white walls and the three-story high rise. Past the gate, there was a decadent pool lingering. The property was complete with a roundabout driveway—you know, in case you were too lazy to walk from the garage or had a driver to drop you off.

Numbly, I lit a cigarette. What was this place, and why the hell would the Lieutenants be meeting here? Back when Tristan led my squad, he had us meet at parks or businesses, paying the Brass Kings’ protection. “Well! It’s certainly something, but not the biggest!” Bruno bellowed, reaching for my cigarette pack.

“Well? Anything?” Kayson asked Eve.

“Place has got to have security all over—I can see a camera right there. I don’t break into places like this, okay? Way too fucking dangerous—hell, I bet the lock on the gate is a bitch and a half to crack. Even after that, I’d bet we get busted a few fucking minutes in. I might be quiet, but I can’t turn us invisible.” She said.

“My Thread Spinner can weave webs over the cameras to obstruct their view or pull them to look in the wrong direction. They might not expect anyone given it’s the Lantern Festival. But, the rest of the security might prove hard to deal with.”

“It’s a horrible idea,” Eve said firmly. “Sects get a whiff? We’ll be swarmed and outnumbered by cultivators strong enough to kill us by flicking us on the head. Can you even imagine what sorta shit is in a fancy place like this? New idea, we go stake out the trap, see what happens when we don’t show up—“

“I’d like to point out that we already busted into a Sect today.” Kayson shook his head.

My Soul Seed pulled at me. A horrible but strong urge told me that if I had any chance to walk the path I wanted out of this mess, it would start here. We were staring at those formidable walls. I knew. This was the place we needed to be. “Eve, ya can do this. We need to get in.”

Kayson gave me a funny look, and Eve’s frowned at me. “If I fuck up, we’re all fucked. This is a bad idea, and as much as I want to sneak in and take some rich person’s shit, I don’t want to be the reason we all end up before a judge.”

“I have a feeling, alright? We gotta do this. There’s no other choice but this—listen, I can’t explain why, but I know it.” Why would Tristan be here regularly?

Our Lieutenant dispersed his spiders—a handful of them scattered past the gate. A minute later, he flinched. “Formations too. A couple died to them.” He took a long shuddering breath. “Enough of my threads made it past. I think we can get by the obvious traps. Luca, are you sure about this?”

“Yea, I am.”

“Unlock the gate, Eve.”

“What the fuck? Did you get hit in the head? Listen to my words; we’re not good enough for this job.” She walked up to Kayson and tapped him on the head. “Luca’s a fucking nutso who takes dangerous risks, and he’s the one you’re listening to about this?”

Kayson returned that anger with nothing but a stone-cold face. “It’s important to realize the strengths of your team members. You and I hesitate. I plan, but I don’t execute. I recoil from risks. Luca there—he’s the voice that can push us past that. In this case, I’m going to go with his gut instincts. Besides, you’ve grown Eve. I found you scavenging in that alley for food. I don’t know anyone with a better handle on a lockpick, with enough fire in her to constantly push herself to new heights. You could sneak through a room full of people—but you need confidence in yourself. Believe that you can do this, and we will not blame you if things go wrong. We won’t leave your side.”

A mix of emotions flashed over her face—ranging from indecision, anger, and pride.

Without saying anything back to him, Eve strode up to the gate. Her eyes took a sharp, calculating cast. They ran over the property’s perimeter three times—watching before she dug out her lockpick and got to work on the gate.

A few minutes later, the gate swung open to reveal the interior of what I’d picture a high-up leader of the sect to call their estate. Eve paused, pointing out several cameras to Kayson, whose spiders quickly formed and wove a web over the lens. For a long moment, we waited near the gate entrance—seeing if anyone would respond to the sudden obstruction. Nothing.

We drifted across the empty grounds like ghosts, taking a wide berth from the pool. Suzaki and Bruno remained at the gate to alert us if anyone showed up. We figured between the two; they could get out a message and buy enough time for us to react.

Sweat dripped from Kayson’s brow as more of his spiders spread outward and tested the edge of formations—dying horrible deaths as they triggered whatever traps had been set. But it worked; he plotted us a path as Eve scanned for more conventional traps and security. As we crossed near a section of the sidewalk, Eve yanked my collar back, pointing out a half-buried stake.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Kayson’s spider doesn’t have enough mass to set it off—but I’ve seen a video of these. They get used in war sometimes—if you set foot on that formation, it’ll zap your brains out.” She shook her head, and her voice hitched.

I stared at the piece of rosewood. What sort of crazy fucks ambushed their own home to this degree? Sure, some formations were done intelligently enough to register tokens and prevent activation—but weren’t there laws against actual traps? And what if you or a servant had a rough morning and forgot the pendent that kept you from being burnt to a crisp?

As Eve pulled me forward, my unease washed away. Eve and Kayson would get us through; I needed to believe in them. And then we’d get my brother back. The feeling was deep in my chest, even if I didn’t see the path clearly at the moment.

It wasn’t until we passed by the gardens that this trespass started to feel personal. It was as if I was walking in the shoes of whoever lived here—a man who had everything yet was so paranoid of the outside world he trapped the outside of his house like a paranoid monster.

We avoided the front door due to the uncertainty of what might be on the other side and because Kayson spotted another trap. We passed through a garden along the side of the house and found a large trellis weaved with morning glories leading to the second-story windows.

Eve led and, with grace, climbed up to a window. She cracked in a few seconds later. Kayson and I followed and suddenly found ourselves in a study with a half-spent cigar gathering dust in an ashtray on a fine desk. There were more books than I’d ever read littering the shelves. Along with a euro-style chess board with arranged pieces.

Eve didn’t hesitate to rifle through drawers after testing them. She stuffed things into her pockets nearly as fast as she explored. It seemed the interior of the place was less jammed with traps. Kayson let his spiders sweep further as it seemed we now had a bit of a reprieve.

Ten minutes later, he confirmed the presence of several people in the manor. We guessed serving staff based on how they stayed holed up in a ballroom. I posed it was due to some internal celebration for the Lantern Festival, which meant to all of our amazement, that as long as we didn’t trigger some hidden security measure, the place was free for us to explore. Eve cautioned us against opening random doors on the off-chance of a formation or alarm going off, but otherwise, she led the way as we crept through the villa’s halls.

It was surreal to take in the wide variety of paintings and statues. Some were dedicated to the immortals, others more abstract, but all were meticulously designed and placed. It made for an oppressive atmosphere, especially when I took in the information that anything I looked at had a very real chance of being worth more than what my family made in an entire year.

Then we solved the mystery when we spotted a row of pictures on a black wall. They depicted Tristan from a kid to his current age—dressed in fine academic clothes and with his family. In not a single one was he smiling. Nor was his father, who had a similar face structure with those shadowy eyes and flashy suits. There was no longer a question of why the meetings were held here; we were in Tristan’s home. He decided to impress upon his subordinates his wealth and power to make them more loyal.

We made our way room by room, Eve only opening doors after careful inspection. Half of them seemed pointless or redundant. A home theater, two games rooms, a craft room—guest rooms, multiple gyms, hell, some I didn’t even understand a purpose for.

Eventually, we reached Tristan’s bedroom, which was locked. But Eve picked it open. There were no pictures of him or his family; instead, the most significant clue we had that it belonged to him was the Brass Kings Lieutenant jacket displayed on the wall and the array of memorabilia of fights, broken watches, teeth—even the Captain Till’s bracelet. His desk was littered with glass bottles, some filled with pills, others empty. Books lay strewn about, marked up with highlighters. A glance revealed they contained information about strategy, warfare, and the history of the Sects on this continent.

The conclusion I reached about the room was that it wasn’t really lived in. The bed was made—and the pictures of Captains and Knights hung up and pinned with attached strings, far more like some detective’s office than someone’s home. The obsessive degree of attention left me flailing to wrap my head around it and gave me shivers. I even saw my own photo—my face circled with a red marker and the question “Soul Seed?” written under it.

“Fucking nutter. Divine above, Luca, you worked for this guy?” Eve said, scrunching her face as she peeked under the bed.

Kayson paged through the photos on the desk.“He keeps meticulous notes. Background checks into every person under him, and performs extensive research into those above.”

“What’s this?” Eve said, face laced with curiosity; before either of us could react, she pulled out a board from underneath the bed—a false cavity, and fished out a worn journal. She tossed it to Kayson.

Kayson began to go through the journal, his face growing darker by the second until he set it on the desk. “Luca, look at this.” There was a page with my name as the header, underlined.

I skimmed it, heart racing at the level of details taken. He’d gotten my birthday, the address of my home, and a candid timeline of my schedule. Even a small section with questions about my father and Uncle. Including a theorization of my ties to the Segreto. All of it framed in a clinical way of an academic at a university studying for an exam. At the end was a short conclusion about my unpredictability and disobedience, which labeled me as an unstable element needing elimination.

My heart beat in my throat, and I flipped through the rest of the book, unable to see that page for much longer. The other pages varied in the detail of information, sections on different Brass Kings, sects, businessmen, and even a section dedicated to an investigation of the Brass King himself. Years worth of notes. “What the fuck is this?”

Kayson shook his head. “I misjudged him. I thought he was just clever and playing for power. But no, this is something else. He has an obsession with control. He doesn’t want to rise in the Brass Kings—I think he wants to control it, down to every man, and then leverage that into more.”

“That aint possible—“

“We’re cultivators Luca. Willpower lets us defy the heavens.” Kayson folded his arms over and took a long look at the room of a mad man. “At some point, we stop planning on a mortal scale, we pursue our dao, and our concepts transcend what they think. Do you even know what his Soul Seed is?”

“No?” I was still paging through the journal, a sick sense of horror at the meticulous details of Brass Kings’ lives.

“Then we can’t truly know his aims, aside from the clear desire of control.” Kayson took the book back, and I didn’t protest, not wanting to look through the freakshow anymore. My skin was pale, and I shook slightly. I’d called the guy a psycho before, but this was far past that. “But, we do have an answer.”

“Answer to what?” Eve asked as she popped open more drawers. I didn’t even know where the tiny girl was stuffing away all the shit she’d stolen from the house tour so far. She didn’t even pause as she asked, knowing we’d be out of here soon enough.

“An answer of how to draw him out. Take away his control, show him we have something exposing him.” He tapped the book of notes. “This will draw him out more than the Alchemist ever could. He had contingency plans to deal with that? But this? It’s years of research and time. He plans to become the Brass King. If he finds out, we have this and are threatening to bring it to light? All that control will vanish, and he’ll panic.”