“Lily,” my uncle replied stiffly. “You finally show your face after abandoning your family for five years? After leaving the care of your mother to a diabolism-wielding lunatic, it’s only after your ill judgment is revealed that you dare come back?”

I breathed out, forcing slow breaths. My care for this man’s approval had ended a long time ago, so best to ignore any urgings, telling me to feel shame over whatever he said.

“We didn’t abandon you, Uncle,” I replied.

I despised him for phrasing it like that. As if he hadn’t forcibly escorted us to the quarter. Not that we would have had any choice on that latter part, even without the implicit threat of my uncle. Back then, Infernals weren’t allowed outside of the Quarter without a license from the government or being supported by a family outside. Disowning my mother would have meant we were destined there, regardless. Ultimately irrelevant.

His already tense face tensed further, but after a second he relaxed and all anger seemed to vanish. I wasn’t the only one who could assume masks.

“Your anger is understandable if misplaced,” he said. “There is blame on both sides for what occurred, but I will not tolerate your disrespect.”

“Both sides?” I hissed. “You threw us out on the street and you want to blame us for it? What, did my horns get too large for you all to ignore what I was?”

“Do not show me disrespect, child!” My uncle spat back, switching to a language I hadn’t practiced for years. “You have a child’s understanding of what has happened and refuse to let go of that child’s view of this!”

“Oh, because you and the rest of the family are so willing to explain what occurred,” I spat back, keeping to Anglean even as the staff looked our way. If he hoped to not make a scene by keeping our fight in a language they couldn’t understand, he’d be sorely disappointed.

“You never wanted to know more,” my uncle spat back, refusing to switch back to Anglean. Obstinate bastard. I wasn’t changing to a language I barely remembered and honestly might be mishearing.

“And when was I offered the opportunity to learn more?” I said. “When did any of you deign to visit me or mother in our exile? Could none of you work up the courage to travel the paltry miles over to even see if we lived or not? Or did you just think us dead till I showed up on your doorstep and refused to leave?”

“I argued against your inclusion in the punishment for your mother’s crimes. That your heritage and who you were descended from had no impact on who you were. Exile was the compromise to having your head removed before you became a threat!”

We were off both our chairs by now, heads only inches from each other’s faces. Staff looked on, nervously eyeing the doors. We were perhaps a couple of minutes away from the hospital security tossing us both out of the building. Assuming they could.

I’d taken an alchemical earlier to improve my balance, even so, I swayed a little from side to side. The floor felt uneven, but that did not cow me in the slightest.

I didn’t need weapons to be lethal. If memory served correctly, neither did my uncle.

“So you admit they wanted me dead,” I said quietly, changing languages if only so none of the staff would stupidly try to stop either of us. “You admit they wanted to murder me for the crime of being born, then?”

“Father would never have allowed it, and did not allow it,” Liu said, face stoney. “And once again, you ignore the most important parts. The unfortunate realities of your heritage would have been ignored if not for the crimes of your mother.”

My lips quirked. “The ‘unfortunate realities of my heritage’? Don’t obfuscate it. Tell me, would it have been better if he’d been Keltish or Anglean?”

“Obviously, yes, do not be ridiculous. And stop ignoring me, child. Your mother committed crimes against all of us, yourself included. Your exile is entirely her fault.”

“And considering my crime is being born, how serious was hers?” I said. “My heritage brings me death. How much lesser was her crime to deserve exile? Or for you to decide to help me when I brought her out of the Quarter in her current state?”

Liu paused, a retort on the tip of his tongue, but something held him back. It took a few seconds for him to compose his disappointing answer.

“It is not for me to tell you, child. If you wish answers, you will return to our family home, and your grandfather-”

“Can come to where I currently live,” I said, and Liu bristled at the interruption, but I continued onwards before he could protest. “I will be happy to provide the address, and the visiting hours, although I should warn you I am hardly the most dangerous thing currently living there.”

“Have you no sense of respect?” My Uncle spared a glance at where the staff had been, all of them having long since left. “Do you wish to make us your enemies, Lily?”

I rolled my eyes. “If you insist on becoming mine? Go ahead. Liu, I came here because my colleagues insist I dealt with you pestering the Imperial Government of removing me as one of Mother’s guardians.”

“By colleagues, you mean that pack of criminal scum from the quarter,” Liu growled. “Out of respect for your privacy, we have not used that fact, but if it comes to it, we will not hesitate.”

Oh. They had told none of them? I suppose that made sense that my tentative membership among Intelligence’s….contractors? People of interest? Whichever it was, it made sense my mother’s family had not been told.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Uncle, I have not been a member of Versalicci’s organization for five years now. I do work for Her Majesty’s government, and they are well aware of my prior work.”

Liu froze, the expression of anger crystallizing on his face as he processed that. If he assumed all five of those years had been spent working for the Anglean Empire, I wasn’t in a hurry to disabuse him of that notion.

“You work for Her Majesty?” He asked slowly.

“It’s not like I sit with her for tea, but I do my part,” I said. “If you want, you can thank Auntie Diwei for her help at Lord Montague’s party on my behalf. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to learn she helped the Queen in some way.”

Liu froze a little at that.

“The shape-changer situation,” he said. “You are involved in that?”

“Heavily,” I said. “Didn’t you hear? I died at a tea party recently because of it.”

His scowl deepened. “Enough jokes, Lily.”

“Not a joke. I was supposed to die,” I said. “If not for some extenuating circumstances, I would have. Luckily, someone else was there to pretend to be dead for me.”

He frowned, a retort on the tip of his tongue, but he seemingly swallowed it.

“Uncle, I’m here because others insisted,” I told him. “You have nothing to threaten me with over custody of mother. The government does. I fully expect they’ll use the threat of turning Mother over to you or me over to Auntie Diwei to keep me in line, but that’s when they decide, not either of us. Mind you, my answer to that will always be no. Even if I’m a corpse in the ground, you do not get your hands on her.”

“You do not want to make enemies of us, Lily,” Liu said quietly. “I am the most reluctant to make that the case, and grandfather, but his patience is limited.”

“I don’t want to be enemies,” I said. “But I hardly feel that obligates me to obey the instructions and requests of a group of people who made it very clear what they think of me. Speaking of requests, before she went entirely off the deep end, mentioned you wanted to see me. Why?”

“There is…a talk that must be had. Not here though.” Liu looked at the walls cautiously, as if they would sprout ears when he wasn’t looking. He wasn’t wrong to fear that. I wouldn’t be surprised if the hospital administrators didn’t listen in on any conversation they could get away with.

“Then you have my address whenever you want it,” I said. “The home of the detective I work with.”

“Ah, because the home of a detective is the best place to have a private conversation.”

I inclined my head. It was a fair point.

“A neutral place then,” I said. “One we can both agree on. Just you?”

“There needs to be one other,” Liu said. “It does not need to be immediate, but we were worried you’d fled overseas.”

“Fled?”

“My sister is many things. Subtle she is not.”

“Able to see what is right under her nose either as well,” I muttered. “Do give her my thanks for helping me at the party.”

“You choose to live a very dangerous life, niece,” he said disapprovingly.

“It’s the best kind of life to live,” I answered, while behind him the doors flung open, letting in a flood of staff led by one of the hospital administrators.

***

Uncle Liu had declined to make a scene, so I was allowed to stay after he left.

Mother seemed as untroubled as ever. Her daughter and brother fighting over her body bothered her not in the slightest.

“This is not Diabolism?” I murmured to myself. The staff maintained a healthy distance, but it was still best to keep my voice low and phrased in a way that could just be questioning me.

It could be, it could not be, the Imp said. Untrained and unsuited eyes are a poor tool to find out. You could touch and let that inferior magic you insisted on learning to do your seeing for you.

“Ah yes,” I deadpanned. “I could do that. If reaching into someone’s unconscious body with Biosculpting wasn’t already dangerous enough, let me reach into someone under an unknown curse. Brilliant idea Malvia.”

I dropped that line of thought and ignored the Imp’s protests over that dismissal. There were more pressing concerns and my mother’s situation….I doubted I was any closer to solving it now than the day I found her. Immediate survival took priority.

I did not have confidence in Voltar’s plan. Oh, it seemed sensible enough on the surface, but the dangling bait of Alice wouldn’t do much. Oh, it would unbalance them, but at the end of the day would they care too much?

What would they do? Lord Montague had tried to kill me and Gregory. Logically, from there he would have gone straight on to Voltar and Dawes. That fit with his nature. The man wanted this problem to end. It probably chaffed him as much as the shape-changers that he was working with them.

That raised the question of the son they tried to kill. I frowned as I considered that thread.

Assuming the father had not killed the son, the most likely answer for his continued absence was being hidden away on that third floor. Probably a personality shift the father could not tolerate, or maybe even physical. Keep him on the third floor where he had been stuck, anyway. Anyone trying to infiltrate had to deal with the guardian spirit in that damn dragon statue.

Thinking about that dislodged another thought, one that I quickly seized upon. Dragons. There was an angle there. An altogether unpleasant angle, but one that was appealing. After all, there was an old saying about power and privilege.

I gave my mother’s hand a squeeze.

“Someday, I’ll figure out how to wake you up,” I whispered, and then stood up.

I was unsteady on my feet, swaying a little back and forth. The alchemical couldn’t alleviate all of that, but I could manage down to the coach. Time to see if they’d take me somewhere besides Voltar’s properties.

***

I had to give it to the drake. He knew how to be ostentatious with very little.

The estate in front of me was perhaps a third the size of Lord Montague’s, but made up for it in the sheer number of details. It honestly was overwhelming to the point individual details were hard to pick out, just a sea of statues, carved stonework, and stained glass windows. It was a chaotic jumble of wealth being displayed.

Then again, going by the owner’s lifespan, he was barely out of his teens.

I walked over to the front door, grabbed the knocker shaped like a flame dragon’s mouth, and hit the door thrice.

The butler who answered was dressed in red livery as well, the clothing done up to make it look like flames were covering half his body. They moved as well, illusionary spellwork in the thread. Someone really liked showing off their wealth.

“Hello,” I said eagerly to the butler opening the door, his confused expression deepening as I continued to speak. “My name is Malvia Harrow, and I believe your master might be interested in hearing who arranged the death of his sister.”

I, of course, had no evidence that the drake Millicent Ferguseous Valicent had been killed by the shape-changers. However, the timing of the death made little sense without that being the case. Either they’d waited for one to die, or they’d arranged it themselves. Given other factors they had to wait on, I was betting on the latter.

“I….excuse me?” the butler said, flustered and glancing back towards a security guard. Was that full-plate armor? It must cost a minor fortune to be enchanted to stand up to firearms. I suppose if you are rich and want to live in an environment resembling more familiar times, you’d be willing to shell out some money.

“Your master? This is the home of the Honorable Jasperax Veroctous Valicent, is it not?”

Honestly, the name felt like a joke, Anglean mixed with Draconic into garbled nonsense, but it was the fashion among the draconic races.

“It is,” the butler said as the guard came closer, hand reaching for a hefty mace. “How do you know any details of his sister’s death.”

I gave them both my best grin. “I was the one they got to dig up the corpse and desecrate it.”