The least elaborate piece of furniture in Vaufrej’s study was the pendulum clock punctuating the silence from Damian’s left side. The desk was of exquisite quality, the kind of manufacture that could only come from the hands of a master artisan. There even were some paintings hanging from the walls, including one of the snowy peaks towering over the home town of his grandfather.

That painting, in particular, had the power of reminding Damian of an old memory of his. As children, many years prior, they had gone to visit the family of their grandfather, the founder of the factory and the village around it, in the mountains of New Helvia. During that trip, they had gone on several hikes, experiencing all kinds of wonderful vistas and, occasionally, spotting wildlife in their natural habitat. One such event had always stuck within Damian’s mind. It had begun when they heard some whistling coming from a slope; a distant cousin, their guide, stopped dead in her tracks and pointed to them, in the distance, the spot where a small creature observed them from afar. It was a groundhog. She had explained to them that groundhogs whistle to warn their families of incoming danger, so that they may burrow in their dens and tunnels before a predator could catch them. From that moment forth, in Damian’s mind, a warning to an unseen danger sounded like whistling.

He stood in silence in front of the desk, where Vaufrej calmly kept on working on his paperwork as if nobody else was in the room. Damian forced himself to not start tapping his foot impatiently, knowing full well that that was par for the course when talking to his brother during work hours. If he had so much as made a peep to try and get his attention, Vaufrej would have silently raised his hand with his index finger pointing up, as if to say “one moment, please”, without so much as looking up from whatever it is that he was busy with. Waiting was the only option. Perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing, however, he reasoned. After all, he could use that time to gather his thoughts, try to calm down, come up with a strategy.

Precious inlay work decorated the bookcase besides him, with several different kinds of wood and some iridescent mother-of-pearl creating geometric shapes on its surface. Many books gathered dust on its shelf; most of them, Damian suspected, hand-picked to create the best possible impression on any well educated guest to visit that office, more than to reflect his brother’s personal taste. Pleading Vaufrej to help with Rosalba’s situation could not be done by leveraging his compassion, as Damian wasn’t sure his brother had any, so maybe he could try to spin it in a way that doing so could be good optically, in a way that would put the Neumann family in a good light. That wasn’t a bad idea, but how would he achieve that?

First of all, what did he know about the situation? Trying to summarise it in his mind would, perhaps, bring clarity on the best course of action to follow. Supposedly, it all started when, right around the time he and Clelia got married, Rosalba allegedly made three golden cunias disappear. Then, after something like a full week, she comes forward and asks Damian the same sum. Finally, Marianna apparently saw them when he gave her the money and snitched. While the entire thing didn’t seem very clear to him, there was one giant question that really bothered him: if aunt Lucia really was so confident of Rosalba’s guilt that she’d make a big deal of it with the rest of high society, why did she wait that long before having Rosalba arrested? Something didn’t add up.

Perhaps, he could play up that angle with Vaufrej: if the whole thing went public and then it turned out that aunt Lucia had been in the wrong, this could reflect poorly on their family too. Aunt Lucia had declared every intention of making a big scandal out of the whole thing, and it was a good moment too. After all, the discourse of servants and workers versus the rich and the masters was still very polarised, due to the riots earlier that year, and a big scandal like that would inevitably be used to create a narrative favouring one side or the other, and, if the case was mishandled, it could easily backfire against aunt Lucia and, by proxy, against the Neumann company too.

“Thank you for waiting,” Vaufrej declared, finally setting his pen down on the desk and turning his attention to Damian. “It’s good that you came here, today. I would have sent someone for you if you hadn’t. Saved me some trouble.”

“Brother, I’d like to talk about yesterday evening,” Damian started, consciously trying to keep a level headed and confident tone.

“Of course,” Vaufrej quickly responded with a smile that didn’t extend to his eyes. “I have to give it to you and to your wife: both of you left a good impression of yourselves and our family during the evening. You defied expectations, I’m glad to see you show signs of growth, finally.”

Damian’s train of thought was momentarily derailed by Vaufrej’s words: he had been bracing for his brother to push back against anything he had to say, he hadn’t been ready to be met with praise instead.

“Thank you,” he responded, knowing well he shouldn’t give Vaufrej any reason to accuse him of being ungrateful or impolite. He needed to be careful, now that the conversation actually started, or his brother would steer it away from where he needed it to go.

Vaufrej picked a small ivory comb from a drawer in his desk, using it to carefully comb his moustache. “I managed to secure some potentially very good ties yesterday, in no small part thanks to your wife’s presence. The most notable of which, of course, was his Excellency Duke Carlo Adelasio…”

“A very distinguished person, no doubt. Thanks to aunt Lucia we were also able to speak with another fairy,” Damian inserted himself in the briefest of pauses in his brother’s speech.

“Really? Ah, you must be talking about the wife of Gioele Cabrera, the chief editor of Vita Taurasiana…”

“Indeed,” pressed on Damian, “a pity her husband wasn’t present.”

Vaufrej gestured with his hand to the chair next to Damian. “Please, sit down: you don’t need to be standing uncomfortably for the rest of this conversation.”

Once more, his brother’s offer took him aback, interrupting his train of thought and preventing him to finally reach the core of his plea.

“As expected,” Vaufrej continued as Damian sat, “the opening night of the opera season was ripe with all sorts of opportunities. What distinguishes a good businessman is his ability to capitalise on such opportunities…”

“For sure,” Damian inserted himself in his brother’s speech again, “and it seems like aunt Lucia is giving it a serious try herself. Have you heard about it?”

Vaufrej raised a brow. “Heard about what?”

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Damian refrained from relaxing for successfully catching his brother’s curiosity. He then proceeded to explain, as succinctly as possible, what had happened after he and Clelia had left Vaufrej with the Duke. For once, his older brother listened silently and intently, not moving a single muscle.

Once the recounting of the events was over, Vaufrej clicked his tongue disapprovingly and sighed. “Is that so? We can probably expect to have journalists pestering us fo interviews on the matter, in the near future, due to our familial bonds and proximity to her farms.”

“You don’t seem too enthused, brother,” Damian pointed out.

“I don’t mind journalists,” the young man behind the desk clarified, “but this kind of drama is only incidentally related to us and our business. I wouldn’t want something like that to overshadow our hard working efforts.”

Damian saw an opening. His brother had a tendency to be somewhat of a contrarian, when it came to suggestions from others. Maybe he could try to use that to his advantage…

“I thought you would like something like this,” Damian commented casually, feigning disaffectedness, “after all, you too didn’t like the riots very much, nor the fact that some of the workers seemed to agree with them.”

“You are correct, Damian. However, consider this: aunt Lucia owns a farm complex and has been using her incidental blood relation to us and our successful business to elbow herself in high society. This behaviour, of course, isn’t unbecoming of a woman like her, but I worry that getting involved with legal matters might put her out of her depth.”

Damian was about to slam his hands on the desk, excitedly, but, once again, managed to refrain his instinct. His brother was taking the bait, and it had been much easier than he had foreseen. He wasn’t out of the woods quite yet, but he was making more progress than expected.

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Damian acknowledged, still making a point to appear indifferent.

Vaufrej gave him a smile that could come off as warm, by his standards. “Don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to. You are smart, but you’re still very inexperienced and naive. That’s not necessarily a bad disposition to have, in a vacuum, but it’s not what I’d associate with business acumen. However, it does fit quite well with a more… academic path.”

Damian’s mind whistled like a groundhog. Vaufrej was not someone he trusted to have a genuine change of heart on his academic aspirations.

“What do you mean by that?” Damian blurted out.

Vaufrej stood up from his chair, his palms firmly planted on the desk. “Damian, my dear brother, I have made no mystery of my concerns regarding your career path. I didn’t see what academia could bring to the table, when it comes to the family business. However, my talk with the Duke, yesterday, was really an eye opener. He told me of all the ways you could build useful technical knowledge, as well as important connections, if you were to follow this path. I admit, I never thought much of that award you won a while ago for that essay, but his Excellency thought it was impressive that you’d manage to win an award like that before you even graduated. He said that it would be a waste not to cultivate your talents. Of course, after all that, I had no choice but to accept on your behalf his extremely generous offer to allow you to switch course and study Wizardry, rather than Alchemy.”

Damian’s mouth went agape. “You… you what?”

“And you,” Vaufrej continued relentlessly, “you’re going to go along with it. An opportunity to gain such a direct connection with the royal family cannot go to waste. For the most part, wizards belong to noble families with wizardry deeply embedded in the history of their ancestry. Being able to become part of their circles will allow us to gain connections with some of the richest, most powerful people in the entire kingdom.”

“Hold on, don’t I get a say in this? Didn’t we agree that I’d marry who you wanted if I’d get to study what I want?”

Vaufrej paused. He sat back down. “If my memory serves me well, the agreement was that I’d allow you to pursue further studies at all, no mention of what faculty.”

Damian shook his head. “No, no, no. I know what was said, I minded my wording when proposing my side of the deal. I’m positive I specified that I wanted you to allow me to choose my faculty.”

Vaufrej smirked. “Is that so? That’s not how I remember it. Shame we didn’t put it in writing.”

Now it was Damian’s turn to quickly stand up on his feet, making his chair noisily slide against the wooden ground. “Are you trying to mess with me? Is this how you would conduct business? Grandpa would never go back on his word, even if it hadn’t been put in writing, and you claim to be his next heir? He’d never…”

“Sit. Down.” Vaufrey ordered drily.

“No, I won’t sit down, you…”

“And for the love of goodness, stop shouting.”

Damian slammed his fist on the desk. “Listen to me! Stop interrupting me and just listen to what I have to say for just once in your life!”

“I won’t treat someone who’s acting like a spoiled child as if he was a fully fledged adult. You think grandfather would have? He wouldn’t have gone very far in business if he had.”

Damian lunged forward and the next thing he knew he was pinned on top of the desk, his cheek uncomfortably pressed against the wooden surface and Vaufrej’s strong arm twisting his wrist behind his back. His nose hurt from an impact he just realised he had suffered in the process.

“You know, little brother,” Vaufrej calmly taunted, “this is the second time in as many days that I pinned a brat to this very desk for very similar reasons. Both of you came hoping to convince me of exactly the same thing.”

“What are you talking about?” Damian sputtered, noticing just then that blood was flowing out of his nostril.

“You though you were the first to come here about all the nonsense aunt Lucia is trying to start? Your friend, the new captain of the stepball team, came yesterday trying to convince me that his little girlfriend had been arrested for something, but was actually innocent.”

Luca already knew? Why didn’t he say something to him first? Why would he go to Vaufrej directly?

“I have to give it to you, you were handling yourself much better than he did, but then you threw it all out the window once you started shouting. Whatever, I won’t hold something like this against you or your friend. You’re still boys, both of you. If, from now on, the two of you behave, I won’t have to discipline you.”

As he finished the sentence, he let go of Damian’s wrist. His attempt to get back to an upright position was anything but graceful, and the drops of blood copiously dripping on the wood didn’t help.

Damian panted a few times. “Listen brother, I…” he swallowed, with no small effort, “I apologise. I was impulsive, I shouldn’t have made a scene with you.”

“Correct.” Vaufrej nodded.

“But… I think the timeline of events really is weird, when it comes to the trouble aunt Lucia wants to start. I think the possibility that Rosalba might actually be innocent is very real, and I’d like for her to get a fair trial, a fair chance to demonstrate her innocence. That’s not what our aunt is trying to do, we heard her speaking and she seems to have every intention of making sure she wins at all costs. It’s true, both Luca and I have been too… too emotional for our own good. But that doesn’t mean that we’re in the wrong here. Vaufrej, you have more authority than aunt Lucia does: if there’s anyone who can stop this whole circus before it goes way out of hand that’s you. Please, I know you have it in you.”

Still fixing and straightening out his clothes after wrestling Damian down, Vaufrej responded, “This whole ‘circus’, as you’re calling it, is weighed very heavily on one side. If the scandal comes out, and, after it reached the ears of the wife of the editor in chief of Vita Taurasiana, there is no stopping it, openly going against aunt Lucia is going to be a bad look for us. After all, the story won’t be about a young girl wrongly accused of theft, it will be about an ungrateful brat biting the hand that feeds her. That story will resonate with many of the most powerful people in the kingdom, especially after the riots. I shall not do anything that might put me or the business in a bad light with those people.”

He took a white handkerchief from his pocket and started gently cleaning up and plugging Damian’s nose with it. “If you promise to study Wizardry, like the Duke offered, I can at least promise you I’ll stay out of the whole story, I won’t help aunt Lucia at all. But you’re in no condition for asking me to put our reputation at risk by actively going against a narrative that the powerful will probably eat up.”

Damian addressed him an accusing look, and he smirked. “I’ll even put this one in writing.”