Time/Date: Mid-Morning, TC1853.01.10
Location: Brenner Estate, Lord Garrick's Private Quarters
Amara's eyes took on that eerie quality Seers adopted during active visions—slightly unfocused, looking at something beyond normal sight. Her voice changed as well, becoming more distant. Less individual person and more cosmic conduit.
The performance was flawless, honed through years of practice.
"I see..."
Empire Medical Research Center processes DNA samples in seven to ten days standard protocol. Contamination occurring within forty-eight hours will be discovered during final verification around day eight or nine. Standard protocols require fresh sample requests. Processing time plus scheduling puts retesting at day eleven or twelve from initial collection.
She paused, and everyone leaned forward unconsciously. Drawn by the authority in her tone, by the otherworldly quality of her delivery.
"The path is... complex. Multiple stages required." Her brow furrowed as if she was struggling to interpret what she saw. "The DNA samples will fail—somehow compromised during processing. They'll discover this around the 18th or 19th. Request new samples from all parties. Schedule retesting for the 21st, maybe 22nd."
Lower districts. Industrial sector. Old infrastructure. Gas explosions occur every few months in that area—perfect cover. Dawn timing minimizes witnesses while subject is still asleep. Make it specific enough to sound prophetic but vague enough to allow flexibility.
Her focus sharpened on Garrick with unsettling directness. The kind of look that suggested she was seeing through him to something beyond. "But she won't make it to that retesting. There's a building. Lower districts, near the industrial zones where the factories run constantly. On the 21st or 22nd, just before dawn..." Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "An explosion. Faulty infrastructure—gas leak, maybe, or old heating systems. Tragic but common enough in those areas that investigators won't question it immediately."
Now emphasize naturalness. They must believe this is fate, not murder. Make them feel righteous in their actions.
She blinked, and the distant quality faded slightly. Enough to look at them all individually. "It has to look completely natural. Investigators will examine the site thoroughly—they'll be looking for foul play given the timing. So it can't appear staged in any way. Just another unfortunate incident in aging infrastructure. The kind of thing that happens in the lower districts more often than anyone wants to admit."
"Can you see where she's hiding?" Isolde demanded, leaning forward with predatory interest.
"Fragments only." Amara's brow furrowed as if she was trying to force the vision into greater clarity. "Lower districts, definitely. Near the industrial sector, where the noise would mask movement. But exact location..." She shook her head with convincing frustration. "The futures are... clouded. That will require physical investigation. Traditional methods."
The maid lost her, the Devourer System whispered with barely contained frustration. The girl who followed her from the police station—she vanished into the lower districts like smoke. Clever. Too clever for an abused servant. She knows tradecraft. Knows how to disappear.
"Serenya's resources from her work with the Lin family medical network might help track her movements," Amara added aloud, translating the System's urgency into something resembling prophecy. "Someone must have seen her. Treated old injuries, perhaps. Provided supplies. The lower districts have their own networks—Lin family healers who work in those areas might have information."
Selene had been silent through the logistics discussion, sitting small in her chair with her hands twisted in her lap. But something had shifted in her expression since Amara's revelation. The broken woman was gone, replaced by sharp calculation.
She was studying Amara now. Really studying her. Seeing patterns she'd missed before, connections she'd overlooked while assuming her daughter was simply talented and ambitious.
How much had Amara orchestrated? How much of Selene's own plans had been subtly guided, shaped, manipulated to serve purposes beyond what Selene had intended?
The serpent recognizing that she'd been living with a viper all along.
"Serenya will help," Selene said finally, her voice carrying a different quality now. Not defeat, but adaptation. "She's already complicit in whatever schemes Amara has been running. She'll understand that her survival depends on ours." A pause, and her eyes stayed fixed on Amara. "Won't she, daughter?"
Garrick nodded slowly, mind already calculating logistics like he was planning a business acquisition instead of murder. "Three days. We have perhaps three days maximum to locate the safe house, contaminate the samples at the research center, and make arrangements for the... incident. That's barely enough time to do this properly, but it's what we have."
He stood with decisive authority, and suddenly the elderly man who'd seemed fragile moments ago was gone. Replaced by the patriarch who'd built an empire through force of will. "Edmund, contact Serenya immediately. Today—this morning if possible. Tell her we need two things."
Edmund remained frozen, face ashen, and Garrick continued as if his son's horror was completely irrelevant. Which, to him, it probably was.
"First, access to Lin family compounds that can compromise DNA sample integrity without detection. Something that will degrade the genetic markers but appear like natural breakdown or improper storage conditions. The kind of thing that happens in poorly maintained evidence facilities or through simple human error in handling."
His voice hardened just slightly. "The contamination must happen within the next forty-eight hours at most. We need those samples degraded before the research center completes final analysis. If results come back showing the girl's true parentage before we can act, this window closes. Permanently."
"How do we even access police evidence storage?" Edmund asked weakly. Finally finding his voice, though it came out thin and strained.
"Money opens doors, Edmund. You know this." Garrick said it with absolute certainty. The casual confidence of someone who'd been bribing officials for seven decades. "Serenya will know someone who knows someone. The Lin family has connections throughout the medical and law enforcement infrastructure. Security staff who need extra income. Lab technicians who can be... persuaded. Someone can always be found and properly motivated."
"Second substance from Serenya," Garrick continued, ticking items off mentally like a shopping list. "Something that can trigger an explosion remotely while appearing to be natural infrastructure failure. Make it look like gas buildup from faulty systems, old heating equipment, or compromised pipes in aging buildings. The structure goes up. By the time investigators arrive and contain the fire, there's nothing left but rubble and remains too damaged for useful DNA analysis."
The casual way he discussed it—like arranging a shipment of grain instead of premeditated murder—made Edmund's stomach turn. This was his father. The man who'd taught him to read ledgers and negotiate contracts. The man who'd built an empire from wheat fields and hungry winters.
And now he was calmly planning to kill a seventeen-year-old girl.
"And if she's not there when it happens?" Selene asked, her voice carrying a new edge. Not broken anymore—something sharper. More focused.
Edmund recognized that tone. It was the voice Selene used when she was calculating odds, measuring risks, finding angles that others had missed.
"Then we have a serious problem," Garrick said flatly, turning to fix her with a look that carried clear blame. You created this mess. "Because once the research center discovers the contamination and requests retesting, we become the obvious suspects. The timing would be too convenient, the pattern too clear. Police aren't stupid—they'll see it. No—we must ensure the situation is resolved before the Empire Medical Research Center finishes processing those samples. While we still have plausible deniability about the extent of the situation."
He looked at each of them in turn. Making sure they understood their roles. Their complicity. Binding them together through shared guilt. "We have perhaps eight days—less if the lab works faster than expected. Eight days maximum to locate the safe house, compromise the laboratory samples, and arrange the incident before anyone realizes the samples are unusable. Edmund, contact Serenya this afternoon. She needs to begin working on the contamination immediately."
Selene's hands trembled where they gripped her chair arms. But she nodded. The serpent finally accepting that she'd been outmaneuvered by forces far beyond her comprehension.
Or—Edmund thought with growing unease—accepting that she needed to appear cooperative while she figured out her own angle. Her own way to survive this with minimal damage.
Selene didn't surrender. She adapted.
"It's settled then," Garrick said with terrible finality. The tone of someone closing a business deal. Contract signed. Terms agreed. Nothing left but execution. "Serenya moves within forty-eight hours on the contamination. Within eight days—before the lab discovers any problems—we resolve this situation permanently."
Something is wrong, came a sudden, urgent transmission from the Devourer System that only Amara could hear. Its mental voice carried rare uncertainty that made her breath catch. There are forces moving that I cannot fully perceive. Cosmic attention is focused here in ways that should not be possible for a mortal realm. Be careful, chosen daughter. Very careful.
Amara's breath caught. The System had never sounded uncertain before. Never admitted to limitations or blind spots. That admission terrified her more than anything else in this nightmare conversation.
If the entity that had guided her for years was frightened—
"Grandfather," she began, but he was already moving. Already focused on the next steps with single-minded determination.
Standing with decisive authority. Mind locked onto the plan like a hound scenting prey. The merchant prince who had built an empire through ruthless calculation, now applying that same ruthlessness to something infinitely darker.
"Edmund, make the call to Serenya within the hour," he commanded, pointing to the communication device on his desk. "Isolde, use your society connections to learn everything you can about where the girl might be hiding. Check servant networks, lower district contacts. Someone has seen her. Someone always sees."
He turned to Selene last, and his expression went cold. Glacial. The kind of look that had made business rivals reconsider their positions for seven decades. "You have one more task before any of this begins. The police have that Amber Kiss glass. Your fingerprints are on it—we know this. But so are Amara's."
Selene's face went even paler, if that was possible.
"When they question you again—and they will question you again, Selene, make no mistake about that—you will take full responsibility for the drugging scheme," Garrick continued with absolute authority. "You will confess that you acted alone. That Amara knew nothing about your plans. That you manipulated the situation without her knowledge or consent."
"But Grandfather," Amara began, voice trembling slightly, "my fingerprints on the glass—"
"Will be explained as innocent contact," Garrick cut her off smoothly. "Selene will testify that she asked you to help serve refreshments at the banquet. That you handled the glass while preparing drinks, completely unaware that your mother had already added the poison to it. You were an unwitting participant, a daughter trying to help her mother with party preparations. Nothing more."
His pale eyes bored into Selene. "You will corroborate this story in every detail. You will insist that Amara is innocent of any wrongdoing. That she was as much a victim of your schemes as Lord Kael was. Do you understand?"
Selene's hands twisted in her lap. The serpent being forced to sacrifice herself to save her offspring. But Edmund saw it again—that flicker of calculation. That subtle shift in her expression that meant she was already figuring out angles.
"And if I refuse?" Selene asked quietly.
"Then we all fall," Garrick said with brutal honesty. "But you'll fall furthest and hardest. Right now, you're looking at charges for the baby swap and the drugging. Serious, yes, but manageable if handled correctly. If you protect Amara, she might still salvage something from this disaster—a marriage, a future, a chance to elevate this family despite your mistakes."
He leaned forward, voice dropping to something that might have been gentle in a different context. Almost. "But if you implicate her, if you let your daughter go down with you, then the Brenner family loses everything. Our one significant asset—a Seer with demonstrable abilities—becomes tainted beyond redemption. The Xuán marriage collapses before it begins. Our path to nobility dies. And your legacy becomes the woman who destroyed everything her family built over generations of struggle and sacrifice."
The choice wasn't really a choice at all. They all knew it.
"I'll do it," Selene whispered finally. "I'll take full responsibility. Amara knew nothing about the drugging."
But her eyes—Edmund saw it there. That serpentine intelligence working through possibilities. She was planning something. Calculating her own survival separate from whatever Garrick thought he'd arranged.
"Good," Garrick said with satisfaction. "When the police come—and they will come again, make absolutely no mistake about that—you'll confess to acting alone. Your story is simple: you're a mother who favored one daughter over the other. You saw Mara as competition for Amara's future prospects. You noticed her... inappropriate attention toward Lord Kael at family gatherings."
He held up a hand to forestall any objection. "We all know that's false, but it's plausible. A jealous, controlling mother who decided the best way to secure Amara's position was to have Mara compromised and married off. She was seventeen—young enough that a scandal would force a quick marriage to whoever was in that room. Remove the competition, secure your favored daughter's path to nobility."
Garrick's pale eyes bored into Selene. "It makes you a terrible parent. There will be penalties—fines, possibly house arrest, social disgrace. But nothing that touches the deeper... complications. Nothing about bloodlines or celestial families. Just a bitter woman making catastrophically poor decisions out of maternal favoritism."
He straightened, decision made. "Amara will be questioned separately. She'll express appropriate shock and horror at learning her mother drugged her own stepdaughter out of jealous spite. She'll appear as another victim in your schemes—the favored daughter who had no idea her mother would go to such extremes on her behalf."
Perfect, the Devourer System purred with dark satisfaction. They're building your innocence while sealing hers. Let the mother burn so the daughter can rise from her ashes like a phoenix reborn.
"You'll also help Serenya with the technical aspects," Garrick continued, returning to his systematic planning. "Your knowledge of poisons and compounds will be useful for both the sample contamination and the explosion. Consider it appropriate penance for your failures. This is your mess to clean up, Selene. Make absolutely certain you do it correctly this time."
The Devourer System thrashed within Amara's consciousness like something trapped. Trying desperately to understand the cosmic forces it sensed gathering. But for all its ancient knowledge, all its stolen power and accumulated wisdom, it remained blind to one critical truth that would damn them all:
Every word spoken in that room was being recorded.
Not by mortal technology that could be detected or disabled. Not by surveillance systems that could be bribed or hacked or simply destroyed. But by cosmic law itself. The kind that didn't require witnesses or evidence or testimony because the universe itself bore witness.
Reality writing their conspiracy into its fundamental fabric, where it could never be erased or denied or explained away.
They had just planned murder in a space where reality listened.
And reality would remember.
Outside the study window, clouds gathered with unnatural speed. Birds fled from trees in sudden, panicked flight. Animals grew restless in their pens, sensing something profoundly wrong with the world. The physical realm responding to spiritual corruption with instinctive revulsion—the way healthy tissue recoils from infection.
But inside, the Brenner family continued planning their crime. Certain of their cleverness. Confident in their power. Completely unaware that their fate had already been sealed by forces that cared nothing for mortal schemes or merchant princes or ninety years of accumulated wealth.
The trap they thought they were laying for the girl had become something far more ironic. Their own conspiracy, recorded by cosmic law, would be the evidence that destroyed them all. Every word. Every plan. Every moment of calculated murder preserved in the fabric of reality itself.
They'd hanged themselves with their own rope.
And didn't even know the noose was tightening.