Chapter 74: Crowley

"What's wrong?" Brunilda asked from her roost in the chandelier. Her tone was alert. "Do you recognize someone in this group?"

Mattheus zoned out slightly as his mother started acting on her hostess duties and exercised the fact she was his father's deputy. She had called it a dinner party but this kind of gathering was typically done by the Lord of the City. As Albert IV was typically Albert IV, though, it meant that Honoria had been doing the politicking of Mecane in her husband's place for decades.

All this information ran through the twenty-year-old's mind as his thoughts reached such critical speeds that it almost felt like he wasn't thinking at all. Within that state, where he was trying to maintain the mask he was to wear tonight, came several epiphanies and conclusions.