The walk to the meeting room was an event in itself. As usual, it was a long distance, but one thing was particularly out of the ordinary—or at this point, everything in the Coral Estate was. Luca felt that his body was slowly adjusting to these excruciatingly long-distance walks, and that made him glad.
Out of obligation, and for the sake of Luca not getting lost, Corey led the way once again.
And as if being wrong about exploring the entire estate once wasn't enough, Luca had been met with the sight of another new hallway. He couldn't understand the point of hiding hallways.
In the new hallway, the walls were lined with paintings that seemed to be portraits of the past dukes and duchesses, hence the grand portrait of former duke Javin Scillivar. Luca saw his eyes move when he passed it in his periphery. He was sure of it.
And just when he had thought it couldn't get any weirder, he heard something dart across a wall, and when he looked he saw nothing.
Then, Corey suddenly stopped in his tracks, startling Luca after he'd witnessed those anomalies that apparently meant nothing to Corey since he hadn't reacted to any of it.
"Mr. Sterling," he started. "I must remind you, the meeting won't just be with Her Grace but with His Grace too."
Luca couldn't help but feel a spark of curiosity. The siren duke was rarely ever mentioned anywhere, and he rarely made any public appearances. When he did, he was masked.
"Interesting," Luca muttered. "Oh, and I bumped into Lady Angelica the other day," he added.
"...Lady Angelica?" Corey repeated. "She's definitely something."
That wasn't the kind of reply Luca had been expecting, but he didn't pay much mind to it. The soft clack of his shoes echoed off the marble walls quite loudly, making him wish he also had a tail so he wouldn't have to make noise.
At last, the door to the meeting room loomed ahead, carved with intricate patterns that reflected the same dark elegance as the rest of the estate. Luca inhaled sharply, steeling himself. Corey opened the door for him and stayed outside of the room.
Luca was prepared for whatever awaited him.
Scovina sat at the far end of the long table, her violet gown pooling around her like a tenebrous liquid night.
Beside her was a man, immaculately dressed, whose sharp features made Luca's stomach twist in recognition. He could not mistake that long hair or his oh-so-familiar expression for anyone else. It was Kaz.
Luca's heart stuttered, questions and warnings colliding in his mind. "Why is he here? What is he doing here? He can't be 'His Grace,' can he?"
Scovina's eyes flickered toward him, icy and unreadable. "Investigator Sterling," she said, her synthetic voice low and measured. "I trust your journey was… comfortable?"
Luca bowed slightly, forcing himself to meet her gaze, but he couldn't ignore the utter state of shock and confusion he was in. "Yes, your grace," he replied, the words tasting odd on his tongue.
Scovina's gaze shifted briefly to Kaz, who inclined his head in silent acknowledgment. Then, with a deliberate sweep of her hand, she gestured to the empty chair across from her. "Sit. We have much to discuss."
As Luca lowered himself into the chair, the air seemed heavier, and the shadows stretched longer as though the room itself were waiting. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his chat with Kaz in the cafe replayed—who could have guessed that Kaz was married… and to a duchess, no less? Who could have guessed that he had a whole child?
Luca forced himself to focus, flipping open his notebook. The Eternal Chorus, the missing voices, the Elves' interference… all of it pressed on him, but the unsettling presence of Angelica lingered, a quiet reminder that the siren dukedom had layers that he was only now beginning to scratch.
"Now," Scovina said, cutting through the silence, "let us speak of the Eternal Chorus."
Kaz sat in silence beside her, her hand in his and listening very attentively. Luca wondered when Kaz ever intended to tell him about his identity—or if he even planned to at all.
"The Chorus," she continued, "is what gives our kind—sirens—our voices. Not merely speech, but the power of resonance, of persuasion, and of harmony with the world around us. Every song and every tone is a thread in a delicate web that has sustained our people for millennia." Her gaze shifted briefly to Kaz, who nodded, almost as if acknowledging a lesson he'd heard a thousand times.
"Until recently," Scovina added, "a disruption occurred. Certain external influences have dulled the Chorus. The voices are now weakened, missing, and jarring." She leaned forward slightly, and Luca almost felt the weight of her words in the air.
"Missing?" Luca asked. "As in… silent?"
"Yes," she said, almost wistfully, but with a glint of steel in her eyes. "Imagine a stringed instrument, perfectly tuned, yet one string refuses to sing. The sound is incomplete. That is what the chorus has become. Do you understand?"
She stopped, letting the image settle, and Luca wrote it all, his pen trembling slightly with the sense of urgency in the room.
"Yes, somewhat," Luca replied.
"And," She said, masking any deeper truth with an almost maternal smile, "we hope that a sharp mind like yours may uncover the source and restore harmony. You will be given access, explanations, and guidance—but only to the extent necessary to do your work. Some matters… Are simply not for human understanding."
Luca nodded, feeling both relieved and unsettled. Every word, pause, and glance from Scovina was a lesson and a test. But one thing that remained unanswered was what he was being given access to and what guidance he would receive.
While Scovina's words hung in the air, a tiny figure darted past the doorway. Luca barely had time to turn before the little girl appeared in front of him—Angelica. Her silver curls, resembling Kaz's hair, bounced unnaturally with each step, and her amethyst eyes glimmered with an unsettling curiosity.
"Excuse me," she said, tilting her head as if inspecting him like a specimen. "Mr. Human, can you hear it?" Her eyes widened.
"Hear… what?" Luca asked, blinking in rapid succession.
Angelica pointed a delicate finger toward the air above the table. "The missing sound. Don't tell me you can't hear it!"
Luca swallowed, heart thumping. He couldn't tell whether she was being serious or playing around with him.
"Never mind that," she huffed. "As imp-tuh-rant as I am, I have to make sure you're taking your spy notes properly," she said, grabbing his notebook from his hands.
Luca shot an apologetic glance at Scovina before gently taking it back. "I… yes," he stammered. "I've got everything written down."
Angelica stepped closer, her eyes narrowing. "Because if you're wrong… the Eternal Chorus will notice."
Luca froze. "Excuse me?"
Scovina didn't interrupt, but her hands tightened slightly over Kaz's, as if silently signalling restraint. Kaz's gaze flicked to Angelica, and Luca saw the faintest hint of warning, or maybe pride, in the way Kaz's lips pressed together.
Luca's mind raced. "How much does the child know?"
Before he could ask more, a faint vibration shivered through the air. Luca's pen trembled in his hand as a note—soft, incomplete—stretched from somewhere unseen. It hovered for a moment, then faded. Only he seemed to notice it. Kaz's eyes flicked toward the space where the note had lingered, and he gave a subtle, almost imperceptible nod toward Scovina.
Angelica clapped her hands. "See? It notices," she smiled oddly.
Scovina finally spoke, her tone smooth but commanding. "Angelica, darling, leave us to discuss… adult matters."
Angelica's grin didn't falter, but she obediently twirled on her heels and scuttled out of the room.
Luca exhaled. "Your Grace, your daughter…"
"She is more perceptive than she appears," Scovina replied, her eyes scanning his face as if measuring his reaction. "Do not underestimate her insight. Much like the Eternal Chorus, she notices things most overlook."
Scovina's attention returned to the matter at hand. She slid a small, crystalline jar across the table toward Luca. It hummed faintly, vibrating with a resonance that he could feel in his chest.
"Study and examine this. It's a voice jar, and it is what remains of the Eternal Chorus. It will respond to… attentive observation. Do not let the silence mislead you.
Luca picked it up carefully, feeling the subtle tremor along his fingers. The jar pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat just beneath the surface. He jotted notes quickly, his mind racing with questions about its origin and purpose.
Kaz's presence at the table was heavy and silent. He didn't speak, but his subtle gestures—a squeeze of Scovina's hand, a shift in posture—hinted at a private understanding between them. Luca tried to interpret it, but all he could do was think about how different Kaz was than he let on.
As the meeting drew to a close, Scovina's gaze lingered on him with a quiet intensity. "You will continue your investigation, Investigator Sterling. And remember… some notes are easier to hear than others."
***
The meeting ended without a clear dismissal, leaving him with more questions than answers.
Scovina had simply stopped speaking, making the following silence heavy and deliberate, as if something had been placed over the room to keep everything contained. Luca waited a moment too long before realizing that was his cue, resulting in him leaving with a face full of embarrassment.
Kaz hadn't said much, and that, more than anything, unsettled him.
Luca closed his notebook carefully, the soft sound of the pages folding over themselves seeming louder than it should have been.
The jar he'd been given by Scovina felt as if something had been preserved inside it that shouldn't have been able to exist outside of a body.
The moment that his fingers had closed around the glass, something in his chest pulled tight—not unlike the feeling of the sigil inside of him.
"...Just a jar," Luca murmured under his breath. He held it up between his fingers, and at first, nothing happened. Then, there was a faint tremor in his hand. His breath hitched slightly as the shard pulsed, soft and irregular, like something trying to remember a rhythm it had lost. He stilled, focusing, letting his senses sharpen the way they always did when something didn't quite add up.
There—a sound. It wasn't exactly audible or something his ears picked up, but something deeper. Luca couldn't put it into words, but he knew that a note had tried to form, stretching thin, fragile and—
And then it snapped. Gone.
Luca frowned, bringing the shard closer to his face. "You're far too complex to be called silent…"
His thumb brushed along its edge. It was cold, and underneath it, there it was again. That scent. Faint, metallic, and wrong.
It was unlike the oceanic salt that clung to everything in the dukedom or the sweetness of the Lunar Lily. This was something sharper, thinner, and almost hidden beneath layers of deliberate masking.
Luca's expression tightened. "...You don't match the story," he murmured.
He sat on a nearby bench in the eerie, portrait-filled corridor, and Corey was still nowhere in sight.
Luca flipped his notebook open quickly, scribbling, "Voice jar is heavily unstable. Resonance incomplete—cut off. Caused by Foreign interference, not natural decay."
His pen paused. Then, he wrote slower, "Smell doesn't quite match Elven mana."
Luca stared at those words for a second longer than necessary. Because if it didn't match… Then Scovina was either wrong or she was lying.
A quiet creak echoed behind him. Luca turned sharply, and he could've sworn he saw a strand of golden hair. His eyes shot to one of the portraits, but it was perfectly still. He was seeing things. Luca's grip tightened around the jar.
"...Yeah," he muttered, slipping back into his notebook and straightening his posture. "This place is definitely normal."
But his heartbeat had picked up. Not from fear, but from the certainty that something in this dukedom was being covered up carefully, deliberately, and convincingly enough that most people would never question it. Most people.
Luca adjusted his tie, exhaling slowly as he got up from the bench and started walking again. He didn't want anything to do with this corridor any longer.
"Good thing that I'm not like most people. I never miss anything," he said to himself.