Page 144 of Legacy Elite

"Because you've never asked this Council for anything. That's been the strongest position you had." He's turned in his chair. "The second you formally ask for Fourth House records as its heir, you've made a claim—"

"They brought six," I say.

Luke closes his eyes for a second.

"Yes."

"It stopped being small yesterday."

"I know."

I look back at the screen.

"I want access to every sealed Fourth House record the Council still holds," I say. "Formally. However you want it worded — I'll sign whatever you put in front of me."

"Those records have been under seal for more than two centuries," Wren says.

"I know."

"Opening them requires a resolution of the full Council. It would be opposed."

"Councillor, those are my family's papers, and I'm the only person alive who isn't allowed to read them."

"There is a procedure—"

"Then start the procedure."

Chapter twenty

Luke

The message arrives at four minutes past six.

Visitors' wing, eight o'clock. House business. — A.D.

Not his rooms in town. Not a call. And he's signed it himself rather than having it sent, which he does when he doesn't want anyone else touching it.

House business is what my father says when it's family business and he doesn't want to call it that.

I put the phone face down.

Then I go and find a decent shirt, because whatever else this is, it's a meeting.

They've put my father in the corner set on the second floor. He'll have asked for it.

My aunt opens the door.

"Isolde."

"Lucian."

She stands back to let me in, and that answers most of what I came here to find out.

Isolde is not here as my aunt. Isolde has sat on the Draeven bench through every session of this Council year, including the one where a twenty-two-year-old was told she was the surviving heir of a House that stopped existing before either of us was born.

She's here because somebody may need to say something my father would rather not say himself.

"Sit down," my father says.