The footsteps below were unhurried.
That was what made them insulting.
Not the sound of soldiers storming a hostile estate. Not the sound of thieves trying to be quick.
Just leather soles on old wood.
Measured.
Calm.
As if the people entering Aldebaran's mansion already believed the house belonged to them.
Julia moved first.
"My Lord, stay here," she whispered.
Vincent was already walking.
The first step reminded him this body was still a poorly made joke.
The second nearly made his knee fold.
He steadied himself against the wall and kept going anyway.
Behind him, Julia made the small sound of someone who wanted to protest and knew it would be useless.
The corridor outside the room was long, dim, and wounded by neglect. Morning light leaked in through cracked windows and painted the floorboards in cold gray strips. Dust lay thick in the corners. Portrait frames hung crooked, most of the canvases slashed or missing entirely.
Vincent walked past all of it.
Slowly.
From below, a man's voice drifted up through the stairwell.
"Be careful with that cabinet. If there's silver left, I'd rather not have it dented."
Another voice laughed softly.
"In this place? We'll be lucky if rats haven't eaten the silver."
Julia's jaw hardened.
Vincent said nothing.
He reached the landing above the main hall and looked down.
Three men stood inside.
Two wore clerk-gray coats over travel clothes, clean cuffs, good boots, the kind of neatness men kept when they expected other people to get dirty for them. The third stood in front of them with one gloved hand resting lightly on his belt.
He smiled when he saw Vincent.
A thin, satisfied smile. The smile of a man finding proof that a door had indeed been left unlocked.
"Lord Vincent," he said pleasantly. "How fortunate. We were told you were indisposed."
He was in his thirties, perhaps. Well-fed. Sharp-featured. The kind of face that knew how to look offended on behalf of institutions. A silver badge gleamed on his chest—an eight-pointed star framed by a laurel wreath.
Not the Hero Association.
Merchant Association.
A counterfeit dignity for a parasite's work.
Vincent descended the stairs one careful step at a time.
His legs trembled.
He made sure only Julia could see it.
"You entered without permission," Vincent said.
The man spread his hands with practiced regret.
"The front door wasn't barred."
"So that made you a guest?"
The two clerks behind him snorted before they could stop themselves. Their superior did not.
Instead, his smile sharpened slightly.
"Dolbi Rusker," he said, inclining his head. "Merchant Association enforcement. I prefer honesty, Lord Vincent, so let me return the courtesy: I did not come here to be a guest."
Vincent reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped.
He did not stand close enough to make a physical contest possible.
He was weak, not stupid.
Julia remained half a step behind him and to the side.
Guard position, Vincent thought.
Interesting.
Dolbi's eyes flicked to her, lingered for the briefest moment, then returned to Vincent.
"And you must be the last one left foolish enough to stay," he said to Julia.
"She has a name," Vincent said.
Dolbi raised a brow. "Does she?"
Julia's fingers tightened against her skirt, but her voice came out steady.
"Julia de Lucretia."
That got a reaction.
Small, but real.
Dolbi's gaze sharpened. "Lucretia." He looked back at Vincent. "How nostalgic."
Vincent ignored the bait.
"You came for documents," he said.
"I did."
"Then show them."
Dolbi smiled like a man humoring a child. Still, he reached into his coat and withdrew a folded bundle of papers tied with red ribbon and stamped with multiple seals.
He handed them to one of the clerks instead of directly to Vincent.
The clerk stepped forward and offered them with both hands.
That little choice told Vincent plenty.
We will perform respect. We will not grant it.
Vincent took the papers and unfolded them.
Sale notices.
Claim notices.
Debt notices.
Transfer requests.
Asset liquidation language dressed up as legal courtesy.
He skimmed quickly.
Too quickly for a man like Vincent, perhaps. Not too quickly for Gabriel.
Dolbi noticed that too.
Something moved behind his eyes.
"What is this?" Vincent asked calmly.
Dolbi sounded delighted to explain.
"The practical end of a noble decline, my Lord. Certain debts attached to the Aldebaran estate have matured. Certain collateral conditions have therefore been triggered. Certain branches of your family have chosen cooperation instead of embarrassment."
Vincent's gaze lifted.
"Which branches?"
Dolbi gestured to the final page.
Two signatures.
One elegant. One impatient.
A sister.
A younger brother.
Yet enough to make scavengers confident.
Julia stepped forward before she could stop herself.
"They cannot sell this house," she said. "Lord Vincent is still—"
Dolbi turned his head toward her with polished patience.
"The line of inheritance is not a shield against debt, girl."
Julia's expression turned cold. "I am not a girl."
"No?" Dolbi asked. "You're standing in a collapsing mansion defending a family that cannot feed you. That seems very young to me."
Vincent folded the paper once.
Neatly.
"Leave her out of this."
Dolbi's attention returned to him.
"There is very little left to leave out," he said. "That is the problem."
He began to walk—not toward Vincent, but through the hall itself, gloved fingers brushing the back of a chair, the edge of a broken table, the wall beneath a ruined portrait.
He moved like an appraiser in a warehouse.
"This estate has been bleeding value for years," he said. "Art removed. Furnishings sold. silver melted. land disputed. staff dismissed. repairs ignored. lineage prestige declining."
His tone was almost academic.
Then he stopped beneath the defaced Aldebaran crest and glanced up at it.
"A sad thing," he murmured.
Vincent watched him.
No emotion.
Just a hardening clarity.
"Say what you came to say," Vincent said.
Dolbi turned.
"Very well. The Merchant Association now holds priority claim over the property. The mansion will be transferred, then demolished. The grounds will be repurposed. Anything of practical value inside will be inventoried and removed."
Julia's breath caught.
Vincent's face did not change.
"And if I refuse?"
Dolbi smiled.
"Then you will refuse while being poor."
One of the clerks laughed under his breath. Dolbi did not reprimand him.
"Do you know what makes fallen houses easy to bury, Lord Vincent?" Dolbi asked lightly.
Vincent said nothing.
"They always think dignity is currency."
His gaze drifted deliberately over Vincent's thin frame.
"You, especially, seem attached to expensive illusions."
Julia moved before thinking.
One step.
Enough.
Dolbi's two clerks straightened at once.
Vincent lifted one finger without looking at her.
Julia stopped.
Good, Vincent thought. Loyal. Not reckless enough to ruin the moment if checked.
Dolbi saw that too.
His smile thinned.
"You should sell her," he said casually. "A pretty, obedient servant from an old house would still fetch sympathy from the right buyer."
Silence fell.
Thin.
Sharp.
Julia went very still.
Vincent did not.
That was what made the room colder.
When he spoke, his voice was soft.
"If you say her price again, I will forget how weak I am."
Dolbi stared at him.
Then laughed once.
Not because the line was funny.
Because he had decided it was safer to treat it that way.
"There it is," he said. "Some spine after all."
He took a step forward.
"Let me spare you further theatre. You are not in a position to bargain. Your family signed. Your house is done. Your staff is gone. Even your name—"
He paused deliberately.
"—does not carry what it used to."
That one landed.
The house was dead.
The banner was gone.
The world had already learned how to digest Aldebaran.
Vincent looked down at the papers in his hand.
Then beyond them.
To the empty spaces in the walls.
The stripped furniture.
The cracked chandelier.
The hall that had once received kings and commanders.
A house with no teeth.
That was what Dolbi thought he was looking at.
He was wrong.
Teeth could be regrown.
A corpse could not.
Which meant this place had to stop pretending to be alive.
Vincent refolded the papers and handed them back to the clerk.
"I won't sign today," he said.
Dolbi's smile vanished.
It returned a moment later, thinner and less warm than before.
"You misunderstand. I didn't come asking."
"No," Vincent said. "You came measuring."
Dolbi held out his hand.
The clerk gave him the documents.
Dolbi tucked them away with neat, disappointed movements.
"Then let us measure honestly."
He glanced around the hall.
His gaze settled on a side cabinet half-warped with age.
"Take that."
One clerk moved immediately.
Then another toward a wall sconce.
Julia took a sharp breath.
Vincent said, "Stop."
No one stopped.
The first clerk lifted the cabinet with a grunt.
The second began tugging at the sconce hard enough to crack plaster.
Vincent's pulse kicked once, hard and ugly.
He stepped forward.
His body protested instantly.
His lungs tightened. His thigh trembled. His vision narrowed at the edges.
He kept moving.
Dolbi watched him approach with a kind of curiosity usually reserved for injured animals refusing to lie down.
Vincent stopped directly in front of the cabinet clerk.
The clerk looked uncertainly toward Dolbi.
Dolbi did not answer right away.
He seemed to be enjoying this.
Vincent spoke without turning.
"This is still my house."
Dolbi replied, "On paper, briefly."
Vincent's gaze shifted to the clerk.
"Set it down."
The man hesitated.
Then looked again to Dolbi.
Vincent saw it.
Authority did not live in wealth alone.
It lived in being obeyed first.
This house had forgotten that.
He could not afford to.
Dolbi tilted his head.
"Well?" he asked the clerk.
The clerk's grip tightened on the cabinet.
Vincent moved.
It was not fast.
It was Vincent's weak body throwing itself one step too far out of exhaustion and necessity.
He slammed his shoulder into the side of the cabinet.
Pain exploded through his arm and ribs.
The clerk yelped.
The cabinet crashed sideways onto the floor, one leg splintering off on impact.
Julia's eyes widened.
The second clerk froze with the sconce half-ripped from the wall.
Dolbi stared.
The hall went silent except for Vincent's breathing.
Hard.
Uneven.
His knees threatened to fold, but he locked them in place through spite alone.
Then he looked at Dolbi and said, "Now it has less value. Congratulations."
The first clerk swore under his breath.
Dolbi's jaw tightened.
For the first time, the polished calm cracked.
"You are ill," he said quietly.
"Yes."
"You are weak."
"Yes."
"You cannot protect this estate."
Vincent's mouth twitched.
"That depends on what I'm protecting."
Dolbi stared a second longer than he should have.
Then the calculation returned.
It always did with men like him.
He stepped back and adjusted one glove.
"Fine," he said. "Let's simplify."
He reached into his pocket and drew out a single gold coin.
A bright coin.
Too bright for this house.
Too bright for the room.
He rolled it across the dusty floor with one finger.
It spun, flashed, then settled near Vincent's boot.
"For immediate personal use," Dolbi said. "Consider it compassion."
Julia looked like she wanted to spit.
Vincent looked down at the coin.
Payment.
Pity.
Humiliation.
A test.
He bent slowly and picked it up.
Dolbi smiled, victorious too early.
Vincent turned and placed the coin on the broken cabinet.
Then he sat down on it.
The room blinked.
Even Julia did.
Vincent exhaled slowly, because standing had become expensive again and this body had chosen that exact moment to remind him he was one bad breath away from collapsing.
He looked at Dolbi from his new seat.
"There," Vincent said. "Now your compassion has furnished the room."
A clerk choked.
Dolbi's face went still in a dangerous way.
Vincent leaned one elbow on his knee.
"You came to see whether Aldebaran still had someone inside it," he said. "Now you know."
Dolbi's eyes narrowed.
Vincent continued before he could answer.
"So here is my answer in return. You may leave with your papers. You may return with more papers. You may even return with a demolition order and ten more clean men to read it aloud."
He tilted his head slightly.
"But you will not walk freely through this house while I am breathing in it."
Silence.
Heavy this time.
Dolbi looked at Julia.
Then at the ruined crest.
Then at Vincent again.
When he spoke, his politeness had become sharper.
"You believe this moment changed your position."
"No," Vincent said. "I believe it clarified yours."
Dolbi held his stare.
Then he smiled again.
A bad smile.
A working smile.
"Very well," he said. "You may keep your dead house for now."
He turned toward the door.
"Take nothing," he told the clerks.
Both men hesitated in visible confusion.
Dolbi did not raise his voice.
They obeyed anyway.
At the threshold, he paused and looked back.
"One month," he said.
Julia stiffened.
Dolbi enjoyed that.
"One month before the transfer is enforced in full. One month before every remaining claim becomes final. One month before this house is worth more as debris than memory."
His gaze rested on Vincent's face.
"Use it well."
Then, as an afterthought, he added:
"If you decide to sell the servant, send word before the market loses interest."
Julia's nails bit into her palms.
Vincent smiled.
A small one.
Cold enough to deserve the name.
"If I send word," he said, "it won't be to sell her."
Dolbi held his stare for one beat.
Then he left.
The clerks followed.
The front door closed.
The mansion fell quiet again.
Not peaceful.
Only emptied.
Vincent remained seated on the broken cabinet for exactly three seconds after the footsteps faded.
Then his vision darkened.
Julia was at his side instantly.
"My Lord—"
"I know."
He tried to stand.
His legs refused on the first attempt.
He hated that more than pain.
Julia slipped one arm under his and steadied him without comment.
The lack of comment helped.
He let her.
They stood in the ruined hall together, breathing the same stale air, listening to the silence Dolbi had left behind.
After a moment, Julia said quietly, "One month."
Vincent looked at the shattered leg of the cabinet.
"Yes."
"That isn't enough."
"No."
Julia swallowed. "Then what do we do?"
That was the right question.
Not can we win.
What do we do.
Vincent turned his gaze slowly across the mansion.
The broken walls.
The empty spaces.
The defaced crest.
He felt the answer before he fully understood it.
This house had no teeth.
But houses like this were built by men who liked secrets more than common sense.
Old nobility hid things.
Weapons.
Records.
Relics.
Shame.
If Aldebaran had truly expected the world to remain kind forever, then the house deserved to die.
He did not think Aldebaran had been that foolish.
"Show me everything," Vincent said.
Julia looked at him. "Everything?"
"Every room. Every hall. Every place already stripped. Every place they missed." His eyes sharpened. "If this house is dying, I want to know what it still has in its bones."
Julia hesitated only a second.
Then nodded.
"Yes, my Lord."
Vincent took one step forward.
The floor creaked beneath him.
The ruined crest watched from the wall.
And somewhere deeper in the mansion—
beneath the wood, beneath the dust, beneath the corpse of Aldebaran—
something answered with a faint, heavy click.
As if the house had just heard him ask the right question.