Page 211 of Heartless Legacy

Pointing to the left, he says, “These are the names of the people our family has vowed to protect since the inception of The League of the Daggered Raven.” Gesturing toward the right, he says, “And these are the family members that are left.”

I read the names, following them to their descendants, and ask, “What about the descendants of the people down in this lower corner? Did they move away, or drop from The League?”

“Let’s sit,” Pops says, going back over to his desk.

Once we’re seated, he hands me a binder. I flip through the papers and photos in it. Looking up at him, I say, “They’ve all got one thing in common. They had daughters?”

He nods. “Daughters were always easier to replace, since they had no autonomy in that world. The husband’s family assumedthe legacy title, which went to the oldest male heir, and that heir wasn’t always the husband. With each girl child being born, the family line became more and more diluted. The guardian lines lost track or stopped caring about anyone who wasn’t in the upper ranks of power.”

I flip through page after page, stalling in the middle of the book.

A familiar face stares back at me. “Pops?”

“Nikolous Constantin was the first male born in five generations. His great-great-great-grandfather was Caius Adrianakis.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

Turning the page, I spot a design on the back of Thea’s photo. It’s the same picture as the design on the piece of paper in Alexz’s safe. “Why does this look so much like the guardian crest?”

He answers, “Because itisthe guardian crest. The one you see every day is a knockoff. Or maybe I should say it’s an offshoot from what it once was, just like the guardian organization is.”

He spins in his chair, accessing his safe, pulls an envelope out of his gun box, and hands it to me. Inside is a torn piece of paper, withC. Adon it. “What’s this?”

“That’s a piece of the original governance document for The League of the Daggered Raven. And you need to find the original accounting entry before anyone else does.”

Setting the paper aside, I say, “Maybe you should start at the beginning.”

Thea

Delta team practically dragged me out of class and put me on an eleven hour flight to meet Alexz in Frankfurt. I plop down in a chair, waiting for the European assistants to leave the room, then ask, “Isn’t this a bit extreme even for you? If you wanted to see me, we could’ve video chatted.”

“As much as I am happy to see you, this isn’t on me, Egononi. Beauwolf requested this meeting and insisted it had to be in person.”

Wolfe met me at the airport, but he didn’t act like he knew what the last-minute trip was all about. “Wolfe?”

After a few moments of sizing up Alexz, he says, “We need to discuss league history.”

Alexz gestures, giving him the floor. Wolfe sets a briefcase on the table and removes the contents, passing them to Alexz. “Recognize that?”

Alexz says, “They’re the names etched on the wall in The Tomb and Founder’s Hall.” Sliding the document towards me, he asks, “What seems to be the problem?”

Wolfe answers, “My grandfather thinks the entries in the archives are wrong.”

“Wrong?” I parrot.

“As in tampered with.”

“You mean, forged?”

“Manipulated.” Wolfe clarifies. Then pulls out a few more sheets of paper and passes them to me and Alexz. Keeping one for himself, he says, I read along as he says, “1923, Colby Wagner.” I locate the name on the list. “He paid $10,000 dollars to Senator Hoyt’s campaign. The largest single donation at the time. He acquired a legacy spot in the dorm when George Wilson’s last living male relative passed away.”

Moving to the next entry, he says, “1936, union workers are on strike, costing Roosevelt Steele half a million in sales. The president of the union, Levi Borelli, had been refusing to negotiate until he was called personally by Dalton Roosevelt. There’s a closed door meeting, and after sixty-two days, the strike ends. Borelli resigned his position and took a job with Roosevelt.”

I add, “And now his family’s name is listed in founders hall.”

The stories go on and on. By the sixth name I say, “So it’s true? I was joking before, but it’s actually true that they bought and sold legacy positions at the dorm?”

Wolfe says, “They bought and sold positions that belonged to someone else. My grandfather believes there used to be a document in the guardian archives that listed the names and exact dollar amount each family donated. No one’s seen this document since it was drafted, but our family has passed down the names of the people on that document, the same way they passed down the family tree, of the bloodline they swore an oath to protect.”

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