Chapter 176| What They Told the Family
Hegeville’s familiar lights greeted them well past midnight, and Allen felt something in his chest ease at the sight of it, the town’s steady, considerable warmth a welcome counterweight to everything the day had demanded of them. Edward met the transport at the guild’s entrance, having apparently kept watch for their return despite the late hour, and his relief at seeing them was immediate and unguarded.
"You’re back," he said, then caught the exhausted, considerable weight in each of their expressions. "What happened?"
"We found what we were looking for," Allen said carefully. "All of it. It’s a lot to explain properly. Can it wait until morning?"
"Of course," Edward said immediately. "Whatever you need."
They gathered instead the following afternoon, once genuine rest had restored at least some of the family’s considerable reserves, and Allen walked Edward through the discovery with careful, deliberate honesty — the facility, the records, the fusion methodology, the memory alteration, and finally, the confirmation that Reginald had answered to someone considerably higher within Umbra Black’s own structure.
Edward absorbed the revelation with visible, mounting horror. "This is so much bigger than I understood," he said slowly. "I thought I’d already faced the worst of what my choices helped enable. I didn’t realize how much further this actually extended."
"None of us did," Allen said. "Not until yesterday."
"I keep thinking about the device," Edward admitted. "The one he gave me. If there’s a whole considerable stockpile of those things, and I was one of the first people they actually convinced to use one—"
"You were a test," Vivian said quietly, the realization settling as she spoke it aloud. "Not just a convenient tool for Reginald’s own personal grudge against your father. A field test, for a weapon they intended to deploy considerably more broadly."
Edward’s expression carried genuine, devastated understanding at the observation, old guilt resurfacing with fresh, considerable weight. "Haruki died testing their weapon," he said, voice breaking. "Not just because of my own petty resentment. Because they needed to know what it could do."
"That doesn’t erase your own choice," Allen said gently, though not unkindly. "But it does mean you weren’t the only one responsible for what happened. You were manipulated by people considerably more patient and calculating than either of us understood at the time."
Edward nodded slowly, some fresh, complicated grief settling alongside his existing guilt, and Allen found himself, watching his brother absorb the day’s devastating context, grateful all over again for exactly how far Edward’s own genuine remorse had carried him since that first, humbling day on the schoolhouse crew.
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Susan received the news later that same evening, and her reaction carried a stillness Allen hadn’t quite anticipated, something cold and calculating settling behind her composed exterior as she processed the full, considerable scope of what her own family had apparently been unknowingly entangled with for decades.
"Desmond Wray," she said slowly, once Allen had finished explaining. "I’ve known him for over fifteen years. Attended his daughter’s wedding. I never once suspected."
"He didn’t know either," Allen said. "Not the true purpose behind what he was facilitating."
"That’s precisely what concerns me," Susan said. "If someone that close to our family’s finances could be unknowingly compromised for over a decade, I have to wonder how many other trusted associates might carry similar, unknowing connections."
"Farrow’s already considering that," Allen said. "She’s expanding the investigation’s scope considerably."
Susan nodded, something grim and resolute settling into her expression. "Then I’ll help however I can," she said. "Properly, this time. Not from a place of calculated self-interest, but because I understand now exactly how much danger this family has actually been sitting inside of, for considerably longer than any of us realized."
Allen studied her, recognizing genuine, hard-won resolve behind the offer rather than any performance, and felt a fresh measure of the cautious trust Myria had once counseled patience toward settle a little more firmly into place.
"Thank you," he said.
"Don’t thank me," Susan said quietly. "Just let me help make this right, however long that actually takes."
Allen nodded, and the evening settled into careful, considered planning, his family and, increasingly, his fractured but healing extended family, gathering close around a truth that had finally, properly come to light.
Later that night, once Susan had departed and Edward had retired to his own modest quarters, Allen found himself alone with his wives once more, the guild headquarters settling into its familiar, considerable quiet around them.
"How does it feel," Myria asked, "telling other people? Watching them absorb something that took us so long to properly understand ourselves?"
"Strange," Allen admitted. "Like carrying something heavy and then finally getting to set part of it down, even though the weight doesn’t fully disappear. Just gets shared a little."
"That’s precisely how it felt," Vivian agreed. "I think I needed that, honestly. Watching Edward and Susan take it seriously, without dismissing it or making it smaller than it actually was."
"They’ve both come a long way," Everlyn wrote, settling beside them with her notepad. ’A year ago, I don’t think either of them would have reacted the way they did tonight.’
"No," Allen agreed. "A year ago, I don’t think I would have trusted either of them enough to even tell them."
The family settled into comfortable, considered quiet after that, the evening’s accumulated weight finally easing into something manageable, and Allen let himself, for a little while longer, simply rest in the presence of people who had carried him, and been carried by him, through every impossible circumstance this extraordinary year had demanded.
"What happens now?" Irene asked eventually, breaking the comfortable silence. "With everything we found. Where does it actually go from here?"
"Farrow continues her investigation," Myria said. "We continue supporting it however we’re able. And I suspect, eventually, we’ll need to have a considerably harder conversation about whether any of us are prepared to actively pursue whoever this ’Pillar Six’ turns out to be, rather than simply waiting for WHRIB to find them on our behalf."
"I want to be part of that," Irene said immediately, fire returning to her voice. "Whoever authorized what happened to us, I want to be there when they finally answer for it."
"So do I," Vivian said quietly.
Allen looked around at his family, gathered close in the considerable, settling quiet, and felt old, familiar resolve harden into something even steadier than before. "Then that’s what we’ll do," he said. "Whenever that day comes. We’ll be ready."
"Together," Everlyn wrote, holding the notepad up for all of them to see.
"Together," the rest of them echoed, and the guild headquarters settled fully into rest, five people bound now not just by love, but by a shared, hard-won truth that had, in the end, only deepened exactly how fiercely they intended to protect one another.