Dinner was a rather awkward affair. It was made worse when the family of the saint tried to pray over their food.
It wasn’t Sir Forsythe who stopped them, or even Sam, it was Ava’s adoptive brother.
"We don’t do that here." Edgar told them bluntly, his eyes focused on the mother who had started it. Cass had felt his body stiffen, aware that while they weren’t the saint, they were the people who were able to give birth to her. They couldn’t be powerless.
"W-What? We’ve had no issues until-" she began but Edgar shook his head. He cut her off and she gaped at him, shocked.
"We honour the fairies while we’re here. That might have been fine while we were gone, but this is Cass’ home, and the home of the fairies. This is fairy land, and we try to keep worship to the temple that is built on sacred land." He told her carefully. His smile didn’t reach his eyes, but then again, she could barely see them in the hat that he was still wearing. Cass had thought it strange that he was still wearing it when the sun had already set, but now?
It made sense. He was hiding the fact that his eyes were glowing from the woman as he sat across from them. Who knew how they would take Edgar’s glowing eyes? It was the same reason that Cass was wearing sunglasses at the moment as well.
"Did...Ava know of this?" She asked carefully and Cass nodded.
"She was aware. After all, I made sure that the temple was attached to the manor so that she had easier access to go and come from it. I also make sure that anyone, including the public, has access to it. Everyone has their right to worship, and while we have a few different rules in this house, I would never belittle anyone’s faith or beliefs. I was just raised outside of the temple. Strange, given the rumours about my family, but who am I to argue with my grandfather?" Cass said with a shrug.
He watched as she grew pale, looking horrified at his small reveal of lore, while both of the men looked ill. They knew something, but Cass wasn’t going to call them out on it. Not now, at least. For now, it was time to eat.
"I understand, Lord Blackburn. I will keep that in mind." She told him, and Cass could see where Ava got it from. It was all her mom, and the crazies?
She got that from her dad.
Dinner passed calmly after that. No issues, she took everything that Cass said to heart and instead asked them how their travels were, if the roads were good. Simple things. Common things. She was a good person, Cass could tell, but as they continued to speak he could see the sweat forming on the men.
They were going to turn into puddles soon, and that made Cass want to laugh. He had to fight his smiles, and he could tell that Byron and Sam felt the same way. Edgar seemed on edge, but then again, this was the family that Ava had left behind to live with him. He was bound to have some kind of feeling about them.
Gideon was silent, but protective. So was Sir Forsythe. Both men were keeping an eye on them, and Cass appreciated it.
Dinner finished and Edgar let Cass and Gideon know that he was going to go back to his rooms for a moment to gather some things. He asked that Cass send someone to grab him when he was done with his chat with Ava’s birth family. Cass agreed, letting Edgar leave first.
It would have looked like they had gotten into an argument, or that Edgar was uncomfortable around Ava’s family. Let others believe what they want. He was actually sure that Edgar truly just wanted to grab some things from his room, or grab a lot of things from his room to move into Cass’. Cass didn’t mind. He had a whole walk in closet here, and a couple of empty rooms in his chambers. In fact, if they both moved in, he was going to have to expand his rooms, he believed. Especially when Lucian came back.
His ’den’ was, after all, the whole damn manor. Not just his chambers. He would have to explain that to Lucian once he arrived. It gave him a little pep in his step to think about what he was going to tell Lucian when he arrived.
After dinner he didn’t take them to his office. For one, that was quite a ways away from the dinning hall, and two, he didn’t trust them enough to take them to his office. There was also the minor fact that someone could spy on them from behind a bookcase if he wasn’t careful, but the office wasn’t big enough for them to have this kind of conversation anyways.
They were expecting a certain kind of treatment from him as a noble, and if he took them to his office? That wasn’t something that they would appreciate or understand. So instead, Cass took them to one of the nicer sitting rooms that Cassian had made. It was meant to host higher nobles, so it was going to be a nice surprise for the commoner folks that were Ava’s family.
He had a feeling they just might lose their minds if they found out she was parading around the countryside with a woman, but he was going to keep that to himself if he could help it. His own little secret, unless they got too full of themselves.
He didn’t think that was a worry, though, given the way they were pale and fidgety.
The room was elaborate. Small, but everything in the room looked like it cost a fortune, because it did. Cassian had made this room to host kings, dukes, anyone of status that would expect this much. No one ever came, so it was a waste to not use this room.
Sam followed them in, Gideon and Byron staying outside at Cass’ look. The couches were big, wide enough that the three of them could squeeze onto one even if it was a tight squeeze. Cass sat across from them.
"Tea?" Cass offered and only Ava’s mom took him up on it. Cass smiled. They let Sam brew and deliver the tea before Sam faded into the background of the room.
Cass waited, wondering who was going to ask first. Of course, neither of the men were man enough to start. They left it up to the woman who was either putting on a remarkable show, or had no fucking clue that two of the people she was supposed to trust with her life had almost ended it with their dealings.
"Lord Blackburn, while we are eternally grateful for hosting us as long as you have, we do have a few questions." Cass smiled. She had clearly dealt with a few nobles before this. The Vespertines, for one, and then probably some others who had come looking for the family who had birthed the Saintess.
"Of course you would have some questions. Please, ask away. My apologies that I wasn’t available until now to answer them. We were away clearing a dungeon, you see. I wanted to come back, but the timing didn’t line up with my Aunt from the fairies coming to the capital for the first time since the war between fairies and humans had ended." They nodded as if they understood, but Cass knew that they didn’t. That was fine. They didn’t need to.
"Um, this may be bold but...why did you bring us here?" She didn’t hesitate to get to the heart of the issue. It was cute, in a way. Ava was never like that. She’d been taught too much of the Vespertine way for her to be this straightforward, but Cass could see it peek through sometimes. Cass smiled fondly.
"I brought you here to keep you alive." Cass didn’t see any point in hiding it. He watched as her eyes widened in horror and the men beside her stiffened. "You see, I have eyes and ears everywhere, and I owe your daughter a small favour. Since I know that she can’t exactly contact you as freely as she would like, and she probably had no idea what was about to befall her family, I decided to act instead. I plucked you from your home probably a week before someone would have come and killed you all. Massacred, really." Cass said with a shrug. He reached for his teacup, raising it to his lips.
Sam really did make the best tea. Why had he disliked it when he first got here?
"W-What?" It was the brother who spoke, sounding shocked. Horrified. Cass smiled, lowering his cup to the saucer in his hand.
"Oh, you probably thought that the payment would be coming, didn’t you? How foolish." Cass sounded less like he was speaking about their deaths and instead like he was scolding children. "You should never, ever trust a ducal family. Didn’t you learn that from your first interaction with the Vespertines? How they didn’t pay you the sum that they were supposed to after stealing your daughter from you? Your sister?" Cass gave a soft, belittling laugh. "Did you think that you were pitting one ducal family against another? You fools." Cass watched as the mom turned pale, her hands shaking.
The brother stood up, ready to point and shout while the father looked like someone had walked over his grave.
"You have no right to speak to us this way! You have no idea-"
"Oh, I have a crystal clear idea of exactly what you went through." Cass said, his voice cold as he cut him off. He shut his mouth quickly. "I ask you if you know what exactly you’ve done? None of the ducal families truly get along, so you were right to think that might be a way in, but you chose the wrong family." Cass warned. "The Blackburn’s were the wrong family to turn to. They don’t care about anyone or anything, and you were a fool to think they would uphold an agreement with a commoner family. They barely uphold agreements with the King. Why did you think you were different? Because your sister was the Saintess? They tried to marry her off to a demon. Don’t think you are special." Cass spat, his anger leaking out a bit.
Ava’s mom raised her hand to mouth, her eyes filling with tears.
"Is she okay?" She asked, terrified and Cass sighed.
"She is. She’s with Fiona now, protected, and far away from any of their fumbling hands. We made sure of it." Cass wasn’t afraid to claim that he had a part in it. They didn’t need to fucking know otherwise. He technically did. Cass leveled a glare at the two men who weren’t asking about their damn daughter or sister. "You should be ashamed of yourselves, and grateful that I knew about this. Otherwise you would have lost your lives, and for what? Bitterness? Anger? At powerful people who don’t care about you?" Cass scoffed. "News flash, you damn fools, that’s life. You either use that bitterness to overcome it, or you let it consume you. I can see that you went with the latter." Cass gave them a disgusted look.
He watched as both men shook for a moment while Ava’s mom began to tear up.
"Is what he is saying true? Did you two try to form an agreement of some kind with the Blackburn family?" She asked. She glanced at her husband and her son, and their silence and guilt was obvious. She laughed and even Cass winced at how much pain it brought him. "You fools! You absolutely idiots! Your greed sickens me. Ava was a gift to us, but she wasn’t meant for just us. Did you two forget how hard it was to help her when she was a child? How much care she needed? If we hadn’t found that traveling priest who had enough power to control her, we wouldn’t even have her! The gods gave her to us as a lesson, and you completely were blinded by greed and ignored it!" She was shouting, and honestly, she had every right.
"Sweetheart, I-"
"Do NOT sweetheart me, you idiot! How could you? How could you do this without even talking to me about it? Is it because you knew I wouldn’t say yes? That I would tell you to your face that you’re a monster for even trying something like this? I trusted you to lead this family, and for what? If we hadn’t been saved when we had, we would be dead, Mark. Dead! Does that register to you? Without Lord Blackburn looking out for us, we wouldn’t even be here right now!" Cass raised his cup to his lips, hiding his smirk.
Oh, it was wonderful to be in the room at the moment. A minute more, and then he would excuse himself. He needed this.