SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Matteo said nothing after Selara’s demand.

Get me a meeting with my master.

She had said it as though the request were simple, as though the man they were discussing had not spent more than a century becoming a ghost with a laboratory attached to his name. The problem was that, within the ugly limits of what Matteo knew, it might actually be possible. Selara had a past with her master, yes, but Matteo had one as well, a long and bitter thread tied through old arguments, broken research halls, and memories neither of them had ever managed to bury properly.

At last, Matteo drew a slow breath and pressed both hands around the head of his cane.

”Fine,” he said. ”It cannot be done today. The message will need to travel through old channels, and if he answers at all, it will most likely arrive tomorrow. The meeting would have to be in two days, before the main day of the event.”

Selara accepted the timing with a small motion of her chin. ”Understood. That works.”

”Stop there.” Matteo lifted one hand before she could turn the agreement into an order. ”I have conditions of my own. Do not think I will do this simply because you asked. We are not close enough for that kind of charity.”

Selara studied him across the narrow table, her expression flat enough to make most people reconsider their tone. Matteo did not, though his fingers curled more tightly around the cane.

”What do you want?” she asked. ”What conditions are you placing?”

”One, specifically. I will be present.” His voice carried no performance now, only old iron dragged from a wound that had never closed right. ”I have a past with him as well, as you know.”

Selara’s answer came faster than his. ”Fine. That is fair. But I have a condition too. He does not die before we finish speaking with him.”

Matteo’s brows tightened. ”Do you truly believe I would harm him before we had answers?”

Selara gave him a single, silent stare.

It said yes.

Completely.

Matteo scratched the back of his neck, annoyance and reluctant guilt crossing his face in the same breath. ”Do not worry. I will not do something that foolish. I have no desire to cause a commotion in Aurevane, especially during the most formal and important event people like us still pretend to respect.”

”I hope you keep your word, Matteo. What will happen there is important.”

”I can tell that from the way you are avoiding half the truth.” He leaned back slightly, the cane laid across his knees like a line he had no intention of crossing yet. ”Can I ask what you want from that old bastard so badly? I understand what happened years ago. I understand why seeing that homunculus would drag every buried thing out of you. But why search for him now, after more than a hundred years? Did he do something public? Has he caused something worse than experimenting on children?” His mouth twisted at the last word. ”You know whose children I mean.”

Selara’s breath left her slowly.

The privacy ward continued its faint murmur by the door, guarding their conversation from the corridor. It did nothing to soften the weight of what he had asked.

”Yes,” she said. ”Considering the gravity of what he did, yes. It may be worse than that.”

Matteo’s expression shifted.

Selara did not give him time to interrupt. ”What happened with the Vaelion was already punished, from what I understand. What I am speaking about now has not been punished. Almost no one even knows what he did. I cannot tell you here, Matteo. If you discover it when we meet him, you will know at that moment. But I cannot reveal it to you in this room.”

Matteo watched her for a long breath.

He hated being excluded from knowledge. That had always been one of his uglier traits. Knowledge, to Matteo, was not merely a tool; it was territory, and he disliked discovering that someone else had fenced off land before he arrived. Even so, for once, he did not pry harder.

”Mysterious as ever,” he muttered.

Selara’s mouth barely moved. ”Careful. You are close to sounding nostalgic.”

”I would rather drink ink.” Matteo reached into the inner pocket of his coat and withdrew a folded slip of paper. He did not pass it over immediately. His thumb rested against the crease, holding it in place. ”I hope this goes the way you intend, whatever that means. That old bastard may refuse to appear in front of me. He may send a proxy, a message, or a trap dressed as courtesy.”

”That is why we prepare.”

”Good. At least age has improved your sense of caution.”

”It improved my tolerance for fools. Do not test how much.”

Matteo gave a dry, humorless breath and finally placed the paper on the table.

Selara took it.

The address was written in firm, slanted script. A private residence in Aurevane, not far from the older quarter. She recognized the district. Wealthy, quiet, layered in old protections and personal wards that rich scholars liked to pretend were tasteful security instead of paranoia.

”That is my address,” Matteo said. ”My personal home here in Aurevane. If things turn ugly, no one outside will hear what happens within those walls. I meant what I said earlier. I do not want a public uproar before we understand exactly how deep this goes.”

Selara folded the paper once and slid it into her sleeve. ”You have that much protection in your home?”

”I am old, disliked, and correct more often than people enjoy. Of course I do.” He tapped the cane against the floor once, a dull wooden sound against polished stone. ”Prepare properly, Selara. If he comes, he will not arrive as the man you remember. Men like him never return unchanged. They only return with better excuses.”

Selara held his stare.

”My master always had excuses.”

”Yes,” Matteo said, rising from the chair with effort he tried to hide. ”And we were all very impressed by them, until the bodies began proving him wrong.”

That left something bitter between them.

Neither of them tried to sweeten it.

Matteo adjusted his coat, reclaimed his cane, and moved toward the door. Selara remained by the table for a few breaths longer, feeling the paper’s weight through the fabric of her sleeve. An address. A meeting in two days. A chance to face the man who had taught her how to build miracles and how easily miracles could be sharpened into knives.

At the door, Matteo paused without turning fully.

”If he answers,” he said, ”come ready.”

Selara’s fingers brushed the hidden paper.

”I always do.”

Matteo opened the door and left first.

Selara followed a moment later, and they parted in the corridor without farewell, each carrying the same old monster toward a different kind of trap.