A/N: My apologies for the laptop-repair-related delay in posting. To make up for it, please enjoy this week's double-length chapter!

To say that Rosso was ecstatic when he was offered the chance to join them in the field would have been to critically understate his enthusiasm. When Nero extended the invitation, the boy vaulted over the couch in a single leap. "Yes! When do we go? Is it a cool puzzle? Are there monsters to fight there?"

"Right after lunch, pretty cool I guess, and it's entirely possible." Nero arrested his charge's attention with a raised finger. "And the place we're going is also super dangerous, so before I agree to let you come with us, I need your absolute promise that you will listen to us and do everything we say. Understand?"

"Yeah, okay." Rosso bounced on the balls of his feet. "So can I help fight the monsters? Do you have a sword I can borrow?"

"And this," Vergil said from behind Nero, "is why I didn't want to involve him."

"Aw, is he going too?" Rosso's elation dimmed a few watts. "He's gonna make it boring."

"It will not be boring," Nero assured him. He shot Vergil a look over his shoulder. "And if we're gonna be stuck in a van with you two for an hour each way, I want both of you to try to get along. I don't want to have to duct tape anyone's mouth shut."

Vergil huffed. "You assume that duct tape could somehow stop Dante from being an irritant to all those around him."

Nero cocked an eyebrow. "You assume that Dante's mouth is the one I'd be taping."

"Children, behave." Lady appeared in the doorway to the living room, hands on her hips. "Kyrie says to tell you lunch is ready. Though if you're going to carry on like this, it will be served in the street." She flashed a cutting smile. "That last part may not have come from Kyrie."

Nero rolled his eyes. "And you told me not to call you Mom," he muttered as he started to move past her in the hallway. He twisted to the side to dodge the swat Lady aimed at him, but in turning, caught a glimpse Vergil's vaguely perplexed expression. Apparently he wasn't aware of their running joke. Well, maybe it would give Vergil something to puzzle over instead of finding new ways to be as abrasive as possible.

They ate quickly, conscious of the ticking clock. Nico excused herself from the table first and headed to the garage, citing a need to prep the van. When Nero and the others joined her a few minutes later, he discovered what "prepping" had meant. "Nico, that thing is not staying in my garage."

Nico had just finished dragging the Assault's tail out of the van's back doors. She pushed a stray lock of hair back with her wrist and scowled at Nero. "Well where am I s'posed to leave it while we're gone? It sits in a hot car in the sun for another few hours, an' it'll be as good as cooked! Not t'mention the smell." Her nose crinkled. "It's already pretty ripe."

Rosso had run over to investigate the alien novelty. He poked at the spongy flesh with the gleeful fascination of a pre-teen boy discovering something truly disgusting. "Cool," he pronounced, then looked up at Nico. "Is it a tentacle?"

"It's a lizard tail. A big ol' demon lizard."

"Awesome! Did you kill it yourself?"

"Naw, Nero did."

"Actually, it was Trish," Nero said. "And Tony, don't touch that. You don't know where it's been."

Lady, who had been watching the exchange with open amusement, broke into laughter. "Nero, I think you can switch off Parent Mode for a while. Look who you're talking to. I've watched Dante hack his way out of demons from the inside more times than I can count."

Nero massaged his forehead. "It's a reflex at this point. Nico, at least throw a tarp or something over that. I don't want one of the other kids finding it."

While Rosso was high-fiving Trish for her victory over the lizard, Nico spread a couple of garbage bags over the tail. The thin plastic concealed it from view, but did nothing to obscure the rank odor. Nero ducked back into the house to warn Kyrie to steer clear of the garage, and then they piled into the van and pulled out onto the road.

Nero knew that any attempt to keep Rosso seatbelted safely into the front passenger seat would only bottle up the boy's energy for later, and decided that it was less dangerous for him to have free run of the back of the van while it was in motion than to be bursting with excitement when they entered a dangerous and potentially hostile environment. Nero ushered him into the long bench seat on the passenger side, where Trish was already perusing a magazine. "Just don't bother Nico while she's driving."

Rosso apparently took that as permission to bother everyone else, though at least he stayed in his assigned seat for most of the drive—so long as one of them indulged his seemingly endless questions about their destination, the puzzle he was expected to solve, or the demons they would encounter there. The moment there was a lapse in conversation, he was off to explore Nico's workshop area, or prowl around the kitchenette, or push the buttons on Nico's jukebox. That earned him a prodigious yell from Nico and a brake check that likely would have launched the boy through the front windscreen, had Nero not caught him with his spectral arm.

Nero only just managed to bite back the torrent of profanity that he ordinarily would have unleashed on Nico. "Just… drive," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Safely. I'd rather keep the split-second saves in reserve for when we actually have enemies to fight."

"Keep that little twerp away from my jukebox, then!" Nico snapped back. "Dang kids already almost broke it when we was campin' last week."

Vergil, who had tolerated his brother's pestering so far with remarkable longsuffering, braced himself against said jukebox as Nico skidded into the opposite lane around a tight bend. His icy gaze settled on the back of the driver's seat. "You are aware that the 'little twerp' will retain the memories of these events even after he is restored to his proper age?"

There was a beat of silence from the front of the van. "You mean… Dante'll remember everything I said to him when he was a kid?"

Vergil's eyes narrowed. "I certainly do."

Nico gave a nervous titter and looked for Rosso in the rear-view mirror. "Uh, hey, Tony, I was just funnin' with ya when I called ya that, y'know? I didn't mean nothin' by it. No hard feelin's, right?"

The boy returned her anxious look in the mirror with a frank one of his own. "Aren't you supposed to watch the road when you drive?"

"Uh… yes! I sure am." Nico planted her hands at the ten and two o'clock positions on the wheel and stared straight ahead, a smile straining her cheeks. "Like I always said, you're a pretty smart cookie."

Nero exchanged a look with Lady, who rolled her eyes from the front passenger seat. At least the short flight experience had prompted Rosso to return to his bench seat and look out the window, rather than continue running around the van.

Nero studied the boy's profile as he stared out at the scenery, noting how much he was really beginning to resemble his older self—perhaps not quite the grizzled, hard-worn Dante who had returned from the underworld with Vergil, but certainly the smooth-faced one Nero had met six years ago, the one who had shamelessly baited Nero into fights, alternately teasing and complimenting him without giving an inch of ground. The mirthful eyes and affectionate smile were there already, beneath a superficial veneer of flippancy and cheek.

It was also striking how little resemblance a twelve-year-old Dante bore to his identical twin brother at that age. While both boys had shown the same gangly proportions of late childhood, Vergil, in the first stage of his restoration from the Nilepoch shards, had been hollow-cheeked and sharp-featured, his hair dull and his eyes haunted. Even at such a young age his movements had been calculated, each step displaying caution and purpose. By contrast, Rosso bounced absently on the van seat, his limbs loose. His cheeks were round and full of color. Nero thought incongruously of the puppy one of his high school friends had imported. It had been curious and playful, its sleek body clad in a soft, shiny coat.

Nero's eyes tracked to Vergil, sitting across the table on his side of the van. If young Dante reminded him of a well-fed puppy, young Vergil had been more like a ravening alley cat.

Across the van, Rosso rose up suddenly on his knees and pointed. "Is that where we're going?"

Nero ducked to look out the front. Order headquarters loomed up before them. "Yeah, that's the place."

"Cool! I didn't know it would be out in the middle of the ocean."

"It isn't." Vergil spoke as if he found the need to issue a correction an obligatory nuisance. "It's built on a monolith, connected to the island by a causeway. And that isn't an ocean. It's a sea."

His brother stared at him. "What's a monolith?"

"A large rock."

"Oh." Rosso looked out the window again, then back at Vergil. "What's a causeway?"

Vergil gave a huff of annoyance. "It's… a bridge, made of land. Only in this case, they constructed an artificial bridge over the natural one."

"Oh." Rosso returned to the window, but looked back within a few seconds. "What's the difference between an ocean and a sea?"

Vergil pressed his eyes closed for a moment, then shot a look at Nero. Nero raised his hands. "Hey, don't look at me. I was happy to let him think it was in the middle of the ocean."

Just then the vehicle began to slow, distracting Rosso from his questions, and soon Nico had swung the van around and parked on the narrow gravel berm away from the water. "Here we are." Lady unfastened her seatbelt and squeezed through to the back of the van. "Tony, there's no plumbing inside, so you should probably use the facilities before we leave."

"Okay." The boy hurried back to the tiny toilet cubicle.

Nero smirked at Lady as she passed. "Thanks for the reminder, Mo—"

"Finish that sentence and I will murder you," Lady sang as she shouldered Kalina Ann.

Nero laughed and swung open the side door. He stole a glance back at Vergil, who was wearing a pensive frown as he looked at Lady, and laughed a little harder.

Through unspoken agreement the four hunters positioned themselves in a protective ring around Rosso as they approached the building, breaking the formation only when the terrain necessitated moving single-file. Rosso showed no fear of the soaring heights or crumbling stairs, and he dashed over each of the unsteady board bridges with surefooted glee. Though Nero knew it was almost impossible for someone as resilient as Dante to hurt himself, the part of him that was used to protecting half a dozen human children flinched every time the boy strayed too near the edge of the bridge.

Nero kept a careful watch as they approached the gatehouse, even though he knew Trish and Vergil would likely sense incoming enemies even before he spotted them, but their forward progress continued unchallenged. The quiet unsettled Nero more than if they had been attacked by a horde of demons. "You two still picking up those vibes?" he asked as they began to climb the stairs.

Trish nodded. "They haven't intensified, though."

"They haven't waned, either," Vergil added.

The pile of rubble in the stairwell had collapsed even further when they had made their descent; now Nero wasn't sure it would actually hold anyone's weight. "Hey, you know what we should have brought with us?"

"A ladder?" Lady adjusted the rocket launcher on her shoulder. "Waste of effort. I know you can all make it up there on your own."

Nero shot her a sidelong look. "Can you?"

"Don't worry about me. Just get Tony up there safely. I'll come up last."

Vergil wasted no time on chivalry—or perhaps, Nero thought more charitably, he simply wanted to check the room for new traps before anyone else could encounter danger. Vergil leaped into the air and seemed to wink out of existence, only to appear a floor above, in the opening that led to the room in which he had previously fought the demons. When he had cleared the entrance, Trish followed him up, concentrating some of her own demonic power into a circle beneath her feet to add the bit of lift she needed to reach the next level. After landing in the opening created by the crumbled wall, she turned and knelt in the gap. "Okay, Tony, your turn."

"You want me to lift you up there?" Nero asked.

The boy looked affronted that Nero would make such an offer. "I can do it myself." He tested the pile of debris with a toe. The surface was too loose to support even his lighter weight, but there were larger chunks of stone mixed in that afforded him better footing. He took a running start, hopped up the more solid sections of rubble, and jumped as high as he could—nearly high enough to land on the ledge. Trish caught his arm just below where she was kneeling, and he scrambled up the rest of the way.

That left only Nero and Lady, and she insisted that he go first. He leaped, kicked off a wall, then twisted mid-air and gave a little extra push with his devil power to land crouched on the extreme edge. "You sure you can make it up here?"

She cocked an eyebrow. "You aren't particularly attached to these stairs, are you?"

"Uh… personally, no, but presumably we'll need to use them to go back down."

"True." Lady examined the landing for a few seconds, then moved a little closer to the rubble pile. She braced Kalina Ann beneath her arm. "You might want to move back."

Nero inched backward, giving her space to land, but ready to reach out and grab her with his spectral arm if it looked like she needed help.

Lady twisted each of her feet in turn, grinding the soles of her boots into the dust and grit for better traction. Then she took off running, straight at the wall—and ran up it, making it at least halfway to the ledge where Nero waited before kicking off in a backflip. At the apex of her flip she swung Kalina Ann forward and fired the weapon at the ground. Nero threw a hand up to shield his eyes from the flash, and when he removed it, Lady was standing in the room beside him, dusting herself off.

"Okay, no ladder necessary," he said. "Noted."

She leaned out and examined the stairwell. "Well, the good news is that I cleared a lot of the rubble off of those stairs."

"Is there bad news?"

She shrugged. "Only that I cleared out part of the stairs, too. But don't worry; there's still plenty of room to walk down."

The others were waiting for them by the door. Vergil's eyes narrowed as Lady joined them. "One would think you had no concerns about the structural integrity of this building."

Lady returned his look. "After twenty-five years of blowing things apart, I know exactly how much damage one of those missiles will do—which is not nearly enough to bring down this tower, even in its present condition."

"In that case, let us be glad that they are not our sole defense against the legions of the underworld." He turned away.

Lady wasn't about to let that pass. "Out of curiosity, how do you feel about porridge?"

There was a pause before Vergil answered. "I have no particular opinion on the subject."

"How about mattress density?"

Vergil glared back over his shoulder. "I fail to see the point of this questioning."

Lady shrugged. "I doubt there are any bears here, but seeing how particular you are about everything, I thought it best to ask, just in case." She pushed past him and opened the door. "Come on, Goldilocks, we're not getting paid by the hour here."

Nero kept his smirk out of Vergil's sight, but Rosso laughed outright as he hurried after Lady. Vergil's scowl deepened.

As they entered the ornate Council room, Rosso rubbed the back of his neck. "It feels even stranger in here."

"Yeah, that's what we're here to fix," Nero said. "Or try to, at least. But we need you to solve this puzzle first so we can get to the place that, uh, feeling is coming from."

"Is that it, over there?" The boy oriented toward the door across the room, apparently sensing the power flowing from it just as Trish had. Then he seemed to notice the statue dominating the far wall, and his eyes widened as he took it in. "Whoa."

Trish smiled down at him. "Does that look like anyone you know?"

"Not really, but it's cool." Rosso trotted over to examine the door. Lady hurried after him, warning him not to touch anything just yet.

Trish leaned back and let her eyes rove over the relief of the Savior. "Well. Apparently the Order's artists weren't as accurate in their depiction of Sparda as they liked to think."

"Of course they weren't," Vergil scoffed. "Even if the stories that place my father here have any truth to them, it would have been nearly a thousand years ago."

His sweeping disdain grated on Nero. "You know, they had artists a thousand years ago. And the Order was around for centuries. I'm not about to defend their doctrine or their social objectives, but they kinda had the market cornered on historical continuity. They had documents and first-hand accounts going back at least that far."

"Even with contemporary descriptions, it would be nearly impossible for an artist who had never seen his subject to depict him with any degree of accuracy." Vergil glared up at the statue's stylized features. "As is obvious."

"How can you be so sure?" Nero challenged. "Didn't you tell me you could barely remember him, yourself? How do you know they got it wrong?"

Vergil fixed him with a withering look. "You may find it difficult to believe, but cameras existed even before I was born."

Nero's brain stuttered to a halt. "You… have photos of him?"

"Not with me, obviously." Vergil's tone was an auditory sneer. "But in addition to a large oil portrait—painted from life, unlike any of those on Fortuna—my childhood home contained an extensive collection of family photograph albums."

Nero tried to wrap his intellect around the concept of Sparda existing contemporaneously with a camera. He knew Dante and Vergil weren't all that old, so naturally their father must have lived well into the modern era, but the Order had taught that Sparda had protected humanity for over two thousand years. In Nero's mind, he was something that had always belonged to antiquity.

"I suppose that makes sense," Trish mused. Nero had all but forgotten her presence, so distracted was he by the mental image of the Legendary Dark Knight posing for an instant camera. "Dante had to get that photo on his desk from somewhere."

"Yes. It's fortunate he has that." Ice encased each of Vergil's words. "Otherwise, he might not remember our mother's likeness."

Trish crossed her arms. "Was anyone likely to forget, with me around?"

"What have you to do with it?" The ice extended into his eyes, now, and his cold gaze stabbed at Trish. "You're nothing like her."

Trish stiffened, and Nero found himself once again in the unlikely role of peacemaker. "Okay, enough talk. We should, uh, go see what's happening with Tony and the door."

Vergil turned and stalked away without another look at either of them. Trish blew out a long breath. "I honestly don't know how Dante puts up with him. If I had a brother who was that…" She gestured expressively.

"The word you're looking for is 'asshole,'" Nero supplied.

"Yes. Anyway, I would have declared myself an only child and left him in the underworld. You expect everyone you meet down there to be completely devoid of sympathy and act only in their own self-interest. At least he'd fit in, there." She seemed to realize what she'd said, and her arms tightened across her chest. "Though I suppose at least some of that was my doing."

"You don't deserve the blame for his nasty attitude. It's not like he's stuck in hell anymore; he doesn't have to keep acting that way."

Trish's brow furrowed. "I know. And the strangest thing is, he doesn't."

"Doesn't what?"

"Act like this. Not always, I mean. Sometimes, when it's just him and Dante, he can be…" She shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't say nice, but at least civil. For a while I thought it was just me he had a problem with—and I can't say I even blame him for that, considering our history—but when he's in a good mood, he even treats me relatively well. But you get everyone together, and suddenly he makes himself insufferable."

"Huh. I guess you're right." Nero recalled the quiet afternoon they had spent together just after Vergil had been restored to adulthood, the day he'd told Nero about his birth mother. Vergil hadn't been exactly cheerful or demonstrative then, but he had conversed easily. He'd sparred a bit with Lady, but that had seemed almost like a verbal duel, compared to the cutting insults and underhanded blows he'd wielded later. What had changed? He'd become progressively more closed off after the rest of the family had returned to the house…

Lady hailed them, and Nero snapped back to the present. There would be time to sort out Vergil's idiosyncrasies later; just now, they had a puzzle to solve. "So how are we doing over here?" Nero kept his tone bright as he and Trish joined the pair at the sealed door.

Lady shrugged. "Well, I've explained the mechanics, as near as we were able to figure them. The good news is, Tony thinks he can work out the sequence."

"Great!" Nero clapped the boy on the shoulder. "I knew you were the one to ask."

Trish didn't look so cheerful. "What's the bad news?"

"We've looked around, and we can't find anything that might function as a reset button. Which means we get exactly one shot at this, with no restarts."

Nero's eyes flicked toward the ceiling. "So we just need to make absolutely sure we get it right the first time."

"Right. I want to make a copy of the plates and do a complete dry run with those before we touch the real one, to make sure the sequence will work." Lady held up the stub of pencil she'd used to map the tunnels the previous day. "The problem is, we need thirty-six pieces of paper to replicate that six-by-six grid, and I have exactly two sheets left. So if the rest of you could look in the other rooms for something we can write on, Tony and I will start trying to sequence the movements. I figure a place like this has to have an office, or a filing cabinet, or something we can cannibalize."

"We'll find something. If all else fails, we can probably strip off some wallpaper or something." Nero started for the entrance, but hesitated when he saw that Vergil hadn't moved. "You coming?"

"I'll stay here." Vergil rotated the Yamato in his hand. "Given the fragility of the ceiling, it would be best if someone who wasn't solely reliant on explosions for defense remained behind, in case of demon attack."

Lady shot him a look that probably could have murdered a low-level demon on its own. "It's fine. If Goldilocks is too tired to walk down the hall, he's welcome to stay here and rest. In fact, why don't you put your feet up for a while, Vergil? There are chairs over there at the Council table. I'm sure one of them will be just right."

Nero hurried out of the room before he could be drawn into any further bickering. "What are the odds that those two take down that ceiling themselves without even touching that door?"

"For Dante's sake, very low, I hope." Trish paused at the first door on her side of the hallway. "I'll check in here. You can take that side. Whistle if you find anything." She opened the door, then turned back. "You can whistle, can't you?"

"Loudly," Nero assured her.

The first room on his side of the hallway proved to be a small closet stocked with liturgical garments. He prowled through a few of the boxes, but apart from a quantity of gold-threaded jacquard that was probably worth a small fortune on the mainland, there was little of interest. None of the containers seemed to contain anything that could easily be written on.

He stepped out and saw Trish just exiting her second room. "Any luck?"

"Not unless you think we can copy that entire summoning array down on squares of tissue from the Order Elite Men's Room," she said dryly. "And the dispenser was out of paper towels. I checked."

The next room Nero entered was set up as a small chapel—perhaps a prayer room or private retreat for members of the Council. Light from a high stained-glass window drenched the room in shades of red and violet. Even after years of disuse, the room seemed hushed and waiting for ceremony. The faint reek of incense emanated from the heavy draperies and stifled him.

He was about to move on when his gaze fell on a glass-fronted cabinet in the corner, stocked with leather-bound volumes. The cabinet was locked, but a firm tap with the butt of Blue Rose shattered the glass. He reached carefully through the shards to liberate one of the books. It appeared to be well over a hundred years old; the leather was butter-soft and extensively tooled. He fanned the gilt-edged pages with his thumb, then put his fingers to his mouth and whistled.

Trish appeared in the doorway a moment later. "Find something?"

Nero held up the book. "Old prayer books. It's not exactly office supplies, but it'll do."

Trish took the volume and examined it. "You think they can write over this text? It's pretty dense."

"The text, no, but there are a few blank pages in each book." To illustrate, Nero opened another volume to the front. The back sides of the marbled endpapers and tissue-covered frontispiece were free of print. "I bet we can get enough blank sheets out of this lot to copy down that whole puzzle."

Trish turned the book over in her hand. "Are you sure? I'm no expert, but I imagine these would be worth a tidy sum to a collector."

Nero sighed. "As much as I'd love to make bank off the Order's leftovers, right now I'm a little more worried about the immediate problem of how to get through that door without getting any of us killed."

"Fair point." Trish ripped the endpapers out of the book in her hand. Nero broke more glass to access the rest of the books and began to do the same. "I suppose it's a good thing Vergil stayed behind. He'd probably drop over dead if he saw us vandalizing books this way."

"I'm not sure he'd care that much about destroying Order propaganda." Nero tore out a set of engravings and added them to the growing pile on the floor. "But just to be safe, let's not tell him where the paper came from."

They returned to the Council chamber bearing a ragged stack of blank pages and one spotty ballpoint pen that Trish had found under a stall in the defunct men's room. Lady eyed the latter suspiciously. "I wonder if six years is enough for any bacteria on that thing to have died off."

Nero rolled his eyes. "Seriously? You blow up demons for a living. You can't tell me that's the nastiest thing you've handled."

"Demons are just good, clean blood and guts. I am inherently suspicious of public restrooms." She handed Rosso the pencil and took the pen for herself, testing it on a corner of one of the pages. Somehow, it still worked. "Ugh. I may have to soak these gloves in vodka when we get back, just for my own peace of mind."

"Vodka?"

"To disinfect them."

"Is there any advantage to using vodka over rubbing alcohol or something? Seems like an expensive way to kill germs."

"The main advantage is that you can 'disinfect' internally at the same time, once you have the bottle open." Lady winked. "But it's also low-odor and low-residue. Good to use on clothing you can't wash easily."

"I see. Well, you're on your own finding a bottle. The hardest stuff Kyrie allows in the house is ginger ale."

Lady arched an eyebrow. "Oh, you didn't know?"

"Know what?"

"About Nico's stash."

Nero blinked. "I thought Nico's stash was at her apartment. Is there another one?"

"Let's just say her workbench in the van could double as a speakeasy. She has a very clever little compartment behind the tool cases."

"It really is," Trish put in. "It's even padded so the bottles can survive her driving."

Nero looked from one to the other. "I did not know about this. How'd you find out?"

Trish shrugged. "When we were camping, she got fed up with the kids and had a few shots while they were all out sitting around the fire. I believe her exact statement was, 'I can only go without one vice at a time, and at least they can't smell this one.' She did seem to be taking the no-smoking rule a bit hard."

Nero's hackles rose. "She was drinking? While she was out with the kids? When she was the only driver?"

Trish only then seemed to realize what she'd let slip. "Well… she wasn't driving at the time…"

He turned back to Lady. "When we get back to the van, you have my permission to drain every drop of alcohol out of that secret compartment and soak your gloves, your boots, or anything else you can think of in it. We drink whatever the hell we want when we're away from home, but she knows she's not supposed to have that stuff around the kids."

"While I can imagine how gratifying it must be to indulge in fault-finding with regard to Nico," Vergil's voice broke in suddenly, "if you intend to list all of her shortcomings, we'll likely still be standing here when the sun sets, and only some of us can see in the dark. Perhaps we might proceed with the matter at hand?"

Trish's eyes narrowed. "Speaking of someone who could benefit from taking a few shots," she muttered.

Lady's eyeroll eloquently expressed her opinion of Vergil, but she shook her head. "He's right. This is probably going to take a while to copy, and we are on the clock." She divided the papers between herself and Rosso, who had been observing the adults' conversation about alcohol with keen interest. "Tony, you start from the bottom left. I'll start at the top right. We'll lay out the sheets in order on the floor as we copy them, all right?"

"Yep." The boy was already tracing the first tile onto a sheet of paper.

Lacking any other writing implements, Nero knew there was little he could do to help at this stage. He supposed he could stand guard at the door, but there didn't seem to be much need; the only demon they'd seen all day was the one Vergil had tossed out a window hours before. Besides—Nero's eyes slid to Vergil, standing near the Council table at the far end of the room—that job seemed to have been claimed already, and with a vengeance. Vergil's posture was rigid, hand clenched around the Yamato at his side. He stared hard at the entrance as though he expected enemies to spill through it at any moment.

Nero glanced back at Trish, leaning casually against one of the Savior's shins as she watched Lady and Rosso copy down the cipher. Clearly she didn't sense anything amiss, and as a native of the underworld, her awareness should reach even farther than Vergil's.

This once again raised the question of what was eating Vergil. Knowing he would probably regret his decision, Nero made his way to the Council table. The ornate chairs were covered in dust he didn't particularly want all over his clothing, but one or two had been moved away from the circle, leaving a gap. Nero shifted Red Queen to one side and hitched a hip onto the edge of the table. "So, apart from the general vibes you've been getting all day, you don't sense anything else weird around here, do you?"

Vergil's eyes slid toward Nero, but he didn't turn his head. "Not particularly."

"Just checking." Nero wracked his brain for something more to say, some excuse to keep talking and probing at the cause of Vergil's inexplicable behavior, but nothing came.

An impatient little huff issued from Vergil's direction. "Was there something else?"

Nero raised his eyebrows and tried to look innocent. "Not really. Why?"

From this close proximity it was impossible not to see the muscles in Vergil's jaw tighten. "You're still here."

Nero spread his hands, and this time there was no need to feign his bemusement. "I'm just sitting here! It's not like there's a lot of other furniture in this place."

"Then it's fortunate for you that the chairs are portable. Feel free to relocate one."

Nero stared back at him. "I'm sorry, am I cramping your style? Is there a minimum acceptable distance I need to observe?"

"Do as you like," Vergil returned, his tone making it clear that Nero was advised to consider no such thing.

Only because he was already staring hard at Vergil did he observe the minute shifting of his eyes—little more than a flick of the lashes, barely perceptible, but it gave Nero pause. Vergil's gaze was not fixed on empty space out of boredom or avoidance; he was watching. Something really had unsettled him. Once Nero looked for it, he began to detect more signs: The thin line of whiteness around the lips, the slight flare of the nostrils, the tightness of the shoulders all spoke to Vergil's discomfiture.

Nero scanned the room. Trish was still lounging against the far wall; Lady and Rosso were bent over their pages on the floor; the hallway and rooms beyond seemed utterly silent, without so much as a draft to stir the thick dust. Vergil's anxiety made no sense. The only objects anywhere near him were a few pieces of furniture—and Nero himself, though he'd stayed only out of a perverse obstinacy. He was irritated by Vergil's attitude, but he refused to allow his father to succeed in driving him off.

Nero blinked as he replayed that realization. Now there was a possibility.

He took a few seconds to think back over Vergil's behavior the past couple of weeks, examining it in light of what Trish had told him earlier. The quick review only strengthened the theory that had suddenly occurred to him. The pieces fit—and he, of all people, should have recognized the signs.

Nero leaned back against the table, studiously casual, before casting a sideways glance at Vergil. "Does that act fool Dante?"

Once again, only Vergil's eyes moved. "What?"

"That thing you do, where you try to make people angry with you so they won't notice you're feeling vulnerable. You were doing it yesterday, down in the tunnels. You kept picking fights with Lady because you didn't want us to see how that place was affecting you. A little while ago, it was Trish you were trying to piss off. Now you're trying it with me. Since it seems to be your go-to technique, I'm just wondering if it works on Dante."

Vergil's gaze returned to the wall he'd been pretending to stare at. His lip curled in practiced disdain. "I don't know where you acquire your fanciful notions…"

"I mean, I get it. The best defense is a good offense, right?"

"I've no idea what you're talking about."

Nero shrugged. "My thing was fights, when I was a kid. The other kids would make fun of me, or say shit about my mother because I didn't know who she was, and I'd throw hands. Break a few noses. I always got in trouble, but I didn't care. Hitting back felt like I was in control, even though all the people who knew better kept telling me that I was really letting what they said control me." He sneaked a glance at Vergil, who was still staring off to the side, attempting to ignore Nero—but a little more tension had crept into his bearing. The muscles were corded in his neck, and Nero could see the pulse beating rapidly in the hollow of his throat. "I got the message eventually, but it took a lot of bloody knuckles before I figured out I was just hurting myself in a different way. Took me even longer to realize that I didn't have to deal with all their crap on my own. But then, I wasn't a very bright kid. Hard-headed, but kinda dumb." He kept watching Vergil in his peripheral vision, hoping for a reaction, but the man could have been carved from stone. "But you? You're a lot smarter than me. Practically a genius. So I figure it shouldn't take you as long."

Nero waited, but Vergil still seemed determined to pretend he wasn't there. He sighed as the silence stretched into its second minute. If Vergil wouldn't acknowledge his attempt to reach out, he might as well leave him to sulk in peace. Nero started to push away from the table…

"No," Vergil said quietly.

Nero stopped, almost unsure if he'd heard the word, and turned back. "No?" he echoed.

Vergil continued gazing toward the wall, but his mouth twisted as though he'd tasted something bitter. "No. It doesn't fool Dante."

A little thrill of victory surged up in Nero's chest, but his only outward response was to lean against the table again. "So what's going on? There is nothing in this place—hell, there's probably nothing on this whole island that you can't defeat without breaking a sweat. What's got you so on edge?"

Vergil half-turned, and his eyes flicked to Rosso, who was diligently sliding papers around on the floor. "I dislike involving him."

That hadn't been what Nero expected. For an instant, he thought as he had when Zaffiro had volunteered to test the shards from the Nilepoch—that he viewed the trial as some kind of competition, with his brother as his rival. But Nero's assumption had been wrong then, and he could see that same furrow of worry forming between Vergil's eyebrows now. "You think he's going to get hurt?"

"If the question were merely one of his getting hurt, it wouldn't concern me. He can recover from grievous physical injury, even at this age."

I was born first, Zaffiro had said. I'm supposed to protect him. "Killed, then?"

"That was Lauda's intent."

"Yeah, but only to get at me. Lauda didn't even know that there were two of you; as far as we know, he doesn't have a clue who Dante is."

"And the more we involve Dante in this affair, the greater the likelihood that he will learn. We have been targeted our entire lives by those eager to acquire Sparda's power, and something tells me Lauda would not fail to seize any opportunity that might bring him closer to his glorious ideal." There was a sneer in the last word.

Nero's gaze ran from the puzzle-locked door to the ceiling framed by ominous cracks. "That's why you were going to take the risk yourself, wasn't it? When you told us to wait outside while you broke down the door. You just really didn't want Dante anywhere near here."

Vergil exhaled slowly through his nose. "Like it or not, he is my responsibility."

"You're not normally this protective of him."

"He's not normally a helpless child." The muscles of Vergil's throat flexed visibly as he swallowed. "He shouldn't be in this situation. Not yet. Not until he's able to fight."

Nero considered that and nodded. "I hear you, but… Well, two things, actually. First, he's not just your responsibility. We all have a stake in keeping Dante safe, and you know every single one of us would put it all on the line to protect him."

Vergil's eyes flicked to the little group by the door. He scowled, but acknowledged the point with a minute nod.

"And second… I don't think you're giving your brother enough credit. Sure, he's a little on the scrawny side right now, but he's no less capable than you were at that age, and I know both of you had to survive some pretty serious shit growing up. A few days ago I let him have a go with my sword, and he already had some pretty sweet skills for a ten-year-old." He shrugged. "Besides, rumor has it that he was already a notorious mercenary by the time he was in his mid-teens, and that's not all that far off, especially at the rate he's aging. I think he's gotta be pretty damn hard to kill, even at twelve, or whatever age he is now."

"Perhaps," Vergil conceded. "Though living among humanity, I doubt he had much to challenge him. I defeated him easily enough the first time we were reunited."

"You are not the average grunt demon crawling out of a hellgate," Nero countered. "Even as a teenager, I suspect your skills weren't on a level with the kind of bottom-tier scum we've been killing around here."

"I should hope not." A little of the old arrogance lifted Vergil's chin. For once, Nero was glad to see it. Maybe with his confidence restored, he'd stop pretending to be even more of an asshole than he usually was.

Across the room, Lady got to her feet. "You ready?" Nero heard her ask. Beside her, Rosso nodded, and Lady turned and signaled them. "Dress rehearsal's over," she called. "Places for the curtain."

Nero gave Vergil a reassuring slap on the shoulder before he started across the room. "Let's just hope that's not the final curtain."

"Optimism," Lady reminded him. "But be ready to move, just in case."

They gathered around the door. Vergil stood just behind his brother, watching closely as he manipulated the dials on either side of the door to move the plates through their sequences. At first Nero tried to track the pattern, but it was so convoluted and counterintuitive that he quickly lost track. One by one, the metal tiles shifted to the outer circle and locked into place. When the last plate snapped into its slot around the door, the lines connecting them in the larger magic circle pulsed once with a faint light.

Rosso stepped back, surveying his handiwork. Lady glanced at Trish, her face tight. "Is it still… broadcasting, or whatever it does?"

Trish nodded. "There's still power coming from it. It seems to be working."

Lady took a deep breath. "So far, so good. Tony, do you want to do the honors?"

"Sure." He seized the ornate handle with both hands and pulled. The massive door whispered open on silent hinges, revealing a darkened room beyond. Nero glanced up at the ceiling, which to all appearances was still supported by the invisible magical web, and let out the breath he hadn't been conscious of holding.

Lady let out a weak laugh. "Hey, look, it worked."

Rosso's lower lip pushed forward. "I told you I could solve it."

"I didn't doubt you could. It was the system itself I wasn't sure of. But it looks like everything's doing what we thought it would." She gave him a broad smile. "I am really impressed at how quickly you figured it out."

Rosso accepted her commendation, as well as a word of praise and a celebratory high-five from Trish, with a satisfied grin. Nero punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Nice going, kiddo. Thanks for getting us in."

Lady and Trish moved toward the darkened doorway. Nero started after them, but halted when he noticed Rosso hanging back. Turning, he saw the boy looking up at his brother with an earnest gaze, and realized that of all of them, Vergil was the only one who hadn't acknowledged Rosso's accomplishment. He was clearly waiting for some kind of thanks or approval.

Vergil didn't speak. After a few seconds, Rosso's hopeful look began to waver toward uncertainty. Come on, Nero urged silently. Don't be an asshole. Not now.

Vergil returned his brother's gaze. At last he released a breath, and along with it, seemed to expel some of the tension in his upper body. He said nothing, but inclined his head in a minute nod.

Nero's indignation swelled—could he not manage a single word of praise for a kid who had done something well?—but any remark he might have made faded in his throat as he saw Rosso's face surge into a smile as bright as the sun.