Chapter Text

No matter the society, spying and snooping are not considered to be respectable occupations.

So it would come as a surprise to many that such was the current activity of one Hershel Layton, possibly the most veracious man in England. The company he kept, however, was slightly more unscrupulous and extensively taciturn, so it perhaps shouldn't be so shocking to see the esteemed Professor resort to such underhand tactics.

"But that's wonderful, Sycamore!"

With fairness in mind, it should be mentioned that Professor Layton had not followed Sycamore with any intention of eavesdropping, but had tracked him down with the earnest motive of providing him some warning; the engineering students were, in many respects, prodigiously intelligent—every man and woman among them could be held up as a paragon of dedication, perseverance, and sheer strength and agility of the mind.

(To have survived so long under the rigours of Sycamore's course, they had to have a certain amount of mental fortitude; endurance was a prerequisite.)

However, these accolades were not enough to prevent a certain amount of ludicrous ingenuity. If anything, they seemed to inspire misdemeanours to even more prodigious height. In this particular instance, Layton had found out, an hour before their departure, that he had apparently not been circumspect enough in his discussions of the aerial capabilities of barrels and other such unflightworthy objects. He had tracked Sycamore down simply to inform him that his students would need to be spoken to before they did something calamitous (and to let him know that he had located the equipment missing from the rowing club).

This endeavour had led him to where he stood, just around the corridor from where his brother was, cloaked by the perpetual semi-darkness of the chemistry department.

"You're certain he succeeded?"

"The message was fairly conclusive on that front, yes."

Usually, the chemistry department was a light and airy space, well provided with sunlight courtesy of the large windows that were accurately deemed a necessity in a place full of potentially hazardous reactions, and provided excellent views as an unintentional side effect, due to the department being situated on the highest floor of the University. Because of the earliness of the hour, massive shutters had been closed over these windows, but there was no reason other than secrecy to keep the lights as low as they were; bare smudges of luminescence suspended high in the ceiling that touched the high points of a person's face and made glistening holes out of eyes. Something about the atmosphere—something in the sour-sharp smell, the sibilant hissing of experiments and air ducts alike, the airy sense of emptiness that came from being so high up—made everything feel ephemeral, dreamlike. From his own self, to the wall against his shoulder and arm, to the man he knew very well leaning in through a door to talk to a man he knew very little, to the recognisable document being discussed; none of it felt real, but that may have merely been a product of wishful thinking.

"This is the first of the experiments to prove positively conclusive isn't it?"

"Indeed. You should be proud, Lambent."

Regrettably, Layton had missed the beginning of this exchange, but the file clutched loosely in Sycamore's hands, containing documents that Layton had covertly perused on more than one occasion, was all the context he needed. It was taking a remarkable amount of restraint not to walk the few feet that separated them and simply demand an answer from his reticent brother. Yet, though it could not be admitted, there was a certain satisfaction in lurking, in secrecy begetting secrecy in its undoing.

"What happens now? Does the plan account for this eventuality, or will there be a meeting?"

"Layton and I have some business that will take us within range of the project site—in fact, we should be leaving soon. I'll make certain of the authenticity of the success—I mean no offence, Lambent, but he is young and relatively inexperienced; it will not hurt to check—then help them close the area. Done properly, no one will ever be any the wiser."

"Speaking of none the wiser, will Layton not notice your absence? It would be a shameful waste to get this far in then be compromised by him ."

With idle amusement, Layton toyed with the idea of turning the corner and revealing that this 'project' had been compromised shortly after his arrival, and would not be jeopardised any further by Sycamore wandering off for a few hours, but the next moment brought all frivolous notions to a halt, for Sycamore's voice turned dark and cold, and suddenly he didn't sound much like Desmond at all.

"And what, pray tell, do you mean to imply by 'him '?"

"I just mean that—"

"Layton would be a very great asset to this venture, more so than you could imagine, you insolent cretin." Like weather at sea, it had taken mere seconds for the other Professor's mood to shift in its entirety. "And you would do well to remember that, unlike some, he has experience in what we must prepare to deal with. I would rather have him at my side than every man and woman in this building." Descole's voice was not loud, but certainty made it carry.

"For God's sake man, calm down; I only meant he's not supposed to know!" Layton had withdrawn beyond all possibility of sight—aware that Descole would be more wary of intruders than Desmond, and with no desire to get caught by either—but he could imagine the exasperatedly placating pose inferred by the man's tone with perfect clarity. "He's not part of this—he's not one of us..."

"Maybe not yet." The words were silk soft and drew a splutter of indignation and protest as a knife draws gouts of blood. "Breathe a word of this to no one. One way or another, Layton is vital to me; I'll not have him frightened away by carelessness that is not my own."

A pause that stretched to a weary length, then a capitulating sigh and the sound of a hand clapping a shoulder.

"If you were anyone else, I'd ask if you'd thought this through," Lambent muttered, with something like grimly begrudging admiration. "But I've spent ten years watching you pull stunts like this...I'll trust you here. But Desmond—" and now, there was a rustle, as in fabric brushing together, two people drawing close, and the voice dropped into the bare bones of a whisper, "—bear in mind that he's not like us. Not really." And Desmond's laugh in response was a deep and ugly thing, and all the worse for being genuinely his.

"Unfortunately for him, Layton and I are not wholly dissimilar. Do not interfere. I'll collect West and his results and return them to you. I wouldn't worry; everything is proceeding according to plan."

"I'm sure. We're becoming history, my friend."

Unfortunately, that enigmatic and ultimately inconclusive statement marked the end of the conversation, and there was only a few seconds between it, and the closing of Lambent's door and Sycamore's return down the corridor. During those precious few seconds, Layton straightened and attempted to appear nondescript, as though his being there at that time was the result of an innocent coincidence, and not a prolonged eavesdropping. His attempt was spirited, his success lacking, and suddenly he felt rather like one of his students scrabbling to prepare some falsity to account for missing coursework.

Desmond rounded the corner, placing the two professors nose to nose and fixing them there fast.

Though it was difficult to see in the grainy dark, Layton was well enough acquainted with his bother's features to read the emotion that rippled over his face. It was the sort of surprised pleasure one would experience watching a worthy opponent execute a particularly brilliant manoeuvre in chess; a flash of frustration that such a tactic was now yours to counter, but appreciation all the same. It settled into fondness, but there was something shrewd and challenging about the set of his mouth that informed Layton in the bluntest terms that he would not be easily absolved of this.

"Ah, Hershel." Even at such close quarters, the dim lights made wet hollows of Desmond's eyes. "I didn't realise you were here. Have I kept you waiting long?" The question was genteelly phrased, but it cloaked a second, dagger-sharp meaning; how long have you been listening? Layton kept his own expression affably blank.

"Not long enough, I'm afraid," he returned lightly, and Sycamore relaxed fractionally. "Unfortunately, there is something rather pressing we must see to before our departure. I had to come and talk to you, though I must admit, it's a surprise to see you here." This was not my intent.

Sycamore hummed, pressing his glasses higher up his nose. "No, I don't come here often—though not unknown to me, chemistry is not an area in which I excel." It was a dismissal of events, a refusal to come forth with further information, but as good as a promise to not push further with his own inquiries; in short, it was more slack that Layton had expected to receive. "Well, if it's urgent, standing in the dark will hardly help. What's going on?" Gently commandeering his brother's elbow, Desmond guided them briskly down the corridor and away from the dark halls and their tantalising fizz of secrecy and poison. Linked by a feather-light press of fingers to arm, they went on, breaking into quicker strides as Layton relayed the situation and Sycamore grew increasingly agitated at the prospect of his student's antics.

Between watching admonishments being stridently administered to people who should really know better than to try and fly a boat, packing the last of his things for the trip, and ensuring that all his students would be well furnished with work and information in his absence, Layton was almost too busy to notice Sycamore slipping both the folder and a laminate sheet into a case which he locked and slid into a compartment of his bag.

•~*~•

The light of dawn, Layton decided, had the unique power of softening most of the blows life saw fit to deliver. The endless road before him, for example, was a lot more pleasant to traverse while lit with the fragile, golden glow of the barely risen sun. The air was not yet awake, and meandered about as a harmless, silent breeze, bringing with it the scent of wild heather and hardy gorse. Of course, the early hour was not ideal—exceedingly few people genuinely enjoyed driving at such times—but such a picturesque nature made the inconvenience tolerable.

Swathes of gorse, pin cushions painted every dark green imaginable, rose up and flanked the road, the coiled buds of their flowers honeycomb bright and sharply sweet. The horizon unspooled itself endlessly, an indistinct ribbon of grey that promised eternity and delivered in full. For the longest time, the world reduced itself to that—one simple moment of calm as flat as glass, dispassionate, ruthless serenity. After a lifetime spent in the metropolitan bustle of London, and a more recent acquaintance with the crowded halls of a University, the desolation, the unbroken emptiness of the linear ground felt both liberating and threatening; Layton would be glad when they reached the town. Out here, it was entirely too plausible that they would drive towards the ever expanding distance for eternity, never reaching any conclusion, swallowed by the sky. This was not an academic appraisal of driving along that road, but, that far from civilisation, nature ruled, and nature has yet to show any care for academic opinion.

Desmond was slumped over in the passenger seat, dressed, for once, not in his suit jacket, but in an old jumper, having fallen asleep shortly after relinquishing the car to Layton; being the more experienced traveller of the two, it was a unanimous decision that he take the nightly portion of the drive. Despite it being his car, Layton conceded to the point easily—he did not particularly want to take the night stretch, nor did he expect that either of his brother's personalities would take no for an answer.

(Raymond had offered first to fly them in on the Bostonius, then to accompany them on the drive so that the hours would not be so strenuous, but Sycamore had refused on both counts. He was gently insistent that his butler remain to 'keep an eye' on whatever he expected to happen while they were away.)

During the few minutes where both brothers were awake, there had been little conversation, both fixed on the distant bloom of grey that promised sunrise, their conversation wrapped up in the gentle tendrils of the steadily lightening sky.

"Will you promise me something, Hershel?" Sycamore stood between Layton and the driver's side door, a strangely wary severity hardening his face. Tiredness robbed his eyes of much of their clarity and, though his gaze held steady, Layton was unsure about how much his brother actually intended to say, and how much was a result of a certain amount of sleep deprivation. "Will you be careful?"

"Do you mean generally, or is this a specific concern regarding our trip?" There wasn't much he could say to reassure or assuage Sycamore's fears over the letter and its contents; it was too convenient, too specific, and the mention of his wife had dissolved any illusion of composure he might have maintained. If pushed, he imagined he would do as good a job calming him now as he had at midnight when the other Professor burst into his room in a manic search for conspirators; this is to say, not very. Sycamore considered this, then laughed a little, but it was a dry-leaf sound, quickly borne away on the wind.

"I suppose it doesn't really matter which I mean," he murmured, immersed in a deep contemplation of whatever imagined arena he had found himself in. "One way or another, you seem to be rather in the middle of things. My fault..."

For the second time that day, temptation stung every nerve like sherbet, and for a brief, tumultuous second, Layton considered forcing the issue, slitting the proverbial throat of the matter and letting its secrets spill out into the open. But the moment passed, the electric appeal fading in the face of rousing Sycamore's stony reticence.

Instead of speaking, he pressed a warm hand to his brother's shoulder—in assurance, condolence, or support; he wasn't entirely certain—before gently leveraging him out of the way.

You could not spend a year traveling the world with someone, defeat a malevolent organisation, and die alongside each other without forming some sort of attachment and, in the case of Sycamore and Layton, the cold water shock of Desmond's reveal had failed to dim either his fondness or regard. However, though his admiration and affection for the man who was now his friend and brother remained intact, he knew for certain he could not trust Desmond.

(He himself was not without fault in regards to duplicitousness, and it was almost refreshing to be with someone who was not completely guileless, but that was neither here nor there.)

He had not followed his brother's lead to Avengaurd under the impression that he was being offered transparency, or a life that would be filled with the trappings of the ordinary, but had gladly accepted the simple promise of hope in familiarity—familiar uncertainty, familiar deception. Though the mystery of their current predicament itched at him, he found he was content to simply be in company, for once, willing to let time and guilt break his brother's silence; Sycamore could fight a war of attrition against his own barricades far more efficiently than Layton could.

All would reveal itself with patience and due time, but Layton could not quite turn down the opportunity to mull over the few facts he knew, like a crow examining its hoard, the shiny scraps of gleaned knowledge irresistible.

For the three years of his absence, Sycamore had been working on something that had transformed Avengaurd into a central point for some illicit investigation. Whether the contents of the study genuinely warranted the secrecy liberally heaped upon it, or whether this was a result of Sycamore's by now ingrained suspicion, was yet to be seen, but Layton was inclined towards the former possibility; if the staff—who he had no evidence to assume instability from—shared this aversion to visibility, then it was likely that the project itself was the point of contention, and not his brother's overbearing paranoia. This conclusion was not a comforting one. The plot—whatever it was—encircled the school, and it's students, and the stir created by the possible success of one of its faucets was foreboding at best.

Not at all encouraging was the timing. That this sudden progression coincided with a letter sunk deep in the past was more coincidence than Layton was willing to immediately overlook. Correlation didn't always equal causality, but with such an odd set of unknown circumstances, the idea that they may be in some form connected was not to be disregarded.

That bought him to the letter itself, and the mysterious nature of its sender, someone Desmond claimed to have had no contact with in close to ten years. There was no indication of such distance in the missive. Indeed, the words were as warm an invitation as one could wish, shaded to eeriness by circumstance and the impact of ten years on a life and the inclusion of a reference to some nebulously described masterpiece so soon after the apparent robbery. Moreover, Holt was firmly beyond all contact and, at the moment this became an inconvenience, a letter brought him within reach, though it should not have been able to penetrate so far into the university at all.

If he were a dramatic person (or engaged in a profession which was not archeology), Layton might have been inclined to describe the strange letter's appearance as ancient. Though exaggeration was beyond him, he would admit that the paper was far too aged to have been penned recently. He was devoting a small amount of conscious energy to not making an estimate of how old it appeared to be, and suspected that Sycamore was doing much the same.

From every angle, something was deeply wrong with the situation, and every mile brought them irredeemably closer.

Layton shook his head to clear it, disobedient thoughts scattering neatly back in to their tidy boxes, their meditative hum, which had taken on an almost superstitious lilt in the last minutes, quieting. The sun was fully risen and at a height where it could make a radiant nuisance of itself, somehow unsatisfied by the swathe of purest crimson that surrounded it and determined to turn the world to gold in repayment. The Laytonmobile slowed its steady pace to a crawl as its driver wrestled with the light before him, the absolute effulgence of gold rendering him completely blind.

As a result, he entered the little village unseeing, and it sprung up around him like a miracle, some concession of the freshly gilded land in conciliatory honour of his mortal trials against something as absolute as the sun. It happened as quickly as blinking would if you were suspended in honey; the world itself was at languorous ease with itself, but all change had occurred so fast as to say instantly.

(Later, Layton would recall recognising something as they entered—some smell or change in air pressure, something undefinable but vital—and relay it to Sycamore in mild frustration at his inability to quantify it. Much later than that, he would understand what it had been and why it's vague familiarity grated the way it did, and by that time the clarity would be a mere footnote in the face of unfolding events.)

As though summoned by thoughts, the village rose without warning: cobbled houses bowed low and swept their slate hats from their heads in welcome, worn oak beams and arches angled in delighted greeting; a few affluent dwellings regarded them with austere interest through lead-lined windows, mullioned glass monocles glinting in the occasional bout of watery sunlight; and a few squatter venues—each not much larger than a shed—clutched caps of thatch to their chests in humbled awe. In its entirety, there was something brazenly, endearingly honest about it, in all its picturesque functionality, and that struck Layton with immediate affection for it.

But, just beyond the immediate cluster, there lay something else that, for no particular reason, announced itself as distinctly notable. It was a house, set aside from all the rest. Distance robbed it of much detail, but there was nothing about it that should have been outstanding; a modest construction of grey stone with a small copse of mangled trees encircling it. But it was unaccountably strange. Not in a way that was negative or undesirable but just...odd. Once focused on, it would not allow the eyes to wander and, as he reached out to attempt to wake Sycamore, Layton was doused with the strangest idea that it was watching them.

"Desmond? We're here."

Maidenhull. Est. 1684.

•~*~•

Hidden away in the unapproachable house, a figure looked out of the upper floor window in idle contemplation as it had for most of the night, and certainly all of the dawn. The massive array of greens—their complete variety and occasional foray into browns, blue, and greys—had yet to prove dull, and the warmth of the sun on their bones had lulled them into a lengthy and unthinking meditation, their mind an abstract fog. Such was their distraction that the entrance of the little red car almost went unnoticed.

Almost. But not quite; the brothers were not known for their fortune.

Imperceptibly, the figure stirred. No one was there to see, but even if there had been witnesses, the sun's aggressive enthusiasm combined with the dour shadows thrown by the half drawn curtains blotted away most of the figure's features, rendered them nothing more than an amorphous sketch of long limbs and a head tilted in inquisition.

Neither sun nor shadow could hide the voice, however, or the words that it spoke; they remained, like wasps in amber, golden calligraphy in dust.

"Visitors? At this time? How very...interesting..."

The Lady of The House watched two figures depart the vehicle and vanish among the houses, and stood before the window for a while longer before moving soundlessly across the room and departing, mind deeply entrenched in thoughts that, given a hundred years, no one would guess at.

Not that it mattered; nobody had seen a thing, and no one was any wiser when, several hours later, the village began to wake.

~END OF CHAPTER 1~