Months passed. Tarvek watched uneasily as Wulfenbach's Empire spread without any really significant opposition. The Baron and the Heterodyne even got help from Albia to deal with leftover revenants.
More student-hostages arrived, and more students were sent by enthusiastic allies. Dr. Sun Jen-djieh came up from Mechanicsburg to bring his granddaughters and immunise everybody against a startling variety of illnesses Tarvek had never thought to worry about, although he'd received Anevka's letters of complaint about some of them (slightly baked) and wasn't really sorry if he wasn't going to have them. The school outgrew its current quarters again and was moved to new, bigger ones, with individual rooms for everybody although Otilia said they might have roommates eventually. A few students opted to go ahead and share. (Tarvek considered asking if he could share with Gil. Having a room to himself all of a sudden reminded him of home, so he kept lying awake expecting some sort of awareness test and thinking.)
Between him and Agatha, even without booby traps the pranks on Gil had dropped to the manageable level nearly everybody played on each other, and at that point Gil could give as good as he got - even if he tended to go for silly and totally harmless. But everybody was still very clear that any status Gil had came from his friends, because his family background was obviously too embarrassing to even admit. And Gil felt it.
Early one morning Gil burst into Tarvek's room, wild-eyed and uncharacteristically breathless, while Tarvek was hiding his notes. "We've got to talk to Agatha. Guess what I found."
Tarvek fastened the light fixture firmly shut and jumped down. "Knock, Gil," he said. He didn't really mind - after a little cautious feeling out, Gil had helped him make the hiding place - but he could be in trouble if somebody unfriendly noticed it. He still wasn't telling Agatha, even though he wasn't actually sure it if it would bother her that he told everything they learned to his father, or if she just accepted the Prince of Sturmhalten as an ally at face value. "Okay, let's go talk to Agatha."
They found Agatha talking to a couple of the new students. Gil almost literally snatched her away from them in excitement, and Agatha gave him a small frown before cheerfully waving goodbye to her new friends and letting him tug her into a corner. "I found out where they keep our records!" he said as soon as he could be sure no one was listening.
Agatha looked blankly at him. "The school ones? Don't we know everything in those anyway?"
"No, family ones," he said.
"Oh. But-" She stopped. "Um. Didn't Baron Wulfenbach tell you he didn't know about your family?"
"Well. Yes," Gil said, looking crestfallen. "But maybe he knows something?"
"Strictly speaking," said Tarvek, "didn't you once say he told you he couldn't tell you anything? It's not really the same thing." He'd always thought that was a little suspicious. And, well - he thought he'd really like to see what the Baron thought he knew about his family.
Gil grinned. "If he couldn't tell me maybe I'm someone important after all," he said hopefully. "He wouldn't bother hiding it if my family had just been ordinary. I could be a...a Martian Prince or something."
"You don't look like a dragon," Agatha said, laughing. (Mars was inhabited by dragons. It was in all the stories. The Heterodyne Boys had gone there and fought them, according to the latest novel that had found its way into the school. Tarvek was surprised it had taken this long to come up.)
"Maybe I'm secretly a dragon," said Gil. "What do you think?" he asked Tarvek, presumably not referring the likelihood of him being a dragon.
"I think that'd be neat, you could be your own welding torch," Tarvek said. Gil made a face at him. "Okay, okay - where is it and how closely guarded?"
They settled in to plot. It actually took a few days, and after the first excitement Tarvek insisted on discussing it only in their secret redoubt. But they analysed the patrols and got a decent idea of the type of lock - combination, which the dragon-clank wouldn't help with, but they built a sound amplifier and Tarvek was pretty sure he could get through it with that. Judging from their experience with the locks everywhere else, Baron Wulfenbach's idea of securing an area didn't seem to involve any more booby traps than Gil's.
During the delay, Gil spun ever wilder fancies (and considering he started with "Martian prince" that was saying something), and Tarvek nursed a few of his own. Gil wasn't the Storm King, of course... but while Sturmhalten itself had been safe, even Tarvek's family had lost people in the Other's attacks. Maybe he had a cousin he could really like, who didn't think he was useless like Violetta did, or too sensitive like Tweedle said, or...
By the time they made their move, Agatha was the only one who wasn't fever-pitch excited. Gil was practically vibrating, to the point that Tarvek had to hush him three times before he could get the lock undone.
The room, when they pushed the door ajar and slipped into it, looked more like a library than anything else although a very small one and full of identical black books embossed with names. Gil grabbed a stepladder and started pushing it to the H section, while Tarvek quietly found the S section.
Agatha climbed up after Gil - Tarvek thought it looked precarious, but it wasn't as if Gil would let her fall. It crossed his mind to wonder what kind of information on the Heterodynes the Baron would actually lock up, but he curled up to peer at the Sturmvoraus volume with one of their little lanterns. There were lights in the room, but he didn't want to turn those on, in case they were bright enough to show around the door.
He was absorbed in that, although he hadn't yet found anything really worrying, when Gil made a choked noise. Tarvek looked up just as the Holzfäller book slid from Gil's knees to the floor.
Gil rubbed an arm over his eyes, failing to hide the tears now leaving wet patches on his sleeve. Then, before Tarvek could quite form words to ask what had happened, he launched himself off the stepladder and halfway across the room, landing on all fours. He stumbled to his feet, more blind with tears than clumsy, and ran for the door.
"Gil!" They both whisper-shouted it. Tarvek lunged after him and was only just in time to throw all his weight against the heavy door and keep it from slamming. When he got his feet underneath him again and peered out through the crack, Gil was already gone.
Agatha squeezed under his arm to look. "Should we chase him?"
"Which way?" Tarvek bit his lip. Gil might go back to the school - okay, not likely - or to their redoubt - only probably not if he was running away from them - and if he went anywhere else, there was no way to find him short of Agatha asking a Jäger. Tarvek really didn't want to suggest that and doubted Gil would like it much. "We'd better find out what upset him." He picked up Gil's book and frowned. It was only half full. He paged back and found a fairly unremarkable family tree full of peasants and question marks (which probably reflected lost records of more peasants) and then turned to the beginning. Table of Contents. Discovery?
Tarvek flipped the page and started reading and - "This can't be right."
Agatha looked at him in surprise. "Why not?"
"This is - this is just the story about the mad sausagemaker. The one Theo told everybody?"
"Sleipnir told it before that," said Agatha.
"Oh, did she?" Tarvek thought it had been told since, too. He scowled at the page. "This says Gil was his son. But I've heard versions of that about at least eleven different villages. There's never a baby in it."
Agatha perched on one of the lower steps, pulling her knees up to her chin. "This could be the real version?"
"This doesn't make sense. The Baron takes in orphans from all kinds of disasters, but he doesn't raise them here. Gil's always getting picked on because he's the only one without an important family. And he was right before," Tarvek said fiercely. "If he wasn't important the Baron wouldn't be hiding it."
"Maybe he was just first and Baron Wulfenbach got attached to him?" Agatha asked. Tarvek looked at her, and Agatha bit her lip, possibly reflecting that Baron Wulfenbach did not really act very attached to Gil. "If he's related to somebody else, do you think we can find out for him?"
"I'm definitely going to try," said Tarvek, looking back at the Holzfäller book even though he doubted it could help.
"If you think that book's fake, where should we look?"
Tarvek chewed his lip and looked around. "Census records, maybe?" They probably wouldn't be very complete, but it was worth a try. He pulled down the first few volumes from the beginning of the Empire and started hunting.
Agatha curled beside him and leaned against his arm for a while, which made it a little hard to turn pages, and then sat up. "I'm going to go look for Gil."
"But-"
"I'll tell him we like him no matter what." Her eyes flashed. "And that you're trying to figure it out 'cause you don't believe the book."
Tarvek hesitated - these points were both true, but he wasn't sure they didn't sound contradictory - and in that moment Agatha was out the door too. Argh.
Tarvek wondered briefly if maybe he should just go back to the school. Where he would be safe and not in trouble. But... he wanted to know what the Baron was hiding about Gil. From Gil. And he'd said he would look.
He was still reading the census records when the door opened again, wide, letting in a flood of the soft night-lighting of the corridor. Tarvek looked up and opened his mouth to tell Agatha or Gil to close the door and then nearly fell over backward, heart pounding so hard his chest hurt. Too tall, that was an adult, he'd been caught, he -
"Come with me."
Tarvek reshelved the books rather shakily and went with the guard to his doom.
Gil flung the door to the vault shut behind him and pelted down the hallway.
It had been a horrible idea. He should have expected this. He really was a nobody. No, he wasn't, he was a joke. The son of a Spark after all, yes. The kind of Spark who got stories told about him, even.
As an example of a really stupid way to die.
And he'd left the book, so Tarvek and Agatha would find out. They could probably even tell he'd been crying about it. He still was crying about it - he could feel the chill of tears drying where they'd been driven backward from his eyes, but his eyes themselves felt too hot and he couldn't breathe properly. He was sniffling and his lungs kept hitching and it was making it hard to run.
Then he crashed into a person, who yelled and fell over but grabbed his arm, and Gil gulped and choked because if he'd wanted to cry in front of people he wouldn't have had to run, only he couldn't stop. The person picked them both up. "This is a restricted area," he said sternly, and Gil realised he was a guard. That was... also bad. "You're -" The man stopped and sighed. "Just a kid," he muttered. "Look, you're not supposed to be here. I'm going to have to take you to the Baron."
Gil nodded since there wasn't really any point in protesting and held his breath to try and stop sobbing before the Baron saw him. This mostly succeeded in making him feel a little lightheaded.
The Baron's study had changed less than the school, even though it was also in a new place. The Baron stalked in within moments, still in a nightshirt, which only embarrassed Gil further. They'd had to get Baron Wulfenbach out of bed for this and he was... not having a lot of success not crying.
The Baron glared at them both. "What is going on?"
The guard swallowed and gave a succinct report. The Baron glowered a bit more and dismissed him, then turned to Gil. "Gil Holzfäller," he said, and paused. Gil sniffed. The Baron frowned harder, opened one of his desk drawers, and handed Gil a handkerchief. "Explain your behaviour."
"I -" Gil paused to snuffle into the handkerchief for a moment and also try to decide what to say as best his rather scattered thoughts allowed. He couldn't admit Agatha and Tarvek had been there, but was there any need to hide what he'd seen? They already knew he'd been in a restricted area. And right now he he hardly cared how much trouble he was in. "I found my records," he managed to blurt out before a hiccuping sob interrupted him. "About my - my father."
The Baron looked startled, then went back to scowling. "I see." He stalked past Gil to the door and called the guard back, then said - quietly enough Gil wasn't sure he was meant to hear it - "Go to the vault with the student family records and bring anyone there, or in the vicinity, who doesn't belong there to me. Regardless of who it is."
"Yes, Herr Baron."
The Baron returned to loom over Gil again. "Why were you looking?"
"I wanted to know," said Gil, into the handkerchief. "Everyone else knows who they are."
The Baron picked Gil up by the shoulders and put him on a chair, then went around the desk and sat down. "I don't suppose you considered there might be a reason not to know," he said irritably.
"I - I thought -" He'd thought there might be reasons to hide it, but not reasons he shouldn't know. He hadn't thought it might be hidden to spare his feelings, or to stop the people who already thought he was nobody treating him worse. All his dreams of being a lost prince, or related to a legendary Spark seemed ridiculous now.
"Of course you did." The Baron leaned his forehead against the heel of one hand. "Never mind. I should have expected this."
"I'm sorry," said Gil quietly, and then with a spurt of bitterness, "It's not as if I'd ever tell anybody."
"I suppose you had the Sturmvoraus boy with you."
Gil looked down and pressed his lips together. There was no point in lying, but he wasn't going to give Tarvek up. It didn't matter anyway - his past wasn't important, just horrible, and Tarvek wouldn't use that against him.
The Baron exhaled and then said, "Gilgamesh."
Gil looked up fast, because that wasn't his name - was it? - but it sounded familiar and... and he didn't know what to think about that.
The Baron looked weary. "You were never meant to see that story."
"I know," said Gil. He wondered if this was the lead up to punishing him for finding it.
The Baron's jaw clenched, and then he stood and leaned over the desk. "The book is a lie," he said grimly. "Your name is Gilgamesh. You are my son, and I have hidden that to keep you safe. There are a great many people who would like to see me dead, and would be even more interested in seeing any child of mine dead. Things have calmed down somewhat since Barry turned up, but it is not safe for you to be known as a tyrant's son. Which means that if you are so determined to investigate, then you had better be able to keep that secret-" His hand slapped down on the desk. "Even from Agatha, and especially from Tarvek Sturmvoraus!"
Gil stared. The memories of the Baron carrying him, comforting him, memories he'd hardly believed in, came flooding back, still hazy and vague but real. He had a father, an important one. But he still shrank back when the Baron's hand slammed down, even as he remembered arms wrapped around him on a night where something green and blue hung in the sky. There was no connection now, no way to move towards the Baron. Why did his safety even matter to the Baron, if the Baron made him safe by making sure they could never mean anything to each other? "...But Tarvek's nice," he muttered, too dazed to address any of the rest of it.
The Baron leaned heavily on the desk and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other hand. "I do not particularly expect Tarvek to try to assassinate you," he said. "But what he knows, Prince Aaronev is likely to know. And the royalty of Europa are not impressed by a baron doing what they could or would not."
Gil looked away, knowing perfectly well that was true. It occurred to him for the first time that Tarvek had been spying - that he'd been helping Tarvek spy - on his father. "I won't tell anyone," he said, firmly, as if it might make up somehow for earlier being complicit in spying. "I promise." The fake story would be enough reason for Tarvek to understand if he never wanted to speak about this again.
The Baron sighed. Then he looked up at a knock on the door, and without straightening he still seemed to expand. "Enter." Gil hastily stuffed the handkerchief out of sight, even though Tarvek probably already knew.
"Prince Sturmvoraus, Herr Baron." The guard propelled a shaking Tarvek into the room. "That was all."
The Baron waved him off again and came back around the desk, towering over both Gil and Tarvek. "Clearly I need to change the locks. And where does a prince of Sturmhalten learn breaking and entering?"
Tarvek scrunched down under his gaze and muttered something unintelligible about Smoke Knights, eyes seeking Gil anxiously even though his own terror.
Gil swallowed miserably. He might have been helping Tarvek spy earlier, but this had been all his own idea and he'd pulled Tarvek into it, and he wasn't sure which to feel more guilty about.
"Sit down," the Baron ordered. Tarvek scrambled into the chair next to Gil's as the Baron turned away to speak irritably with the guard.
Tarvek leaned over toward Gil, shielding his mouth with one hand and speaking barely above a breath. "Hey. I think there's more to you than they're saying. And I'm going to find out what."
Tarvek needed to shut up, now, before he landed both of them in trouble. It was going to be bad enough dealing with this with Tarvek trying to uncover the truth and thinking he was doing Gil a favour, without him going on about it where the Baron could hear. Gil tried to glare him into silence, the attempt to communicate made rather fiercer by real annoyance. If Tarvek hadn't been spying in the first place Gil would be allowed to trust him and this wouldn't be a mess.
"Look at me, not Holzfäller," the Baron demanded. Tarvek's eyes turned up to him as if magnetised. "I will not have you spying - on me or your fellow students!"
Tarvek quailed back deeper into his collar. "I wasn't!" he said. Gil tried not to goggle at him. The guard had apparently found him still in the vault, apparently trying to investigate Gil's identity already.
"You were caught red-handed," the Baron snapped, looking incredulous.
Sweat broke out on Tarvek's face. "I - I'm sorry. I mostly just wanted to see if I could get in. I was only there to look at what you had on my own family." He swallowed audibly. "I didn't mean any harm. I didn't think of it as spying. I'll never do anything like it again."
Suddenly Gil was really furious. Of course Tarvek was going to keep spying, and now Gil was going to be complicit in spying on his father for as long as it went on. Even if this time had been entirely Gil's own fault (and Tarvek really had gone for the Sturmvoraus book instead of joining Gil to look at Holzfäller) it was going to keep happening. Every time he would be faced with the choice of getting Tarvek into trouble or betraying the only family he had. Besides, he knew what Tarvek thought of the Empire - he certainly wouldn't want Gil dead, but if he heard the Baron had an heir he'd probably think he shouldn't and Gil didn't like the thought of having his existence disapproved of. "Look behind the light fitting in his room," he said, flatly, and immediately after saying it was overwhelmed with both guilt and relief.
Tarvek twisted around, looking openly shocked, and the Baron stood up to his full height and also looked at Gil. "Indeed? I believe I will."
Agatha was getting very tired. She hadn't been able to sit still trying to read over Tarvek's shoulder while she thought about Gil crying, but she hadn't been able to find him either. Tarvek had been right. Gil knew the ship better and she didn't even know which way he went. She just hoped it hadn't been anywhere he could fall, because she didn't think he'd been able to see very much.
She stopped at the edge of a construction area, sighed, and then turned around and trudged back to the vault. At least Tarvek would be there and she could ask him if he found anything.
Tarvek wasn't there. The door was locked again and he didn't answer when she tried knocking on it. Agatha swallowed. She didn't think Tarvek would have gone back to the school without her. So he'd probably been caught and Tarvek was scared of getting caught.
Agatha went to look for a Jäger.
The first one she found on guard tilted his head and grinned when he first heard her, and then looked surprised when she went straight up to him. "Jorgi," she whispered, "what's going on?"
"Hyu iz lookink for hyu friends?" he asked, dropping his own voice. "Dey iz vit der Baron."
Agatha bit her lip. She didn't know where the Baron was now that he didn't work and sleep right next to the school. "Will you take me there, please? Or tell me how to get there if you're not supposed to leave?"
"Technically Hy iz under orders to bring in anyvun in restricted areas straight to him," said Jorgi, grinning. "Zo let's be goot, yah?" He swung her up into his arms and set off at a loping trot.
That made it easy. Agatha didn't argue about being carried, this time. As Jorgi turned a corner and slowed down, a door opened ahead of them to show Baron Wulfenbach, still looking back into the room, and she heard him say direly, "If this is true, Master Sturmvoraus, then our agreement regarding you may be at an end."
Agatha squirmed to get down and raced forward. "Herr Baron! You can't send him back!"
The Baron turned to look at her, eyebrows lowered forbiddingly. "And why not?"
Agatha skidded to a halt in spite of herself, heart beating wildly. Because Tarvek didn't like it there wasn't a reason not to punish him that way, probably, and anyway he only said he liked it better here to her and Gil. "Because I don't think you're going to expel me and I was doing the same thing as him, it wouldn't be fair."
"Are you telling me you have been spying on your fellow students? I rather doubt you've been reporting to Barry," said the Baron, sounding very adult and sarcastic.
Agatha clenched her fists. "We were together almost the whole time."
"And why did you think it was a good idea to break into a restricted section?" he asked.
Agatha frowned. "We were curious." She shot a look at Gil, not sure if she should explain that part.
"He knows what we were looking for," Gil said tiredly, in an undertone but not really as if he was trying to stop the Baron hearing.
"Yes," said the Baron. "I do. And I'm aware it would have been Holzfäller's idea. What I want to know is why you thought it was a good idea to help him break the rules."
"He's our friend." Agatha folded her arms. "He wanted to know what you wouldn't tell him about himself. We weren't going to hurt anything."
"The vault is, nonetheless, off limits," said the Baron. "And you will be dealt with. But I have reason to believe that Prince Sturmvoraus has been spying for a long time and this was not an isolated incident."
Agatha looked at Gil again, a little sorry to say this if it ended up meaning they had to stop this time, and then took a deep breath. "We explore a lot," she said, lifting her chin to look challengingly up at the Baron. "He's not hurting anything then either."
"If he is finding and reporting information to his father, then yes he is doing harm!" the Baron shouted, before looking away and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I believe Barry told you your enrollment was contingent on following the school rules. I shall leave dealing with you to him. I shall deal with Prince Sturmvoraus."
The Baron started walking, beckoning the boys to follow him; Agatha ran alongside, confused and indignant. "I thought Prince Aaronev was our ally!"
"Some allies are more to be trusted than others," the Baron said coldly, and then, almost to himself and with an odd note in his voice, "like some friends."
"If you're letting Uncle Barry decide what to do with me, maybe you should ask him about Tarvek, too." Agatha wasn't really sure that was a good idea. Uncle Barry had told her to follow the school rules. But as long as they didn't worry anybody she still didn't think exploring the dirigible hurt anything. Baron Wulfenbach hadn't been that upset about the music box. What was wrong with telling Prince Aaronev things?
"Barry is your guardian..." the Baron began and then stopped and sighed. "Fine. And when he agrees with me, will you trust he knows more about the situation than you do and accept it?"
Agatha frowned. She was sure Uncle Barry knew a lot more about a lot of things than she did, but he hadn't been here, so how could he know more about things she'd been here for and he hadn't? "If I tell him what I know, I guess he will," she reasoned after a moment. He might be upset with her, but she felt better about telling him things like that Tarvek would really miss his friends if he didn't get to go to the school anymore. "So yes."