AC Brotherhood Novelization

by Mirror and Image

Desmond continues his journey to being an Assassin and slowly going insane while reliving his ancestor Ezio as Ezio's worlds crumbles under his feet. Rated for Desmond's language, overall violence, and of course a certain amorous encounter at the beginning of the game.

14. Sixteen's Truth

Part Fourteen: Sixteen's Truth

January and Claudia's birthday found Ezio having dinner at her apartment with Federica and watching their mother very carefully. Since August, Maria's condition seemed to be deteriorating; she was having trouble following conversations and sometimes seemed to be lost in a different decade. This evening she didn't recognize Federica and was commenting on Ezio's "new" beard despite him wearing one for over a decade. She asked after Ulderico and expressed looking forward to the birth of Claudia's child. It was very tense that night until they could put her to bed, and Federica looked to the Auditore siblings with a worried face for her fifteen years.

"What's going to happen to her?"

"Her sickness will continue," Claudia said. "It's not uncommon, and after everything she's been through, I suppose it's to be expected."

"She's always been a little forgetful but..."

Ezio shook his head. "You should have seen her when she was younger. She was sharp as a tack, and observant and astute. It's painful, seeing her this way."

"But... is there nothing we can do for her?"

"Dante says there isn't. The mind can only take so many tragedies, he said, and losing Monteriggioni at her age probably tipped the balance."

Federica shrunk at the very thought. "Will that happen to us?" she asked, terrified at the thought.

The silence that hung was very pregnant, before Ezio offered a lazy, forced grin. "We have been through the same tragedies, true, but we were never hit so badly we lost our words. I doubt it." The false confidence did not fool anyone, and the confrontation with their own mortality left a bitter taste in the entire family's mouths. It made the message from one of Bartolomeo's mercenaries a welcome distraction, and they gratefully took the news of his latest victory: Bartolomeo and the Aragon forces had met the French at Garigliano, and had won over the course of the battle. This was the fourth win in a row for Bartolomeo, everyone on all sides was impressed, and rumor was running rampant that the two forces would be meeting to call a truce and negotiate.

He also learned that Piero de' Medici, Lorenzo's de' Medici's son, died in the conflict. Ezio had known Piero from a boy, clinging to his mother's skirts quite literally. After an invasion of the Medici mansion, the boy had been hampered for life, making him capitulate to the French in their first invasion in '94 despite Ezio's and Niccolò's advice to the contrary, and that loss had haunted him. After a few inquiries, Ezio learned the boy had been allied with the French, and that he had died while trying to flee the battle. A coward to the end, Ezio mourned Lorenzo's memory, wondering if the once prominent family would ever recover, exiled as they were from Florence and filled with cowards like Piero. Would the family deteriorate like his mother...?

The thought soured his mood again, and he bid his goodnights to Claudia and took the long way back to the hideout.

When he arrived he found Vecellio playing a game with his little brother Giovanni, and Ezio watched, knowing it was something precious and doomed to be lost over time. He savored it while he could, trying to convince himself that this was enough.

---

Desmond woke up slowly. It was Monday, and having another day without the Animus was a blessing. Sundays were Desmond's moment of calm and peace. A chance to collect himself and remember who he was. Mondays were usually the one morning in the week where he didn't wake up wondering where he was or who he was. He could feel the hard marble floors under his sleeping bag and he didn't associate it with the hard dirt of a night on the road, or a poor bed in a shoddy inn. The sleeping bag's texture of nylon and polyester reminded him of the industrial revolution and the fact that it had happened as opposed to wool. The clicks and whirs of the various machinery reminded him of the twenty-first century, instead of the crackle of a fire.

Monday mornings were wonderful.

But Mondays were also getting back to the slow road to insanity.

He finally yawned, stretched, and opened his eyes.

Lucy was up, brewing coffee on their little butane stove. She looked even more stressed than ever, and Desmond wanted to just reach out and do something. But things were too awkward. A look too long left one of them blushing. Lucy's eyes would water when looking at him, when she thought no one was looking, and Desmond's heart just ached. They both cared. It could evolve to something, but it wasn't going to. Not with the way their lives were going.

And that ache proved he was real.

Desmond sighed and sat up. It was time to get something to eat. He wouldn't eat again till dinner or maybe a snack at three o'clock when he got out of the Animus.

Shaun and Rebecca were still in their shared sleeping bag, oblivious to the world. Desmond had a brief thought of waking them up, but decided against it. Quiet as they had tried to be, he had woken up to the two of them having an... amourous encounter, and they probably needed a little sleep. Lucy, by contrast, had had the morning watch and was due to head back to sleep after the long stretch.

So, hoping she could get some much needed rest sooner, rather than later, Desmond headed down to the tunnels to wash up and then help her get breakfast going.

"Morning," she muttered, rubbing her eyes.

"Morning to you too," he sat beside her, firing up another of the butane stoves. There was an awkward pause, as had normally plagued their conversation since that horrible attempt at a date night.

But Lucy gave a soft smile. "Coffee?"

"Please."

They quietly started cooking breakfast. Rebecca gave a grumble that sounded vaguely like waking before snuggling back into Shaun.

"Hmn." Desmond couldn't hold back the smile. Good to know there was a touch of happiness somewhere in this crazy war of Assassins and Abstergo. He turned to Lucy, trying to think of something to talk about that wouldn't bring about an uncomfortable pause, or odd look.

"So," he started, "how long do we have before the Templar satellite launch?"

Brilliant, Desmond. Bring up work.

But Lucy seemed fine with the topic. "Today's the eighth, so that leaves us with... seventy-four days."

Desmond let out a soft whistle. "Not much time."

Lucy gave a soft smile and her shoulders finally dropped. "Think about all you've been through in the last month. September first all the way to today. Seventy-four days is a long time."

He nodded. "We're going to need the Apple soon. Ezio's use of it, I know how to do it." He didn't shudder. "It hurt. A lot. But..." Desmond sighed. "The Apple didn't want Ezio to use it that way. I think that's because... the Apple wants me to use it that way."

"That's... specific," Lucy said.

Desmond shook his head. "You do see that the Apple whispers to Ezio, right?"

"Sort of," she said, leaning back. "We can get some strange readings in the memory about the Apple, and from what you've told us, we know there's some sort of communication, but we can't decode it."

"The whispers aren't clear, but I get a better sense of it than Ezio, sometimes." Desmond did not say what he thought that meant about his sanity.

Lucy picked up on it, regardless. "If it were up to me, you'd take more breaks."

"Good thing the fate of the world doesn't rest on your shoulders," he said lightly.

Awkward pause. Again.

"Hey," Lucy said seriously, "joke all you want, but your mental health is a serious concern. It only takes a couple of months for most Animus users to exhibit extreme side effects and you've been in for prolonged stretches of time."

Desmond replied with just as much seriousness. "I'll rest once we have the Apple."

Lucy looked away and sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that."

Rebecca was soon stumbling over, only grunting till she had coffee. Desmond let Lucy and Rebecca talk redesign, and just settled with his food. Shaun soon joined them as well, grabbing food and then heading to the tunnels to eat and clean up at the same time. He was also grinning smugly, and Desmond just rolled his eyes.

Lucy headed to her own sleeping bag, yawning widely. "Good luck with the clusters," she mumbled, and gave a soft smile.

Desmond gave his own soft smile, and sat down in the Animus. Rebecca was conscious enough, after coffee and breakfast, to sit beside him and start booting things up.

"Only two more of these rifts," she said. "Then, if it's anything like the video from last time, we'll have to wait a bit in order for all the files to stitch together."

"I get another day free of the Animus. That's fine by me," Desmond nodded. "Let's get started.

Desmond stood in the white room briefly, then spawned at Tiber Island again. The nostalgia here was massive, but disjointed after all the time Ezio had spent here. Desmond didn't know which memory to synch with, and instead held back, focused on himself as much as he could. "Where to?" he asked.

"Castra Praetoria," Rebecca said. "By the time you get there, his royal kingship should be done with breakfast and ready to join us."

"Right." Desmond walked to Salvatore's stable, mounted, and headed off to the Roman countryside to the fortress where the Baron de Valois died. It was a very long ride, and, true to Rebecca's prediction, Shaun was once more with them and offering his usual acerbic commentary.

When Desmond finally arrived, he dismounted and called on his inner eagle to start examining the fortifications. He decided to start at the outermost parts and work his way inward, checking every building, city wall, and structure as he kept wandering around. Once he was certain the outer areas were cleared, he headed to the barbican where Ezio finally faced off with the French baron. He could already see the ghost of Ezio and his recruits, but he turned to the light of the rift and climbed up to it first and foremost.

Cluster 9

"Loading."

A series of pictures came up, and this time, no audio clip accompanied them.

THEY LISTEN TO US WITH THESE VEHICLES THAT ARE FASTER THAN RACE CARS.

"Wait, what?"

"The information superhighway," Rebecca chuckled. "Only thing faster than a car is information."

So Desmond selected the pictures with powerlines in it and advanced.

"Loading... I know you are there..."

Oh great, the computer/Sixteen was going creepy and glitchy again.

"I want to go home. Home. Please... I need you. Don't leave me here in the dark."

"I swear," Desmond muttered, "that's Sixteen."

"Loading..."

An Abstergo audio file came up, dated November, 2004, and Rebecca was soon telling Desmond which adjustments to make to match the wave file. The recording itself was chilling.

"Pull over here," a man said firmly.

"What's going on, Gary?" a woman asked.

"I want to speak to you alone. You know that CIA stuff for my new book?"

"About the corporations?"

"It's so much bigger than I thought," he replied, heavy with the weight of what he'd discovered. "Bilderberg is just a red herring. I'm going to give you a name: Abstergo."

"Bilderberg!" Shaun exclaimed. "That secretive group of bankers, business leaders, and politicians? Oh my God, I thought they were a decoy!"

"Shut up, Shaun."

"I've no idea what that is," the woman replied.

Gary explained. "A shadow corporation. They aren't listed anywhere. No stock options. Nothing above the boards. But their members have holdings in other companies. Coke, Kraft, the pharmaceutical industry, Detroit, Wall Street. Basically every company above a certain size has ties to Abstergo."

"So?"

"This can't end well," Desmond whispered. If Abstergo had a recording of this conversation...

"They're on the way to running the entire world!" Gary insisted. "They have people in government too, for Christ's sake. Listen, I needed to tell someone this, because I've been keeping all the research a secret and I can't hold it in anymore."

"What will you do now?" she replied, sounding scared.

"The book. It's going to be about this. Trust me, once it's on the shelves, everyone's gonna know."

"Vehicle Monitoring System Terminated."

And Desmond was right.

"Hello, D.?" a new voice asked. "Tell headquarters I'm monitoring a situation. It's nothing serious, but we'll need someone to take care of a security risk. Perfect. Congratulations on that promotion. Keep up the good work."

"They're congratulating each other on good work in limiting free speech and killing leaks?" Shaun scoffed. "Regular welcoming committee they are."

"Let's just move on," Desmond sighed.

"Loading..."

A quarantine zone appeared and an audio clip started playing.

"The peasants are like the sea, raging and unpredictable. That is why we have built walls."

"I do not see any walls..."

"No? Look around you. A shelf of soda here, a case of candy there, magazines, talk shows, pills. The walls of the twenty-first century surround us."

"Lovely outlook on things," Desmond muttered, using the sonar to find all the lights to hit to lift the quarantine.

He spawned back where he was, in the Praetoria, and looked to the sky. "So where to next?"

"Castel Sant'Angelo," Rebecca replied.

"Seriously? I started in central Rome. We could have taken care of that one first."

"But then we wouldn't have Shaun's colorful commentary."

"Thanks a lot for that," Shaun replied.

Right. Desmond found and remounted his horse and started the long ride back to central Rome. "You better have a way in, Rebecca," he groused to the sky. "If you don't want me taking forever, I need a way up and around. Or will you remove the NPC guards so I can move freely?"

"Yeah, yeah," Rebecca replied cheekily. "I'll see what I can do."

When Desmond finally arrived, he looked at the bridge and saw the guards blankly staring everyone down.

"Go down to the water level. You have a path to a small courtyard and you can climb from there."

Desmond nodded and hopped across the poles and climbed to a platform, finding the broken fence. There were guards patrolling, but not quite so thick as the bridge, so Desmond pulled out Ezio's crossbow and took aim. Once they were all dead, he had no trouble climbing, his eagle vision keeping a sharp lookout for the rift as he slowly checked everything as he made his way around.

"Are you shitting me?" he finally said, seeing the rift in the middle of a wall. He was going to have to jump across and hope he landed. Otherwise, he didn't want to think of the fight with the army down below, or respawning to do this all over again.

He jumped, grabbed a higher structure by miracle, and dropped down into the rift.

Cluster 10

"Where have you been? I missed you."

"Great," Desmond shuddered. "The creepy monotone computer voice isn't even bothering to say-"

"Loading..."

"Never mind."

A painting of Adam and Eve appeared with a third person peeking behind the tree, before spinning into a photo of the earth with the butterfly pattern Sixteen had painted above his bed scrambled atop it. Desmond went to spinning the rings to make the picture fit, clearing the text to the side.

O brave new world. What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?

"Loading..."

"Any idea what this puzzle could be about?" Desmond asked.

"We've been watching the birth of Abstergo and its growth and prosperity," Shaun replied. "I suspect it's along the same vein."

"Reasoning Centers Activate. I understand. I understand what I must do. Why I am here. I must... Long-term Memory Centers activate. No. No. Get it out. GET IT OUT. KILL ME!"

Desmond shuddered. The computer's voice remained monotone, but it still sounded so desperate. Sixteen had really been losing it.

Another bunch of pictures appeared, titled:

A PRODUCT THAT WE CAN MAKE WITHOUT HANDS OR MACHINES.

"Without hands or machines?" Shaun repeated. "Like information? Thoughts?"

But Desmond was already selecting the pictures that had a product of a man and a woman. Children. Apparently Shaun and Rebecca's encounter last night did good for Desmond as well, in terms of solving this puzzle.

The next file was locked by Abstergo, so another bunch of pictures appeared.

WITH EACH PASSING DAY, THE PEOPLE GET STRONG. FREEDOM ASCENDS, HERALDING A REVOLUTION.

An audio clip also played. "It's about genetics. They were born into their place, we merely have to help them accept it."

Well those were opposite views. One clearly Templar, one clearly Assassin. And, looking at the pictures, some of the Arab spring, Desmond couldn't help but smile. He had a distinct sense of what was in these pictures. He scanned the pictures, finding Assassin symbols all over the place, along with the typical code of gobblydegook letters that Rebecca identified quickly.

"It's the periodic table."

"Seriously," Shaun groused, "am I even needed today?"

The various phrases were soon translated. "Chemistry will open it. Abstergo owns it all but not you. Leave them their worthless pieces of paper. Their control is slipping. The dictators can't crush it. The oligarchs can't kill it. The courts can't stop it. December 21, 2012."

"So the Assassins are gaining the upper hand?" Desmond tried to summarize. "The people aren't just sitting and taking it anymore, they're standing up."

"But we still have that happy little winter solstice ahead of us," Shaun retorted lightly. "What a happy thing."

Desmond rolled his eyes and selected the hidden eagle above one of the protests. A wheel lock puzzle came up with a bunch of numbers as possibilities.

"Oh! That's Fibonacci, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21!" Rebecca replied. "You add the last number with the previous. They just dropped the first numbers in the sequence."

"But twenty-one and thirteen don't add up to twenty-four," Desmond interjected. "Not even close."

"The one's column matches," Rebecca replied. "Three plus one does get you four. And four plus one does get the five in the next number."

"But what about the tens column, Rebecca?" Shaun asked. "It's rising so quickly. Fibonacci isn't working."

"Because that's multiplication," Rebecca replied with a clear shrug of the shoulder. "one times two gives us two, then two times two gives us four."

"So the next number is four times two," Desmond replied. "And adding whatever is left over from the ones column as well."

With the math figured out, it was easy to fill in the key for the lock and access the Abstergo file.

Abstergo Industries

Abnormal Brain Activity Discovered in Children, Aged 3 Months to 18-Years-Old and Adults, 19-30.

Abstract

Several recent studies conducted by internal marketing teams revealed that: "Entertainment sales are dropping, protests are mounting. The economy is in turmoil. All market research indicates that the system should be stabilizing, but, instead, we're seeing the opposite."(1) In response, our team set out to discover the cause of the declining efficiency of Abstergo's control methods.

Past studies of bilateral brain activation during television, film and video game use have shown the characteristic ARAS patterns induced by Abstergo's signal patterns. Our study was conducted on a range of test subjects (30 subjects, aged +-10 to +-30), who viewed TV programs while resting-state fMRI scans were conducted.

In contrast to previous studies, 80% of test subjects showed heightened cortical brain activity. Detailed scans using our prototype dMRI machine revealed an increased rate of neural development (+-30% over that of older age groups). Such a marked increase does not fit Darwinian models. Further studies are required to define the ultimate outcome of this abnormal evolution.

Abstergo Quarterly Marketing Report, 01/17/12.

Desmond blinked. "So people are bucking the system and Abstergo doesn't know why?"

"It sounds genetic," Shaun said. "Wonder if that has anything to do with Sixteen's last file last time, about how Eagle Vision was essentially a random gene we've had from eons past."

"No way of knowing," Rebecca replied. "I'd have to data mine their whole system to get enough info to even start forming theories."

It did make one wonder. Still, the next puzzle was already "Loading..."

It was another audio file, with a wave that needed to be matched and eighteen possible fragments to combine.

"That's a lot of options," Desmond grumbled. But Rebecca was way ahead of him and told him the two he needed to select.

The file was from January, 2012, and was of only one man, offering his last wishes, it seemed.

"If you are playing this tape, it means I have left this world, and I have left this grand enterprise, Abstergo Industries, our great hope for humanity, to you. Don't trust the advisors around you. They are too enamored with surface, with lifestyle. We created capitalism, but we are not capitalists. Our purpose is noble. The crude system of control we enact through money is merely a bandage on a wound we have devoted our lives to treating. The people of this world are confused, lost, frightened, and incapable of independent productivity. Without us, they would just be animals, slaves to the Others who did not deserve such responsibility. We saved them, remember that. But enough about the past. I must warn you about the great crisis to come. Although those around you deny it soon we will be unable to manufacture new markets. The people will become immune to our economists and entertainment. When the free market dies, they will turn against us. Therefore, do not delay, by now, you have been shown what only the grandmasters of our order have seen. Now you know why Abstergo, why all of it had to be. And now you know what you must do. Stay the course. We will give them freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from pornography, from disgusting base animal desire. Freedom from democracy. Humanity will thank us in the end." After that speech, he rambled off into Latin.

"He has such a high opinion of his fellow man," Desmond offered in Florentine irony.

"But this counters the previous abstract," Shaun replied. "That abstract indicates that they were surprised that they weren't controlling the populace any more. But this man knew it was going to come. What's he on about?"

"No idea," Desmond replied. "We don't even know who the Grandmaster of the Templars is now, do we?"

"Loading..."

What came up next was...

A chess board.

"Huh?"

The Animus processor was talking again: "I shut it down. I can shut it down, but it does not go away. It is almost time, Desmond Miles. I know how to open the Path. Soon my true purpose will be revealed. Soon, I will not be alone."

Desmond blinked, uncertain what was going on. "Who are you?" he asked, but the Animus loading voice did not answer. He looked at the chess pieces; he was white, the loading voice black. Jeez, he had played chess all of three times at Central Park. He wasn't very good at it. He stared at the board, uncertain how to start. "Any of you guys play?"

"No."

"No, sorry, Desmond."

Frowning, Desmond simply did a classic opener, moving his king's pawn forward two spaces.

"Moving away from the sovereign and his crossed brow, the people take two steps forward," the Animus voice said. "The workforce increases brother beside brother."

A black knight moved out onto the board, and Desmond knew already this was going to be a shitty game. He moved his queen's pawn to join his king's, and black moved one of its pawns forward two spaces as well. Only four moves in and Desmond had no idea what the other side was doing; he felt like he was in Central Park all over again... This was why he never played. Frowning, he captured the black pawn with his own, thinking he might have the upper hand but probably not.

"As a concession, a small piece is sacrificed for the greater good to come," the voice said, and Desmond wasn't sure if that meant him or her... it. At least, not until black moved its queen out and put Desmond in check. Fuck.

"Does Lucy play?" he asked, "Should we wake her?" He made the only move he could to block black's queen. Black responded by shifting the queen slightly to put him in check again.

"Alan Turing set out to solve the plight of the workers. Democratic nations were built, each led by a powerful vizier, who made a move to block the Templar advance. It did not deter them."

Sighing, Desmond studied the board. He knew all the basic moves, but he wasn't really one for being able to look ahead, to read a game. He considered the Animus voice, too. Playing against a computer was tantamount to suicide, they could outplay even the greats because they could simply compute everything, but Desmond believed less and less that this "loading" voice was just a computer. If it talked about memory centers and emotion centers activating, then something weirder than just creepy coding was going on. Sixteen or not, Desmond wasn't sure what to make of it. Now, however, the dithered voices was calm, collected, as monotone as ever, and he couldn't help thinking of the computer as a "she" and wondering if she wasn't giving him a message. He moved his queen to block the check.

What had he learned over the course of these rifts? What was Sixteen and the Animus voice trying to tell him? The Templars had shifted themselves to the identity – the corporation known as Abstergo. They hired economists at first, first to quantify workers as capital and try to shaft them, then to lobby free markets, and then to lobby themselves into positions in the government.

"Although his piece represents a savior, his self-serving actions reveal him as counterfeit."

… That's right. Templar Knights. Knights were supposed to be the bastion of chivalry and honor and all things good in human nature. Templars were none of those things, they were by definition self-serving, because they believed themselves above the people and destined to watch over them like sheep. They craved and sought power to do exactly that. Was that why they decided to become a corporation? Was that why they took on a business model instead of the traditional secret society? How did they know to do that? A Piece of Eden? Desmond shuddered at the thought. Black had moved her queen to the bottom corner of the board, and Desmond moved his knight – he studied the piece in his hand for several moments, before moving it out of the queen's way. Black's bishop moved deep into the board.

"Our moves are echoes, they are not our own."

"What does that mean?" he asked the voice, but of course there was no response. Was it another commentary on the Templars? Or history itself? Assassins and Templars had been fighting for centuries, over a thousand years. How often had one nearly destroyed the other and vice versa? How many assassins had their homes destroyed like Ezio had – and he twice over no less? Altair's home had been destroyed, by armies and by his own master Al Mualim. Was history doomed to repeat itself over and over? Why? Because of Those Who Came Before? What role did they play in all of this? Was this all part of their plan? Or someone else's all together?

He moved his other knight, uncertain where all of this was going.

A pawn inched forward on black's side. Desmond didn't understand why, and he dearly wished he could play better. Didn't Altair play chess? Too bad that didn't bleed into him. Of course not.

… He looked at the board again. Queens, knights, bishops. Why were they called that? Why were pawns pawns? Who decided how each piece moved? What was the fucking point of this game? He thought back to the rifts. Abstergo. This was about Abstergo and how they managed to get so much control. But how did chess figure into that? Frowning, and willing to be a little stupid, he moved his king. If Templars did so much with their queens, maybe he could do something unexpected...?

"The dark horsemen approaches," the Animus voice said, black knight shifting on the board and taking a pawn. "Messenger and fool, they can hear you along the straight and narrow. But once on the adjacent slope, observe the whites of their eyes."

"I guess that makes sense," Desmond said slowly. Templars could see everything one did if one walked the straight and narrow. Their TV techno-shit monitored people, they could listen in on conversations held in cars, they could fucking do anything. Lucy hadn't been kidding in that regard, and as he stared at the board he began to realize the importance of this game. He moved one of his bishops, hoping to angle to take something in his next move.

But then the black knight shifted again, and Desmond realized he was in checkmate.

"Shit," he muttered.

"Sixty-four squares, all ranks and files. Every move anticipated. Every response engineered. Abstergo created it. It's the company's game, there is no way out.

"H. Act II, SC.2 192.

"Abran los ojos.

"Tuam Libera Mentem.

"The king. F2. Your move."

"... Huh?" Desmond asked.

"Open your eyes in Spanish."

"And a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hang on a second... 'Words, words, words.' "

"And the Latin is 'free your mind,' " Lucy's voice added. "But I don't know what any of it means. You're in checkmate."

But Desmond understood it. The game, it was created by Abstergo. Switching to a corporation setup gave them the means to capitalize on something that had been running the world for as long as it had existed: Money. Getting rich gave them the chance to use the money to influence the world in order to free up more money: staging coup d'états and hostile takeovers freed up lucrative commodities like oil, and gave them the money to influence the governments that couldn't be toppled so easily: like the USA. By throwing money at certain problems, and then staging it to look like the US did it, they kept their hands clean and eroded America's presence in the global arena, and by doing so pressed them into taking on policies they would likely never do otherwise. Then they threw money at the politicians themselves in order to get their hands in the government. And the US wasn't alone, didn't Shaun say that Margaret Thatcher was some bigwig in England? All sorts of governments probably had Abstergo agents – or worse, people controlled by Abstergo who didn't even know it. Now, almost a hundred years later give or take, and they had their hands in everything.

Vidic was right, any advancement was an Abstergo creation: television, the internet, even electricity was influenced by Abstergo as they made it into a market, a commodity to be bought and traded instead of a given right, something free for the people to benefit from.

It was a game. Abstergo, the Templars, had engineered it. All of it. Like the Animus voice said: even responding to it was engineered by them.

Desmond didn't want to play.

He stared at his board, his checkmate. There were no moves to make. And yet... and yet...

"I won't play by these rules," he said, and he grabbed his king and, instead of knocking it over to resign, yanked it off the board and slammed it elsewhere. "I make my own rules."

The entire darkness shifted, and everything shook and dithered, and then Desmond was back in the construct.

"Okay," Rebecca said. "I need to compile everything. Come on out."

So Desmond did. After the strange video file of last time, he was expecting Rebecca to be at it through the day and into the night. But it was shortly after lunch when the technician shook her head and said that it was done stitching itself together.

"The stitching was just as complicated as last time. I'd say even more so, but I don't understand why it's done so fast."

"Only one way to find out," Lucy said. "Play the video."

They all huddled around the screen, but where last time a video about the origins of mankind and Those Who Came Before shook the foundation of what they knew, this time, it was still glitchy, black backgrounds with random snow and skips.

There was, however, a set of letters on each frame of the video.

The miracle is in the execution.

Desmond blinked. "There's nothing here."

"Strange," Rebecca said, going through her code again. "I'm seeing a massive amount of data."

Lucy crossed her arms, staring at the screen. "What does he mean? 'The miracle is in the execution'."

"I don't know," Shaun murmured. "Some kind of commentary on nihilism?"

Desmond growled in frustration. "He's playing with us. Another puzzle to figure out." Execution. He'd done enough executing as Ezio and Altair. What other type of execution could he be talking about. "Unless..."

Rebecca was right with him. "It isn't a video! It's an executable! Damn, I'd forgotten about Windows and their .exe files. Abstergo doesn't do Windows." Rebecca was flying through windows and the keyboard, rearranging things and seeing how the code was stitched together. "But it isn't a Windows .exe. It's an executable for the Animus."

"Back in I go."

"Launch it when you're ready."

Desmond once more entered the Animus. He flipped through his menu, glancing over Shaun's database entries and finding the executable that Rebecca had uploaded. Opening the file Desmond found himself in darkness, with a white floor reminiscent of the loading room of the Animus. Glancing down, Desmond was happy to note that he was himself, and not in the construct of Ezio.

"Hello?" he called out. "Lucy? Rebecca? Shaun?"

But he didn't hear any responses.

Dammit. He didn't like being closed off.

Still, the only way to go was forward. What followed as an obstacle course only an Assassin could run, including a wall with handholds that shaped the stylized compass Assassins used. It was a long route, and eventually he ended up making a sharp right turn, but once he was at the peak of this path, the Animus computer voice started to speak. Across from Desmond, data seemed to combine, forming a bright light as,

"Compiling subsystems. Infrastructure. Tendons. Heart. Voice."

But the voice wasn't the computer. It was Sixteen, like Desmond had been thinking.

"Subject Sixteen?"

But the figure, while human in shape, had no distinguishing features. Not even a face. Just the basic shapes of where an eye or nose was.

Sixteen chuckled. "Yes. 'Subject Seventeen'."

But Sixteen had, as the Animus, refereed to him by name. Desmond came after Sixteen was dead. How did he know is name? How was he even here? That was a direct response, not a prerecorded file of insanity. How was this possible?

"... You're dead," Desmond stated in amazement. "I saw your blood."

"No time," Sixteen replied, holding one side of his head briefly. "It is far later than you know." Sixteen sounded strained. "Too late to save them."

"Who?"

"She is not who you think she is," Sixteen replied, struggling to hold on to his sanity enough to pass on whatever message this was. "Everything you hope to become, everything you hold dear, i-it's already gone," his voice cracked. "Gone..."

Desmond took a step forward, talking as softly and as gently as he could. "Explain. Please."

"Eden. She..." Sixteen grunted, grabbing his head, "in Eden. Find Eve. The key. Her DNA..."

No, Sixteen couldn't lose it now! Desmond took another step forward, staying calm and gentle, "Tell me!"

"I cannot," Sixteen replied. "The sun... your son..." Sixteen's voice started to fade. "Too weak... must replenish energy..."

Desmond stepped forward, more desperate. "Don't go!" Sixteen knew so much! He couldn't just drop more vague nonsense and disappear!

Sixteen stood straight and tall, and with more lucidity than he'd used to date, he said confidently, "I am with you until the end. Find me in the darkness. I will save you."

The construct glowed brightly, then dispersed into the floor. The floor then dissolved and Desmond was falling falling fallingfallingfall...

"Desmond!"

He blinked, looking up to Lucy's worried face.

"You're back!" she smiled. "You're safe..." She leaned back, letting out a breath. "We thought we'd lost you..."

"I'm here," Desmond mumbled, trying to pull himself together. Sixteen would save him? How? He was dead. "I saw Sixteen, I think..." he shook his head, rubbing his eyes. "I don't know if it actually happened... It feels like a dream."

"Well," Rebecca said, "whatever it was, it's gone now. The Animus is behaving normal."

Desmond shuddered. He doubted that. Sixteen hadn't just blown up, he'd faded into the floor of the constructed room, after he'd been formed by random data coming together. Desmond doubted he'd seen the last of Sixteen. And his last words. Finding him in the darkness? What did that mean?

Lucy reached out and lightly touched his cheek. "Take a break before going back in there, okay?" she said, her eyes watery.

"Sorry for frightening you," Desmond replied softly.

"Don't worry about me," Lucy smiled, though a touch strained.

He nodded. "Okay."

"I think we should pick up tomorrow," she said. "Whatever that executable did, I think some down time would be beneficial."

"No arguments from me..." Desmond stood, feeling more shaking than he ever had before when getting out of the Animus.

Rest, more than anything, sounded ideal.

---

While Cesare was arrested, that did not mean the work was not done. There was still a trial to be held, and diehards and opportunists flocked to the city to try and take advantage of the political chaos that was around them. Della Rovere, now Julius II, sent feelers out to look for the Assassins and arrange a meeting. No one was quite sure what to make of it, and there was a heated debate between Niccolo and the others as they decided what to do. In the end, they didn't have enough information, and so Niccolo set up an encounter, and Ezio was once more in the Vatican, this time in his whites and his hood and an invitation in his pocket justifying his presence. He was met, not in a side room or a back hallway, or even a courtyard. Della Rovere took him in the full papal court, cleared of everyone but his most trusted advisors. Even guards were nowhere to be seen, and that made Ezio decidedly nervous. The weapons ban on the Vatican was still in place, and he hated being without his beloved sword.

Pulling from his noble upbringing, Ezio pulled himself into a full, flourishing bow. "His Holiness honors and humbles me with his most excellent invitation," he said formally, "And so now I arrive, gratified to see the Pope's most noble countenance, and hope he deems a pleasant meeting for all involved."

"My, you are flamboyant, just as I heard," Della Rovere said. "Rise, I'm not here for pleasantries."

Ezio straightened, his face perfectly neutral. "Then why did you want to see me?" he asked.

"To talk terms," the pope said simply.

Ezio waited.

The silence drew out, several advisors shifting awkwardly, eyes darting back and forth, mouths opening and closing, a soft cough here and there.

And then, all at once, della Rovere laughed. "I should have expected that much patience from a man who waited three years to kill Borgia. Very well, I'll begin. Ezio Auditore da Firenze, I cannot find any record of you after the age of seventeen. But off paper, your name has so many rumors and brings up so many emotions that I want things to be clear and open between us. You killed Borgia; don't bother denying it, we both know it's true. I am a simple man, I assume it is because he had his bastardo son raze Monteriggioni to the ground. That is a simple motive and a simple explanation, but nothing about you or the assassini are simple. You could have done it for revenge, true, but then why did you kill two Dogi of Venezia? Why did you kill the Gonfaloniere of Firenze? Why did you ally yourself with Lorenzo de' Medici during the Pazzi Conspiracy and then leave his son to die? If you were just a blade for hire, you would have, could have, killed anybody, but your name is only whispered around certain events. There also the rumors to the fact that you are not a man of God; a man without the Faith is a dangerous man indeed. This leaves me in quite the predicament."

"I can only imagine," Ezio said, only a hint of his Florentine irony slipping through.

"You see," della Rovere said, "you killed one pope. Now, I am pope. What will stop you from killing me?"

A feral smirk finally bled through Ezio's face; even without his hood on he looked downright menacing, and mutters erupted around the advisors, but Ezio kept his gaze locked on Pope Julius. Della Rovere, for his part, didn't break the gaze, but there was a gleam of sweat that appeared at his temples.

"You are right," Ezio said. "I am not a man of God. No true Assassino is; but we have a Creed of our own that we live by."

"So you are a fanatic, irrational and prone to hysterics. And yet that is one rumor that does not flitter about your name. Another contradiction."

"You are not going to get the answers you want, della Rovere," Ezio said, dropping formalities and titles and, like the pope, getting straight to the point. "What you really want to know is what you can or should be doing to avoid an early demise, and that I can answer." Face utterly serious, voice evoking the weight of God Himself, Ezio said, "Do not harm to the people."

The advisors were poleaxed, but della Rovere was a bit more shrewd. He had to be, considering how long he had been politicking to become pope. Instead, his eyes narrowed and he fingered his chin. "Which people?" he asked.

"All people," Ezio replied. "The Borgia died because they abused all of the people around them, they conquered cities for no other reason than to 'unite' Italia under their thumb; a world where everyone was struggling for food, countesses lived in hovels, women were nothing more than objects to be raped, and men were nothing more that fodder for armies while they committed acts of debauchery such that even you haven't heard of." He paused, letting the information sink in, watching the pope's reaction very carefully. When the old man was ready, Ezio continued: "If you can show respect for your fellow man, even the degenerates and the downtrodden, then you will never hear from us."

"You ask the impossible," della Rovere said, frowning, thinking. "You speak as though you expect me to help them. Degenerates cannot be helped."

"Whatever you say, Holiness," Ezio said, his voice filled with an ironic smirk. "Not everyone can be enlightened, the assassini understand that. Let's just settle for you leaving the people alone to figure life out for themselves, and not making it harder than it already is. Can you do that?" he asked in a deceptively light voice, even as he extended his hidden blade to the shock of everyone in the court. He was fed up of this tiptoeing around the issue. Della Rovere was not an idiot, he wanted to stay alive, but he didn't understand the Creed. Few people did, not even his recruits, at first, but the new pope did not want to understand. This meeting wasn't about looking to be a better man, this was a political maneuver, to look like he had the mighty assassino on the ropes and put the mysterious killer in his pocket.

As if Ezio would bow to anyone.

And so he extended his hidden blade to show the old man just who had all the cards in this meeting. In fact, Ezio decided to add a little bluff to the mix. "Decide quickly," he pushed, taking a menacing step forward, making the advisors cower and try to hide behind the papal throne. "Or my archers will get tired of waiting for word from me."

To his credit, della Rovere smiled. "Well played, assassino. I will only promise what you suggested, that I will not make life deliberately difficult for my flock. I make no promises for those barbarians in Venezia, or other places that deliberately ignore the Church's recommendations."

Ezio gave another feral grin, retracting his hidden blade and giving another elaborate bow. "My hopes have been realized, and this meeting was pleasant for all involved, and my respect for the men of God has grown – nominally – and I look forward to seeing the people of Roma and Italia to thrive under your hand and your prudent use of force." Straightening, he pointedly looked up to a shadowed corner and nodded, for effect, and marched out of the court without a dismissal. He heard the panicked cry for guards from the advisors, but he ignored it as he was calmly flanked by Niccolo and the pair left the Vatican.

"You should have asked how he was going to kill Cesare," Niccolo said in dour tones.

Ezio laughed. "There's always something, isn't there?" he asked.

---

In February the trials ended and Cesare was meant to be exiled and imprisoned for life. It was not the outcome Ezio or Niccolo hoped for, the Florentine diplomat already predicting that this would come to bite back in the end, but Ezio for his part was satisfied. It was a political move for della Rovere, but the man had hated the Borgia family since his first chance at the papal throne was usurped by Borgia back in '92; the man had even threatened to excommunicate anyone who even mentioned the name, Ezio knew that bitter resentment like that would lead to thick prison walls indeed. He had, after all, seen the cells of the Castel Sant'Angelo.

… He wondered how Caterina Sforza was doing.

Word also arrived of the Treaty of Lyon, the French and the Aragon finally settling on terms: France kept Milan, and Aragon kept Naples, as if Italy was a prize to be hacked up and divided amongst men.

Shaking his head at the thought, he went back to the exercises he was performing with his apprentices: Filippo, Vittoria, Alighiero, and Sozzi, while thinking about some of his other recruits, and whether or not to promote them. Since the death of the Spaniard, it seemed like dozens of people had decided it was safe to join the cause – not quite knowing what Ezio was truly after but desperate to make sure that nothing like the Borgia rule ever happened again. Ezio's hideout was now cramped with novices of varying degrees of talent; and after sending Sancia, Candida, and Abate to India to prevent Protugese Pedro Alvares Cabral from destroying the brotherhood there, he was once again distributing the work amongst his other recruits: Gaspare teaching reading and writing, Sozzi math, Elda church politics, and Vittoria the history and ideals of the order. This was between their rotations between the other three guilds and ferreting out different attempts made by Borgia diehards at getting back in power.

He was just arranging a new schedule when Federica burst into the hide out, calling for Zio 'zio at the top of her lungs.

The master assassin stood from his desk as his niece rushed up to him. "Mother and Nonna, are they with you?" she asked, her voice holding a thick vein of panic.

"No," Ezio said, bewildered. "Why? What has happened?"

Federica started pacing, nervous energy preventing her from staying still. "When we woke up this morning, Nonna wasn't in her bed. This is the third time it's happened, she's trying to get to the old villa in Firenze. Mother went out to look for her; she's been gone over four hours! It never takes her that long! I went out looking, too, with Lucia, but there were all these men in armor, Lucia said they were Borgia diehards, you could see the crest on their sleeves, and she tried to make us disappear, but I wanted to find you and..."

"Vecellio!" Ezio called out, taking his nieces shoulders and gripping them tightly, softly, trying to reassure her.

"Yes, Mentore?" the assassin said, flanked with Elda and Sozzi.

"We have a problem, two of our own have gone missing, possibly taken by Borgia diehards as a gambit for leverage. Gather the recruits, even the novices. We'll break into teams..." he started, giving Federica's shoulder another squeeze while he began walking. Niccolo poked his head out from his own work station as Ezio gave out the orders. His first series of recruits, novices and apprentices both, had the most experience for this, and they became team leaders of all the new recruits; each team given a section of the city to search brick by brick as they listened for rumors or other hints of Borgia diehards. If they were taken care of first, then his family, if they weren't already captured, could make it home under their own power. Far more likely, however was that Claudia and Maria were taken by the Borgia diehards. Ezio forcibly reminded himself, repeatedly, that Claudia could more than take care of herself, but the overwhelming sense of worry was, well, overwhelming.

"You all have your assignments," Ezio said. "If any of you see Claudia, ask her what she needs. If you come across Maria Auditore, walk very carefully. If she doesn't recognize you, try to guide her back to Rosa in Fiore gently; the last thing we need is her running from you. Do you understand?"

"Si, Mentore!" everyone chorused.

"Then go."

"Federica," Ezio said, turning to his niece. "I know your mother has been teaching you the art of being an Assassin, but you don't have enough training yet in weapons if things go badly. Do you understand?"

"I don't want to just sit here and wait...!" Federica said, appalled at the thought, her eyes filled with tears.

Ezio shook his head. "Waiting is the hardest thing for an Assassin to do; I know that better than anybody, but it is a necessary skill. You need to learn the skill, and I need to know you're safe. With luck, we'll be back by nightfall. Stay here, Federica."

"But-!"

"Stay," Ezio ordered, using his rich baritone in all its menacing effectiveness. She was forced to capitulate.

Niccolo flanked him as he left the hideout, pulling his hood up and marching around the island and over the Ponte Cestio and turning north.

"What do you intend to do?" the diplomat asked.

"Find my family," Ezio said in a low voice, following the riverbank and reaching Rosa in Fiore. Closing his eyes, he asked for his eagle to help and, taking a deep breath, reopened them looking for traces of gold. He found a faint line of it. "They went this way," he said, moving back south down a main street.

"How can you even tell?"

"I just can," Ezio said darkly, following the trail, moving through crowds none too gently. Once again, he reminded himself of how adept Claudia was at being an Assassin, she had taken on four armed guards with no trouble, she knew how to be invisible to any and all, and she knew how to avoid trouble. She was fine, she was fine, and when this was all over the family would get together and have a riotous laugh.

But... Maria, wanting to go back to Firenze?

Ezio growled deep in his throat, pressing on and following the trail. Niccolo kept pace with him, silent calm radiating off him. The grandmaster kept his eyes open, taking in the details, seeing Claudia's trail stop here and there, likely looking around for their mother. An hour later he found a trail of red, following Claudia's gold, and he knew the worst had transpired. "Merda," he muttered, explaining what he saw to Niccolo. They were at the river bank again, almost at the edge of the Centro district, before he came to a complete stop.

"This is where it happened," he said in a low voice. The square had been reassembled, but Ezio could see a cracked board in a table, tears in the hangings of a stall, hints of a brutal fight. The pair split apart to talk to the merchants, gleaning the tale of a troop of guards accosting a woman of fine clothes. Ezio's voice dropped two octaves when he heard that, demanding to know what happened. There had been a scuffle, the merchants said the woman must have grown up around mercenari, she was a fierce fighter, but a fully armored brute had clocked her on the back of the head, and she fell, carried off to who knew where. Niccolo had gathered much the same story, and Ezio marched steadfastly south, into the countryside, following the new gold trail, muttering dark curses and creative ways to kill people under his breath. If one hair on her head was out of place... if even one eyelash was missing... blood would be everywhere. He would see to it.

Ezio followed the trail, Niccolo still skeptical but knowing not to interfere, and the two eventually ended up deep in the countryside, the Colosseo looming in the distance, at an old, dilapidated house. They scaled the walls, eyes sharp, and Ezio saw an impressive force of men patrolling the borders. Niccolo gave a soft whistle, looking at Ezio with some modicum of surprise, but the grandmaster paid it no heed, his eyes searching the compound for signs of his sister. Two guards passed under them, talking quietly amongst themselves.

"They say she is a spitter and biter."

"Feisty puttana, but it will make breaking her more fun."

"How will we know, though? That her information is genuine, I mean?"

"I don't give a rat's ass about that. I want to know when I get a turn with her. Did you see her legs? Or her breasts? For an old hag, she's not much of a hag. I look forward to riding her."

Ezio couldn't stand to hear any more, both hidden blades extended and he leapt from the height of the wall, landing on both of them and killing them brutally. Niccolo quickly followed, his face grim, knowing what was to come and perfectly willing to partake in it. The two exchanged a look, and they nodded, heading in opposite directions and taking out the contingent of guards silently if not mercifully. Ezio's blades cut many throats, thoughts dark and menacing. This was slaughter of a different kind, not like on the Ponte Sant'Angelo that still haunted him; this was slaughter to save his sister, the rage boiling in him was hot and cold and burning and freezing and so like when he was a boy and watching his family hang. This wasn't about the Brotherhood, or the Templars, or politics, or even Pieces of Eden. This was about his family, his sister, and he would be damned to all eternity if he let one more precious member of his family be hurt. Losing his father and brothers, losing Cristina, losing Mario, losing Ulderico, even losing Maria as he was, was too much. He would not, would not, lose his sister.

He and Niccolo met at the doors of the run down house, the second story was half rotted, one wall and the roof missing, and the two assassins easily scaled it, inching forward on creaky beams, acutely aware of every noise they made, and peering down a hole. There was nothing immediately below them, but they could both hear what was going on.

"Porca puttana schifosa! She bit me again!"

"She's gagged, idiota, what were you doing?"

"Trying to get at her collar."

A sigh.

"This is why you are never promoted. If you're going to rip clothes off, and you have a puttana like this, you can't go anywhere near the head. Take your knife and... never mind, I'll do it myself. I want to get a good look at her legs, at any rate. You hear that, puttana? You're a madonna of Rosa in Fiore, right? I'm sure I'll be your best customer, you won't even have to charge me."

"Ha!"

Ezio was shaking so badly, his fists knotted so tightly his palms were bleeding, and he let loose a low, animalistic growl. Niccolo put a hand on his shoulder, but there was no consoling him, no reasoning with him, no stopping him. He was no longer the grandmaster, the master assassin, he was Ezio Auditore, and he leapt down to the main floor and threw a smoke bomb into the room, ignoring Niccolo's curses and began scrupulously killing. This was not the clumsy, chaotic kill of Uberto Alberti, nor was it the ugly murder of Vieri de' Pazzi, but it was somewhere in between. It was an emotional attack, tempered with over twenty years of experience at fighting and killing men; it was a protective initiative, sharpened with too much loss for one lifetime, and Ezio made good on his vow. The room was covered in blood by the time he was done, and the corpses around his feet were hardly recognizable as men. He was panting, slightly, but only dimly aware of the exertion as he stepped over the entrails and the organs and moved to his sister.

Claudia's head was covered in blood, from the blow the merchants talked off in the square, and her head rolled back and forth as Ezio moved to the tightly bound wrists and feet. Her clothes had been ripped off of her, one layer at a time, and all that was left was the thin frock of her under clothes, torn at the ankles and halfway up her thigh; her collarbone was bare for all to see, as were her arms. Her body was bruised, and Ezio wanted to resurrect the men he had just killed so he could slaughter them again.

"It's me," he said softly, scraping his bloody hidden blade along the rope at her wrists. "It's me, Claudia, piccina, it's me."

Her eyes were glazed, hard to focus, and as Niccolo moved to unbind her feet Ezio reached up to grab at her gag and had to jerk his hand away as she tried to bite it through the cloth. Ezio reached behind and pulled at the knot at the back of her head, and as the gag came off a slurred curse greeted his ears.

"... An' I'll boil your cazzo an' serve it to th' cane, figlio di puttana..."

"That's my sister," Ezio said, smirking slightly, as he reached up to cup her cheek. "An Auditore down to the core."

Her face changed, at last recognizing the voice, and she looked up with blurry eyes. "... Ezio...?"

"Yes."

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted.

In the end, Niccolo stole some horses for Ezio to ride back to Isola Tiberina while he handled the bodies. Ezio balanced between riding fast and riding gently, and barged into Dante's shop demanding his presence. The doctor took one look at Claudia, seeing the resemblance between the two siblings, and nodded, ushering out his other clientele and gesturing that she go to a back room. It was a flurry of activity after that, Dante giving clipped orders and Ezio following suit. A second set of hands joined them from somewhere, and after an hour of treatment Dante decreed them done. Looking up, Ezio saw that Federica had joined them, had been the second set of hands. A corner of his mind wanted to protest, but he was too emotionally exhausted to pursue that train of thought. It was probably good that she was here... right? He shook his head and looked to Dante, who was pulling off his plague mask and letting it hang around his neck, sighing.

"Most of her wounds are superficial, Maestro. The only serious injury is the blow to her head. You said her eyes were glassy, yes? That's not a good sign, but it's not a terrible one yet. Everything will depend on when she wakes up. The larger concern is the emotional damage."

"What do you mean?" Federica asked slowly, softly.

"I mean she was almost raped, girl," Dante said, clipped but not unkind. "That kind of trauma is damaging to a woman. I've seen some... well, let's say that everyone reacts differently, but that the recovery will take a long time. Some women never recover from it."

Ezio nodded, his face grim. "She will have everything she needs to make a full recovery."

"That may not be enough," Dante said.

"It will be," Ezio assured. "It was enough for Mother, and Claudia is much stronger than her." He blinked, realizing he had completely forgotten...Merda! He turned to Federica. "Have you heard any news?"

"Not yet," his niece said slowly.

The two sat by Claudia's bed for the rest of the day. Niccolo arrived some three hours later with word that the run down villa had been burned to the ground, and by evening Vecellio found the grandmaster to report that Maria had been found along the north wall of the city, convinced the Tevere was actually the Arno and unable to understand why she couldn't go back to the villa. Ezio closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and told Vecellio to bring his mother to the hideout. Claudia's apartments weren't safe enough; if Maria was going to disappear, then she needed to be watched. It meant another body in the hideout, but Ezio wanted to keep his family close. Especially now.

By the next morning he had reports of several attacks on Borgia diehards that the Brotherhood had discovered and neutralized. The numbers were slightly shocking, but with so many assassinations the Borgia cause was now beyond defunct, and Niccolo mentioned that everyone could breathe a sigh of relief.

Ezio replied that he didn't feel particularly relieved, and continued to hold his vigil over his sister.

That afternoon she awoke, fuzzy and confused, until the memories hit her all at once.

Ezio was forced to watch as her face drained of color, hands going to hug herself, her entire body shaking, eyes welling with tears, before she closed them and took a deep breath, and then another, and willed her body under control.

"Claudia..."

"No, Ezio," she said in a shaky voice. "I'll be fine. I'll be fine. Just give me a moment..."

She sat up, wincing at all of her injuries, and holding her head. "I need to get back..." she muttered.

"No, Claudia, you need to rest," Ezio said, touching her shoulder gently to push her back to bed. His sister jerked away from the touch, grunting at the pain it caused, and stumbled to her feet.

"I'm fine... Ezio... I'm fine..."

Standing as well, Ezio moved in front of his sister. "No, you're not, Claudia. You've just been through an ordeal and..."

"And what?" she demanded, looking up with shadowed, ugly eyes.

"Claudia, you can't just shrug something like this off..."

"Watch me," she growled, shouldering past him and out of the doctor's office. Ezio followed, trying to get her to see reason.

"Claudia, please, listen to me. I know what you are going through..."

"No you don't!" she hissed, glaring up at him under his hood. "How could you possibly know what I'm going through? Don't tell me you were treated like a piece of meat."

Ezio frowned, but he pressed harder. "No, not like that, but I know what it's like to try and put it all behind you too soon. Why do you think I rode off to Roma like an idiota, half dead and with no means of doing anything constructive?"

"That's different."

"No, it's the same. I was made vulnerable, we all were, just like we all were when they died. We both know what you are going through, because we've gone through it together. Claudia, when I first came here I cried myself to sleep every night, even though I didn't want to, even though I was fighting so hard to build something to confront the Borgia. I worked myself so hard my shoulder is permanently damaged. I couldn't just shrug off what happened, you can't either."

"I have to."

"No, piccina, you don't."

"Yes I do!" she shouted, drawing the eyes of several people in the streets. She held her head against a sudden stab of pain, but that didn't stop her. "And I'm not your piccina! You don't know anything Ezio, stop acting like you do and just leave me alone."

Angry himself, Ezio began to shout as well. "Did I leave Mother alone?" he demanded. "For all her years locked away inside herself, when Zio Mario and Alfeo and everyone else told us that she would never recover, did either of us leave her alone? Did you leave me alone when I lost Cristina?" His eyes watered at the very mention of the name, but he ignored the burning sensation and pressed on. "How long was I painting after that? How little did I talk? How little did I eat? Did you leave me to my misery? No, you sat beside me every night! You let me know with your very presence that there were people waiting for me to come back to myself. And now you would deny yourself that support? Cazzo, Claudia, you're smarter than that!"

She slapped him across the face, hard, and a gasp off to their side made the pair acutely aware of how public this fight was becoming. The two exchanged a deep breath and marched together down the streets, Ezio silently following his sister down the familiar roads to the Rosa in Fiore. Ezio wished dearly he had paid more attention to Elda, wanting to know how the former nun had overcome her own near-rape. Would the courtesans here really help? Or would it be different?

The courtesans descended on the two of them immediately on their arrival, and the women needed only look at Claudia to know what had happened, and they were swept into Claudia's office, the doors closed behind them and Lucia standing in front of her Maestra.

"Was there penetration?" she asked in a serious, almost clipped tone.

"No, not that I remember," Claudia said.

"There wasn't any," Ezio assured in a dark voice.

"Were any of them diseased?"

"Not that I saw; they struck my head, it was hard to tell."

Lucia looked at Ezio, the grandmaster blinking, before shrugging his shoulders. "I was too busy killing them to take much notice," he said in low, dark tones.

"Was your womanhood touched?"

Claudia gave a dark glare to Ezio, silently ordering him to leave, but her brother would have none of that, crossing his arms and setting his jaw.

"Yes," she said coldly, "By three different men."

He would kill those bastardi twice over if he could.

"Hands or mouth?"

"Two hands. One mouth."

"Cazzo," Ezio cursed.

"If you don't want to know this, then get out," Claudia hissed, fist slamming the table.

"No," Lucia said. "It's good he's here. He's making you answer these questions."

"I wouldn't—"

"You would, Maestra, and so he stays. Now, did they put anything in your mouth?"

"... They tried," Claudia said after a long pause, glaring hateful daggers at her brother. "But I bit anything that got close, like I've told all of you. They had to gag me."

"Good," Lucia said, "Then the worst was prevented." She gave a quick glance at Ezio then added, "Remember that at night when you feel their hands on you. Tell yourself that when you wake up crying, and repeat it to yourself over and over when you see men look at you. It will help in some of the recovery. What else do you need?"

"I need to get back to work," Claudia said.

"Not here, Maestra," Lucia said, shaking her head. "The last place you need to work is in a brothel. The very things we do here will call up the memories. You are not that girl Elda, where seeing what we do assured her that she was still married to God. You are a woman who will internalize everything until you snap; and forgive me, Maestra, but after finally garnering the reputation we have, I don't want it damaged. I can run things while you figure out your own mind. Maestro," she said turning to Ezio. "Give her something to do. Anything. Until she's ready to face this. This and everything else."

" 'Everything else'?" he asked.

"Don't talk like I'm not even here," Claudia demanded.

"I leave her to you," Lucia said, turning and leaving the room, closing it behind her.

Ezio turned to his sister. "What 'other' things?" he asked in a low, quiet voice.

"Nothing," Claudia said, crossing her arms and sitting down. She pulled out an account book of some kind, but trying to read the numbers only reminded her of her headache, and she winced away from it, holding her forehead.

"Claudia," Ezio pressed, pressing his palms on the desk and leaning forward. "What did Lucia mean when she said 'Everything else'?"

"I have no idea Ezio," his sister repeated. "Now get out of here. I have work to do."

"Not here."

"Yes, here. I'm the Maestra, here, I have to keep everything running."

"No, Claudia, you don't. You only just woke up from your ordeal. I'm taking you back to the warehouse."

Dark eyes glared up at him. "And if I refuse, what will you do?" she demanded in a low voice. "Will you force your will on me like those bastardi? Will you throw me over your shoulder, or knock me unconscious to get what you want?"

The blow was low, very low, and Ezio leaned back as if struck, face incredulous as he processed the accusation she had just made.

"Do you actually think...?"

"What am I supposed to think?" Claudia demanded, snapping her accounting book closed, voice rising. "Huh? Just what am I supposed to think when you give an order like that?"

"You mean to tell me after the last four years, after everything you've taught me, after making you an Assassin in name when you already were one, all that was meaningless to you? Do you really think I'm no better than those Borgia diehard figli di puttana who tried to overpower you? Do you really find me so despicable?"

"You're putting words in my mouth-"

"And so are you!" Ezio shouted. "Even when I didn't have the faintest understanding of what you were doing, even when I tried to send you back to Firenze, did you really think it was because I thought so little of you? That I didn't care about what happened for you? That, however misplaced, I wanted to protect you in my own way?"

"Shut up!" Claudia shouted, wincing against her own volume. "Shut up! Cazzo! You're making everything so confusing!"

"Your ordeal has made everything confusing!"

"No it hasn't!"

"The hell it hasn't!" Ezio thundered, his rich baritone vibrating off the room and making Claudia hold her head. Her pain touched at Ezio's concern, and he lowered his voice. "At least stay at the hideout where you can be near Dante until your head feels better."

"He's not the only doctor in the city, Ezio," Claudia moaned.

"But he's the only one who knows what happened, and he's the only one who knows about us. We can pick up this fight when your head doesn't hurt you as much."

And, weakly, she agreed.

Sighing in relief that he had gotten even that much out of her, Ezio took her home. Niccolo was there, marching right up to Ezio with the latest. "Your mother is in a bad way," he said simply.

"What's happened now?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"See for yourself."

Ezio and Claudia (who could not be convinced to not take part in this) went to the room Ezio had assigned her to see their seventy-two year old mother sitting on the bed and glaring at them with utter hatred.

"Why are you keeping me here?" Maria demanded. "I want to go back to Firenze and be with my family."

"Mother..." Ezio started.

"Don't call me that. You are not my son; both of my boys are infants. Is this about my husband? You'll get nothing from me."

"Mother, don't you recognize us?" Claudia asked.

Maria's eyes flicked to her daughter and nothing more, utterly devoid of recognition. "Release me at once," she demanded.

Claudia was shaking again, her face drained of color, before she took control of herself and stormed out. "Claudia...!" Ezio called after her, but Niccolo nodded to him and followed his sister. Sighing, he turned back to his mother. "What year is it?" he asked softly.

"It is the year of our lord 1460."

Sighing, Ezio sat down next to his mother and simply hugged her. "It's 1504, Mother," he said softly. "But don't worry, we'll catch you up."

In the end, Maria eventually regained lucidity, if only briefly. Long enough to be terrified of herself, she requested that she be locked in her room to prevent scaring her family more. She even wrote the missive down so that she could be shown when she was having an "episode," and with a heavy heart Ezio agreed. He arranged the apprentices who were with him longest to be an honor guard, knowing his mother and understanding at least in part what was happening to her. Sozzi said he had lost three of his four grandparents that way, as had Elda and Filippo, and everyone was very understanding.

For Claudia, Ezio set her in charge of auditing the accounts. He had interest in over forty percent of Rome, now, and however good Romeo and Matteo were, the third eye was necessary and it gave her something to do. On top of that, he had her train every girl recruit he had on fighting. He dared not assign her any of the male recruits, and when she wasn't working herself to the bone, he tried to talk to her; a gesture that was refused at every turn. The grandmaster reminded himself that loss in the Auditore family was often met with silence. Maria had lost all thought for over a decade, and Ezio himself was known to be lost in his painting, to the exclusion of nearly all else, and so he simply sat with her, making lists and plans of his own, floating an idea or two to her to gauge her readiness, and generally just being near her. Many of the late winter nights were spent reading by the fire, Ezio casting worried glances every other page, and hoping he was doing enough.

Federica, too, was at the hideout, and Ezio paired her with the young Concetto and the child Giovanni to learn about the history of the order and the principals of the Brotherhood under Vecellio.

Ezio's life did not stop with the problems in his family, however; he had an entire brotherhood to run, one that was getting bigger by the day. When his group from India returned with their report, there was literally no more room in the hideout, and Ezio sent letters out to all the other cities in Italia, asking to relocate one assassin to Rome to Ezio for use. Rosa came from Venezia, as did her brother Ugo, Paola sent a young girl from Firenze, and others arrived. Seeing their cramped quarters, Ezio made his plan quite simple: the former Borgia towers were abandoned, and so each of them would be in charge of the tower, and in charge of the new recruits to train them however they saw fit within reason.

Rosa gave a mighty pout that was utterly ruined by the glint in her eyes. "You've gotten to be so boring, you tease."

Claudia glared daggers at her but said nothing as the hideout became much roomier inside the span of a week.

That did not mean people weren't still tripping over one another. Ezio went up to the roof one day to look out over the city and think, only to find two of his recruits. This would not have been much of an issue aside from the fact that Sancia was sitting on Gaspare's cazzo... and her back... and his legs... Merda.

Ezio coughed to get their attention, and the two lovers could not split apart fast enough, the clumsy actions of Sancia making it even more obvious what the two were doing as they hurried to dress themselves more appropriately. The two disappeared back into the hideout, and Ezio found he had lost all appetite for quiet contemplation knowing what the roof was now being used for. The next day proved to be even more embarrassing for all involved, as the two of them boldly approached Ezio in the middle of his meeting with Gilberto and Niccolo and Gaspare, the enthusiastic scrivener, asked Ezio of all people for permission to marry Sancia.

All three men gaped at the pair, both of them bright red but determined.

Finally, Ezio said, "What on earth do you need my permission for? If you want to marry her, just do it. Stop dragging me into your affairs!"

The ensuing party that followed after that as word spread of the impending nuptials was worthy of Mario's parties in Monteriggioni. There was a lot of wine, a lot of drinking contests, a lot of off-key singing, and a lot of toasts. It was noisy and sweaty and merry, and Ezio couldn't stop the smile as he watched the festivities. Elda lead everyone in song, though she was the only one any good, Taddeo passed around platters of food, Alighiero kept clinking his glass for another toast, and Vittoria had invited several courtesans for dancing. Ezio leaned over to his sister. "It is good to see happy people," he said, his rich baritone barely carrying over the din of noise.

"... Too bad it won't last," Claudia replied before getting up and disappearing into the crowd.

Ezio sighed, merriment lost, and he, too, disappeared to go up to the roof to think.

Only to find Vittoria and one of the female courtesans completely naked and licking each other's...

Ezio groaned and determined to never use the roof to think again!

A week later he met with Leonardo to get away from all of his recruits fucking each other in places he deemed safe to think. The painter laughed at Ezio's troubles good-naturedly. "I don't think I've ever known you to be uncomfortable about love, Ezio," he said. "You are a Florentine, after all."

Ezio groaned again rubbing his forehead and leaning back at his seat. "Maybe I'm getting old," he posited. "They're all my recruits, my family, in a way. It's just so... strange... to think of them in such a way. You remember how I reacted when I heard Claudia was getting married."

"I suppose it's natural that the 'father' should worry about his 'children,' but it's going to happen whether you like it or not!"

"That doesn't help me, Leonardo," Ezio growled.

The painter laughed again. "This is why I focus on my painting," he said magnanimously. "With only the client and the assistants, I have a much smaller scope of focus. Take right now: I work on the small portrait of a woman. I am growing rather fond of it."

Ezio groaned further. "Do not let a beautiful woman distract you, Leonardo."

"Have no worries!" Leonardo said brightly, putting a hand on Ezio's shoulder and squeezing. "Women provide little distraction."

Ezio frowned. "Wait. I don't get it." How could a woman not be a distraction?

To his everlasting confusion, Leonardo's face slacked in surprise, and he quickly pulled his hand away, looking everywhere but the master assassin.

"But, you know Paola and Teodora so well, you were always frequenting their brothels, surely women must..." Ezio's mind ground to a halt, unable to understand.

If anything, Leonardo's face flushed bright red, and he coughed, shifting in his seat.

If women were no distraction, the just who was he visiting at those broth-

Oh.

… Oh.

A dozen different memories flitted back and through Ezio's mind, offhand comments or odd looks, Leonardo never marrying, his fond stories of Salai and his letters... But then why...?

"Why did you never say so?" Ezio asked, his face slack with surprise.

Leonardo's face slacked as well. "You did not know...?" he asked. "The year we met, I was under scrutiny because someone reported me!"

"You were? How did I not know that?"

"So all this time you never knew?"

"Paola spoke of you so fondly, so did Teodora, I always thought..."

"But how could you not see...?"

"It never occurred to me..."

"But I was so obvious!"

And so they both burst out laughing at the years of misunderstood conversations.

Ezio shook his head finally, leaning back in his seat. "So, with this little revelation, just what kind of man suits you, Leonardo? What kind of conquests do you have under your belt?"

Leonardo coughed, shifting his weight again. "I'm not used to talking about such matters so publicly. Most of my apprentices were of... similar persuasion. Salai has been most difficult, but the most... eh... satisfying. There was... one man who always held my fancy... did not share such affection. He was always chasing after women."

"That's too bad," Ezio said, reaching over to touch Leonardo's knee. "I'm sure he never knew what he was missing."

The soft smile that bled through the painter's beard was slightly sad. "I'm sure he never will," he said softly.

---

The first of June was the wedding between the clumsy Sancia and the scrivener Gaspare; Elda the former nun had found a priest and the ceremony itself was simple, and as the summer heat began to slowly bake the city, Ezio took to walking the streets to get away from the hideout. All of his original recruits had made apprentice, and their competence was astounding. Moreover, it reminded him of Varzi and Enu, and he struggled to reconcile the worry he had over their safety. He reminded himself it was why he drilled them so much and put so much into their heads, but that didn't stop the worry. Not for the first time, he wondered what good any of it would do. Even with Borgia dead, that did not mean the Templars were defeated, and when would this conflict ever reach its conclusion? Such thoughts always put him in a black mood, and he tried to brighten his mood by visiting Leonardo, or painting, or debating with Niccolo or Gilberto.

Maria's health continued to decline, visiting her slowly became painful as she lost more and more functionality. She couldn't even get dressed by herself anymore, and it seemed like she was unable to understand what was even going on. Lucidity became relative, because now the best anyone could get out of her was, "I want to be with my husband."

The pain that brought often drove Ezio from the room. Sozzi told him quietly that it meant the end was near, and that drove Ezio to utter distraction. Both he and Claudia sat by her bed for days, and by the middle of June she passed in her sleep.

Ezio felt guilty that he found himself feeling relieved.

This lasted only a moment when he looked to his sister and found her shaking again before putting it away. Burying it would do her no good, she would drive herself to silence if this kept up, and Ezio had had enough of being patient. Uncertain what he could do, in pain over the loss of his mother, he reached out and grabbed her arm, gripping it hard. Claudia glared at her brother, demanded she be let go.

"Cry," he said in a low, rough voice.

"What?" she demanded.

"Cry, Claudia, if you don't let yourself cry this will drive you to silence."

"Ezio...!"

"Merda!" Ezio cursed, tired of the fight. "We just lost our Mother!" he shouted, pointing to the body. His voice broke and he turned away, taking a shaky breath and rubbing his forehead, running hands through his hair. His cheeks were wet when he turned back to her, and he pulled her into a tight hug. "We need to cry," he said softly, "and accept that she's gone."

"No," Claudia said, her own voice shaky, her body unbelievably tense. "No, I can't accept he's gone. I can't accept... and now Mother..."

He held tight, pressing all his grief and loss and pain and sadness up against her, showing her that he, too, was vulnerable from this loss; that he, too, was broken by this most recent passing. Her defenses were strong, her back straight, her body tense, but emotion that damaging could not be contained and suddenly there was a great wail. Claudia was a child again, the sixteen year old who had lost her family and had to be strong for those that were left. Her entire body crumpled under the weight of her grief, and she and Ezio cried together. Two siblings, 43 and 44, were children once more, and they held each other against the sadness of the world.

The next few days were hazy after that. Ezio remembered Niccolo talking at him but not understanding the words, he remembered Leonardo visiting and trying to cheer him up, he remembered Federica watching from a distance uncertain what to do, and the apprentices moving around him like broken glass.

Mostly, though, he remembered sitting with Claudia in his makeshift studio, sketching his mother and talking about childhood memories, reminiscing about young adventures or personal stories, talking about Giovanni, Federico, and Petruccio as they so rarely did, playing weak games of chess or joking about banking. Claudia talked about Ulderico, a name neither of them had spoken of since the fall of Monteriggioni. She told the story of their courtship, which Ezio had never learned about in any detail, talked about their first years married – both dreading Ezio's arrival – and their joy at the birth of Federica. Now that the dam had at last been broken, Claudia held nothing back.

"I hated Monteriggioni," she said quietly one morning, helping mix paints for Ezio. "It was a prison to me, in many ways. With the Spaniard out there, and the Templars, no place was safe except Monteriggioni. I couldn't leave, I was too scared to go anywhere; and it was so lonely there. Zio Mario was off from one crisis to the next, you were in and out trying to make everything safe, Mother never spoke. All I had was myself, and I was left in charge of all the accounts and had to figure out how to run the city and not be laughed at."

"I am deeply sorry about that," Ezio said, dipping his brush in her paint. "If I had any idea, I would have stayed longer."

Claudia smiled, dimly. "No, you wouldn't. You were too obsessed with avenging the family, and God help me I encouraged you. I wanted you out there so it could be safe for me to leave. Ulderico was the only one who really saw what I was going through. Every afternoon when we trained he could tell when I was having a problem or not, and eventually we just started talking. He was so good to me..."

"He was the best of men," Ezio said. "All he wanted was what was best for you and Federica. Even when he didn't understand what that was."

Claudia nodded, her face far away. "I hated the both of you so much when I realized what the two of you had agreed on." She smiled, faintly. "I made him apologize for months before I forgave him. And then Monteriggioni..." Tears spilled out again, and Ezio held her, closer to her than he had ever been.

"I didn't feel safe in Roma," she said with a watery voice. "Ulderico wasn't there, neither was Zio; I just wanted to keep myself busy, and you wanted to send me away. And it's not that I didn't understand it, please know that, brother, but I couldn't stand the idea of sitting still and thinking. I had to do something, or else face Ulderico's death and... I wasn't ready. I had to be strong, for Federica, for myself, and later for my girls. No matter how badly we've suffered Ezio, they went through so much worse, and still they smile coyly and take the next client. I couldn't compare my pain to them, and I didn't want them to think I was some whiny little noblewoman."

"They never thought that," Ezio said. "They look at you with awe."

"They shouldn't. I was just running away, hiding. You were right, Ezio, I should have just had my cry and been done with it."

"I didn't let myself grieve for a very long time," Ezio said. "I woke up that morning and realized I was the head of the family, that I had to be strong for you and Mother. And I was so angry, and that was easier to deal with than facing my grief. It wasn't until the Battle of Forli, when I lost the Apple and almost died, that I really had the chance to grieve. And then, in Firenze, Cristina..."

"You were devastated, I remember."

"Because I allowed myself to grieve. Or, rather, my body wouldn't let me do anything else. Zio Mario was scared I would disappear like Mother did."

Claudia gave a weak smile. "That seems to be a family trait."

Ezio smirked, too. "At least now we know."

They laughed briefly.

"After..." Claudia started, her body shaking slightly. "I've never felt so vulnerable before, even when I was in charge of Zio's finances and no one was taking me seriously. I'd worked for years to make sure I wouldn't be vulnerable again. After Ulderico died it as a way for me to avoid thinking about him. To have it all taken away so suddenly... I couldn't admit that it happened, that I had failed my husband so completely. I was already running away from his death, and then that..."

"You don't need to explain yourself," Ezio said softly, touching her knee. For the first time in months, she did not recoil from the touch. She even reached out and returned the gesture.

By the twenty-fourth, the pair was exhausted but oddly calm. Their grief together had made them stronger, and considering how long other periods of grief in the family lasted, they worked through it relatively quickly.

Niccolo studied the pair very carefully when he saw them, face closed off and neutral, before he gave a stout nod. "It's about time," he said simply. "There are some things that need your attention."

Ezio sighed in exasperation. "Can't it wait until tomorrow?" he asked.

"No."

And so the diplomat lead them down to the largest room of the hideout, used to induct assassins, and found Bartolomeo there with Pantasilea, their three children playing with the very young Giovanni Borgia, watched of course by Vecellio. Federica was there, watching her family with hopeful eyes, and Gilberto was there was well with his hood down. Lucia stood by a table filled with foodstuff, Vittoria and Alighiero helping out. Confused, Ezio turned to his friend to see Niccolo offering his best impression of a smile.

"Happy birthday, Ezio."

The newly minted forty-five year old smiled at the small, intimate party, and the Auditore siblings set out to enjoy the festivities.

Federica held an extended conversation with her mother, Lucia and Pantasilea taking part while Bartolomeo swore loudly and challenged Ezio to a drinking contest, Volpe smirking and moving to talk with Niccolo. The afternoon was filled with noise and food and wine and running children and – most importantly – smiles from Claudia. Ezio knew she was going to be fine when the mute Alighiero touched her shoulder to get her attention and she didn't shy away or recoil. He stole a glance at Lucia and nodded, and she smiled in return.

As the afternoon waned to evening, the children all asleep by the fire curled around Vecellio, Pantasilea turned to her husband. "Beloved," she said softly. "The gifts."

"Oh! Right!" Bartolomeo said brightly, putting down his wine glass and turning to the grandmaster. "Ezio Auditore!" he shouted, face red with drink. "You have defeated the Borgia and brought peace to Roma and all of Italia with such a good deed. Thank you!" He pounded a meaty hand onto Ezio's shoulder.

"What he means," Gilberto said swiftly, "Is that in the span of four years all of our guilds have not only grown, but found new outlets and finances. We would not have my inn, or Bartolomeo's barracks, or the Rosa in Fiore's reputation, were it not for the work you have done. Nor would we have the money that you gave us at the risk of bankrupting yourself. The guilds wish to thank you, and so we bestow upon you these gifts: First, the Thieves' Guild."

And, Gilberto La Volpe presented Ezio with a crest, a simple green banner with an inverted triangle, wooden and painted and rough to an untrained eyed, but Ezio could see the craftsmanship behind it. Skill hidden with deception, the ultimate representation of a thief.

From Bartolomeo d'Alviano, a shield with two swords crossed behind it, and an axe, the ultimate representation of strength in battle, with a crown hidden in an upside-down V, angled almost like the Assassin compass.

From Lucia, a wreath wrapped in ribbons surrounded a stylized Greek cross. Everything about it was feminine, but the cross served of the reminder of the trials courtesans went through, the ultimate representation of misunderstood strength.

From Niccolo, a shield with the Assassin compass carved into it, several throwing knife hilts peaking from the top and two blades thin enough to be hidden blades spiking out from the bottom. It was the Assassin in a nutshell, defending the world with hidden skill.

Ezio and Claudia both marveled at the gifts, both in design and craftsmanship and expense, and immediately decided to hang them over the main fireplace of the warehouse. The apprentices disappeared to do just that, and the party continued well into the night, everyone talking and sharing stories and smiling and drinking.

The following morning, only Ezio and Claudia awoke without headaches, and the pair shared a mischievous grin before obnoxiously waking up the drunkards and showing them utterly no sympathy.

---

Authors Notes: Yeah. That. In the book, reading about Claudia's abduction as little more than a reason for Ezio and Machiavelli to work together, briefly mention sexual assault (re: ripping her clothes off a piece at a time), and then shunting her off to Firenze to "recover," all in a blaze, dry tone that many people dislike in the the novelizations, well... the two of us shared a look of incredulity and said "this will be different."

This arc is the ultimate culmination of several things going on for Ezio over the course of Brotherhood that we threw at him, but ALSO it's a breath-taking wave of character development for Claudia, as Ezio finally realizes just how much she was in mourning over the loss of Ulderico, and how she deals with loss in general. She has spent the last twenty-plus years trying to undo the night Vieri de' Pazzi attacked them on the way to Monteriggioni, the night she realized she was helpless. She became a fighter the same way Ezio did, but with a different medium: she fought social conventions, patriarchal society, and misogynistic preconceptions of what she was supposed to do. And, like Caterina Sforza, she paid a heavy price for it, because she slowly convinced herself that she could never be weak again. For the entirety of Brotherhood she had not accepted the death of her husband, and she was about to cut out what happened to her and the death of her own mother mother before Ezio (the new, improved, Ezio 2.0) finally showed her that even he could be weak when he needed to. The two of us, who had been working on this and thinking about it for a long time, felt a rush of relief when she finally broke down; and she and Ezio became even closer as a result.

Ezio, too, gets to shine and show how much he's changed. The Ezio of the beginning of the game would have angsted not over Claudia's trauma, but that he had failed to protect her, and would have been the first to sign her up to leave the city for recovery for her own good, thinking he knew better. Instead however, he understands that women (or at least, modern women?) don't want to be protected so much as supported, and he is now SUPPORTING her by giving her work, being in the room, waiting for her to be ready before he finally, accidentally, leads by example. This is a million times more powerful than what happened in the novel, and the sequence is one near and dear to our hearts because it's infinitely more realistic than, er, what was written by Mr. Bowden.

Claudia is no longer a plot device for the novelization but rather Ezio's sister, a fully realized character with her own strengths and weaknesses and relationship with Ezio - which is what both of us wanted so desperately to read in Mr. Bowden's books. Maybe it's egotistical, but we feel kind of proud with what we did for Claudia in ACB, and hope our readers enjoy.

Maria, too, has a piece in this, and one very astute reader picked it up before we were ready for the big reveal, but in case it wasn't blatantly obvious in this chapter, we decided that the "long, lingering illness" Maria suffered was Alzheimer's, though no one in Renaissance Italy knows what that is. Given the less than hygienic state of the Renaissance (leeches, lead and pomegranate, sheep's urine?) we couldn't figure something like cancer or arthritis or something more appropriate for age could work - at least not with our severely limited medical knowledge. There's also the fact that Ezio becomes slightly forgetful in his own old age, so we think it works.

And oh yeah, Desmond popped up, too. But he needed a break, so no schizophrenia for him. But, then, we still haven't gotten to the ending. :P

Next chapter: A certain painter goes missing.