The first cry came just before dusk.
Not loud. The sort of sound old houses absorbed quickly because too many people had learned when not to hear.
Adrian was crossing the inner corridor outside the family apartments when it reached him: a child's stifled gasp, a woman's sharp reprimand, the scrape of something against wood.
He turned at once.
The nursery antechamber door stood half open. Inside, Julian had been backed against the wall by Master Hobb, who had somehow not yet fully removed himself from the keep despite Adrian's order. The tutor held the boy by one arm while Marta Quill's niece—one of the maids still trying to act as watcher in Evelyne's rooms—stood by the hearth with a face full of righteous interference.
"Young masters who speak against instruction require correction," Hobb was saying.
Julian's face had gone pale, but he did not cry again.
That somehow made Adrian angrier.
"Release him."
Hobb turned and froze.
The maid made the mistake of recovering first. "My lord, the boy has become insolent since these recent changes, and Master Hobb only wished—"
"I was not speaking to you."
Hobb let go so abruptly Julian stumbled. Adrian crossed the room in three steps, steadied the boy, and turned back.
"You were dismissed," he said to the tutor.
Hobb licked dry lips. "I had not yet been provided travel money, my lord. Lady Marta's people told me the young master's lessons could not simply stop because of a misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding?"
Julian whispered, barely audible, "He said maps fill boys with disobedience."
Adrian's hand on his shoulder stayed very still.
"Did he?" he asked.
Hobb hurried on, sensing danger and misreading its source. "My lord, surely you understand that frontier heirs require hardness. The boy answers weakly, looks away, clings to his mother, and has taken to asking about roads and stores instead of genealogy. Such tendencies must be corrected before they become—"
"Before they become what? Useful?"
The tutor's face emptied.
Adrian looked at the maid. "And you? Who authorized you to stand here while a dismissed tutor laid hands on the count's son?"
She stammered. "Marta always said her ladyship's apartments still needed supervision."
"Marta no longer says anything that matters."
He called for guards.
Sir Roderic arrived with two men before Hobb had fully decided whether to drop to his knees or run. Adrian spared him the choice.
"Master Hobb is to be escorted from Greyfen before the gate closes. Search his baggage. If he carries county books, maps, letters, or household inventory notes, they remain here. If he returns without my leave, break his wrist and send him onward anyway."
Hobb went ashen. "My lord, this is disproportionate—"
"No," Adrian said. "Disproportionate would be what happens if I discover you struck the boy more than once."
He turned to the maid. "You will spend the next month in laundry under Nurse Branwen's direction, on half ration and no authority. Learn service from the bottom before speaking of supervision again."
The girl burst into tears.
Good, Adrian thought coldly. Let her begin her education.
After they were taken away, the room fell quiet.
Julian still stood straight despite the trembling in his injured arm. Evelyne had not yet arrived; perhaps that was mercy. He could not tell whether her absence meant she had not heard or had been delayed by the same web still tightening around these rooms.
Adrian crouched to the boy's eye level.
"Show me," he said.
Julian obeyed. Red marks already darkened his wrist and upper arm where Hobb had gripped him.
The old anger returned, but he pressed it down.
Not now. Not in front of the child.
He placed two fingers lightly over the bruising and let Lattice Touch spread through the tissue. Skin. Muscle. No fracture. Deep tenderness. He drew the mana back at once before the boy could notice anything strange.
"It will hurt tonight," he said. "I'll have Master Iven bring a salve."
Julian looked at him uncertainly. "Will he come back?"
"No."
That word again. Small. Necessary.
This time the boy believed it a little more.
When Evelyne entered moments later and took in the scene, she did not gasp or run. She simply crossed the room, drew Julian close, and looked at Adrian over the child's head.
"Thank you," she said.
No softness. No reconciliation. Only precision.
In that moment it meant more than warmth would have.
The keep had abused the family because it assumed the count did not care enough to notice.
Now it would have to recalculate.