Orestes sipped his water and calmly looked around.
Junior remained silent. He refused to give his uncle the satisfaction of responding to his inflammatory comment.
Achilles lay on the floor, head up, watching the two humans intently.
"Nice place," Orestes offered.
Junior continued to hold his peace. His uncle was here for a reason. He would get to the point soon enough without Junior's intervention.
The silence stretched for a time before Orestes turned to face his nephew directly.
"Do you believe in magic, Thamish?"
Junior recoiled inwardly at the name. No one called him that anymore. Except Uncle Orestes. Except when he wanted to drive home a point.
Usually about family, or religion, or both.
Thamish was the name his father imposed on him out of sheer arrogance. He'd considered changing it. More than a few times.
He kept it out of convenience and spite rather than filial respect.
Junior folded his arms across his chest.
"No," he eventually responded. "I don't believe in magic."
He didn't bother to mask his sullen resentment.
Orestes smiled faintly, ironically. He lifted his cane, vaguely gestured towards Junior's face.
It was sheer habit, of course. Orestes fully well knew Junior couldn't see his theatrics. But old habits die hard.
"Even now? With a blue screen in front of your very eyes? The first thing you've ever seen in your life?"
Junior's lips thinned as he pressed them together tightly.
But he stubbornly refused to engage.
"I'm sorry - was there a point to this visit? If so, I'm hoping you'll get to it sooner than later."
Orestes lowered the cane's tip to the ground and leaned on the head with two clasped hands.
"The gods are the point," he stated. "They always have been, and always will be. We've forgotten so much. Had even more stolen from us. But the gods have never forgotten us. And the time of their return is nigh."
Junior groaned.
Orestes smiled serenely, unbothered by his Nephew's attitude. He walked to the window and opened the curtains, looking out at the cityscape beyond. Early morning light barely filtered through the heavy cloud cover.
"None will deny them for much longer," he continued. "Not even you. All across Galatea, all across this forsaken prison called Palea, the whispers grow. Not just from the mouths of the frightened or the desperate. The wind carries them. The sea stirs with them. Old things. Remembered things."
Junior sighed again. His rejection of everything Orestes was saying, everything the older man stood for, was ingrained in his very being through years of long habit.
Then he glanced at it. The impossible blue screen. The Failsafe System interface. There for even a blind man to see. He looked to Achilles, a blurred shape that didn't resemble the dog much at all.
He frowned. He hated the thought, but . . . perhaps he needed to hear his Uncle out. No matter how much it rubbed him the wrong way.
Orestes turned back. He saw Junior's scowl.
Drew his own conclusions, and smiled.
"You don't have to believe in magic. Not yet. But you do have to face the truth."
Junior shifted, struggling to keep the irritation from breaking the surface.
"Let me guess. You're going to tell me the gods are real, the sky's about to split open, and all I need is faith to ascend to the promised land."
"Faith helps," Orestes said mildly. "But no. That's not what I'm here to tell you."
A pause.
"I'm here to tell you I know you're Reclaimed."
Silence. Except for the sound of Junior's own pulse in his ears.
"And," Orestes added just as casually, "you haven't responded to my message about the chimes."
Thankfully, Junior's shock caused his knees to lock in place. Otherwise, he felt sure he would have fallen to the floor.
It took a few seconds before he could even think the words, let alone say them.
". . . what did you just say?"
Orestes turned his full attention on him now. That same infuriating calm. The confidence that felt more like inevitability than arrogance.
"You heard me."
The chimes.
The message.
Athena had just read that message. No one could know what it said.
No one . . . except the sender themself.
"You're - " he swallowed. His throat felt dry, and his voice was a low rasp, " - voidharrow84?"
"Yes," Orestes stated simply with a small incline of his head.
"You're lying." Even he didn't believe his words. He simply said them out of reflex.
"I'm not," Orestes denied with gentle sympathy. Then he grimaced. "I said before, this visit isn't about the company. That's not entirely true. For that obfuscation, I apologize."
"Here we go," Junior grumbled testily as he sought to regain his mental equilibrium.
Of course it was about the gods damned company. It always was.
"Thamish & Son Marine Enterprises is meant to be a tool," Orestes started to say. "One amongst many, but an important one. A tool in a plan decades, if not centuries, in the making.
"But no plan survives contact with the enemy. Your father's murder at the hands of that -"
Junior growled.
Achilles echoed him, ears laid flat, canine lips curled back in a tooth-baring snarl.
Orestes halted his speech. Closed his eyes. Took a breath.
Neither spoke for a time. Then Orestes continued as if he had never been interrupted.
"My brother's death left a gap. Not an insurmountable one, but still one of significance. A gap which we have now run out of time to close."
Orestes stopped speaking again. Junior tilted his head. Waited a bit. Then he stuck a finger in his ear and twisted it as if to clear out a ball of wax.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Orestes. But I must have missed the part where any of this involves me. Or why I should care."
He spoke a little more acerbically than he'd intended, but his uncle didn't call him out for it.
"I'm pushing for the courts to finally stop dragging their heels on the case of the Trust," Orestes said instead, calmly and clearly. "I'm here to ask you to speak with Ms. Phokas. To take responsibility. Show her that she can finally give up her stewardship in good conscience and tell the courts the same."
Junior sighed, a mix of disappointment and exasperation.
"Nothing new, then," he said dismissively. "Let's get back to Voidharrow. To magic. How did you know who I am?"
Orestes shook his head.
"If you do this, Junior, I will tell you everything. Furthermore, once the Trust is dissolved and you've gained control of your shares, I will buy them from you at a premium. You can finally wash your hands of the whole affair. Just like you've always wanted."
Junior felt a momentary surge of hope before he repressed it.
"That's a tasty bit of cheese you've got dangling on your string," Junior muttered skeptically, paraphrasing a well-known Galatean proverb about trapping mice. "Where was that offer when I was sixteen? Back then, it was all about duty and family."
"It's not my preferred solution, but as I said, we're out of time," Orestes replied with a small lift of his shoulders.
"Because of the System," Junior stated flatly. "You want me to believe you knew it was coming?" He scoffed.
"The Stonebergs are an old family," Orestes stated resolutely. "The blood runs true."
"Which doesn't answer my question in the slightest," Junior scoffed again. He shook his head. "You're deflecting. Trying to keep me off guard. I'm no more interested now than I was as a child."
Even as he said the words, though, Junior couldn't help but wonder.
Orestes followed the old faith. The faith of meddlesome gods and worlds-bending magic. Fantasies that even other religions had long since shrugged off for more modern views.
And yet . . . Blue screens.
Junior didn't want to believe. But could he afford not to?
"Say I contact Alexis," Junior said abruptly. "She's nobody's fool. She has no reason to believe in my sudden change of heart."
Orestes shook his head.
"You misread Ms. Phokas," he said. "As the court-appointed trustee of the estate, her mandate includes preparing for your eventual assumption of the role. The moment the courts deem you competent and willing to fulfil your obligations, she is both empowered and obligated to relinquish control. And once she does, her fiduciary responsibilities to the Trust - and to you - are formally discharged."
Junior frowned but didn't dispute his uncle's words. When he was still young, it had been Alexis' job to prepare him, just like Orestes said. But as he got older and began to resist the role . . . and the whole mess with the courts . . .
He realized he'd only ever considered things from his point of view. Alexis wasn't family. Nor was she his friend. Not really. Managing his trust was her job. Nothing more, nothing less. One she'd probably been expecting to give up years ago.
He supposed there was more than one reason to contact her now. An apology, perhaps, among them.