Cass arrived early, the sun washing the courtyard in pale gold. He paused at the door, letting the weight of eyes turn toward him before he moved through with calm authority.
'The room belongs to the one who decides the story. Today I will decide every story.'
Rowena met him at the foot of the stairs. She wore black with a narrow collar that made her look even more precise. Her smile loosened when she reached him.
"You heard," she said.
"Heard what?" Cass asked, amused already.
"Sienna has organised a forum," Rowena said. "On inequality and the harms of conspicuous wealth on campus. There are flyers everywhere. You are not named, but you might as well be the title."
Cass's smile touched one corner of his mouth. "Perfect. I needed a warm-up."
"You will go," she said.
"I will host," Cass replied.
She laughed despite herself. "You are dangerous when you enjoy yourself."
"That is when I am safest," Cass said.
They stepped into the lecture hall. Eyes followed. Whispered comments rustled like paper. Trent sat with his arms folded and his jaw set, pretending to be indifferent. Sienna leaned in to speak to a committee boy who wore importance like a borrowed coat. Her glance darted to Cass and back again.
After the lecture, Rowena handed him a flyer. The print was careful and sharp. Student Forum on Fairness and Access. Today at noon. Union Hall.
Cass flicked the paper with a fingertip. "We will have lunch while we are at it," he said.
Rowena's eyes gleamed. "You're planning to make a meal of them, aren't you?" she said.
"With manners," Cass said. "And a napkin."
Union Hall filled before noon. Rows of chairs faced a panel table. Sienna sat in the centre with the committee boy and two others who had the pale confidence of people unused to being challenged. The room murmured, restless already.
Cass chose a seat near the aisle with Rowena beside him. He let the first ten minutes pass as they read statements about fairness and community. A speaker said that privilege created distance. Another lamented how people used money to dominate spaces.
Cass raised his hand. The room went very quiet for a hall that large.
The moderator swallowed. "Mr Vale," he said. "You have a question."
"I have an opportunity," Cass said. He stood without waiting for permission and moved to the front. No one told him to stop.
He rested one hand on the table, fingers relaxed.
"The problem is not that some students have money," he said. "The problem is that some students who do not have money are denied the same opportunity to prove they are better. I will fix that now."
Sienna sat up straighter, poised to counter. Cass did not look at her.
"I will endow a scholarship fund," he said. "For students from families like mine and worse. It will cover tuition, housing, instruments, books, and travel. It will be administered by an independent trustee whom I appoint with the dean's approval.
"The fund will begin at one million pounds. If the university matches one million, I will double it again. The goal is simple. No talent will go hungry here."
The hall erupted before he finished the last sentence. Cheers rolled like weather. People stood. Someone whistled. The moderator blinked at the volume and then sat down because he had nothing useful left to do.
Sienna forced a smile that did not reach her eyes. "Generous," she said over the noise. "But there are deeper issues. Visibility. Sensitivity. You cannot solve everything with cheques."
Cass turned his head slowly. "Of course not. That is why I would like Sienna Reed to co-chair the student advisory board for the fund. She has strong opinions and free time. She can help deliver applications and outreach under the trustee. Thank you for volunteering."
The silence that fell was different. It rippled with amusement and delight. Heads turned to Sienna with the kind of attention that turns smiles into pressure.
She opened and closed her mouth once. "I did not volunteer," she said.
"You did when you printed these flyers," Cass said. "It would be cruel to speak about fairness and refuse to lift the work."
Everyone laughed. Not cause of a joke. At a turn of the knife that made them feel taller for witnessing it.
Sienna flushed. "Fine," she said tightly. "For the students."
"For the students," Cass echoed, absolute and pleasant.
He turned to the moderator. "If the hall is free after, I will pay for everyone's lunch. Proper food. Not flour and glue."
The moderator nodded without quite knowing he had done so.
[Quest Complete: Turn the Narrative]
[Reward: £5,000,000. Skill Upgrade: Social Strategy Lv.4. New Perk: Media Gravity.]
[Media Gravity: Stories drift toward you. Positive coverage amplifies. Negative coverage decays.]
Cass felt the shift like a breeze through a hot room. Conversations were already rewriting themselves. The story was changing in real time as mouths repeated a better version of him than he had offered.
He reached for Rowena's hand and lifted it a fraction. "Play something," he said quietly.
She blinked. "Here."
"If there is a piano," Cass said.
There was a piano at the side of the hall, old but tuned. Rowena rose with the humility of a person who knows exactly how good she is and no longer enjoys pretending otherwise. She played a short, bright piece that fit the moment like light fits water.
Cass stood by the keyboard, not speaking, and let her sound teach the room what the future looks like.
When she finished, applause surged again. Cass nodded once to the hall and sat down as if he had merely finished an administrative duty.
Sienna stared at the keys, then at Rowena, and then back at Cass. She had nothing left to say that would not sound like a complaint.
Trent stood at the doorway, trying to measure the weight of the moment and finding that his scales were broken.
Lunch unfolded like a festival. Caterers carried trays of hot dishes in steady procession, the air filling with the smell of spices and bread. Cass signed for the bill once at the door and never looked again.
He didn't sit long. He moved between tables, dropping sentences that made students feel chosen before slipping away again, leaving them to repeat his words louder than he ever could.
Rowena watched him from her plate, a small smile tugging at her mouth. "You set up a fund in ten sentences," she said. "What are you even made of?"
"Momentum," Cass said.
She leaned closer. "And you gave Sienna a role that will bury her."
"She'll meet students she once ignored," Cass said. "They'll look her in the eye. She'll change or she'll break. Either is justice."
Rowena laughed softly, covering it with her hand. "You're shameless."
"I'm just being honest," Cass said.
He watched Sienna accept cautious praise from people who now believed she had asked for the role. Her smile was an expensive dress worn inside out.
Trent hovered near the food, watching the room redistribute attention away from him and toward someone who did not need his approval.
Cass finished his plate, stood, and tapped a spoon to his glass. The sound carried further than it should. Voices quieted on cue.
"Thank you for coming," he said. "Thank you for caring. The trustee will be named after I meet the dean. Applications will be open by the end of the term.
"If you know someone who needs this, bring them. We will not miss them because they are quiet."
He looked at Sienna without heat. "Co-chair Reed will publish office hours by the end of the week."
There was a burst of laughter and clapping that was not unkind but did not feel like mercy either. Sienna nodded with a composure that cost her.
Cass raised his glass. "Eat. Practice. Win."
By late afternoon, the hall had emptied. The quiet that remained felt like a stage after the audience had left, charged and proud.
Cass checked his phone. Two unread messages waited. One from the dean's office, as expected, and one from the editor who had attended his gala.
Editor: We would like to run a profile. not a puff piece. an origin and a thesis
Cass replied with two words. make it accurate
Rowena slipped her arm through his. "You are coming to practice," she said.
"I am."
They walked across campus to the small concert room where she had reserved time. The space was white walls and a wood floor, a piano that was better than the one in the union but not as good as what Cass had in mind for her.
She set the music on the stand. "I keep thinking I will wake up and the mansion will be imaginary," she said.
"Dreams fade. Deeds stay. This one is signed." Cass said.
She began to play. He stood near the curve of the instrument and watched tension leave her shoulders the way water leaves stone under the sun.
When she finished, he sat beside her and added a second line, weaving under her melody until it sounded inevitable.
When their hands lifted, she did not move away for the span of one breath.
"You should not make a habit of rescuing me," she said.
"I am not rescuing you," Cass said. "I am publishing you."
She laughed, softened. "You are impossible to argue with."
"Then do not argue yet," Cass said. "I booked Wigmore for your recital."
She froze. "You did not."
"I did," Cass said. "The date is held. The press will come because they like to pretend they found prodigies, and I am giving them one to pretend about.
"Your rehearsal schedule will be brutal and kind. Your dress will be chosen to make them unsure if they are listening or watching more.
"Your quartet will be paid to be perfect. The city will stand for you."
She put a hand to her forehead and then let it fall, laughing like a person who cannot decide whether to cry.
"You terrify me," she said. "Then you make me think being terrified is the point."
"It is part of it," Cass said.
He drew a little notebook from his pocket and wrote a name for her to see. A luthier for the first violinist. A designer for the dress. A photographer who could make photographs look like memories.
Rowena read the list and nodded as if it were a contract.
"Thank you," she said.
"You will thank me by playing," Cass said. "Everything else is structural."
He left the hall with her and walked the long path toward the gates. The light had flattened into that particular English evening that makes buildings look older than they are.
Students glanced up and smiled because it was easier to be proud of someone than to be jealous when they had just bought you lunch.
Sienna passed them at a distance. A stack of papers sat under her arm. The flyers she had printed were now copies of application guidelines that an office assistant had sent her ten minutes after Cass had called.
She did not look at him. That was the best part.
Trent stood in a doorway speaking to a boy who was trying to hide a laugh. Trent saw Cass and lifted his chin out of habit. Cass did not slow. He did not need to. The look followed him anyway.
At the gate, Rowena stopped. "One more," she said. She leaned up and kissed the edge of his jaw and then stepped back before he could turn that into a victory.
"For the scholarship. Not for the mischief. Do not get greedy."
"I already am," Cass said. "I have only learned how to hide it."
She shook her head and walked back toward the hall. He watched until she vanished between brick and trees.
The Jaguar was a patient shadow where he had left it. He dropped into the seat and let the door close with the quiet weight that meant the world could talk, and he could ignore it.
The system breathed across his vision, a final ribbon of recognition.
[Perk Amplified: Media Gravity synchronised with Aura of Authority. Public narrative shifts favourably in your presence. Misinformation decay accelerated.]
He started the engine, the note clean and low. The evening opened in front of the bonnet like something that had already decided to agree with him.
'Make them cheer while I build. Make them work while I rest. Make them write my story while I write my future.'
He smiled to himself and drove toward the city to meet the dean, already rehearsing the names of trustees he would accept and the ones he would politely refuse.
The day had begun as a challenge written in a flyer. It ended as policy.
Tomorrow would bring contracts and rehearsals and a call from the Blackthorne circle that would sound like a test and feel like a gift.
Tonight, he had turned a room against envy without raising his voice.
'This is how a crown fits. First, the head forgets it is heavy. Then the room forgets it is unusual.'