The destruction was always Elias's problem. He arrived home at 7 PM, shedding his bespoke suit jacket and finding a crime scene where his kitchen should have been. Ronan was solemnly wiping volcano residue off his priceless Italian cello, while the twins were scrubbing the ceiling tiles with an air of practiced nonchalance. Finn was in the corner, meticulously calculating the force required to break a cello string.
"A drone?" Elias asked, his voice low and dangerously even. "You tried to launch a drone inside the house?"
"It was for science, Elias," Leo mumbled, wiping foam from a marble countertop.
"Science does not require destroying $400 worth of kitchen appliances, a ceiling lamp, and almost—almost—your brother's means of employment!" Elias ran a hand through his hair, the perpetual weight of managing four siblings heavier than usual.
"It was a necessary failure for data collection," Finn offered, without looking up.
Just as the argument reached its inevitable crescendo, a quiet, insistent whirring sound drew their attention. A small, antique metal box, no larger than a deck of cards, had been discreetly placed on the dining table. It was not one of their devices. It was old, brass-plated, and ticking.
Ronan approached it cautiously. "What is this? Did you buy a bomb, Leo?"
"I wish," Leo murmured longingly.
The box had a single, tiny slit. A second later, a tightly rolled piece of parchment paper shot out with a puff of smoke. Elias snatched it up.
The message, written in their late Grandfather Silas Caldwell's elegant, spidery handwriting, was simple yet cryptic:
The Asylum has held my secret long enough. The Threads of Time and Space are tangled in the attic. The first key rests where Time's Hand points down. All five must gather, for the legacy is bound by blood, not by a single genius or a responsible adult.
The five brothers exchanged glances. Grandfather Silas had been the original "Crazy Brother"—an eccentric inventor who had disappeared a year ago, leaving behind only strange blueprints and mountains of debt.
"Legacy?" Elias scoffed. "The only thing he left us was this ridiculous house and a mountain of unpaid bills."
"Wait," Kai interjected, pointing to the line about the 'Threads of Time and Space.' "That sounds like the old journal he used to read—the one with the drawings of the celestial sphere."
"And 'Time's Hand points down'?" Ronan murmured, tapping a finger against his chin. "That must be the old clock tower downtown. The one whose minute hand broke and is permanently stuck at six."
A sense of shared purpose, a feeling rarely experienced, settled over them. The chaos in the kitchen was forgotten. For the first time since their grandfather's disappearance, they were no longer simply fighting over chores; they were united by a mystery.
Elias, still the reluctant leader, sighed. "Fine. But if this is another one of his pranks involving a self-stirring soup spoon, I'm calling the police."
It was midnight. The five Crazy Brothers—the lawyer, the musician, the genius, and the chaotic twins—piled into Elias's sensible sedan, heading toward the silent, broken clock tower, ready to face the first clue of their family's bizarre legacy.