The Von Silberthal residence smelled like mountain herbs and the dusty chalkiness of limestone after rain. The hallway stretched ahead like a gallery, and Fabrisse didn't know such a highly curated collection of wealth could be so strangely personal. On one side, tall windows admitted shafts of amber evening light, catching on the crystal sconces affixed to the walls. Each sconce was a slice of actual geode, the hollowed centers gleaming with clusters of amethyst and quartz that refracted the lamplight in subtle rainbows.

Those aren't any quartz! Those have banded chalcedony along the rims. It's unmistakable that that's the kind that formed in slow layers. He leaned ever so slightly as they walked to catch the subtle zoning in the crystal growth.

"You've noticed the chalcedony, haven't you?" Anabeth's voice cut in. "They're from the Halvorn range. The iron content there gives the amethyst its depth. Mother insists on sourcing only specimens that show clean growth zoning, as it reflects better in lamplight, you see."

"That explains the saturation! I thought it was just clever lighting. Did you see the concentric banding near the edges? That means the silica must have precipitated . . . weeks, maybe months apart."

"Mmm. Quite so. And if you look closely toward the base, you'll detect a faint yellowing—that would be citrine. The family might easily have commissioned it polished away, but Mother insists the contrast lends character. It feels more authentic, less the affectation of a jeweler's showroom."

Fabrisse's chest gave a small, warm flutter. She really was a rock nerd too.

Before he could answer, a piping young voice rang across the hallway, "Mother! Sis brought home another rock nerd again!"

Both Fabrisse and Anabeth stopped at once. A girl—no more than ten—was standing halfway down the corridor, grinning like she'd just caught them sneaking sweets.

Anabeth closed her eyes for half a second, then exhaled. "That," she murmured, "would be my sister, Maribel."

". . . What does she mean by 'another rock nerd'?"

"Please do not pay it any mind."

They kept walking, this time without any rock-related conversation. Between them hung stately portraits of Von Silberthal ancestors, their gilded frames heavy enough to shout wealth, but the canvases themselves rested against slabs of stone rather than plain plaster. It struck Fabrisse as a weirdly perfect blend of high-status showiness and unapologetic geology nerdiness.

As Anabeth led him toward the entrance, her eyes swept over him and back again, and the corners of her mouth curved into a patrician smile. "Well, Kestovar," she said. "you've certainly risen to the occasion. Quite high-fashioned, really. All you need now is a bit of jewelry and—" her eyes dipped toward his boots, "—shoes that look as though they actually belong with the outfit."

Fabrisse's ears warmed. Jewelry? Proper shoes?

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Does looking decorative count as a trait of high fashion or something?

"Although I think I must have seen Liene wearing the same outfit once," Anabeth added.

"I'm not wearing her clothes," Fabrisse said much too quickly.

Anabeth's brows arched.

"I mean—well, yes, technically the cut is similar because it's from the same tailor, and she lent me the belt because mine doesn't fit quite right anymore, but the shirt's mine, absolutely mine, see—" He tugged at the cuff as if producing evidence. "It has a stitching error near the hem. I'd recognize it anywhere."

"I have never seen you talk so much before, Kestovar." Anabeth giggled.

He closed his mouth an audible click, and he stared ahead in an almost studied silence, like a book snapped shut too quickly. His pace slowed half a step, shoulders stiff, as if he could retreat inside himself by sheer force of quiet.

The sudden absence of words seemed to amuse her even more. She let him stew in it for a few paces before murmuring, "I didn't mean it as a reprimand." Anabeth added again because she just wouldn't let this go, "Although, I must say, you act almost as bizarrely as Liene did when asked about you."

Fabrisse tried not thinking about what she said. Anabeth didn't press further, though her knowing little smile lingered as she led him through a pair of high doors banded with brass.

The room was less a chamber for eating than a shrine to stone. The long table—big enough for two dozen—was a single slab of silversheen lithite, a metamorphic stone prized for its alternating layers of pale crystal and dark mica. The surface undulated beneath the lamplight like flowing water, a slow ripple frozen in stone. The chairs looked ordinary at first glance, until Fabrisse noticed the backs carved from basalt, each etched with faint geomantic motifs. Along the walls, niches housed carefully lit specimens: towering crystal clusters, fossilized wood polished to a shine, even a chunk of raw obsidian the size of a barrel, its surface drinking in the firelight.

Above them, the chandelier wasn't crystal at all but a framework of suspended geodes, cut open so their inner amethyst hearts glowed where thin candles nestled inside. The whole room shimmered with purple and gold hues, an extravagant fusion of scholarship and display.

Anabeth swept a hand with casual pride. "Our dining room. We prefer to dine beneath proof of our lineage."

Fabrisse had barely taken two steps inside before reality struck him: every Von Silberthal seemed already present. Six brothers and sisters in various stages of sitting, whispering, or helping, their mother presiding from the head of the table with a regal ease, their father pouring wine into cut-crystal glasses, and a grandmother draped in shawls that looked older than the walls themselves. One brother and a younger sister moved briskly along the far side, laying out dishes with the precision of servants—only they weren't servants.

The weight of eyes, whether truly on him or only imagined, pressed at the edges of his awareness. Fabrisse held his breath, and he rubbed his finger as he tried to find the stone satchel he usually swung across his shoulder, only to find it missing. He was the only outsider in the room, and he didn't bring Gravelkin with him.

[Emotional Spike Detected: Anxiety]

At the head of the table, the man who could only be Lord Von Silberthal glanced up from decanting wine. He had the same aristocratic sharpness as Anabeth, though lined with years and softened by a certain unshakable confidence.

With a voice carrying easily over the muted clink of cutlery being laid out, he said, "So, you must be Anabeth's latest fixation."

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