Chapter 325: Sometimes, you don’t need access.

"I remember my teacher telling me that House Arcelis was exceptionally generous when they bought Varek. I initially thought it was something related to pride, maybe they did not want their blood to be another force’s captive but...

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe it was... much bigger than I thought."

Lucian thought out loud.

Aurelia nodded at those words.

"That is possible.

Maybe they bought him because they wanted to study the results of their experiment."

"Exactly."

Lucian nodded.

The more he thought about it, the more plausible it all started to become. So much so that he was actually getting excited about this. Soon, however, that excitement died down as he thought of something else.

However plausible it may sound.

The fact of the matter was, all of this still was just that—

Speculation.

There was no proper fact backing any of it up and the worst part?

It didn’t seem like there was a way they could confirm their theory either.

Or at least...

That’s what Lucian thought, but...

"I will look into it."

Aurelia nodded as she stood up.

Lucian blinked at that.

"How?"

She looked at him.

"How what?"

"How are you going to look into experiments that are possibly centuries old?"

Lucian questioned.

"If Arcelis hid something like this for hundreds of years, I highly doubt there’s a folder somewhere labelled Secret Archdemon Experiments."

Aurelia chuckled at that.

"There probably isn’t."

She nodded.

"Then?"

"I won’t look for the experiments. I’ll look for the consequences."

She answered. Lucian frowned at that, he had no idea what she was talking about. Aurelia just smiled as she started walking.

"If there were indeed failed experiments... then there were failed subjects.

Subjects who... most likely did not survive."

"That makes sense."

Lucian nodded.

He looked at Aurelia, wanting her to continue and she did.

"I’ll look into mysterious deaths and disappearances, people who entered Arcelis territory and never left.

It won’t be important nobles, Arcelis won’t target them. They won’t target anyone whose disappearance would cause too many questions, so..."

"The opposite."

Lucian spoke.

"People nobody important would look for even if they disappeared."

"Indeed."

Aurelia nodded.

"Slaves, servants, blood companions without families, independent Vampires, humans brought into the territory through private channels, possibly even supernatural criminals no one would bother searching for.

I’ll look for them."

"How are you going to look for them...?"

Lucian asked.

"Ancient Houses record everything."

Aurelia explained.

"People entering, people leaving, blood purchases, slaves transferred between estates, visitors, workers, servants, prisoners, who brought them, where they were housed, when they disappeared from the system, every single thing is recorded."

That made Lucian blink.

"That is... meticulous.

Obsessive actually."

Aurelia chuckled.

"Why keep all of that?"

Lucian asked curiously.

"Because Houses like Arcelis have existed for thousands of years."

Aurelia answered casually.

"You cannot govern something that large through memory and trust alone. You need records."

"Makes sense."

Lucian nodded.

"So you’re going through those records."

He asked.

"Yes."

Aurelia nodded.

"Century by century?"

"If necessary."

Lucian looked at her. He didn’t even want to ask. Reading centuries-old records felt like a nightmare.

What concerned him even more, however, was something else.

"How exactly are you going to access these records? Even if House Arcelis records most of the logistics, I do not think even they would give you access to them."

And at that question, Aurelia just smiled.

"Sometimes, you don’t need access."

Lucian raised an eyebrow, wanting to know more.

Aurelia chuckled. Clearly, she had no intention of explaining what she was going to do.

"Is this revenge?"

Lucian asked the same question she did before and Aurelia laughed again.

"Don’t think too much about it."

"The favours I am doing aren’t being very helpful, you know?"

He pouted.

Aurelia chuckled.

"Learn to be patient."

She looked at him as her crimson eyes shone.

"The longer you wait, the better the reward becomes, I promise."

"You promised, don’t take that back."

Lucian pointed at her.

"I won’t."

She chuckled.

"Anyways, I will go through Arcelis records and compare them with the records Veyr’s Intelligence has."

"Veyr Intelligence...?"

Lucian tilted his head.

"Yes."

"What is that?"

Aurelia looked at him as if the answer was obvious.

"Our intelligence network."

"I can guess that from the name, I am asking what intelligence network. How are you going to compare what they have with Arcelis records?"

"We have our own Arcelis records."

"Wait..."

Lucian’s face changed.

"Spies."

He finally realised it.

"You have spies inside House Arcelis."

Aurelia smiled, not accepting the accusation, but from her face, the answer was pretty apparent.

"Why do you have spies here?"

Lucian asked.

Aurelia actually frowned at that question.

"Why wouldn’t we have spies here?"

"You are talking as if having spies in a place is normal."

Lucian rolled his eyes but—

"It is normal."

Aurelia nodded and Lucian...

He paused for a minute and after thinking about it...

It... did make sense, to some extent.

Aurelia looked at him and admitted openly.

"Every powerful Vampire House has people inside every other powerful Vampire House."

"Every?"

Lucian raised an eyebrow.

"Well, almost every."

"Why are you acting like it is general knowledge?"

"It is."

"So... everyone knows there are spies?"

"Lucian, every force has spies.

Enclave isn’t different."

"Are you saying... there are Veyr spies in Enclave?"

"More than a few."

"Should you be admitting that?"

Lucian asked and Aurelia just shrugged.

"It doesn’t matter. The knowledge of spies isn’t news, what matters is their identities, that I won’t tell."

She smiled playfully.

Lucian stared at her with a flat look on his face.

Then he shook his head and returned to the topic.

"So there are Veyr spies in House Arcelis."

"Yes, House Veyr’s Intelligence keeps proper records for most Vampire Houses, our records on House Arcelis are quite thorough.

So I’ll compare House Arcelis’s records with House Veyr’s records. I’ll look for discrepancies, strange movements, disappearing staff, unusual purchases, guard movements and...

Let’s see if we find something."

"That seems... time-consuming."

"Not really, I’ll have others work on it."

Aurelia shrugged and Lucian—

"I really need people I can hand over my menial tasks to..."

He was very jealous.