The silence in the west library of the Thorne estate was a heavy, studious thing, broken only by the furious scratch of Cassian's pen and the methodical turn of a page every few minutes. At sixteen, he felt the eyes of the portraits on the wall—generations of Thornes who had built an empire out of steel, shipping, and sheer will. His upcoming pre-university exams weren't just tests; they were his first formal audition for a legacy that felt less like an inheritance and more like a suit of armor he was being hammered into, still too big for his frame.
A soft snick made him glance up. A paper airplane, perfectly folded from a page of The Wall Street Journal, sailed over the back of the leather sofa and landed with a whisper on his differential calculus textbook.
He ignored it. The pen scratched again.
Another airplane. This one clipped his ear.
A third landed directly on the problem he was solving.
Cassian's jaw tightened. He didn't look toward the doorway where he knew they were lurking. "I don't have time for this, Thomas."
"Time is a social construct, cousin," Thomas's voice floated in, ripe with fourteen-year-old sarcasm. "Especially when compared to the timeless art of aerodynamics."
Daniel's deeper, more pragmatic voice followed. "He means stop. You've been at it for six hours. Your brain is going to leak out your ears."
"My brain," Cassian said, his voice low, "needs to understand this. Something you two might consider trying." He went back to his work.
The silence returned, but it was a different kind. A plotting silence. Cassian felt it. He should have known.
An hour later, he took a break, opening his laptop to check his school portal for any last-minute exam updates. His blood went cold.
SCHEDULE UPDATE: CONFIRMED.
STUDENT: THORNE, CASSIAN.
MONDAY, 9:00 AM: ADVANCED PUPPETRY (WORKSHOP A)
TUESDAY, 11:00 AM: INTRODUCTION TO CLOWN THEORY (LECTURE HALL 3)
WEDNESDAY, 2:00 PM: APPLIED MIME & PHYSICAL COMEDY (STUDIO B)
Below it was an appended email from the Headmaster, marked URGENT.
"Dear Mr. Thorne, after a rigorous review of your extracurriculars and personal aptitudes, the Academic Board believes your talents are tragically misdirected. We are pivoting your future to the Performing Arts track, effective immediately. Please report to the Drama Department at dawn for your mandatory 'Tears of a Clown' intensive. Sincerely, Dr. P. N. Guile."
For three full seconds, Cassian just stared. Then a white-hot wire of panic and fury snapped inside him. He shot up from the chair, the heavy book tumbling to the floor with a thud that echoed in the quiet house.
"THOMAS! DANIEL!"
He stormed into the grand hall, the printed schedule crumpled in his fist. They were by the fireplace, trying and failing to look innocent. Thomas was examining a vase with exaggerated interest. Daniel was studying his own nails.
"What is this?" Cassian's voice was quiet, which was worse than a shout. He threw the paper ball. It bounced off Thomas's chest.
Thomas picked it up, smoothed it, and failed to suppress a grin. "Ah. The board has seen your true calling. I always said you had a gift for tragedy."
"This isn't funny!" Cassian exploded, the control shattering. "Do you have any idea what's riding on these exams? Any idea what they expect from me? I can't afford a single mistake! And you… you hack into the school system? You could get us all expelled! You could ruin everything!"
The genuine anger, the raw fear beneath it, wiped the smiles off their faces. Daniel stepped forward, his hands up. "Cass, it was a joke. A dumb one. We were just trying to—"
"Trying to what? Sabotage me? Prove I'm not good enough?" The words were ugly, born of a pressure they didn't fully understand. "While you're off playing soldiers and hacking games, I'm in there trying to make sure this family doesn't fall apart because its next in line is an idiot!"
Thomas flinched. Daniel's face hardened. "That's not fair, Cassian."
"Life isn't fair! Haven't you figured that out yet?"
A calm, weary voice cut through the tension like a blade through silk. "I think everyone has figured that out, little brother. Especially the part where their cousin is being an insufferable prick."
Cassian whirled. Samuel stood in the archway to the billiards room, a cue stick resting on his shoulder. At twenty, he carried the Thorne mantle with an ease that Cassian envied but adored in equal measure. It wasn't arrogance; it was a quiet, competent assurance. He looked from Cassian's furious face to the chastened expressions of the younger two.
"Thomas, go fix whatever digital vandalism you committed. Daniel, the kitchen. Bring back three of those vile sugary sodas you all love. Now."
They scattered, grateful for the escape.
Samuel walked over, picked up the crumpled schedule, and let out a soft chuckle. "Advanced Puppetry. That's a good one. Thomas has a future in psychological warfare." He gestured with the cue stick toward the library. "Walk with me."
Cassian, still vibrating with anger, followed.
Samuel didn't go back to the library. He led them out through the French doors to the sprawling terrace overlooking the manicured gardens. He leaned against the stone balustrade, the setting sun painting him in gold.
"They're not trying to ruin your future, Cass," Samuel said, his voice quiet.
"It sure feels like it."
"That's because you're looking at the wrong future." Samuel turned to him. "They were trying, in their profoundly stupid, adolescent way, to pull you back into the present. Into this family. Right now. The one with living, breathing people in it who miss you."
Cassian looked away, his throat tight. "I have responsibilities."
"You're sixteen. Your responsibility is to learn, to grow, and to not be such a self-important little tyrant that your own cousins are afraid to make you laugh." Samuel's tone was gentle, but the words struck home. "Those exams? They'll come and go. You'll pass. You're brilliant, and you're terrified of failing, which means you won't. But this?" He pointed his cue stick back toward the house, where Thomas was probably already writing a code to send a formal apology from the headmaster's own email, and where Daniel would be carefully selecting the perfect soda. "This is what you'll be fighting for one day. Not stock prices or board approvals. You'll be fighting for them. Daniel's loyalty. Thomas's crazy-smart mind. Their trust. Don't push them away to impress the ghosts on the wall, Cass. The ghosts don't care. And the living ones will stop trying."
The fight drained out of Cassian, leaving behind a hollow shame. Samuel saw it. He clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Now, come on. You've been wronged. A Thorne does not suffer a wrong without retaliation."
Cassian looked up, confused. "What?"
A wicked grin spread across Samuel's face, the one that reminded people he wasn't just the dignified heir; he was also the mastermind behind the Great Thanksgiving Turkey Substitute of '09. "We're going to prank the pranksters. But we're going to do it with style. With psychological precision."
For the next hour, Samuel laid out a plan. It was beautiful in its simplicity. They would not hack anything. They would use pure theater. Samuel made a few calls. An hour later, a black car arrived. A severe-looking woman in a bespoke suit, introduced as "Ms. Finch from the Dean's Office at Harvard Business School," was ushered into the grand hall where Thomas and Daniel now waited nervously with their sodas.
"Young Mr. Thorne," Ms. Finch said, her voice like ice, staring at Thomas. "We've been monitoring your… extracurricular coding activities with great interest. While unorthodox, the initiative and skill displayed have come to the attention of our early admissions cyber-ethics task force. We'd like to offer you a spot in a mandatory, month-long, in-person ethics seminar this summer. In Fairbanks, Alaska. To study… the moral implications of… arctic network infrastructure."
Thomas's face went from pale to sheet-white. "Alaska? A… seminar?"
Daniel tried to step in. "Ma'am, it was just a joke—"
"And you must be Daniel," Ms. Finch pivoted, pulling a file from her briefcase. "Your military academy application. We have a cousin on the board. The notes here say 'excessive loyalty to compromised leadership.' A worrying phrase. We've recommended a probationary period. Starting with a summer cleaning detail at the academy's latrine facility in New Mexico."
Daniel looked like he'd been kicked in the stomach.
Cassian watched, his own anger melting away into a kind of awe. Samuel stood nearby, his face a mask of solemn concern.
Just as Thomas was stammering about how he hated the cold and Daniel was imagining desert scrubs, Samuel let out a low whistle. "Tough break, guys."
Ms. Finch's stern facade cracked. Then it dissolved into laughter. She pulled off a pair of glasses and wiped her eyes. "Oh, you should see your faces! Sammy, you're still the devil."
It was Aunt Lydia, a former stage actress from the Boston branch of the family.
The relief that flooded the room was palpable, followed by a burst of laughter—first from Thomas, who was giddy with reprieve, then from Daniel, who punched Cassian lightly in the arm. "You jerk. You had me."
"We had you," Samuel corrected, slinging an arm around Cassian's shoulders. "Teamwork. See? Better than moping in a library."
They spent the rest of the evening on the terrace, drinking the sodas, the earlier fight forgotten. Thomas explained his hack. Daniel talked about his training. Cassian, for the first time in weeks, didn't talk about the future. He just listened. He laughed.
Later, as fireflies began to dot the dusk, Samuel pulled Cassian aside once more. "You're so busy trying to be a Thorne for the boardroom," he said softly, "you're forgetting how to be a Thorne in this room. With them. Ease up, Cass. The empire can wait." He met his younger brother's eyes, his own serious for a moment. "Your brothers can't."
It was the last perfect day. The last day where the weight felt shared, where the future felt like something they could face as a unit, with Samuel leading them. Months later, at the succession banquet, the darkness would fall. The laughter on the terrace would become a ghostly echo in Cassian's mind, and the mantle Samuel wore so lightly would drop onto Cassian's shoulders with a crushing, permanent weight. He would become the warlord, building walls to protect what remained of that fragile, laughing unit, forever trying to honor the last lesson his brother ever gave him: that the family in the room was worth more than any legacy outside of it.