Scout wondered what her uncle wanted to discuss. A lot had happened, after all. She supposed it was about Elena, or the queen, so she quickly made her way over to the estate and then his office.

She had quite a lot on her mind as well. Augustus had said that the queen's aunt was Gifted, and that what Iliana had been able to summon or create to protect herself from the fire had reminded him of her aunt.

Lorendale was once again going through it, to put it plainly. They never had a day's rest. Then there was still the question who had written the fake announcement. The prince suspected the king, and she suspected Simon. Time would tell, she hoped.

The blonde knocked on the door and would walk into the room once she had heard her uncle's voice. She smiled at him and walked over to give him a hug. Astor was working for him now, and he had been sent somewhere, so she didn't worry about his whereabouts.

"Hello, uncle. I hope you've been able to get some rest since the address."

It didn't take too long for Scout to turn up. Trust her to be a good Kane, punctual and diligent as she had been raised to be. Just like her parents... For once though, her remaining uncle wished that she wasn't so. He could have done with just a little bit longer to get his head around things. He didn't know whether to begin with duty, or family. He could give her the choice? Or would it be wrong to saddle her with the weight of what he had just learned? 

He would rise to greet her, as she entered. "Close the door behind you." He'd already sent the guards away from the doors, ensuring this would be as private as possible. He would accept the hug, albeit somewhat limply. His strength all but gone. 

"Not as much as I would have liked..." The commander answered her question. If everything that had happened wasn't enough, Felicity was giving him the cold shoulder and their relationship was the worst it had ever been. At least he had his children... "Kid, sit on down..." The man would gesture towards the spare seat, taking the opportunity to settle down himself once more.

Tybalt had only the vaguest notion of where to begin. "Who do you trust the most in the palace right now?" 

Although she had expected him not to be in the best mood, he was even more serious than she had expected. As a good niece, she did what he told her and closed the door behind her. She had a questioning look in her eyes as she moved closer again to give him the hug, and when she felt how hesitantly he hugged her back, she knew that something was wrong. Panic rose in her chest but she remained silent and sat down, again like he had told her to.

The question somewhat caught her off guard, but she quickly recovered. "I'd say the prince. Lord Rainecourt has been nothing but kind to me. He even stepped in front of me to protect me from Elena. He respects my opinion, and I respect him. What's this about, uncle? What happened?"

Tybalt readied himself as best as he could. He wasn't a stranger to having to deliver bad news. He'd done it on many an occasion. It had been quite some time since he'd had to present a family member with the news though. It caused all sorts of memories to stir within the confines of his mind, things which he would much rather have put behind him. 

"I've had some news." He raised the two letters had received in his hand, showing them to the woman from afar before putting them back down. For a moment, he contemplated telling her about Simon Mikaels, but decided against it. She deserved to know what had happened.

There would be no dressing things up, no poetry. Tybalt felt that it was better to simply deliver the blow, rather than draw things out unnecessarily. "I'm sorry Scout... Astor came off his horse. He's dead." 

She sat in silence after she had spoken and listened to Tybalt. News. And by the looks of it, it wasn't good news. She knew her uncle well, and while he didn't like bad news - who did? - he usually had a more stoic or professional look on his face when the subject was bad news regarding their jobs. The way he behaved now made her anxious. It wasn't just their jobs, something personal had happened. That's why the door needed to be closed. That's why they were alone.

Two letters. A lot of bad news. She felt nauseous. Maybe she already knew what he was going to say. She had a feeling it was about Astor. She was right. Astor had fallen off hi horse and had passed away.

The woman's face didn't show any emotion. She just sat there and stared at the wall behind Tybalt. Her eyes burned and tears formed, but they mostly stayed where they were: in her eyes, not down her cheeks.

"Okay", she said after a few minutes had passed. "T-thank you for telling me." She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm down. "I'll- I'll have to let that sink in."

She felt numb. She didn't feel like she lost her husband, because they had mostly still been best friends. There hadn't been a lot of love, but she had known him since she was a young teenager. They had trained together, been through shit together, and laughed together. But now none of that would ever happen again.

Scout tried to distract herself by focussing on the other letter. There was more bad news to come.

Tybalt didn't know that Scout's marriage had mostly been for show. In his mind, he'd just told his beloved niece that the love of her life had just died. He could only imagine what it would have been like for him to lose Felicity. He imagined that and then put Scout in those imaginary shoes. The commander would get back up out of his chair. Perhaps he might have caught a glimpse of her tears, or maybe just assumed they would be there. He would move to put a hand on his niece's shoulder, unless she moved away. "It's okay. Take your time."

He would give her a moment before asking. "Do you have anyone to stay with?" He didn't like the thought of Scout being left to rattle round the palace by her lonesome at a time like this. Unfortunately, the rest of the Kane clan had migrated down south to ensure that the gifted students who had fled with them were kept safe. They would have to head to their homelands to say goodbye to Astor, and probably quite soon at that, but that was something to be discussed at a later date. 

Right now at least, Tybalt had absolutely no intention of saddling the poor young woman with the fact that there were traitors in the midst. 

True, they knew that someone had been responsible for the letters, but Simon Mikaels was a little bit too close to the throne for Tybalt's liking. The man would have to think of how they would go about dealing with this. He doubted that the man had acted on his own, but they were unlikely to find out who his coconspirators were, or if they even even existed to begin with, without bringing the man in for questioning.

Only when Tybalt's hand rested on her shoulder, the tears started to flow. She couldn't grasp the reality of things yet. She was used to Astor being away for a bit, and then he would return safe and sound, but this time he wouldn't be coming home. She was, oddly enough, glad now that she had miscarried. She didn't want her child to grow up without a father. She had started to see Astor as she child's father, and not Dresden. The old loverboy hadn't been seen in Lorendale for a while now anyway, so everything could have worked out fine.

Scout tried to keep the thoughts about becoming older and being single again at bay, because she knew soon enough she would start to hear about it again. People would give her a few months to grieve, and then they would start asking her again if there was a new man in her life.

She wiped away the tears and sighed heavily, to calm herself down. "I- I don't, no", she said softly. She suddenly realised she was truly alone. She barely had any friends, and the ones she was making weren't in a good place themselves. Florina had just been outed as a non-registered Gifted. "I don't have anywhere to go, except for Astor and mine's house, and my room in the palace."

She didn't even properly have a place of her own anymore. Eventually she would be able to return to the home she shared with Astor, but for now, it would haunt her to be there. She would hear his voice, she was sure of it. It would be too empty, too silent.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what to say, I can't even think straight. I can't believe he's... Gone."

There it was, the breakdown that Tybalt had both been expecting and weary of. 

This broke his heart. He'd hoped that day they had celebrated her wedding that this would be a new beginning for his niece, a woman who didn't give her heart over easily as far as he could tell. The commander would allow her to come in for a new and slightly deeper hug if she felt that she needed it. He hadn't known Astor all that well, but the man had struck him as being a good person, one keen to shake off his family's very poor reputation, and who had thrown himself into it. He hadn't deserved such a death, nobody did.

"I know... I know." Tybalt was only too aware that there wouldn't be any words which could potentially making things easier for her to bear. The commander had buried more than enough of his relatives to be able to put himself in her shoes. Those were memories he desperately tried to repress right now.

"You're going to come and stay with Felicity and I for a few days." The commander was formal about that much. He would hear of Scout being left by her lonesome, be it in the palace or in the house that she had shared with Astor. Birkhall was more than large enough to host another Kane. Whilst the commander hadn't checked things over with Felicity first, this was one of those things where he wasn't about to back down about. He didn't have an awful lot of family left, and there was no way in hell that he was going to allow his big sister's only daughter to go without friends and family at a time like this. "You're not going to be alone, don't you worry." 

A hug was exactly what she needed, so she was very grateful for the one Tybalt gave her. She pressed her face into his shoulder and let it all out for a moment before trying to recollect herself. She spoke a little, but none of it was very coherent or valuable. It was mostly disbelief and sadness. She was still young, but she had had to say goodbye to two of her best friends now. It would only get worse.

"Thank you", she said softly when Tybalt said she could stay with him and Felicity. It could be awkward, because she had noticed that Tybalt and Felicity didn't seem to agree as of lately, but she wouldn't stick her nose where it didn't belong. "Not being alone sounds good." She sniffled some more and dried her eyes. "You had more news? Not another husband of mine dying, I hope?" She tried to joke, but it made another tear fall down her cheek.

Tybalt would stay with Scout as long as she needed it. All he could do was offer a few words of comfort here or there, assuring her that everything was going to be okay. "Don't worry about it. We're family."

The commander would hesitate a little bit when Scout questioned him about what was contained within the letter. "Are you sure you want to hear about this now?" Assuming that she didn't refuse, Tybalt would listen carefully. He paused so as to allow his enhanced hearing to pick up on any would-be easedroppers in the vicinity. Unable to hear any, he would continue to speak:

"I have a witness, Annabeth Porter-" He mentioned her name only because there was something of a tie there. Scout had lost her husband. Annabeth her brother. "Claims that Simon Mikaels was the one responsible for the fake letters. Making matters worse, it seems as if he might be gathering likeminded followers." The commander placed both of his hands on the table behind him. He let out a heavy sigh, looking down at the floor. "You understand that this has to stay strictly confidential. I'll be seeking to speak with Lord Rainecourt about what we do now." 

She nodded when he asked if she really wanted to hear about it now. All kinds of distraction were welcome. Anything that could make her forget about the bad news for just a little while.

"And you trust lady Porter's statement?" she asked, a bit hesitant herself. "She's not exactly known as a trustworthy and respected lady." She didn't have to spell out what Annabeth had done, her uncle would certainly have heard everything about it. From Dresden to Remiel.

"I did have my suspicions already. Lord Mikaels wasn't present during the emergency meeting, and neither was his closest servant."

"I will not say a thing to anyone, but lord Augustus Rainecourt already knows of my suspicions. Can I ask how lady Porter of all people knows about it?"

Tybalt shook his head slowly in response to Scout's questioning. "I don't know kid." The man confessed. "I wish it were coming from a more reliable source, but that letter must have come from somewhere, and this is a lead."

In truth, if it weren't for her relation to Astor, Annabeth would not have been welcome within the Kane household. She'd been taken under Helena's wing in an effort to ensure that she couldn't get into any more of the situations that she'd managed to use to effectively destroy her own reputation, and thus besmirch that of the Kane family. "I've written to your grandmother to ask her to interrogate Mrs. Porter a bit further. She'll get to the bottom of this situation." Tybalt had absolute confidence in his mother's capacities as an inquisitor, he'd been on the receiving end of her interrogations enough time throughout his life to know that there were few who could resist her. 

"She claims that Lord Mikaels mentioned it to her, it seems as if he might have be trying to recruit nobles to his cause." At those words, Tybalt would frown. "If he did tell her, even not withstanding his actions with the letter, he's an idiot and needs to be kept away from the throne. It also means that we have more than one rogue element to worry ourselves with." 

She wiped down her cheeks to get rid of tear stains and nodded while she scooted closer to the edge of her seat, trying to focus on this new information.

"Good, grandmother will know what to do to get the necessary information out of Lady Porter", she said. "If you think she needs assistance with it, I would be happy to visit her." A hug from her grandmother would also help with the sad news she received earlier, although she couldn't remember if her grandmother was a big hugger.

"In any case, I personally feel like Lady Porter is just as much of a rogue element. If Lord Mikaels trusted her with that information, then that's also telling. I will not mention anything to anyone, but we need to keep an eye on both of them. Do you have men trailing Lord Mikaels?"