Clara and Sylvia.

Clara was sitting in front of Sylvia, sipping on some tea. They weren't exactly friends, but Sylvia could tolerate her presence because she was not easier to get along with. She was smart enough for Sylvia to engage in a proper discussion with her, so they didn't hate each other. It was just that the interaction between them had been minimum over the years, due to the conflict between their families.

"Sylvia, I want you to tell me everything that you know about Alex. I will be willing to give you anything that is within my power."

She was straight and direct. There was not much discussion to be done here, and she wanted to keep the chit-chat between them to be at a minimum.

"Would you like to have some tea?"

Sylvia said without any hurry. She held more power in this discussion, so she made sure that the conversational flow went according to her wishes.

"Sylvia, we both know that I don't want to extend this conversation into an unwanted direction. Tell me what you need for this information, and then I will drink your tea."

In response, she looked at her with a smile. Sylvia didn't really like it when people tried to command her, so she brought a knife out of nowhere, and threw it directly towards Clara. It missed her only by a few inches, which made her break out in a cold sweat.

"How many teaspoons of sugar?"

The smile on her face hadn't changed. All the effort that Clara had made to equal the playing field in terms of the negotiations, had failed. She answered weakly,

"Two."

Sylvia proceeded to make some tea for her. Clara was observing Sylvia with her lenses, and could not find a single change in her muscles and body that would hint towards her being tensed or stressed. She was as relaxed as she could be.

"Here, have this."

She gave Clara her cup. There was a reason why people didn't like Sylvia very much, and the reason was that you could never predict what she would do next. 'Consequences' was a mere word to her, as she could just make everyone submit using brute force. The scariest part about her was that she had always kept up with the changing times. Even technological advancements hadn't escaped her grasp, and Claudia, who had been training under her occasionally, had only been accepted because she could engage in fair trade with her in regards to knowledge.

"Clara, I know that my son has shown some incredible capability, and you would like to rope him into your family as soon as possible."

Sylvia said, before taking another sip.

"But you must understand that I won't sell him out to any of the families."

Clara was drinking her tea, without making any sound. She had expected her to reject her, that was the reason why she had already added a price. A price of anything. But what she didn't understand was that why would she make such a deal with the major families, if she was claiming to not sell her son to them?

"Then why did you come up with this deal?"

She asked without any hesitation. She was convinced that Sylvia did everything in a way that allowed Alex to choose his own future. If this was the case, then she would fight tooth and nail to prove to Sylvia that they were the best family for his future development.

"The reason is really simple. You all need to know what sort of monster you will be going up against in the future. If you think that your families are enough to keep him tied to your cause, then you should rethink your objectives. If he is tied down to any of your families, He just wasn't worth my time. But I can assure you that any one of you won't be able to contain him. He isn't an ordinary character."

Clara was finished with her drink. Sylvia was actually putting so much faith in someone. She had never expected to see this side of her.

"So you won't give him up, even if I promised to give you anything that you wanted?"

Clara asked, with a solemn expression on her face. When the Grey family was established, Lucius was the only person looking over the family affairs. She saw how much of a burden it had been for him, hence she decided to intervene and help him create a powerhouse. This was a result of both their hard work and dedication and so she had already taken a step towards the point of no return when she first made that decision. She had to make sure that she had done everything to make Sylvia open her mouth.

"Even your family isn't enough as a bargaining chip for his information. That information might not even be valuable in the first place, but I still won't give it out to anyone without his approval."

Sylvia answered calmly. She had already decided on this a long time ago, so she wasn't going to back off on her own words.

"You should know, that technology is the future. Even if it isn't as advanced now, there will come a time when most of what we do will be extremely reliant on them."

Clara tried to see what her reaction would be to this sentence. She had been unnervingly calm this entire conversation, so she tried a very light provocation. It was a bad decision on her part, but curiosity got the better of her.

"I know that. And I also know that without a human to control it, that very reliance could lead to our demise. Whatever anyone might say, you can't assassinate a lump of wires and steel, but it can surely assassinate you, without ever feeling dread, pride, anger, happiness, any of that. You want to use it to make your future easy, but be afraid that your death will become a mere objective to some program."

Sylvia responded. Clara was not only surprised but scared. She always knew that this would be a threat in the future, but now that someone had told this to her face, she couldn't help but shiver a little. The woman sitting in front of her was on point while responding to her provocation, which made her rethink that particular choice.

Without saying anything more, she left. This had been an uneventful visit, but it was still better. It could have been an unfortunate one if she would have pushed a bit more.

Sylvia on the other hand was still seated on her chair, sipping away. She had been extremely fond of tea from a very young age because it helped to calm her nerves down. Today had been an interesting day, and she had been quite amused by Clara, who had been trying to provoke her, even after her warning.

"Everything is going according to plan. Let's see what he does next."