The ordeal left William Miles pale. His heart pounded under the strain; his blood felt like it was still churning. He genuinely wondered if a vessel in his brain might burst.
"Relax. That was just verification. Apple No. 3 recognizes you now." Bella kept her voice steady. "Let your guard down. Use your heart, not your will. Don't try to control it — just listen."
She was certainly not going to admit this had been a deliberate test for her new lieutenants. If they couldn't handle an Apple, what business did they have calling themselves assassins?
With her help, William managed to calm himself. Following the descriptions in ancient texts, he tried to hear what the Apple was saying — but no matter how hard he concentrated, the words remained just out of reach, formless and indistinct.
He gave up after a moment and stepped back.
Bella gestured toward Gavin. His experience was no more pleasant, but he passed the authentication as well. From here on, both men could use Apple No. 3.
"What was it trying to say?" William asked. "Did you understand it, Mentor?"
It was wishing you a good day, actually. But looking at both men's grave, expectant expressions, Bella wasn't sure that was the right answer to give.
She decided to let them keep their illusions.
"I couldn't make it out clearly," she said instead. "Something about a catastrophe — a cataclysm that would destroy all of human civilization. There's an Isu word for it: Toba. I don't fully understand what it means." She let the subject drop. "What I do need is access to every piece of the Brotherhood's historical documentation. All of it."
That was a Mentor's prerogative. Neither man raised an objection.
Bella continued. "In addition — gather every Brotherhood member currently in operation. I want to meet them individually and use the Apple to screen each one."
Both men bowed. "Understood."
William Miles and Gavin Banks relayed the order worldwide, framing it not as a security screening but as an audience with the new Mentor. That was the only framing that wouldn't create panic. How each member traveled, when, and to where — all of it had to remain classified.
For the next fifteen days, Bella moved constantly. She was in Sendai one day to meet members arriving from Russia; South Africa the next to meet the Canadian chapter. It was a different location every twenty-four hours. To kill her, you'd have needed to blow up the planet.
Along the way, she ran into two familiar faces — Kujiro and Iwata from the Ashina domain, older now, carrying a bit more weight, their features partially obscured. She recognized them instantly.
They were currently registered as the Ninidze brothers, members of the Georgian chapter, looking healthier and far more well-fed than they'd been back in Ashina. They didn't recognize her beneath her mask and voice modulator. She didn't announce herself. A brief exchange, an Apple scan — clean — and she moved on.
Between meetings, Bella began working through the Brotherhood's surviving archives.
The Assassins had always lagged behind the Templars. The reasons were structural: the Templar philosophy aligned naturally with those in power, which meant governments and rulers had frequently supported them overtly or covertly. The Brotherhood, by contrast, had spent most of its history as either a target or a tool — pursued, exploited, never quite backed.
Add in the near-total devastation of the Purge two years prior, and the surviving documentation was sparse.
Bella read through everything. The Brotherhood stretched back more than two thousand years; it had touched nearly every major civilization and accumulated a scattered but genuine trove of esoteric knowledge and artifacts. She requisitioned all of it without ceremony.
She hadn't even finished studying the Koh-i-Noor, and already the Brotherhood's storage rooms were presenting her with more than she could catalog. Relics tied to every major world religion — she read until her eyes crossed.
William and Gavin accompanied her on every leg of the journey, staying close as she worked through the texts. If she had questions, they answered when they could. When they didn't know, they said so.
In the Milan chapter house, she leaned back and gave them a dry look. "You should really be paying me extra. Mentor wasn't in the job description. Neither was 'antiquities appraiser.'"
They had no good response. What could they say? Assassins and mages had never been natural allies — the Brotherhood had killed plenty of mages over the centuries, though mages had killed even more assassins. Magic had long since vanished from public life; the Brotherhood had not.
Many of the confiscated items bore no documentation at all. Generations of assassins had seized objects they didn't understand and stacked them in storage, and the power in most of them had faded over centuries. What remained was often fragmentary.
Bella was the only one who could tell what any of it actually was.
"This one... looks like a Brahmin ritual object."
"Mr. Miles — throw that one out the window. It's just a cremation urn. Worthless."
"Oh? A demonic artifact. Let me check the name — Nishandy? This is dangerous. Seal this cloak and these boots separately."
The most significant find was a magical scroll. By Bella's internal taxonomy, it ranked at the sixth circle or higher. The spell structure was intricate, drawing on extensive underlying theory; she couldn't replicate it through psionics with her current knowledge.
She could, however, read its purpose clearly enough.
Disintegrate. A spell legendary across countless traditions. One cast, and the target — body, equipment, everything — ceased to exist. Not even scraps left behind.
It was the kind of spell that broke your heart and ended your enemy's existence simultaneously.
"Hm." She paused on a document from the Milan archive. "Da Vinci helped the Brotherhood study an Apple? He also redesigned several weapons for them?"
William and Gavin exchanged a glance. Was that really worth stopping for? She'd been reading through centuries of records without breaking rhythm. What had caught her attention here?
They confirmed it anyway: "Yes. Leonardo da Vinci was an important ally of the Brotherhood during that era, though he never formally joined. Mentor — is there something concerning about that?"
Bella shook her head. "No, just thinking out loud."
Inside, her thoughts ran a little differently. I did rather slander that man once. Do they know?
Fifteen days and 227 members later, the screening was complete. No additional Templar infiltrators. The artifact inventory and archive review were done.
Bella now had a working picture of what the Brotherhood actually was.