Headmistress gazed at Cæ with dubious skepticism.
Understandably so.
She had spent a lot of time thinking about the problem, as had trusted experts and analysts hired in her administration, and they hadn't been able to come up with a perfect solution to the danger.
The fact that Cæ claimed to have a perfect solution to end it all hardly inspired any confidence in her. Although she was gracious enough to communicate with him in a manner that was more even than the gap in their power and age would have otherwise made for her to do, she didn't think of him as anything more than a significant chess piece in the political battle that she was tied up in against the elite families of Colohen City and the Colohen Mafia.
At most, she had come to appreciate and respect his abilities, talents, and drive.
"Mr. Cæ," she addressed him with a skeptical tone. "What is the meaning of this? You barge into my office insisting that you have found a solution to end it all out of the blue, do you really expect me to believe that?"
Cæ quickly reached her table, taking a seat without permission, so caught up he was in his own solution.
"I don't think you saw it before because of how zoomed out your perspective is," Cæ remarked with an urgent tone. "But the Patriarch of the Nelnmont Family has a big weakness, and it's in this school, and we can use it to—"
"Let me stop you right before you dare utter another word, Mr. Cæ."
Cæ flinched as he detected faint anger in her tone for the first time in all the time he had known her.
Her expression was stern.
One of displeasure.
"I may be tied up in a highly important political battle against my enemies over what I consider to be an important political goal, however…" her tone grew intense. "I cannot and will not act with the intention of harming my own students. That includes you as well as young Melia Nelnmont, who has been entrusted to me in my capacity as an educator and leader of this institute."
She had no doubt about her stance on what she thought he was alluding to.
"I will not tolerate any suggestions of plans to abduct, kidnap, or hold her hostage against the Nelnmont Family," she spoke with a powerful tone. "Banish this thought from your mind entirely."
Cæ gazed at her with a stunned expression. "No, that's not what I was referring to, Headmistress. I was talking about the fact that we can use the fact that the Nelnmont Patriarch is abusing his daughter against him and get him to back off this lawsuit under the threat of spreading this information far and wide."
The Headmistress' expression crumbled with confusion at his hurried words. "…Pardon?"
"Melia," Cæ insisted. "She's being abused by her father. She's being forced to marry against her will, and more importantly, her family is using violence to keep her in line and in obedience."
He leaned forward with an even more driven set of eyes. "One of her greatest problems is that her father is too careful to be heavy-handed with her outside of their home, which is heavily monitored, leaving her—"
"Stop." The Headmistress raised a hand, breathing deeply before gazing at Cæ with a pointed gaze.
"What is this about Melia Nelnmont being abused? That's an outrageous allegation that would get you sued by the family with all its legal capital for defamation if you dared to utter that on the streets," Headmistress Lenolia frowned. "There have been no reports on anything like—"
"She had a bruise the day after I rejected her marriage proposal," Cæ blurted. "She is frozen in fear in the presence of her father. I saw them near the student council headquarters when he sought to speak with her."
Headmistress Lenolia's eyes sharpened. "…What?"
Cæ glared at her. "Oh, give me a break! You have enough time to spy on me at all times in the institute, but you haven't noticed anything regarding one of your students being abused by her parents?"
"I don't appreciate that tone, Mr. Cæ."
Her voice was stern.
Her gaze was heavy.
"I am the Headmistress of the Institute and, in a way, your benefactor," she continued. "Do not mistake my generosity and graciousness in my interactions with you as license for wanton rudeness. I expect you to still adhere to the modicum of courtesy and respect that a student of this magicademy should be giving to the Headmistress of this magicademy."
Cæ heaved a deep breath, relenting as he simply nodded.
"I apologize, Headmistress," his tone was a bit more formal. "But the fact of the matter is that she is being abused. And we can help her and ourselves if we choose to act on it."
She gazed at him with a knowing expression. "And you expect me to help you by leveraging my magical skill and power as a master diviner to get the needed evidence and proof to make it absolutely irrefutable."
"…Yes, Headmistress."
"You want me to use this evidence and proof to try and blackmail the Patriarch of the Nelnmont Family," she continued with a dubious tone. "Knowing full well that it is a blatant crime and violation of the laws of this land?"
Cæ didn't answer her question, simply gazing at her with an intense expression.
She heaved a sigh.
"Even if I were to agree to this plan, and I'm not saying that I am, what makes you think this plan would even succeed?" she raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any idea how many voices are behind this lawsuit? Do you understand that Nelnmont is merely operating in the direction of the rest of the elite family community? So much so that there is a chance that he wouldn't have mounted this legal attack if not for his entire political bloc?"
Her tone was skeptical and unimpressed.
It was very clear that she didn't think very highly of this machiavellian plot.
This time, however, Cæ had an answer.
"Because his familial pride and ego are extremely high," Cæ remarked with a knowing expression. "I can tell that he truly hates my blood as someone from the slums. And yet, his desire to restore the magic power in the bloodline of his family, to restore the prestige of his family for being able to produce great mages once more, is even greater. He is deeply desperate. More than you can imagine. Otherwise, I ask you…"
Cæ's intense dichromatic gray eyes remained fixed on the Headmistress. "Is there any other elite family of their power, heritage, and prestige that would dare introduce the blood of a 'slum mongrel' like myself in their blood?"
She stirred at his words as her expression shifted.
Her eyes lit up with a hint of realization.
Of the merits of his argument.
"At the very center of his desperation is his daughter," Cæ continued with a serious tone. "His daughter is his only hope, since she's his only child. She represents a weakness. The Nelnmont Family's one and only weakness."
Cæ's expression grew more solemn. "If we gain the leverage of being able to threaten that in his eyes, then we will have gained a lot of leverage. From his perspective, he will have to either lose support from other elite families, or destroy the sole continuation of his bloodline and family…"
The Headmistress fell into more serious thought as she understood what Cæ was going for.
"The Patriarch of the Nelnmont Family would never allow his bloodline and family to be destroyed," she realized with an increasingly vigorous tone. "And unless Melia remains in the family and her future husband marries into the family and adopts the Nelnmont Family, their bloodline and family will come to an end."
It didn't matter if she started a family after leaving the Nelnmont Family; her children wouldn't be considered part of the Nelnmont Family, and any of their accomplishments and prestige would not be a credit for the Nelnmont Family.
And more importantly, the Nelnmont Family would die with no successors.
"That is the absolute worst-case scenario outcome for him."
There was nothing more humiliating and worse than the Nelnmont Family's death due to something like no blood-bound successors.
With that consideration in mind, the Headmistress realized that Melia was an even greater weakness of the Nelnmont Family than she has realized prior.
She knew that the girl was important to the family, but she had purposefully avoided thinking about it deeper because she had already resolved to maintain her principles as an educator and not attack Melia to attack the Nelnmont Family, thus she had put the girl out of her mind entirely.
And yet, now that Cæ brought it back to the forefront of her mind and made her consider just how important the girl was to the elite family, she understood that she truly has a great opportunity to leverage the girl as a weakness against her family without actually causing any direct or indirect harm to her.
Of course, there was one large caveat.
"There is the matter of whether she is actually being abused or not, to the extent that it would be a slam-dunk case and serve as firm leverage despite the immense legal capital of the Nelnmont Family."
The Headmistress's tone was neutral.
She didn't come to any rash conclusions.
"You are correct in pointing out earlier that we keep a close eye on our students," she continued with a more serious and invested tone. "However, in your case, the surveillance was admittedly a little…"
She stirred. "…extra, upon my own discretion for being interested in you. However, the students from elite families have ways of impeding our surveillance of them, making it much harder to keep tabs on them."
Cæ's eyes lit up with recollection of how Melia had brought a little artifact to prevent any and all spying from the Elendir Institute of Magic on their little 'date.'
In that case, it was actually entirely understandable that the Elendir Institute of Magic hadn't been able to monitor her condition and notice anything pointing to a strong hint of abuse.
Additionally, although she didn't say it out loud, Cæ was adept enough to understand that it was self-destructive for the Elendir Institute of Magic to have pursued this in the past, since the Nelnmont Family was on the board of directors of the Elendir Institute of Magic.
They would simply be losing funding and political support to fund their enormous expenditures each year if they attacked one of their stakeholders.
However, since the Nelnmont Family had aggravated the conflict in this case, she no longer had any compunctions on the matter.
All that was left was the facts of the matter that Cæ asserted regarding her abuse, whether she was willing to break multiple laws to win this political battle, and whether she had the ability to actually spy on the Nenlmont Estate and get the needed evidence and proof.
The evidence and proof were absolutely needed.
Had it been any other family, just Melia's sobbing testimony would have been enough to punish the Nelnmont Family.
But unfortunately, there was deep power in the law enforcement sector that came with being a tycoon in the law industry.
The number of prosecutors, judges, and even officers who were in the pocket of the Nelnmont Family was large.
Cæ hadn't forgotten about his own experiences with the corruption of the police when he went to access the files regarding the investigation of the car crash that killed Lilia.
It was possible for them to get any investigation and case thrown if it was just her testimony alone.
But if there was absolute and incontrovertible proof, then…
"…then they cannot stop us."
Headmistress Lenolia heaved a deep breath.
Her expression and body language had long grown serious.
What sounded like an absurd idea was increasingly seeming to be viable.
Certainly more viable than anything her advisors and analysts had cooked up.
"Bring Melia to me."
The Headmistress's tone was final.
She closed her eyes.
"I will decide after hearing what she has to say. Her future is affected by this, and she deserves to have some say in that."