You and Bella go with Cestié up the stairs to the next floor, where a large, comfortable and warm living room awaits you. There, sitting in a padded chair in warming shafts of light from the near window, is Peppe Cestié. He looks very much like a man in his nineties; skinny, hunching, with thin skin and dull eyes. Still, he is possessed of some inner stubborn vitality that means his hands barely shake at all as he takes the last sips of soup from a bowl which he passes back a moment later to a middle aged housemaid. She looks at you first, and the old man waves her away with one thin hand; and she leaves the room.

"Papa... I'm speechless. I thought -... You're nearly a hundred years old. Ahm..."

Maso tries, but cannot find a good way to begin the conversation. His father watches him struggle, passively, before pursing his wrinkled lips.

"They said you were back, Maso. I didn't believe it. Come over here, where I can see you."

He heads over; the old man and the oldest man regarding each other before Maso offers a hand, and they give each other a shake.

The conversation doesn't come easy between them. Maso has shame for leaving; Peppe has anger; both are careful to keep those feelings somewhat under lock and key. Maso fills a lot of the awkwardness introducing you and Bella; bragging about how bright you both are, about the school in Bella Collina, the troll, and so forth. But you see Peppe's face chance the most when Maso tells him how you were taken by the skaven and escaped. The old man's wrinkly face goes from tight reservation to genuine shock and joy and then emotional tension again; the loose, thin skin on his face making the whole arrangement almost surreally expressive, like the cloth face of a hand puppet.

"Got one back, ah? Ah?" He grabs your wrist and pats the top of your hand. "Good for you, signorina; good for you. We don't normally get anyone back, from the bastards."

The oldest man seems quite taken with you and Bella, and that does a great deal to soften his regard to his returning son; which in turn fortifies Cestié for the discussion ongoing. After a few minutes, you give them a moment to talk alone.

From the bottom of the stairs, with the rest of the Cestiés, you can hear the muffled discussion ongoing. After a few minutes, it hits the confrontation pitch everyone was expecting.

"...I don't care about your machine! Your damn... machine! Always wrapped up in your own things, no regard to your family!"
"That's not true, I just couldn't stay, papa - I just couldn't! But I didn't know about Biagio coming back, or I would have done differently!"
"I thought the rats took you, Maso! For two years I thought the rats took you! Like your mother! Until you decided you'd stoop to send a message to put us out of our misery!"
"...Pape, they found her - you know-"
"They tell EVERYBODY they found them! Don't you know that? Don't you know that?! They have to tell that or people lose their minds and go running off into the swamp to get taken themselves! And the bloody thieves never left us alone, and now they have poor Augusto tangled up because of you, Maso!"

Their communion becomes quiet again after that. Biagio looks to you and Bella, with the kind of smile that knows, deep down, it is a frown.

"Augusto is my son. He's been caught up running with the Weevers for a couple of years, now - for reasons I can't understand. He's just... restless. He's good with the trade, but just..."
Franchino finishes, for him. "Just more inclined to pick locks than sell them. Like someone else we know."

Bella, who having only recently discovered Cestié has a son, is shocked again to discover he has a grandson, is appalled to hear this. As a young woman whose family walked away from her with no reason apparent, she cannot countenance a young man walking away from his family for the same senselessness.

"You don't have to become a thief just to make your own way in the world! I've been making my own way just fine - and Taalia even... Taalia had nothing, and now she's a land owner and on track to be Verezzo's biggest supplier of salted pork! He's just going to get himself in trouble... Taalia - Taalia, we have to do something!"