All the rooms in the house are empty.

His mother and sister are--safe, he hopes, he prays, but his brothers and father are counting on him and him alone, and Ezio knows he cannot fail, cannot.

Anger shudders through him with a sick sense foreboding that he hates and is not used to, and with a steadying breath he kneels beside the hidden chest in his father's office to take up the white robes and broken blade.