Graaf Ernst von Suchtlen’s secret return to the Rookery turns a mysterious package sent to the Checquy into evidence of both experimental regeneration and a far-reaching infiltration. Arriving in a newly grown body, he tells Myfanwy Thomas that the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen has maneuvered into positions of power within the Checquy and established a weapon whose human power source is located in a prominent British city.

The heart and the new body

Myfanwy finds von Suchtlen in her office after opening the door expecting an ordinary end to an exhausting day. He introduces himself as Graaf Ernst von Suchtlen, and she recognizes him as a Grafter. When he reminds her of the heart that had arrived by mail, Myfanwy can only speak of it at a distance: the former Myfanwy Thomas had received it, but the amnesiac Myfanwy had learned about it from her records. Von Suchtlen supplies the missing connection directly: the heart was his.

He explains that the process of regeneration began twenty-four hours after Checquy scientists examined the heart in their laboratory. The heart had been grown from a sample of von Suchtlen, and a body could in turn grow from the heart. Its return to the Checquy was thus not a request to reclaim an object, as Myfanwy initially wonders, but a covert means for its former owner to return in another form.

Von Suchtlen describes the procedure as experimental and explains that it preserves the memories of the person at the time the sample is taken. The original body begins to break down an hour after sampling, leaving enough time to prepare and send the sample; after delivery, the heart pauses before regenerating into a person over the following weeks. It can even be dissected and still regrow. The new person may also select a couple of abilities to be reborn with, though von Suchtlen distinguishes these from the more powerful capabilities obtainable through surgery and acknowledges that the process carries risks.

A covert arrival at the Rookery

The new body lets von Suchtlen reach Myfanwy’s office without being detected. He says he traveled at night, when the cleaning staff had gone home, avoided security patrols by hanging from the ceiling, and used a body invisible to video cameras. His explanation makes the journey a practical demonstration of the technology he has just described: regeneration has not merely restored him, but furnished a means of bypassing the Rookery’s ordinary surveillance.

The intrusion is deliberately low-key in its manner. Von Suchtlen has taken Myfanwy’s desk chair while waiting, apologizes for occupying it, and begins to stand when she suggests no objection. She stops him and chooses a different chair. The small exchange sits beside a much larger breach: a visitor who can evade cameras and patrols has entered the heart of the Checquy’s headquarters and waited in the office of its Rook.

Why he came

Von Suchtlen says he has come secretly to speak with Myfanwy, then discloses that the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen has spent decades maneuvering its members into positions of power within the Checquy. The Broederschap has also established a training and experimentation operation, funded by Britain, that forcibly drafts British citizens as soldiers. His account presents infiltration not as a single breach but as an organization-wide project combining influence, experimentation, and recruitment.

He further claims that the Broederschap has created a weapon of mass destruction through new applications of its technology, powered by additional British citizens in a prominent British city. Operatives, he says, have been placed throughout the Checquy at every level, including within the Court. The disclosure expands the threat from an external Grafter danger to a compromised institution: the organization responsible for protection has, according to von Suchtlen, been penetrated at its highest level.

The heart’s route and the limits of trust

Von Suchtlen explains that the heart was also his means of escaping confinement. His cousin had grown suspicious, phone lines were tapped, and laboratory entrances and exits were watched. Von Suchtlen says he could not travel without his cousin knowing, and that the cousin’s surveillance made him feel nearly a prisoner. He had also arranged for his cousin’s assistant to be interrogated; because he feared that his own assistant might then be interrogated, he could not safely place calls through that intermediary.

Instead, von Suchtlen left the heart box in a mail-out tray. It passed to a mail-forwarding service, then to a courier, and finally to the Checquy. The route concealed his escape within an ordinary delivery chain while bringing the evidence of his return directly into the institution he says the Broederschap has infiltrated. His arrival therefore joins two acts of concealment: evading the surveillance of his cousin and evading the security systems of the Rookery.

Von Suchtlen’s account also depends on Myfanwy accepting a disclosure from the very person whose methods make verification difficult. He describes a technology unknown to Checquy staff, a journey hidden from cameras, and a network of operatives inside the Court; at this stage, the evidence available in the conversation is his explanation. The scene makes the heart both a means of escape and a test of institutional knowledge, exposing how little the Checquy may know about the systems operating within its own walls.