A hardy mansion whose halls hang with many portraits of past inhabitants, a fine layer of dust has settled across more than a few rooms of the place since the time of the Tate ancestor who made the first Contract. It is no small fact that the Illumine used to be a far larger family and that they were among the hardest hit by the massacres years ago, and between those facts and that they share a border with the Veronique, it is unsurprising they have allied themselves with that family rather than the Tates.
