When I played the “Detectives” line of Lynette’s hangout, I kinda had the feeling that the whole story was an allegory for something that happened with Pierro — and after reading The Feline Firm, I’m even more sure about that, because the stories are really similar.
Synopsis
In the hangout, we learn that a guy named Pierre (so close to “Pierro” lol) was the one who tricked her into getting in the Lefevere family’s carriage at a dinner party to take her away, before “Father” intervened — so far, really similar to what happens in The Feline Firm. Arlecchino then orchestrated the fall of the Lefevere family, and took Lyney & Lynette in to the House of the Hearth.
Now, we’re investigating a whole Imitation Synthe business that is supposedly run by Pierre — he manufactures the Imitation Synthe, and then he works with some guy from the Humane Society to use their cats as vessels to transport the stuff. Their plans get messed up when one of the cats, Bonnie, manages to escape before he can get the Imitation Synthe in her.
While we’re investigating all this, there are a few really interesting lines of dialogue:
Lyney: …It appears the Lefevere family was very particular in their use of insignias and emblems.
Lyney: The family would use different emblems to mark differences in status, blood relation, and the like. In fact, the insignia that was discovered on the pendant was used to represent an illegitimate child.
Traveler: So that would mean… Pierre is a bastard child?
Chevreuse: It’s highly likely. That very status might have been what allowed him to emerge from the fall of his family relatively unscathed. It would also explain why he was able to assume a new identity as a researcher with relative ease.
First of all, the insignia in question is the Rod of Asclepius, which I have to imagine is leaning more into the “poison” part of representing “healing and medicine.” No idea why this would be used to represent an illegitimate child, tho.
This part is also a little muddy after the fact, because it’s later discovered that another person, Elodie Lefevere, was the actual illegitimate child of the Lefevere family, as well as the mastermind behind this whole thing. She also planned to frame and murder Pierre (I’m still not sure if she actually did manage to murder him or not).
Thoughts
Obviously, I don’t think any of this is an exact one-to-one retelling of Pierro’s life. But I do think that the similarities between this story and The Feline Firm point to a strong theory that Pierro smuggled someone out of Khaenri’ah — whether they wanted to go or not.
There’s also this question about whether or not Pierro is an illegitimate child. It would be pretty interesting if he was, since as far as we know, he should be pure Khaenri’ahn based on his current appearance. But maybe there’s more to it than that.