Chapter 144

Kade

They came at ten.

All eight of them. The council had kept the same day and the same hour for as long as I had been alive, and in all that time I could count on one hand the mornings anyone had called it outside them. I sat at the head of that table now and listened to them come in, one by one, and knew from their footsteps how each of them had taken my note.

Edmund Marsh, quick and worried. Hester, slow, in no hurry at all. Ansel Pike, so quiet I didn’t hear him until he was pulling out his chair. And Garrick, last, with his cane striking the boards hard enough to be heard in the corridor, so that everyone would know he was angry before he opened his mouth.

Abby sat at my right hand. She had dressed carefully, in one of the dark blue dresses she wore for council, and pinned her hair back so the silver showed. She was very pale. Through the bond she was quiet, the kind of quiet that takes effort.

Liam sat on my left. Ryan stood by the door, w