Chapter 73

The vote is called at four minutes past two.

Veira does not watch the hands. She watches Sunnsdottir, in the seat she has held for thirty-six years, whose sealed submission is sitting with the convener unopened because the emergency protocol displaced it, and who has said nothing all day.

Sunnsdottir raises her hand for the motion.

Then she stands.

"Convener. Before the count is recorded, I must disclose a defect."

Solvieg's expression does not change and her voice does. "Elder Sunnsdottir, the vote is in progress."

"Which is why it must be now." Sunnsdottir remains standing. "My vote in this chamber has been cast under standing proxy instruction, originating with Elder Rask in 1989 and transferring with the Tide seat on four occasions since. The instruction has never been repudiated. Under protocol 6.1, my vote today is not mine. Neither was my vote in Geneva in December."

The chamber does not erupt this time. It goes quiet in a way that is considerably worse.

"There are two hundred and eleven such votes since 1978," Sunnsdottir says. "Held by six current representatives. My submission is with the convener and I ask that it be unsealed."

Veira watches Croft.

He has gone entirely white, and she understands why before anyone else in the room does: his motion has just passed on a count that includes at least four proxy-held votes, which means his motion is defective, which means the largest hybrid protection measure in seven hundred years was carried on an instrument that can be voided by any advocate who reads the protocol properly.

And so was Veira's restructure.

And so, going backwards, were the nine votes between 1981 and 1994 that established the current interpretation of the persecution clause.

Solvieg unseals the submission.

The chamber adjourns at twenty past two for a review that everyone in the room understands will take months.

In the corridor afterward, Croft finds her.

He looks eleven years older than he did at ten this morning.

"You knew," he says.

"I knew on Sunday."

"You had it in Reykjavik and you didn't use it."

"I had an attendance register Aldara wasn't entitled to and a woman who'd been carrying an uncast vote for thirty-six years." Veira meets his eyes. "It was hers to disclose. I told her I knew and I told her I wouldn't touch it and then I got on a plane."

Croft is silent for a long moment.

"My motion is void," he says.

"Probably."

"Fifteen years of restoration programme. Gone on a technicality I didn't see, in a chamber I forced into session four days early, on an urgency certification I asked Halla to sign." Something in him has come apart very quietly. "I did this."

"Yes."

"You could enjoy this more visibly."

"I'm not enjoying it at all." Veira leans against the corridor wall because she is extremely tired. "Your motion was the best thing that happened in that room today and it was also aimed at taking me apart, and both of those are true, and I have been standing here for four minutes trying to work out which one I feel more."

He almost laughs. It comes out wrong.

"What happens now," he says.

"Now the compact spends six months finding out how much of its own law it actually passed." She straightens. "And I go home and lose another two per cent."

She is halfway down the corridor when he says her name.

She turns.

"The visitor log," Croft says.

She goes very still.

"Braehead Lodge, Aberdeen. Fourteen entries between 1994 and 1997." He has not moved from where he was standing. "I made a subject access request in 2011 and was refused on data protection grounds because I could not evidence a legal relationship to the resident. Morna's records were sealed under her care order and I was not her next of kin, because our mother had falsified the file in 1961 and I could not prove I was her brother without exposing what she was."

Veira does not breathe.

"You made the same request in February," Croft says, "and it was granted, because you are extremely good at your job." He looks at her steadily. "I know you have it. I have known since the eleventh."