Chapter 81

Chapter 81ANNALISAI left the main room at half past nine.Not running. Not retreating. I walked out with the measured pace of someone heading somewhere specific, because even the manner of leaving a room was observable at an event like this and I was not going to give anyone a picture of a woman who needed to escape.I turned into the first corridor I found that was quiet.It was one of the building's older sections, less trafficked than the main reception hall. I stood near the wall and breathed.Ten minutes. That was what I needed. Ten minutes of not performing composure before I could go back in and perform it again for however many hours remained.The dinner had been manageable. I had managed it. I had been there perhaps three minutes when I registered that the corridor was not empty.He was near the far window, standing with his back partially to me, his jacket adjusted in the way of someone who had stepped out of a warm room and was recalibrating. He had not heard me come in,

Chapter 82

Chapter 82ANNALISAHe was older than I had expected, which was not a reasonable thing to think given that I had not known what to expect, with the broad build of someone who had been physically imposing in his youth and had transitioned into a different kind of imposing with age. Grey at the temples, deep lines around his eyes, and the particular quality of a man who had navigated several decades of inter-pack politics and had arrived at a set of opinions about all of it that he considered final.He saw Antonio first and his expression warmed slightly with the recognition of a professional relationship.Then he saw me.The warming did not disappear. It simply adjusted, recalibrated into something more measured, the way a room's temperature shifts when a window is opened."Alpha Greenwood," he said, coming forward and extending his hand."Alpha Silas," Antonio said. "Thank you for coming."Silas shook his hand and then turned to me with the particular courtesy of a man who was going t

Chapter 83

Chapter 83ANTONIOSilas waited until Annalisa's footsteps had faded before he said anything.He was that kind of man. The kind who understood that the shape of a room changed after someone left it and that waiting for the new shape to settle before speaking was not patience for its own sake but a practical choice."Complicated evening," Silas said."Yes," I said."She holds herself well," he said. Not a compliment exactly. More like a technical observation, the assessment of someone who watched people for professional reasons and noted what he saw without attaching sentiment to it."She always did," I said.Silas looked at me with the particular quality he had, the look that did not push but did not miss anything either."You wanted to speak privately," I said. "What about."He moved to the window and stood there for a moment looking out at the dark before he turned back."Marcus," he said.I had expected several things. Marcus had not been one of them."What about him," I said."He

Chapter 84

Chapter 84DOMINICI did not want to leave.That was the simple truth of it and I was not going to dress it up into something more complicated than it was. I had been aware of the meeting in Crestholm for three weeks, had known it was coming and had been quietly hoping that the circumstances around it would shift enough by the time it arrived to give me a reasonable basis for sending a representative instead of going myself.They had not shifted.If anything they had become more complicated, which was the direction things in Annalisa's life had been moving for the past month with a consistency that I found professionally impressive and personally exhausting."You have to go," Annalisa said.She was folding one of my shirts with the focused efficiency she brought to practical tasks, the same efficiency she brought to everything, and she did not look up when she said it."I know I have to go," I said."Then stop standing there looking like you're calculating whether you can get out of i

Chapter 85

Chapter 85DOMINIC "It is a reason for me to be concerned," I said."Then be concerned from Crestholm," she said. "And call me. And I will tell you that everything is fine.""And if everything is not fine.""Then I will tell you that too and you will come back," she said. Simply. As though it were obvious.I looked at her for a moment."Rhys is good," I said. It was not a question."Rhys is excellent," she said. "You chose him yourself.""I chose him for the territory," I said. "Not for—""He is staying here for both," she said. "Territory oversight and whatever else needs oversight. He knows."I added the last document to the case and closed it.Eli found us twenty minutes later.He came into the room with the particular energy of someone who had heard something and had been sitting with it long enough to have developed feelings about it and was now ready to deliver those feelings in person.He looked at the packed case on the floor.Then he looked at me."Cora said you were going s

Chapter 86

Chapter 86DOMINICThe flight to Crestholm took three hours.I used the first hour to go through the briefing documents for the bilateral meeting, the framework drafts and the outstanding points that had not been resolved in the previous session and would need to be resolved in this one. The second hour I spent on the territory updates Rhys had sent through before takeoff, a thorough account of the first six hours of my absence that I had not asked for and was glad to have.Everything was stable.The perimeter patrols were running on the expanded schedule. Eli had eaten lunch without incident and had spent the afternoon campaigning Cora for something that Rhys described only as the ongoing request, which I understood to mean the dog. Annalisa was in the workspace going through the supply chain documentation, which Rhys reported with the particular dryness of someone who had expected nothing less.I read the update twice and put the tablet down.The third hour I spent looking at the cl