Chapter 8: The File

Lysander's POV

The Bloodline Registry kept its files under the palace, in a stone vault with one clerk asleep at a desk.

I woke him at midnight with a lantern in his face.

"Contract license four hundred and twelve, series seven," I said. "Bring it."

He scrambled up, blinking.

"Your Majesty, that file is sealed to the Court until the public review. You ordered it yourself."

"I know what I ordered."

"The Chief of Selection was here an hour ago, asking for the same one."

"Was he?" I said. "Did you give it to him?"

"No, Majesty. The seal."

"Then I'm the seal," I said. "Bring it."

He brought it.

It was thinner than I expected, three sheets and a folded ledger page, tied with a gray ribbon.

I sat at the clerk's desk and untied it with hands that did not feel like mine.

The first sheet was the license itself.

It was the Crown's own form, with a Crown stamp, and my initials in a regent's careless hand.

I turned to the second sheet.

It was a bill of sale.

It was dated fifteen years ago, on the night of the Full Moon Festival.

Seller: the Alpha of the Thornwell pack, in his own hand.

Goods: one female child, Elowen, aged eight, of the Thornwell bloodline.

Price: six silver.

Terms: conveyed beyond the pack's borders, never to be returned for any price.

Under it, the Thornwell seal was pressed into red wax, deep and clean.

I read it three times.

On the third reading I realized that the lantern was shaking, because my hand was.

The third sheet was a letter, short, to the trader.

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