Chapter 23: The Rail Yard

The Council met on Tuesday in a field of rusted track on the West Side, with the river behind it and the wind coming hard off the water.

The clerk had set up a table on the old loading platform.

Thirteen landholders stood around it in overcoats, and the Chair held her hat to her head with one hand.

It was my land, and I'd never stood on it.

I looked down at the rails running away toward the water and tried to feel what a deed was supposed to feel like.

What I felt was cold ankles.

"Is it what you pictured?" Everett asked.

He stood one step behind me, where he'd stood all month.

"I pictured a building," I said.

"There will be a building."

"Six of them, with the rider."

"Six," he said. "And a school."

I leaned back against him, only an inch, and he didn't make anything of it.

Toby had come in a scarf the size of a flag, and he pointed out every rat he saw.

Camille stood with her father, who had flown back to see it.

The old man with the cane stood by the loading dock and studied the ground at his feet.

Damon came across the rails at ten.

He walked alone, in the gray suit, with a bound ledger under one arm.

Nobody spoke as he came, and nobody moved out of his way, and he stepped around the puddles himself.

He stopped in front of the table, and the wind took the corner of his tie.

"Madam Chair," he said.

"Alpha Falk."

"I've come to surrender the Ashgate registry."

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