Chapter 23: Her Own Name

I went back to the registry hall at noon, and this time I walked up the steps alone.

Nobody held my hand.

The hall was full anyway.

Both packs filled the benches.

The Council envoy stood to one side of the long stone table with her leather folder.

Hester sat in the front row in her good cardigan.

She had combed her cropped white hair flat for the occasion.

She had not stopped glaring at the ceiling since she sat down.

"They've patched the roof," she said, when I stopped beside her. "My husband would've hated that."

"Gram."

"Go on. Sign the thing."

The registrar was waiting at the table.

She was the same tiny woman in gray, with the same silver needle, and her hands were not quite steady.

"I misread the room last time," she said quietly.

"I should have called the stone when it lit. I stood there and let him go on."

"You didn't know."

"I knew something." She looked up at me. "I won't make that mistake twice."

Nash came down the center aisle with a long flat box.

It was the glass case from Warrick's office, the one that had held the stolen ledger leaf.

He set it on the stone and opened the lid.

"Found it with the planning lists," he said. "In the back of his truck."

"Is it whole?"

"All of it." He swallowed. "And there was something else in his coat, in the closet at the hall."

He reached into his jacket and took out a folded piece of paper, yellowed at the edges.

I knew it before he unfolded it.

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