Chapter 20: A Seat for a Silence

Caleb's POV

The study had not changed in eleven years.

The same map of the northern line hung above the desk, with the same pins in it.

The same smell of cold pipe smoke lay in the curtains.

Alastair sat behind the desk with the lamp on his hands.

On the blotter in front of him lay a white cup with a crack in the rim, a folded paper and a gold ring.

"Shut the door," he said.

I shut it, and I stayed standing, and he let me.

"That's the cup from the townhouse," he said. "The dregs are still in the bottom.

"Take it to her. A healer can swear to what's in it."

"She has the silver in a jar."

"Then she'll have the cup it came out of."

He pushed it across the desk with two fingers, carefully, as if it might still burn.

I wrapped it in my handkerchief and put it inside my coat.

"The other things," I said.

"The ring is the Alpha's ring of Stonecrown. The paper is my abdication, signed and sealed.

"It names you."

I looked at the ring.

It had sat on his hand since the day I was made his deputy.

I had seen it on the table of every council I ever served at.

"No," I said.

"Hear the rest. The king will take my title tomorrow, or I'll hand it back myself.

"Either way, Stonecrown needs an Alpha by sundown, and my mother has spent thirty years making sure there's nobody else.

"The line will break. Larchmoor's wagons will stop. People will starve in the north by spring."

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