Chapter 24: The Luna Who Stayed

I gave the Council my answer in person.

The hall was full again, as full as the day of the hearing, with the Rowland pack on one side and a block of Mercer wolves on the other.

I walked up the center aisle in a plain green dress with my son on my hip.

He was eight weeks old, and he had decided to be quiet for the occasion.

"I accept," I said to the eldest.

She nodded.

"The third seat is yours, Joanna Ellery. You will sit on the bench, and the Council will hear you."

Hazel stood on the dais in her Alpha's gray and held out her hand.

I climbed the two steps and sat down beside her.

The bench was wide and polished and cool under my palm.

Down on the floor, in the dock, a thin woman in a gray prison dress turned her head to look at me.

It was Margaret.

They had brought her from the cells for the last matter of the day.

Her pearls were gone. Her chignon had come loose. She looked at the bench, at the chair I sat in and the chair beside it.

Her mouth twisted.

"A stray," she said, loud enough for the back row to hear. "Sitting at my husband's bench."

"Your husband's bench," Hazel said, "named me."

Margaret's face went gray.

"Your transport leaves at noon," the eldest said. "The Council has nothing further to hear from you."

"I built this pack."

"You tried to bury it," said the eldest. "Take her out."

Two officers walked her to the side door.

She turned there, once, and looked at her daughter, and her daughter looked back without blinking.

Then she was gone.

"Bring up the next," the eldest said.

Poppy came in from the other side with two guards.

She was in a plain blue dress, with a large belly, and her hair was pulled back.

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