She Was Supposed to Stay Broken, So I Let Her Think She Had novel · Chapter 18 of 40

Chapter 18: The Cost of Her Recommendation

Cass ordered my recommendation taken from my hands. The letter is still in the archive, and she is standing close enough to hear me ask why.

'Walk with me, Cass,' I say in the council antechamber, where Kael and the waiting clerks can hear every word.

Cass turns from the panel doors. The clerks pause over their papers. Kael stands beside the table, council copies stacked in front of him.

'You want to speak here?' Cass asks.

'I do.'

She steps beside me, upright and formal, her hands clasped behind her back. Her silver hair is cropped close. She knows the clerks are listening. So do I.

The amber shimmer gathers around her head. Her thoughts reach me beneath her words, restrained and exact: Keep this about the filing. Keep her from making the letter relevant.

Cass lifts her chin toward the clerks. 'My praise of your lineage records was sincere, Sera. I told the panel your documents were exemplary. That should settle any doubt about my judgment.'

The praise still matters. That is what makes it useful to her. She can point to what she said and leave out what she did afterward.

'You did praise them,' I say. 'Was that before or after you ordered my recommendation letter returned as pack property?'

A clerk holds a half-filed page over the folder. The other looks up from his notes. Cass's expression stays level, but her thought shifts beneath the amber shimmer: She knows the order came from me.

'After,' she says. 'The order came after the review.'

No one can mistake the answer. Cass does not look to Kael for help.

The letter had been her recommendation. She presented it to the panel, then ordered it back into the archive. I remember the empty space where it should have been in my hands. I had expected her judgment to protect me.

'Why did you order it returned?' I ask.

Cass's gaze moves to the clerks, then settles on me. 'The council treated the letter as pack property. I allowed it to be returned.'

'You allowed it,' I say. 'You were the one who made the order.'

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