The Eclipsed Life of Luna Mischa novel · Chapter 26 of 32

Chapter 26: The Quay Hearing

By noon there wasn't a space on the quay.

The fair was still going round the edges, because nobody had told the tourists to stop.

There were ice creams, and crab sandwiches, and pups with painted whiskers.

But every wolf in the South West had come down to the water.

The Alphas of a dozen packs stood along the harbour wall with their Lunas.

Our forty northern wolves stood together by the chapel.

The Trevail wolves stood in front of the black arched doors of their cellars.

The council's trestle table stood in the middle of the cobbles, where Clive had parked his Jaguar the first day.

Three wolfen councillors sat behind it. The chair was a tall grey man with a walking stick across his knees.

At the end of the table, invited, sat the eldest elder of Night Whispers in her straw hat.

She'd come down overnight with the Coldwater Alpha's family.

The old Luna sat beside her with her knitting.

Clive stood in front of the table in his tweed jacket, with his solicitor at his elbow.

Bethany stood a step behind him.

She wasn't in pink. She wore a plain grey dress, and there was not a single bracelet on her arms.

She didn't look at me once.

The church clock up the hill struck noon.

Clive turned to the crowd, to the Alphas on the wall, and spread his hands.

"Friends. I'm sorry to spoil a good day. But a debt's a debt."

His solicitor laid papers in front of the chair.

"The Trevail Pack borrowed three hundred and forty thousand pounds from me and agreed a date. That date is today. The hour is now." Clive turned and looked straight at Jago. "Unless the money's on this table, the cellars, the quay and the harbour are mine. I'd like the council to say so in front of witnesses."

The chair looked at Jago. "Alpha Trevail?"

Jago stood with his arms folded. "Our accountant will answer for us."

"Your accountant."

"She's better at it than me."

I walked out from the cellar doors with the biscuit tin under my arm.

"Councillors," I said. "I'm Mischa. Twenty years ago I stood in your hall and you voided this man's loans as usury. He told me then that one day he'd sit at my table."

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