Chapter 10: Read It Aloud

They came at dawn, in three cars, with the sun barely over the black wall.

Corwin and I stood side by side on the steps, a careful foot apart, and neither of us mentioned the snow.

I had washed his scent out of my hair.

It had not helped.

My mother got out first, in a grey suit, with a folded paper in her gloved hand.

Behind her came a thin man in the Council's blue sash, and then my father, and Garrick, and Odette in her pale coat.

Emmett Sorley climbed out of the third car with an Ironfang scout, a tall woman who had her arms crossed.

"Katja," my mother said, warm and loud, for the cameras along the wall. "My darling, I've missed you so."

I said nothing.

"This is the Council's envoy," she went on. "He has a guardianship order, signed last night."

She tilted her head, all sorrow.

"You're not well, sweetheart. The law says I can bring you home."

The envoy cleared his throat.

"Miss Hallam. The order cites unregistered rank, delusional claims and flight from the family pack."

"Read it again," Corwin said. "The part about unregistered rank."

"The registry lists Miss Hallam as unranked, brown."

"The registry is wrong."

"Alpha Strake, you are not her guardian."

"He doesn't have to be," I said. "I'm eighteen."

Everyone looked at me.

I came down one step and held my hand out to the envoy.

"May I see the Elder's copy, Alpha Strake?"

Corwin drew the sealed envelope from inside his coat and put it in my palm.

I turned it over once, so the wax caught the light, and then I gave it to my mother.

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