Page 38 of Legacy Elite

"An experimental program. A year of not being able to shift at all." He leans forward. "Then a shifted form nobody's documented in two centuries."

"You think I made it up."

"I think everything we know about direwolves was written after a war, by the winners, about a House whose records they burned." One shoulder goes up. "I wouldn't hang a man on that paperwork. I'm not redrawing wolf society with it either."

And—damn it, that's fair.

"I don't have an answer for you," I say. "I'm not a historian. I got cornered by a bear and shifted. My life has been weird ever since."

"Which is why I'm questioning why this requires the Council."

"Councillor." Ardent bench. Fifties, dark coat that cost more than my education, elbows on the rail like a man at a match he's mildly invested in. "What are you suggesting?"

"That we're getting ahead of ourselves." Hallam looks at him rather than me. "Even if Miss Miller proves to be descended from the Fourth House, we don't know what that means. If it means anything."

"Which would seem an excellent reason to establish who she is before debating what it means."

"We can establish her ancestry without treating it as a matter of governance."

"Can we?"

Hallam looks at him.

The man on the Ardent bench lifts one shoulder. "A direwolf appears for the first time in two centuries, possibly descended from a royal House everyone in this room believed was extinct. I'd rather not wait until we've proved it to start asking what happens if we have."

A murmur goes through the benches. Not agreement exactly. More like everyone just got reminded why they're here.

Hallam considers that for a second.

"Fair," he says.

Oh, thank God. Apparently people in this room can disagree without declaring war.

"Councillor Caspian Ardent," Wren says. "House Ardent."

Ardent.

I look at him properly and it's there. The way he sits with his shoulders squared, like sitting is a formal activity.

Ander does that.

"You're Ander's—"

"His father's brother." He smiles. "You have my sympathy."

I laugh before I can stop it.

Oh, thank God. One normal person.

Probably.

"And for the record," Wren says, "I would like to welcome Dr. Werrow attending as liaison. Thank you for coming."

Back row. No House color. She came in after everybody else and didn't sit near anyone.

Falken is already on his feet behind me.

So are four other people, none of them in a House section, and they're up before Wren finishes the sentence, and they sit down again like it never happened.