Page 41 of Legacy Elite

Nobody in this room stole anything from the Fourth House.

They just grew up with this three house structure.

"So," I say slowly. "If I'm who you think I might be—somebody loses something."

"That's a simplification," Wren says.

"Is it wrong?"

"It's incomplete."

"But it's not wrong."

Wren doesn't answer me.

And Councillor Soren stands up.

"No," he says. "It isn't wrong. Can we please stop pretending."

"Councillor—"

My face is burning. I can hear my own pulse.

"Two hundred years without a fourth chair," he says, "and the only reason that held is they were all dead. And we are going to unmake it because a latent turned up with a bear story and some of you find her interesting."

"Councillor Soren," Wren says.

"There is nothing in her paperwork. There is nothing in her family. There is nothing in her."

He turns away from me. Finished with me. Says the rest to the benches like an aside on his way back up the steps.

"Adjourn it. Go home, mutt."

And the room does nothing.

For two entire seconds the governing body of wolf society sits in a round room and does absolutely nothing.

Somebody up on the left goes mmm. Not agreement exactly. The noise you make when a person says the thing you were thinking and you're glad it wasn't you.

I've heard that word twice before. Both times from students. Both times behind a hand.

Nobody has ever said it to my face, and the first person who does is a Great House councillor in a recorded session.

The staff keep typing.

Falken's hand comes down on the back of my chair. That's all he does. He isn't a member. He doesn't have the floor and everybody in here knows it, including him.

And I sit there, but there's a thing under my ribs that wants to stand up.

I reach for it and it slips away. Same as the mat during the fight. Same as every field all summer.

"Councillor Soren." Dr. Werrow, from the back.

The whole room turns, because Werrow hasn't spoken since the doors closed.

"Sit down."

"I don't take instruction from—"