Page 42 of Legacy Elite

"Sit down."

He sits down.

Wren doesn't reclaim anything. Neither does anybody else. On the Ardent bench a man says, "Chair—" and stops, because that isn't who she is any more and evidently nobody has told his mouth.

Werrow doesn't look at Soren again. She looks at the clerk.

"The last four words go in the minutes."

The clerk's hands stop.

"Verbatim," Werrow says. "Attributed. Including the term."

Then she folds her hands on the rail, and that's the end of it.

Nobody moves for a moment. Soren's face has gone a color I'll be thinking about for a while.

"So minuted," Wren says. "Miss Miller. I apologize. It will not happen twice in a room I'm chairing."

"Okay."

"Are you able to continue?"

My mouth is dry. My hands aren't right.

"Yeah," I say. "Keep going."

Wren takes the rest fast, and I think she does it on purpose.

How they'll look. Backward, generation by generation. Birth, marriage, burial. Census. Land and probate. Immigration, if they ever establish a crossing. Surname variants, because names move and clerks were creative. Living relatives, however distant.

"How long?"

"It could break in a month. It could take years."

"Why is this so difficult?"

"Two centuries. People move. Names change. Women marry and vanish out of the record entirely. Parish books burn." A pause. "And if anyone in that line was hiding on purpose, they were good at it. They had every reason to be."

I don’t like any of this. Can I just quit? Say, forget I shifted and go back the outdoor store?

"Fine," I say finally. “But I have one request.”

Hallam's eyebrows go up. "Miss Miller, this isn't a negotiation—"

"Which is why I said request." I look at Wren. "Tell me what you find. As you find it. Not at the end. Not once it's tidy. Not after a room like this one decides which parts I can handle."

"Miss Miller—"

"I've spent a year wondering about myself and this last summer being the last person to find things out." My voice cracks on the end of that. "I'd like to be in the loop."

Wren looks at me for a long moment.

"That's reasonable," she says. "Chancellor Falken is the channel. You'll be informed."

Then it's over, and everyone stands up, and it turns out the governing body of wolf society breaks up exactly like a staff meeting. Bags. Coats. Two men arguing about a train.

Caspian Ardent comes down the steps while I'm getting my coat on with hands that still aren't right.