REMI'S POV
Vera Ashford arrived the following morning and was exactly what Emory's brief history of her had suggested: the patience of someone who has played a long game and is comfortable with long games, layered over the kind of authority that doesn't announce itself because it doesn't need to.
She looked at me when she stepped off the elevator. Not the way some people looked at me now — searching for the Moonhaven eyes, or the bloodline markers, or whatever evidence confirmed the story. She looked at me the way she looked at everything, which was with precise, unhurried attention.
"You sat well at the council," she said.
"I've been told you weren't there," I said.
"Marisol called me that same evening." The corner of her mouth moved by a fraction. "In some detail."
"That sounds acc
