The three people inside the building were not what I expected.
The first was a woman — mid-forties, professional bearing, the look of someone used to being in charge of things who was currently furious about not being in charge of this thing. Her name, it emerged, was Mira Dosk. She had been Halveth Crone's senior operations coordinator for years. She had directed the grey corridor operation that took Sera. She had personally arranged for Soren Vail to be placed in the Council archive.
She had the energy of someone who had run a very efficient machine and was personally offended by its current state.
The second was Soren Vail himself — the Council mole, younger than I'd imagined, twenty-four at most, with the look of someone who had taken a job for the money and had now deeply reconside
