The Council Chamber had never felt more imposing than it did on the morning of Stella's first official meeting. Ancient stone walls rose forty feet overhead, carved with protective runes that pulsed with millennia of accumulated power, while massive windows filtered the early light into patterns that seemed to shift and change depending on the viewer's supernatural heritage. The circular table at the chamber's center could seat fifty beings comfortably, though today only thirty-two chairs were occupied by the current Council members representing every major supernatural faction.
I sat between Dante and Stella, acutely aware of the attention our daughter was drawing from beings who had lived for centuries and were unaccustomed to sharing their political space with teenagers, regardless of
