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Now that he was dead without a successor, the adjuncts would play it safe until the Elder Council appointed a new Chronicler. Everyone would fall back into doing things the way they’d always been done. Dad had been so busy grooming me to be his pawn he’d run short on time to groom his own successor. I was probably the closest thing to being his successor and champion.
So what did that say about Gaia’s Will?
That Her Will had turned into Her Wrath a while back and we just hadn’t noticed.
In my dream, Sterling had been the scales of flesh, holding one puppy above the water, with a necklace in the other. Had the necklace been a symbol of greed?
Sterling shifted and leaned forward on one knee. “Why did you come to Winter for this?”
Janice tried to sound casual. “Oh, it’s kinda got around she moved to the city. That she’d know about how to do things official.”
“You’re lying,” Sterling said.
She cringed. “I’m not!”
She was most definitely lying.
“So why are you here and not at GranitePaw?”
She fidgeted. “They ah… couldn’t help me.”
“Wouldn’t,” Sterling corrected.
Janice flinched like he’d struck her.
Sterling growled. “This is a cheap wanderer ploy, Winter.”
The single word sent her shrinking back. “No! No! I stay away from them!”
“Do they stay away from you?” Sterling pressed in a dark tone.
She went the same gray shade as Sterling’s hair and gibbered something senseless.
“Leave.” Sterling’s growl seemed to rattle the windows.
“Please,” she begged, “please!”
“You’re asking us to make an end run around GranitePaw. You can’t be that foolish, and you can’t think we are that foolish.”
“Please!” she keened.
I had to give her credit: she was determined. Sterling was also letting a prime chance for some information pass us by. I put my hand on his thigh. The muscles bunched under my touch. I told Janice, “We might not be the pack to help you with this.”
Paperwork always had the scent of a personal referral to it. Packs weren’t post offices, they were gatekeepers. GranitePaw handling this registration added a bit of vouchsafe to it, while SnowFang—with our myriad of political problems—would add stains. Even if this request wasn’t bullshit, we were not the pack that this pup’s name needed to be attached to.
Not that I’d ever been overly impressed with the GranitePaw Alpha, Kyle, the few times I’d been within breathing distance of him and his Luna at Greater Meetings. He’d seemed too polished to ever be an Elder Alpha, but nobody cared what I thought. My opinion also didn’t change that the GranitePaw had always been supporters of my father’s population politics, even though the SilverPaw were harsh critics of GranitePaw’s city-dwelling. Kyle had criticized the SilverPaw members, like Beta Daniel, who thought my father pushed for too much. Kyle was a doctor (even if he was a cosmetic surgeon) and was a pretty staunch defender of change being needed.
Smaller packs and individual wolves had supported my father’s population politics to one degree or another, but GranitePaw had been the biggest, most public, and vocal supporter. So their refusal to help Janice, especially over a girl pup, was a huge red waving flag.
Of course, it could just mean that they didn’t want to carry that banner without my father to lead the charge.
And if that was true, that left me the last, pathetic hope.
With her eyes fixed on Sterling’s shoulders, Janice carefully reached into her jacket and withdrew a battered manilla envelope. She extended it towards me with a quivering hand.
“How long ago did you ask GranitePaw?” I asked.
“A year,” she whispered, not looking at either of us. But it wasn’t submission.
