Chapter 9 Leverage
Grady
I am at the compound kitchen table at six in the morning and Hamish is across from me eating eggs and looking at me like I am a structural problem he has been asked to assess.
Hamish doesn't speak.
That's the thing about Hamish. He waits forever.
I wrap both hands around my coffee mug and look at the table.
"Tell me," Hamish says.
So I do.
"First, she's not Marris. That was a slap in the face."
"What, Veron was so sure."
"Well, he was wrong."
Hamish cocks his head to the side and stares. He thinks I'm missing something.
"What? Am I being a dumbass?"
"Yes, you are." Hamish sits up straight and puts his elbows on the table.
"Okay tell me."
"Denholm was all against you and Marris because she was human. He's got that pureblood thing going on."
"And that fits in how?"
"You got the New Projects VP job and you challenged that boundary line. He could shake you up by hinting she was back. I don't think he really cared if it was Marris."
"What about Aldric Veron?"
"He's young and without family. Denholm is probably grooming him."
"I don't know what's up with Veron but that's a shady duo if you ask me."
"How long have you been keeping this to yourself? I know you didn't come up with this in the last five minutes."
"I started thinking about it a few years ago after you agreed to mentor me and take me as a beta on your team."
"Why then?"
"I'd just started with you when Denholm comes by my parents' house. He says he'd be a better fit and that he'd take me on if I quit you."
"What a liar!"
"That's when my ears pricked up and I started keeping an eye on him."
I sit silently digesting what Hamish told me. I need to revisit my own experiences.
"I'm going to need to revisit my history for what I've missed."
"The recognition, not a choice, not a decision. It is just a fact my wolf delivers before I hear her name. Third, I learn she is Marris's younger sister. I didn't know Marris had a sister."
I spent three visits including one significant hour in the archive vault acting like a horny teenager. Then, I leave letting her believe I'm an ass.
I have not corrected the record.
Hamish puts his fork down.
He only does that when he is taking something seriously.
"How long are you planning to wait?" he asks.
"I'm working out how to say it."
"There's no version of this that gets easier with time, Grady."
"I know that."
"The longer the gap between the recognition and the correction, the worse it lands." He picks his fork back up. "She's an archivist. She tracks provenance for a living. She will notice the gap."
I look out the kitchen window at the east ridge, gray and quiet in the early light. "I know."
Hamish nods once and eats his eggs and does not push, because that is also Hamish.
Denholm comes to the construction office mid-morning.
He has a file folder and the expression he wears when he is managing a conversation rather than having one. I've known him long enough to read the difference.
"The Veron Pack is challenging the 1940 acquisition formally. I need every piece of documentation you can extract from that university archive within thirty days."
"I have an ongoing appointment with the archivist. I'll have what we need."
"Good." He sets the file folder on the desk. Doesn't open it. "Hamish mentioned you've been spending time at the archive."
I look at Denholm.
He looks back at me.
"I've been working on the collection," I say. "That requires time."
"Of course." He glances at the folder, then back to me. "The archivist. She's cooperative?"
"She's very good at her job."
Denholm nods. Files that away somewhere behind his eyes that I don't like the look of. He picks up the folder and stands.
"Thirty days, Grady. The council is watching this one."
"The council is watching you too, as am I."
He leaves and I sit, thinking about the folder he didn't open. I have the sick feeling I have just been assessed by someone who noticed more than he was meant to.
? ? ?
At four o'clock, Lilly calls my direct line.
I answer before the second ring.
"Your pack historian has been in my stacks for two hours," she says. "She's requested access to the pre-council oral history transcripts. That's a restricted series. I need donor authorization."
Her voice is warm and slightly exasperated, and I press my free hand flat to my desk.
"Bex is there?"
"She is. She's also reorganized my cart of returns. To be clear, I did not, in any way, ask her to do it. She is technically correct about the order she put them in. That makes it so much harder to be annoyed about, but it is still wrong."
I close my eyes briefly. Bex.
"Give her whatever she needs," I say. "Full access, on my authorization."
"That's what I assumed. I just wanted you to know that your people have discovered my archive."
"It won't happen again without notice." I say but I'm not hopeful. Bex is as Bex does and she does a lot.
"It can happen again," Lilly says. "She's useful. I just prefer a heads-up." A pause, and then her voice shifts by a degree I can't fully name. "She's been asking me questions."
"What kind of questions?" I do not like the sound of this.
"The kind I don't have a context for yet." Another pause. "I'll figure it out."
She hangs up before I can ask what that means.
I sit in the office for a long moment.
Then I drive out to the east ridge after dark and I run in wolf form because it is the only thing that quiets the pull when it gets this loud.
An hour across the ridge, through the pine dark and the cold air, until the wolf burns through enough of the pressure that I can think in complete sentences again.
I come back to the compound and I shift at the tree line and I stand in the cold grass and I think about Marris. About the night I let Denholm's voice be louder than my own instinct. I have spent eighteen years carefully not repeating that mistake by not getting close enough to anyone to make it.
The wolf picked a human anyway.
The wolf always knew better than I did.
I go inside. I sit down at the kitchen table with a notepad and a pen, because some things need to be written before they can be said, and I write down what I am going to tell Lilly, and when, and how.
Then my phone buzzes on the table.
Denholm.
A photo. I open it.
A document I have never seen. Old paper, dense text, a formal heading that makes the back of my neck go tight: Hansen Clan Council Ruling, 1984.
The subject line of the message reads: You need to see this before Thursday.
I look at the image for a long time.
Then I set the phone face-down on the table and look at the notepad.
Thursday just changed shape.