Chapter 8 The Sealed Record
I found the pack historian's office on the third floor of the east wing, tucked into a corner that most of the packhouse seemed to have forgotten existed — narrow stairs, a long hallway lined with portraits of past Alphas going back further than I could easily count, and at the end of it, a door with a small brass plate that simply read Historian.
I knocked, and after a moment, the door opened to reveal Ilse — older than most of the council, sharp-eyed, with the kind of presence that suggested decades of quietly knowing more about this pack than anyone gave her credit for.
She'd held the position of pack historian for longer than I'd been alive, maintaining records, genealogies, the accumulated written history of Ashgrove going back generations, and if there was anyone in this packhouse who might know something about a sealed record from three years ago, it was her.
"Alpha." Ilse's eyebrows rose, just slightly, taking in what I could only assume was the visible evidence of a sleepless night. "This is unexpected. Come in."
The historian's office was small but dense — shelves floor to ceiling, books and ledgers and boxes of documents stretching back further than I wanted to think about, the particular organized chaos of someone who knew exactly where everything was even if no one else could have found it in a hundred years of trying.
"I need to ask you about something," I said, once the door was closed behind us. "Something from three years ago. A Luna candidacy. A rejection."
Ilse's expression didn't change, but something in her posture did — a stillness, subtle but unmistakable, the same kind of stillness I'd noticed in Desmond the night before, though it read differently on her.
Less like someone managing a reaction, and more like someone bracing for a conversation they'd long expected and hoped never to have.
"Wren Calloway," she said quietly. It wasn't a question.
"You know about it."
"I know there's a record." Ilse moved toward one of the shelves, though she didn't immediately pull anything down — instead, she stood in front of it for a long moment, her back to me, and when she spoke again, her voice had taken on a careful, measured quality that reminded me, uncomfortably, of the way the council had spoken yesterday morning.
"Alpha, may I ask why you're asking about this now? "
"Because I read the record last night. The official one — the termination notice, with my signature on it.
" I kept my voice level, though something in my chest had gone tight, the same tightness that had been building since I'd woken up this morning and found, waiting for me, the memory of Birdie's small, curious face and the gray-green eyes that belonged unmistakably to my own family line.
"I have no memory of any of it. Not the candidacy.
Not the rejection. Not the bond, or the pregnancy, or any of the months surrounding it.
It's just — gone. And I don't believe that's grief, or time, or anything ordinary.
I think something happened to me. And I think you might know something about it. "
Ilse turned around slowly, and for the first time since I'd known her — which was my entire life, given that she'd been pack historian since before I was born — I saw something on her face that looked, unmistakably, like relief.
"I've been waiting three years for someone to ask me that question," she said quietly. "I just didn't think it would be you."
"What do you mean?"
Ilse moved to her desk, pulled open a drawer — not the top one, but a lower one, set further back, the kind of drawer that required a small key she produced from a chain around her neck — and retrieved a thin, sealed envelope, the kind of formal sealing the pack used for records considered sensitive enough to require restricted access.
"Three years ago, I was instructed to seal the full record of the Luna candidacy review," she said, setting the envelope on the desk between us but not yet opening it.
"Not just the termination notice — the full proceedings.
The candidacy approval. The bond confirmation.
The pregnancy announcement. And the rejection itself, in full, word for word, as it was recorded by the council scribe at the time. "
"Instructed by whom?"
"By you, Alpha. Or—" Ilse hesitated, and something in her expression shifted, careful and uncertain in a way I'd never seen from her before.
"By someone with your authority, at least. The instruction came through proper channels — your seal, your signature, the same as the termination notice.
I had no reason, at the time, to question it.
Sealing sensitive records isn't unusual, particularly for matters involving an Alpha's personal life.
I assumed you wanted the full proceedings kept private, and I respected that. "
"But you said you've been waiting three years for someone to ask."
"Because of what's in the full record, Alpha.
" Ilse's voice had dropped lower, and there was something in it now that I recognized — not fear, exactly, but the particular caution of someone choosing to say something they'd decided, a long time ago, they probably shouldn't say.
"The termination notice you read is four sentences.
Dry, formal, complete in itself — the kind of record that closes a matter cleanly, with nothing left to question.
But the full proceedings, the actual transcript of what happened in that council session—" She paused, and her hand rested, briefly, on the sealed envelope, like she was bracing herself before continuing.
"It doesn't read like the same event, Alpha.
The termination notice describes a rejection issued calmly, on personal grounds, with the candidate accepting the outcome and departing without incident.
The full transcript describes something very different.
Shouting. A young woman in tears, pleading, asking what she'd done wrong.
And an Alpha—" Ilse's eyes met mine, steady despite everything, "—who, according to the transcript, did not appear to be entirely himself.
The scribe's notes describe you as — and I'm reading directly, Alpha, these are not my words — 'speaking without affect, eyes unfocused, repeating phrases as though reading from a script rather than speaking from conviction. '"
The room went very quiet.
"You're telling me," I said slowly, "that there's a written record — an official, witnessed record — describing me, three years ago, behaving like someone who wasn't in control of his own actions.
And that record was sealed. Buried. And the four-sentence summary that replaced it in general circulation describes the same event as calm, deliberate, and final. "
"Yes, Alpha."
"And you've had this. For three years. Sealed."
"Yes." Ilse didn't look away, didn't flinch, though I could see what it cost her to hold my gaze.
"Alpha, I want to be honest with you, because I think — given everything — you deserve that.
When the seal instruction came through, I had concerns.
The discrepancy between the transcript and the public summary was significant enough that I considered raising it with the council.
But I was — I'll be plain, Alpha. I was discouraged from doing so. "
"By whom?"
"By your uncle." Ilse's voice was quiet, but steady.
"Desmond came to see me, shortly after the seal was put in place.
He didn't threaten me, exactly — Desmond rarely threatens anyone directly, that's not how he operates.
But he made it very clear that the matter was — delicate.
That you were in a fragile state, grieving your father, adjusting to the Alpha title, and that reopening a painful chapter so soon after it closed would do more harm than good.
To you, specifically. He framed it as — protection.
Protecting you from having to revisit something traumatic during an already traumatic time. "
"And you believed him."
"I wanted to believe him." Ilse's voice carried a weight I hadn't heard from her before — something close to guilt, the particular guilt of someone who'd had doubts and set them aside because the alternative had seemed, at the time, more frightening than the doubts themselves.
"Alpha, three years ago, you'd just become Alpha.
The pack was unsettled. Your father's death had been sudden, and there was — there was a great deal of uncertainty about whether you were ready for the title, whether the pack would hold together under a new, young, grieving Alpha.
Desmond was the one steady presence through all of that.
He stepped in, handled things, kept the council functioning while you found your footing.
Questioning him — questioning anything about that period — felt, at the time, like it might destabilize something the pack desperately needed to stay stable.
So I sealed the record, and I told myself it was the right call, and I tried not to think about it too hard. "
"But you kept it. The full transcript. You didn't destroy it."
"No." Ilse's hand tightened, briefly, on the envelope.
"I couldn't. Whatever else I was — whatever I let myself be talked into — I'm the pack historian, Alpha.
I don't destroy records. Not even ones I'm uncomfortable with.
I sealed it, and I kept it, and I told myself that someday, if it mattered, it would still be here. "
"It matters now."
"I know." Ilse pushed the envelope across the desk toward me, and for a moment her hand rested on top of it, like she was hesitating — not about whether to give it to me, but about something else, something that hadn't yet been said.
"Alpha, before you open this — I need you to understand what reading it is going to mean.
The transcript doesn't just describe what happened to you that night.
It describes what happened to her . Wren Calloway.
In detail. Her words, her reaction, everything.
If you read this, you're not just going to learn something about your own missing memory.
You're going to learn, in full, exactly what she went through — and you're going to have to sit with the fact that whatever was done to you that night, it was done to her too, in front of everyone, and then quietly erased from the record so that for three years, the only version of that night anyone outside this room has ever known is the one that makes it look like it was simple.
Clean. Her choice to leave, your choice to let her. "
I looked down at the envelope. Three years of my life, sealed inside a single sheet of paper, waiting — apparently — for exactly this moment, this conversation, this question I hadn't known to ask until a checkpoint guard recognized a name yesterday morning.
"I need to read it," I said quietly. "I need to know what happened. To both of us."
"I understand." Ilse withdrew her hand, and for a moment, neither of us moved.
"Alpha — one more thing, before you go. The seal on this record can only be broken by the Alpha, or by full council vote.
You have the authority to open it right now, alone, in this office, and no one else needs to know until you're ready.
But once you do — once you know what's in there — you're going to have decisions to make.
About Desmond. About the council. About what happens next.
I'd encourage you not to make any of those decisions tonight, exhausted, alone.
Read it. Sit with it. And then decide what you're ready to do. "
"Thank you, Ilse." I picked up the envelope, and it felt heavier than a single sheet of paper had any right to feel. "For keeping this. For everything."
"I should have done more, three years ago.
" Ilse's voice was quiet, and for the first time since I'd known her, she looked — not old, exactly, but tired, the particular tiredness of someone carrying a weight they'd hoped, for a long time, they would never have to set down.
"I'm sorry it took this long. I'm sorry it took her coming back, sick child and all, for any of this to surface.
She deserved better than three years of silence. So did you."
I didn't trust myself to respond to that.
I just nodded, and let myself out, the sealed envelope held carefully in both hands, and made my way back through the quiet hallways of the packhouse toward my own rooms — toward whatever was waiting for me on that single sheet of paper, three years overdue, about to rewrite everything I thought I knew about the worst year of my life.
It would take Ilse a few days to verify nothing further had been altered, she'd told me as I left — a formality, given everything, but a formality she insisted on, because if even one record had been tampered with, others might have been too, and she wasn't going to hand me anything without being certain of its integrity first.
A few days. Twenty-six left, after that, on a clock that had started running before I even knew there was a race.
I held the envelope a little tighter, and kept walking.