Page 128 of The World Undone

Max was with Rowan, Izzy, and everyone else who was trying to reorganize and hold things down while everyone processed the shit show that those ridiculous tandem missions had been.

Charlie and Bishop’s immense presence in this place only became more obvious by the struggle to fill their roles.

I clutched my coffee mug, shoving thoughts of Bishop away.

Charlie’s scream still reverberated through my skull whenever I let myself linger on that moment, on the sheer despair of it.

I was supposed to bring him back to her.

To their child.

Instead, he was just gone.

Wade and Eli made their way over, both of them looking as exhausted and burdened as I felt.

Darius grinned as he studied me. “No, you won’t let her do it. You have a plan.”

Wade’s brows raised at that, some of the weight he was carrying temporary lifting. “You do?”

Eli spun the chair next to me around and sat down, his head resting on his arms. His eyes were dark, lined with shadowy bags, devoid of the spark and arrogance I was used to.

He glanced at me, and straightened up, like he could feel my pity. “Where’s Dec?”

“Here,” she yelled, rushing through the door. “Sorry, lost track of time getting Mavis settled in.”

Right, Mavis.

Fucking hell, what a mess that kid was.

Whatever The Guild had done to him made my early relationship with my wolf look like a healthy, co-beneficial partnership. I had no idea if he’d ever come out of it—if even an echo of the man I knew still existed in there at all.

If Bishop sacrificed himself for a ghost.

I took a sip of my coffee, cringing at the tepid temperature. I must’ve been sitting here, lost in my thoughts, for longer than I’d realized.

“I’ve been thinking,” I cleared my throat, blinking the memory of Bishop’s final breaths back, “about the fact that there are only two council members left.”

The four of them studied me, a panoramic of equal parts hope and impatience.

I focused on Wade. “Whenever a council member dies, what’s the first thing that happens?”

“Another is anointed,” he said, not missing a beat. “So what?”

“So, if what we learned was true,” Dec’s brows pinched, and I could see her already putting together the puzzle pieces of my plan, “two had already died before our mission. From their fucked magic infusions. Likely a while ago.”

“So what?” Eli echoed Wade’s question, but with a far more cynical tone. “Good fucking riddance.”

“They didn’t name any replacements.” Wade sat straighter, the tremor of interest tugging at a muscle in his cheek, below his right eye. “And they probably won’t be in a rush to fill the three other seats we left newly-vacant either.”

I nodded. “Exactly. Why?”

Eli sighed. “Why the fuck does it matter?”

“They want the power for themselves,” Wade continued, a spark of something lighting his expression. The kid always loved puzzles. And while Dec was better at reading me, often following my thoughts down to their logical conclusions before even I’d reached them, Wade was the real problem-solver of the group. “They’re going to use this as a chance to move the seven-person council down to two—” he grunted, “or, better yet, probably a one-person dictatorship. More power centralized, less arguing about how things are run.”

I nodded. “Which means that those who would likely otherwise be in the running, might be disappointed by this new shift in protocol, this abandonment of tradition.”

Eli grunted. “So what? The council is greedy, let them kill each other off. They’re hardly our biggest issue at the moment.”

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