Page 59 of A Love of Wrath and Rapture

They already exiled me. What is the council planning this time?

As we enter the front door and reach the large lion knocker, Ephemera stops, casually looking down at her fingernails as though scanning them for imperfections.

“Well, don’t let me hold you up,” she says, a casually malicious gaze on her face. “They’re waiting for you inside.”

I nod, ready to be finished with this conversation, then push open the door, getting a peek at the foreboding dark room that seemingly an eternity ago, traumatized me into facing my current predicament.

I know that I’m happier now than I was when I left, or at least I am at times. But a knot forms in my stomach at the thought of facing the elders again.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

It’s just for a little while, I think. And you’re stronger now than you were back then.

There are two major differences between this occasion and the last. For one thing, I have to push through a crowd of people this time, which tells me that the council gave up all pretenses of this being a private meeting. Friends and foe alike stand at the ready, prepared to judge me for my choices, often by screaming at me.

For another, as I finally make my way to the stands, Jeremiah doesn’t seem elated to be punishing me. He looks indifferent this time, if not a little mournful.

This is unmatched by the rest of the council, who wear largely the same expressions as when they sent me to my death last time we met.

I still myself, clearing my throat.

I just want somebody to say something. The shuffling of parchment is unsettling.

“Evangeline,” Tully says, placing papers down and folding her hands.

Her eyes burn with the light of glaring torches.

I wait for her to finish my thought, but simply nod in response.

Her attention shifts somewhere in the crowd. I try to follow her gaze, but she immediately scowls back down at me.

“This is about your pet,” she says.

My eyebrows furrow in confusion, almost of their own accord.

“My pet? I’m sorry. I don’t under?—”

And it dawns on me.

She’s talking about Xeros.

I clench my fists, realizing that any outburst would be met with the ferocity of an angry mob.

“We need you to leash and collar him,” she says. “Or that’s what we would have said. Now, I think we’re beyond that point…”

She trails off, her gaze again wandering into the crowd.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re talking about.”

“Justice, my lady,” Harold says. “We’re talking about justice. That is one of the many things we oversee and administer, as a council.”

Suddenly, a voice cries from somewhere behind me.

“Look at what her pet did to my face! Are you really going to let him get away with that?”

I swear I recognize the voice, from somewhere within the past several days.

Turning around, I immediately see an unkempt man, whose cheeks appear swollen and whose nose is puffy.

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