Chapter 547

The room processed this.

traced

I sat with what it meant. That Damon’s father had commissioned the curse. That the nightmare years of what had happened to this pack – the broken mindlink, the wolf, all of it back to a territorial dispute and a decision made by a man who was now dead.

And that Damon, who I’d loved and been rejected by and who had since become something considerably more complicated, might not have known.

Or might have known and said nothing.

Or might have known and built on it.

I didn’t know which.

“This is a window,” Ivory said, quietly.

“This,” I said, “is a significant window.”

“For multiple people,” she said.

“For me specifically,” I said. “The context of why I came here. The context of what Damon and I were. His father-” I stopped. “I don’t know what Damon knew.”

“We can find out,” Nina said.

“We should find out,” Jordan said.

“After the book club,” Ivory said.

Everyone looked at her.

“I mean that practically,” she said. “This information has been sitting for three weeks. It’ll still be there in two hours. The book club is happening now and the conversation we’re having is connected to this information but not dependent on the specific investigation.” She looked at me. “How are you?”

“Processing,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “Process. And we’ll return to the investigation.” She looked at the table.

“Windows.”

“We were on windows,” Jordan confirmed.

:

“Jordan’s window was the information he just shared,” Nina said.

“Which I’ve now gone through,” Jordan said.

How does it feel,” Nina said.

Better,” he said. “You knew something was there.”

I could see you sitting on something,” she said.

“For three weeks,” he confirmed.

“The timing argument,” she said.

“Was valid,” he said. “But could have been shorter.”

“Two weeks shorter,” she said.

“Possibly,” he said.

“The window,” Ivory said, looking at Nina, “that Nina hasn’t gone through.”

Nina looked at Ivory.

“Is the one,” Ivory said, “that’s been there since approximately the fourth month of the curse years.”

“Ivory,” Nina said.

“We’re at the book club,” Ivory said.

“The book club is not-” Nina started.

“It’s exa

Ni

1. “We’re using it. What is the window, Nina.”

he conversation I haven’t had with Kael. Directly. About what u. I’ve told him pieces. I’ve told him things in the specific way of this happened, this was the outcome, here’s what we managed. I’ve said- the specific things I said to Jordan in the recovery room two weeks Fit.”

“Because he was dealing with enough, Nina said. “He was always dealing with enough. The timing-

“Was never right, Ivory said.

“Is new right, Nina said. “The right time for that conversation doesn’t seem to exist

“The

rig

ow creates the time, Ivory said. “That’s what the window does. You don’t wait for the

You make the time by going through.”

hat,” Nina said.

g and doing, Ivory said.

fferent categories, Nina said.

iliar argument,” Jordan said.

e’ve been in this argument before,” Nina said. “In different forms.”

very conversation in this room is in a different form of the same argument,” Killian said.

Everyone looked at him.

He looked slightly surprised at himself, the way he did when he said things in the meeting before he’d finished deciding whether to say them.

“Which is,” he said, continuing rather than retreating, “that the thing everybody wants to say is visible to everyone else and the only person who doesn’t know it’s visible is the person trying not to say it.” He paused. “That’s the book’s whole argument. Everest thinks he’s maintaining a performance. Everyone around him can see through the performance. The performance only works for him.”

The table was quiet.

“That’s-” Jordan started.

“Accurate, Ivory sai

“I was going to

You were

More

said.

“Same conclusion,” Ivory said.

“Killian,” Kael said.

Killian looked at him.

“Your window,” Kael said.

Firushed

window,” Killian said, “is-” he stopped. “My window is here. Being here. Saying the things I d have said all years ago and finding out if they make any difference now that they’re too o change what happened but might be relevant to what happens next.” He paused. “I don’t w how to say most of them yet. But I’m-” he stopped again. “Working on it.”

That’s an honest answer,” Ivo

“I’m working on honest an

“It shows,” Ivory said, an

n said.

register was completely absent from those two words.

“What,” Killian said.

“It shows,” she said

He looked at

days he’d neutralit

Then

at with the expression that I’d been watching develop over the ary clinic

– not the calculated expression, not the performing- ething more present than either.

e said.

with chapter seventeen,” Kael said.

it,” Killian said. “Specifically. The corridor situation.”

situation,” Kael said, “was a collision.”

or situation,” Killian said, “produced a response in the people who witnessed it that collision carries meaning bevond the physical event.”

ning,” Kael said, “th

le,” Ivory said

cable,”

d to it is-”

“Zero percein spliche, Kad vand

“Chapter seventeen, jordan said, “describes a situation the is terserally drifter –

“The structure is different Karl wort

“The emotional landscape-tory wanted

is not, Kael said, “what you’re implying, wis

What are we implying: Ivory saids.