POV: Liam
The corridor outside the Council chamber was long and quiet, with windows along one side that looked out over lower Manhattan in the grey November afternoon. I had been sitting on a bench against the wall for twenty minutes, watching the city through the glass and not really seeing it. My father sat beside me.
We had not spoken since we came out here. The session had wrapped its formal components and the Council members had dispersed to their various adjacent meetings and the room had emptied in the efficient way of places where time was managed carefully. Maya had gone with Edric to the side room. Maren had followed to be available. Isla was somewhere making calls.
Which left me and Aldric in the corridor, sitting on a bench like two people waiting for a train, with seventeen
