THE COUNCIL CONCLUDES
The emergency session concluded at seven in the evening.
Elder Cavendish resigned her position before the vote on the removal motion, which was procedurally unusual and strategically correct on her part, a resignation preserved more of her institutional legacy than a formal removal and she knew the council machinery well enough to make that calculation under pressure.
She walked out of the chamber with the brisk efficiency she applied to everything.
At the door she stopped.
She turned and looked at me across the chamber.
I looked back.
Nineteen years. Three generations of her family's work. The careful long game of a dynasty that had been eliminating the anchoring bloodline since my great grandmother.
Ended in a day.
By the woman she had approved.
"Your moth
