The council challenge lasted twenty-three minutes. The argument with Caelum began after everyone else left.
Edric had presented the designation review as a question of administrative durability rather than rank. The distinction was careful enough to sound reasonable. Permanent authority, he argued, required a structure broader than one Alpha's recognition of one employee. The council did not revoke Wren's designation. It confirmed that the existing charter permitted administrative collaborators and requested a policy review before the next quarterly session.
The result preserved her access and gave Edric a cleaner battlefield.
Wren remained at the conference table with the precedent file open before her. The last administrative collaborator had been appointed eleven years earlier. Henri
