The third-floor administrative annex was not a room built for comfort. It was functional, drafty, and smelled overwhelmingly of iron gall ink, dry dust, and old wax. I had been standing in the corner for four hours.
The operational crisis was minor, but a minor crisis in a Pack this size still generated a massive amount of friction. A delayed salt shipment from the eastern border had forced a sudden reallocation of the winter meat curing schedule. That required adjusting the baseline storage temperature of the cellars, which meant pulling labor from the upper corridors, which had cascaded into a dozen other logistical failures across the Pack's daily operations.
Beta Theron and three senior clerks had been arguing over the transit maps since dusk. Alpha Caelan sat at the head of the heav
