Caleb arranged the room the way he arranged everything that mattered: with the procedural care of someone who understood that how you brought a prisoner into a council chamber shaped what everyone in the room thought the prisoner was.
The analyst arrived in civilian clothes, unrestrained, with two of Caleb's wolves flanking him but not touching him. He was seated in the observer's chair — not a defendant's position, not a supplicant's position. A professional position. The chair where advisors and consultants sat. The framing said: this is a person with information we are interested in. It did not say: this is an enemy. It did not say: this is a man who survived a combat zone specifically to deliver a message.
The Alphas who had remained from the summit — Harsen, Sorreth, Rochard, Vael —
