Monday arrived with the particular brisk clarity of a northern winter morning fully committed to being cold.
I was at the map table by six with tea and the three petition applications from the moderate former-Coalition territories spread in front of me — reviewed once already in the pre-dawn quiet, notes made in the margins, the structural questions identified and organized in the specific order I intended to address them when Kaden arrived.
He arrived at six forty-five with his own tea and the patrol report from the night watch, sat across from me, and said: "You've already read them."
"Twice," I said. "The first application is straightforward — Ember Pack, forty-three wolves, northeastern corridor, clean governance record, legitimate reasons for Coalition membership and legitimate rea
