Amara's words sat in the room long after she'd said them, and I found myself running through every version of what Thorne might actually want from tomorrow's assembly, none of them landing anywhere comfortable.
"If he already knows what we're going to argue," I said, "then whatever he's planning isn't really about winning the argument in the room. It's about what happens after."
"After what?" Cole asked, appearing in the doorway with two more mugs of coffee neither Mia nor I had asked for but both of us needed anyway.
"After the pack hears it," I said, working it through out loud. "If Thorne wanted to actually convince this pack the bond isn't real, he wouldn't need us there at all. He could present his documentation and let the council draw its own conclusions. Calling an assembly, for
