pretty hungry after my morning constitutional.”
The old man’s voice hardened. “I’m not kidding, grandson,” he said. “There has been a motion raised before the general Council to strip you of your status as a member of the White Council entirely.”
I arched an eyebrow sharply. “Huh. First the Council forces me to wear one of those damned grey cloaks whether I want one or not. Now they’re talking about kicking me out? I’m going to get whiplash.”
“You’re going to get more than that if the motion passes,” he said, heat in his tone. Then he visibly took a moment to forcibly calm himself. “Harry, I want to get caught up, too. I want to talk. Clear the air. And we will. But right now is no moment to let your emotions run your life.”
I scowled down at the pancake. I’d had all kinds of practice in keeping my emotions in check lately. “All right,” I said. “Truce. For now. What pretext is the Council basing this upon?”
“An aggregate of various factors,” he replied. “Your nonstandard elevation to full wizard, for example. The number of times you’ve involved yourself in high-profile cases. Your insistence on operating openly as a wizard for over a decade. Not least of which, the conflict of interest they claim now lies upon you due to your service to Queen Mab. A service that has apparently also brought a proven warlock into Mab’s influence beside you.”
“It’s all true,” I said. “I haven’t lied to anyone about any of it. It’s all on the record. So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that trust is getting harder and harder to come by in the White Council,” Ebenezar said. “Your choices have made you an outlier. Suspicion naturally falls upon someone in your position in times of strain.”
I flipped the pancake. I’d timed it right. It was golden brown.
“If they boot me,” I said, thinking through it aloud, “it means that I will no longer have the protection of the Council. I won’t be an official wizard.”
“You’ve made a great many enemies over the years,” Ebenezar said. “So have I. If you were outcast from the Council, your enemies—and mine—would see you occupying a weakened position. They’ll do something about it. How much protection can Mab provide you?”
“Mab,” I said, “is not all that into safety. She mostly provides the opposite of that, actually. The way she figures it, the only way she could make me perfectly safe would be to cut my throat and entomb me in amber.”
The quip did not draw a smile from the old man. He stared at me with craggy non-amusement.
I sighed. “It isn’t Mab’s job to protect her Knight. It’s supposed to be the other way around. If something comes along and kills me, I clearly wasn’t strong enough to be her Knight in the first place.”
“You aren’t taking this seriously,” he said.
I flipped the pancake onto the pile and poured out batter for the next. “If it gets bad, I can always fall back to Demonreach.”
“God, if they knew the whole truth about that place,” Ebenezar muttered. “And then what? Stay trapped on your island for the rest of your life, afraid to step off it?”
“So don’t let the motion go to a general vote,” I said. “You’re on the Senior Council. Pull rank. Assume control of it.”
“I can’t,” Ebenezar said. “Without a quorum, it’s got to be a general vote, and four of the Senior Council are going to be at the peace talks when the vote takes place.”
My stomach twisted a little. “Which four?”
“Me, Cristos, Listens-to-Wind, and Martha Liberty.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. My grandfather was a cagey old fox, with a thick network of alliances throughout the White Council—and almost as many enemies. The Merlin himself couldn’t stand Ebenezar, and of the three Senior Council members who would preside over the next Council meeting, only the Gatekeeper had ever shown me any kind of fondness. Even if the vote could go to the Senior Council, I’d lose two to one.
Of course, I wasn’t sure about how I would fare among the general population of the White Council, either. Wizards live a long time, and they don’t do it by taking unnecessary risks. If you look up unnecessary risk in the White Council’s dictionary, my picture is there. And my address. And all my personal contact information. And my permanent record from middle school.
“You need to talk to some of them face-to-face,” Ebenezar said. “Shake some hands. Make sure they know who you