Working in a dead-end, post office job in the heart of a primarily-Human city, Arya Salcrest cannot let her secret out else she loses her rights and her safety. Norren Sterling, a member of the Council whom she met after a failed museum trip, is det...
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Norren groaned as his eyes fluttered open. His blurry gaze made out a stiff figure standing by the door of his office. Wait. Office—
He shot up, his wheeled chair creaking against his weight. His arms were still propped over his desk, brushing against the towering stacks of proposals and referrals he still needed to look at. And yet...
"Had a good nap, sir?" Rigel Locke, his trusty assistant, said as he shut the door to Norren's office. The blinds shielding the large, glass window slotted in it knocked against the wood with the assistant's motion.
Norren frowned, looking down at the thing he was doing before he inadvertently dozed off. His eyes scanned the rows and rows of names and numbers. Ah, accounting. It's no surprise, then. "Not enough hours, in my opinion," he answered the assistant's questions nonetheless. His joints cracked in satisfying clicks when he stretched his arms. "What brings you here?"
From behind him, Rigel drew a sealed envelope, and strode closer to Norren's desk. The thick manila crinkled as Rigel slid it towards him. Norren knitted his eyebrows, raising his gaze from the envelope to the assistant's face. "What's this supposed to be?" he asked.
"We received this from the Postal Quarters," Rigel stroked his beard. Even at his age, with the appearance of wrinkles on his pale skin, it remained spectacular. "It's addressed to your office but there was no address of origin."
Norren smacked his lips and pushed his hair out of his face. He pulled an all-nighter yesterday just to catch up on his mountain of work and had woken up late, leaving him no time to attend to his hair. It's the least of his worries, too, considering the dread slowly consuming his gut when he glimpsed the manila envelope. The timing was impeccable. If it proved to be the same as his dreams...
He shook his head and sighed. He waved a hand in Rigel's direction. "You can go, if this is all you came for," he said.
"I actually came for some other concern, sir," the assistant said, ducking his head and placing a hand to his chest—a gesture of respect. "If I may, it's about the Bill of Rights."
Norren closed his eyes. Not again. First it was Arya, and now, Rigel too? "What about it?"
"Hugh Grottway has mounted a great opposition against you in the Council," Rigel said. "By the next briefing, I predict he'd have swayed most of the Council to veto the bill."
Norren wasn't concerned. Not in the slightest. He doubted the Council were buying Grottway's antics, unless, of course, they had resorted to accepting bribes and other dirty, underhanded deals. If that happened, Norren could simply present some evidence and have them evicted from the Council.
If Grottway and his camp really wanted to halt the Bill of Rights' progress through the several Houses, they'd have to find other ways to convince the rest of the population. The only reason the Bill's able to move past the Houses was because Norren appealed to the notion of the power being in the masses. He had worked his butt off the past few years to gather enough voices and opinions to be certain most of the voters in Aldermere and beyond were looking to be progressive. And if these Councilors were found out to have vetoed the Bill, they might lose a huge fraction of their sure votes.
