"Every council room is a stage, every debate a performance. The trick is not winning the argument, but leaving your audience convinced you already have."
The moonlight followed us like a nosy housekeeper, spilling through the garden windows as we left the night air behind and stepped into the warm corridor that led to my private office. I had insisted we move there mostly because if this conversation stretched as long as I suspected it would, I would prefer to conduct it with a glass of brandy in hand and access to my comfortable chair, rather than standing about like statues in the garden.
Alaric agreed without comment, Elias trailed behind him with that barely concealed reluctance he wore like armor, and Juno padded alongside me with his usual calm, which was irritatingly serene considering the storm of politics into which we were wading.
