He wrote about what he'd said to the team in the open ground.
The thirty names. The way some of them had held very still.
He wrote: Four of them made a different decision. I don't know if what I said was the reason or whether they were already in year five and the thirty names were just the specific thing that made the decision arrive. Maybe both. Maybe neither — maybe they had their own thirty names already and were waiting for someone to say it was acceptable to put the weapon down.
He put his pen down.
He looked at what he'd written.
Not a document for submission. Not the formal request he'd send.
Just the true account.
He put it in the folder he kept in the desk drawer — the folder that held the seven intelligence files and the names in the margin.
He'd carry them here now instead of to Aldenmere.
He was still carrying them.
That was the point.
He went to the common room.
