KAEL

The Elder Archive was housed in a stone building at the center of the Council compound,

climate-controlled and heavily warded, the kind of facility that existed specifically to contain

things that powerful people wanted kept quiet. Councilor Voss led us through three levels of

security clearance and into a room that held nothing but a table, a sealed metal case, and

two biometric scanners.

“The file requires simultaneous authorization,” she explained. “Palm print from an ...