“You have a brother?” I ask, before I think better of it. She may be an Elder, but she must have had a childhood like everyone else. “I did,” she says wistfully. “He was actually the one who encouraged me to join the Council. Even among witches, the seventies weren’t an easy time for a woman to be in a position of power, especially a woman in her early twenties. I was one of the first female agents on the Council, but my brother never had any doubt about my ability to succeed. He always believed I’d become an Elder one day.”
