At the Bureau, the board meeting started in chaos.
"He executed a royal aide." One of the members was on his feet before the door had closed. "He could have restrained the man. He had two summons and that — that weapon. He chose to kill him. On a stream. For the whole world."
"England will treat this as an act of war," another said. "Do you understand what we are now standing in? One boy from Ballymun has put us on the edge of a conflict with the Crown."
"Civilians died in that building. Irish civilians. He fought in a hotel full of people—"
"We cannot be the country that shelters a necromancer who does this in public."
The loudest voices were the ones who had the most to lose, and they pushed hardest, because every second the room spent talking about James was a second it did not spend talking about the stream.
O'Shea sat at the head of the table and let them run.
