~Matteo POV~
The map on the operations table had been redrawn three times in the past week.
Every redraw meant something had shifted, either territory changing hands, an alliance collapsing, or a pack losing enough people that the lines they had been holding were no longer holdable. The current version looked considerably different from the one we had started the war with, and I had been staring at it long enough that Lucas finally pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
"Say what you are thinking," he said.
"I am thinking," I said, "that what is left on this map does not resemble what was on it eight weeks ago, and that the path forward requires building on what remains rather than recovering what is gone, and that those are two entirely different problems."
"Agreed," Lucas said. "What remains."
