Verrin took four days to argue about its champion contribution, and Ava spent every one of them on the wrong side of her own faction. Her rescue crews wanted the whole thing pulled, and she stood in three public rows telling them they were wrong.
The council had put the full question on the ballot rather than the narrow one. Withdraw everything, or withdraw nothing, with no middle line written anywhere on the page.
She got the middle line added on the second day by drafting and filing it herself. It cost her a night with Sir Owen's certified template and an argument with a councilman.
"Simple is how a city loses something it needed," Ava said in the west row, standing on a crate because the rows had no platform, "so we are going to vote on the actual question, which has three answers and not two."
