Sherlock's brow furrowed at Mitch's explanation. There was no point in disagreeing that all of them were scattered, plenty were in custody, and others were simply useless.

"Then what makes you so different?" he asked, with more than a little venom slipping into his voice. "There's resistances cropping up all over. I should know, I've been feeding them information all this time. But I suppose you've been forced to denounce all of that behavior."

A hard sigh pressed out of his nose, almost like a bull's snort.

"It's been seven years, and you're just coming back to the City now. How long do you expect to get your throne back, then? Another decade? Maybe then there might be three or four of us left to appreciate it." As far as he was concerned, for now Mitch had lost the privilege of using the collective noun for them.