POV: Ayla

Sleep does not come.

I leave my room a little after midnight and find all three of them already awake, as if the same restlessness has pulled us into the same corridor. Caius is at the end of the hall with a report he is not reading. Ryker stands near the stairwell, boots on, as if he has already decided that sleep is a wasted hour. Zane sits on the low bench outside the planning rooms with his head tipped back against the wall.

No one pretends we are here by accident.

“Come on,” I say quietly. “Not the war room.”

We end up in the small east...