The vigils and custodes only reached the beach and the abandoned hut two hours after the hybrids left. In the darkness around 11:30pm, it took them another thirty minutes to find the entry of the hideout under the wrecked car. In the hideout itself, they could smell that the scents matched those found in the hideout of the Forest of Oderem. The only difference was that no belongings were left behind this time.

They searched the forest before Duica had the idea to start looking through the wooden hut again. The fact that the floorboards had uneven gaps in between and the plank walls weren’t evenly constructed depicted that this...