Dawn was fast approaching, though none of us had gotten any sleep. Gloria’s escape had thrown everything into chaos. Her words, scrawled in Sylvia’s blood—“The Wolfmother will fall. Long live the witches” - still echoed in my mind. It was a constant reminder of the danger coming that I thought we had curbed.

Now we were in the war room. Ardan, Zone, and I sat around a large wooden table with maps of the castle grounds and dungeons spread out before us. Rachel was elsewhere, tending to Gilly and hoping for any change in her condition.

“She couldn’t have done it alone,” Ardan said in a sharp tone as he...