The study was darker than usual, the single desk lamp turned low so the light barely reached the corners. Julia Bradley sat in the high-backed chair she had always preferred for difficult calls—spine straight, shoulders squared, as though posture alone could keep the truth from slipping out. The phone was on speaker, resting on the polished mahogany surface between a crystal decanter and a framed photograph of the family from years ago: Anthony smiling, the children young and unscarred, Julia radiant in a way she no longer recognized in the mirror.The voice on the other end was male, calm, practiced—someone who had handled her crises before.“…and Nathan’s behavior last night confirms it,” the man was saying. “He didn’t come home. He didn’t call. He’s avoiding you. That means he really knows.”Julia’s fingers tightened around the stem of a half-empty wine glass.“He knows,” she repeated, voice flat. “Nathan knows he isn’t Anthony’s. And Fayour—God, Fayour, God, I just hope it doesn'

The back field felt smaller now, the overgrown grass pressing in like it was listening too. The dying oak creaked overhead, throwing shifting shadows across the broken bench. Jenny sat straight-backed, hands clasped tight in her lap. Nathan remained on the far end, elbows on his knees, listening with the kind of stillness that made the air feel heavier. Luke stood close enough to touch her shoulder; Jackson kept his weight balanced, ready to move if Nathan so much as twitched wrong.Jenny took a slow breath.“The night of the hangout,” she began again, quieter this time, “wasn’t just Monica and Harold being cruel. It was bait. They wanted to break Isaiah—force him to show whatever he was hiding. They didn’t know what they were poking. None of us did.”"Everything seemed to be going according to plan untill the UBM came."'UBM?" Nathan raised a brow. The name was familiar.She paused, letting the word hang.“UBM. Universal Bureau of Magic. They didn’t come for Monica or Harold. They cam

The training bay of the UBM orbital station was a cavernous cylinder of reinforced alloy and humming energy grids. Red emergency lights pulsed along the walls, simulating combat conditions. Isaiah’s newly assembled team; Ruko, Spiff, Fen, and the dozen or so outcasts they’d hand-picked, moved through the drill in ragged but determined formation. Nero barked corrections from the elevated observation platform while Ragnar watched with folded arms, silent disapproval etched into every line of his face, his white hair flickering behind him.Isaiah stood at the center of the bay floor, coat discarded, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Frost clung to his fingertips even now, faint wisps curling upward like smoke in reverse. He was demonstrating how to channel raw intent into a defensive aether barrier. Something none of the others could replicate yet, but something they needed to understand if they were going to survive what was coming.“Again,” Nero called. “Faster this time. The golden basta

The red emergency lights still pulsed like a dying heartbeat. Isaiah stood at the center, frost still clinging to the edges of his sleeves. Elena faced him, calm as ever, the faint glimmer in her emerald eyes now unmistakable, like captured starlight.No one had moved since her admission.Then the bay doors hissed open again.Kate entered.She was a storm in human form—broad-shouldered, dark-haired, eyes the color of storm clouds. She wore the same black tactical gear as always, but tonight it seemed tighter, sharper, as though her body had already decided violence was inevitable. She took one look at the scene, Elena standing too close to Isaiah, Ragnar’s hand hovering near his sidearm, Nero braced like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and her expression shifted from watchful to feral.In the next heartbeat she charged.She moved like a blade through water, silent, lethal, unstoppable. Her right hand came up in a slicing arc that could have taken a head clean off at the shou

The Bradley mansion loomed at the end of the long private drive like a dark monument carved from money and secrets. Floodlights washed the white stone facade in cold blue-white, turning the manicured lawns into flat, artificial green. Nathan killed the engine in the circular driveway, tires crunching on gravel. The silence that followed was louder than the drive had been.He stepped out first. Jenny followed from the passenger side. Luke and Jackson climbed out of the back, doors closing with soft, expensive thuds. The night air smelled of cut grass, night-blooming jasmine, and something metallic. Blood, perhaps, or just the promise of it.The front doors opened before they reached the steps. Fayour stood there. Blond hair disheveled, hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows, eyes red-rimmed and wide. He looked younger than Nathan remembered, like the nineteen-year-old he actually was instead of the polished heir he’d been trained to play.“Nathan—”Nathan moved past him without stoppi