We hit the morning rush hour traffic in the city as six rolled around. I’d had to take the crazy route through downtown since, as I predicted, they were waiting for us to enter the city. Lev had fallen asleep and hadn’t woken up since about two in the morning. Exhaustion weighed on me, but the chase in the city gave me an adrenaline rush.

Now, though, as I drove through the empty landscape between the city and the castle, I was crashing. I’d changed back into my normal clothes after the ...