The Corban Grand Athenaeum had been closed to the public since the merging, its doors sealed by order of the new Magical Oversight Council. At 2:13 a.m., those doors opened for the first time in weeks, and five shadows slipped inside.

Reed carried the mountain-stone scale in one hand and Elias’s Crimson Wyvern in the other. Laken walked beside him, frost trailing from her fingertips like wedding lace. Harold moved ahead in near-human form, wings folded tight beneath a long ...