Ashcroft doesn’t run far.
He doesn’t need to.
When someone spends thirty years embedding rot into a system, they don’t panic when it cracks—they move toward what they believe is the true center of power.
And for Ashcroft, that center is Lilith.
We track him by absence.
Council channels go dark.
Traditionalist representatives vanish from scheduled briefings.
Encrypted signals spike along the western ridge—territory long abandoned by packs after the first Moonwright purge.
Morgan overlays the energy traces across the map.
“They’re converging again,” she says quietly.
“But not through geometry,” Thorne adds. “Through proximity.”
“They’re consolidating power manually.”
Kade’s voice is sharp.
“How long before they try again?”
Morgan doesn’t answer.
Instead, she looks at me.
“The
