The hidden passage remained empty.
No footsteps.
No movement.
Nothing.
Only darkness stared back at us from above the war room.
Kael ordered the guards to search it immediately.
They found nothing.
No footprints.
No weapon.
No clothing.
Not even dust disturbed by someone passing through.
Whoever had been there had vanished.
Again.
But this time, I wasn't frightened by the empty passage.
I was thinking about the message.
You are searching for the traitor in the wrong room.
Someone wanted us looking somewhere else.
Or someone wanted us to believe the traitor was impossible to find.
Either way, we needed to stop reacting to the enemy.
We needed to start thinking like them.
Kael spent the next several hours reviewing everyone who had entered his private chambers.
Every gua
