Morning came gray and thin. The veil kept the light soft, like it had passed through a hundred hands before it reached them. No one complained. After the night they’d had, soft was fine.
Ravyn found the common room already moving. Witches chalked fresh lines on the stone. Wolves hauled sandbags to weight the ward posts—pointless against magic, useful against panic. Mothers rotated shifts. Coffee steamed in mismatched mugs. Iris bullied anyone sitting still into eating something with protein.
Cassian stood at the map table with Moira and Eryx, one hand flat on the wood, the other cupped around a mug he wasn’t drinking. Grayson had two lists in his hand—patrols and drills—and the patient expression of a man prepared to repeat himself until the building fell down.
Ravyn joined them. “Tell
