A black plaque on a cell door. A motionless shape on a medical cot. The room is small, dark, and mean — and under the flickering light, Nurse Ingleby looks older than death itself. Asha has found…
A cagey Uber driver, a futuristic witch's cloak with pockets, and a wand tucked inside. Asha and the high priestess head for the most notorious asylum in the city dressed for war — the elegant,…
Vaporization is off the table — too dangerous for someone of Asha's experience. The high priestess thinks out loud about getting in, and every option sounds worse than the last. When the plan to…
The morning after violence, the garden blooms harder than ever. Apricots swell, rosemary flowers drive the bees wild, and Asha prunes and harvests with dirt under her fingernails and something…
A familiar voice calls her name in the dark. Nicky keeps her swollen eyes shut, her body a wasteland she doesn’t want to return to. Devka’s voice breaks through — kind, emotional, insistent — but…
Doctor Adrathar appears before she’s finished changing — another calculated invasion, another flex of power dressed in a clinical smile. Nicky limps toward whatever waits behind the other door,…
Photographs of a stolen childhood, a detective rubbing his jaw in thought, and a file that reads like a horror story. Asha shares the documents from Copperfield with Armstrong, and together they begin…
Five minutes. That’s all Directress Copperfield gave her. Asha fumbles with her phone camera, snapping pages from her own file as fast as her shaking hands allow. The words blur past — abandoned,…
A small rebellion, a nurse storming off to change her shoes, and a wheelchair ride to a part of the building Nicky’s never seen. Left alone in an unfamiliar corridor, she calls after the retreating…
Gray flannel sweats, chunky white underwear, and the first real clothes Nicky’s worn since arriving at Riverside. But Ingleby has plans that don’t involve rest, and Nicky’s exhausted body is currency…
