We leapt inside. Now, kneeling in front of him, we could see the man’s face. A young man—I would have guessed he was in his late teens, maybe early twenties. His jaw was rough and unkempt—he looked like he hadn’t shaved for at least two weeks—and his eyes were closed. His skin was thin and pale. Almost as pale as my mother and grandparents’. Yet, as Mona lifted his upper lip to reveal a set of clean, white teeth, he had no fangs. Clearly not a vampire. As I reached out to touch one of his limp hands that rested on the arms of his wheelchair, he was not ice cold. He was closer to lukewarm.

“What do you think he is?” my mother asked. “A half-blood?”

Shayla reached out to feel his pulse. “Possibly,” the witch replied. “I’d need to take a closer look at him.”

“Let’s get him out,” Derek said. “He clearly doesn’t belong here. Looks like he’s been a victim of some kind of experiment.”

The witches used their magic to lift his wheelchair out of the room. Then my mother bundled me onto her back and leapt up to ground level along with my grandparents.

“Shayla,” Derek said, “I suggest you escort him back to The Shade now. Obviously be sure to keep him isolated until you figure out exactly what’s wrong with him. Grace, why don’t you go with her? Shayla might be able to use your assistance.”

“Uh, okay,” I said. I wasn’t too happy about leaving my family here but it seemed I would be more useful returning home with Shayla than here, where my limited powers were really not required with all these fire-breathers.

I hugged my mother briefly before eyeing the sickly man again. I gripped the handles of his wheelchair and pushed him to Shayla. Then the three of us vanished from the hunters’ base, away from the smoke and the fire.

Sofia

After Shayla and Grace left with the boy in the wheelchair, we returned to the center of activity, above the buildings.

The brightness of the blaze made my eyes hurt. Once the buildings had been thoroughly destroyed, all enemy lives clearly taken, the dragons relinquished their fire.

The witches and jinn worked together to extinguish the flames so that we would not wreck the woods further. Then we descended to the charred ground. The buildings had collapsed, the basements caved in and scorched. The compound was unrecognizable. The area was nothing but rubble now.

We headed to the portal located in the front of the compound. Our witches already knew what had to be done next. They gathered round the portal and began performing a ritual to close it. After about half an hour, where there had been a gaping hole in the ground was flat soil.

The hunters would not be returning to this part of The Woodlands anytime soon.

As I looked around at the debris, I felt surprised at the lack of guilt I felt for what we had just done. Twenty years ago I was sure that I would have felt more remorse. But over the decades, we’d had ample opportunity to see through these hunters. Their corruption. Their mercilessness, even when it came to human casualties. They were much like the old hunters of Aiden’s time, except a hundred times more powerful. And things were only getting worse.

More than anything… I just felt relief.

But our job was not done yet. We’d targeted what we’d figured to be their main base in The Woodlands, but now we had to travel to Rock Hall, where the hunters had discovered the gathering of werewolves.

I dreaded to think what state that place might be in now. It had been an inferno already at the time our small group had fled. And I dreaded to think what they had done with the werewolves. Would we discover them dead or alive? Held hostage?

We would soon find out.

Grace

Shayla vanished me and the unconscious young man to the portal in the ogres’ realm. Now we could not just leap through the gate. We did not know what was wrong with this man. We had to be gentle with him. Shayla used her magic to glide us down, slowing us down against the suction, while keeping a firm hold of his wheelchair and maintaining its upright position.

Arriving at the other end, in a field on the outskirts of some human city, we located our invisible helicopter. I climbed aboard briefly to check in on Kyle. Having nothing else to do but wait here for the League, he was resting on his bed, reading a book. He had a shelf full of them in the compartment above his bunk. He was used to hanging around.

I gave him an update on what had happened before informing him that Shayla and I were heading back to The Shade. Then I returned to Shayla. She vanished us again, and when we reappeared this time, we had arrived within The Shade’s boundary, in the vibrant sunflower field bordering the entrance of Meadow Hospital. Shayla pushed the man’s chair inside and together we headed to the uppermost floor, where the isolation wards were located. We did not have any patients in isolation at the moment—in fact, the whole hospital seemed pretty empty. The last batch of humans we’d had here—those poor cargo ship workers who’d been trapped by ogres—must have already either died or recovered and been returned to the outside world.

Shayla pushed his chair into the room at the far end of the corridor, and I closed the door behind us. Meadow Hospital really was a unique place. Unlike most hospitals, all of these rooms had been designed to feel cozy, like home. Warm lighting. Soft bedding. Bold paintings adorning the walls—mostly artwork by The Shade’s elementary school children. Waking up in one of these rooms, one would hardly think that one was in a hospital at all. I’d never visited a regular hospital before, but I had heard that they were usually bare and stark, more like prisons than a place to heal.