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The tablet before me glows, waiting for my vote on protocols that will expose my daughter within days of her twenty-first birthday. Protocols designed to identify exactly what she is.

But if I vote against it, if I break character now, they’ll investigate. They’ll dig deeper. And they’ll find not just Ember, but every mixed-blood individual I’ve helped hide over the years.

My hand hovers over the screen, and for one terrifying moment, I can’t make my fingers move. This vote will sign Ember’s death warrant if they discover what she really is.

“The genetic purity of our bloodlines remains paramount,” I hear myself say. “We cannot allow sentiment to compromise our integrity.”

My finger touches the screen.

Green light.

I want to vomit.

“Excellent.” Vex’s pleasure practically fills the chamber. “I propose we begin with Phase One immediately. Young adults represent our future—we must ensure that future remains pure.”

Two weeks.

The meeting continues, but I’m not really listening anymore. Two weeks before they start systematically testing everyone under twenty-five. Two weeks before they discover that someone within the Ivory League itself has been hiding the very “contamination” they’re hunting.

Two weeks to save my daughter before the enhanced protocols expose what she is.

The chamber empties slowly, League members filing out with their expensive suits and ancient grudges. Cassia lingers, making a show of organizing her files while checking for surveillance signals.

When the last member disappears, she meets my eyes.

“What the fuck, Cassia?” I whisper fiercely. “You couldn’t give me a heads up?”

Her shoulders slump. “He’s had me under constant surveillance while we worked on this thing, Vanya. I barely left my quarters, aside from my time in the labs.”

I heave a deep breath, knowing she’s right. We normally maintain a level of contact, but I’ve noticed she’s been out of reach for the past couple of weeks. I just put it down to regular work pressure. Although operations within the Syndicate are seldom that simple.

“I’m sorry,” I exhale, knowing I’ve been unfair. We all walk a dangerous path in this place. “How bad is it?”

“Worse than you could imagine.” Her fingers tremble slightly as she gathers her tablet. “The detection algorithms are too sophisticated now. There’s no way to falsify results without raising immediate suspicion.”

“How long do we really have?”

“Probably less than the two weeks he’s proposing before Vex pushes for immediate implementation of Phase One.” She glances toward the elevator. “The enhanced protocols aren’t just about finding contamination—they’re about eliminating it entirely.”

Execution. The word rings in my head yet again.

Everyone under twenty-five. Every mixed-heritage young person in our territory.

And my daughter, who doesn’t even know she’s in danger.

“Ember,” I breathe, squeezing my eyes shut.

“She has a chance,” Cassia continues quietly. “You’ve kept her hidden.”

“Maybe we can get her out,” I say. “Send her to stay with some of the others we’ve managed to keep hidden.”

Cassia shakes her head. “Right now, Vex has his eye on any activity that doesn’t adhere to standard Syndicate protocols. That means no impromptu movement. No unscheduled personnel reassignments.” She pinches her lips together, giving an apologetic shrug.

Goddammit!

From the look in Vex’s eyes, he’ll leave no stone unturned in this madness of his. I’ve taken all possible precautions to hide the fact that I have any offspring at all, but how do you truly hide a young dragon indefinitely?

“We’ll find a way, I promise,” says Cassia, although her expression offers little reassurance.

I sit alone in the empty chamber after she leaves, surrounded by the lingering traces of power and paranoia.

Fifteen years of careful work, fifteen years of protecting people who didn’t deserve punishment for circumstances beyond their control, and it’s all about to be swept away by detection protocols I can’t get around.

The elevator carries me up through layers of the Syndicate Enclave, past the administrative floors where lesser dragons handle territorial disputes and trade negotiations.

I have to do something. Anything.

But for the first time in a decade and a half, I realize I’ve run out of options. There’s nowhere to turn. No way to ask for help. No one to—

Wait.

The encrypted phone hidden in my jacket pocket weighs like a stone. For years, I’ve carried it without ever daring to use the single contact stored in its memory. A number I’ve memorized but never called.

The man I’ve watched through our magical bond for over twenty years.

The father who doesn’t know he has a daughter.

The man who might be the only one who can help me save her.

The position I’ve held, the careful balance I’ve maintained—none of it matters now. Vex’s enhanced protocols will tear through my defenses like tissue paper.

My fingers hover over the keypad. Once I send this message, there’s no taking it back. No more pretending that my carefully constructed world isn’t crumbling.

But Ember…

She’s studying for exams right now, probably complaining about her overprotective mother who won’t tell her anything about her father. She has no idea that in two weeks, genetic scanners will reveal exactly what she is.

With shaking fingers, I tap on the screen. The message is simple. Six words that carry the weight of all of my secrets:

They’re going to kill our daughter.

I add a single initial: V.

It’s all I dare say—if this message is intercepted somehow, it has to be too obscure for anyone to figure it out.

My thumb hovers over the send button. The last time I saw Hargen—really saw him, not through surveillance footage—he was holding me in the darkness before dawn, promising things we both knew were impossible.

“I’ll find a way,” he’d whispered against my hair. “I’ll find a way to save us.”

He couldn’t then. But maybe, together, we can save our daughter now.

I press send.

The message encrypts itself and disappears into the digital ether. By the time it reaches him, it will be untraceable back to me.

But he’ll know. He’ll know about Ember. He’ll know that for twenty-one years, he’s grieved a woman who never died.

And he’ll know he has a daughter who needs him.