I stood on the steps of the abandoned Victorian and stared at the ruined hospital across the street.

“What do we do now?” Rend asked. He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair and shrugged. “I’m sorry, man. I really thought this was it.”

“Me, too,” I said, doing my best to ignore the tightening in my chest.

I’d thought we were coming here to rescue Harper from the emerald priestess. I’d thought we’d finally found her after all this time.

Hell, I had practically felt her in my arms as we passed through the door to the emerald priestess’s house.

But she wasn’t here. Not now, anyway.

I looked back at the old house. It was apparent from its current condition that no one had lived here for decades. Probably not since the fifties when the hospital burned down.

That meant this house had been a decoy. A sham she’d set up so that she could run the institute in secret for all those years, torturing innocent witches and trying to turn their minds to her dark purposes.

Staring at it now, I almost felt as though we were right back where we started.

Almost.

I clutched the wooden box in my hands and stared down at the simple H carved into its surface.

More than sixty years ago, Harper must have put this box together and buried it where she knew I would find it tonight. She said to set them free and then come find her, but all I could think about was getting her back.

“What are we waiting for?” Mary Anne asked, pacing back and forth on the porch behind me. “We have a small army here right now. We could go straight to Cypress and release the witches and demons tied to that gate before the Order knows what hit them.”

“It’s true,” Mordecai said. He stepped forward, his long black dreads swinging near his face. “The longer we wait, the more time we give them to gather their forces against us. Remember the sapphire gates? By the time we’d released two or three of them, we had a battle at every single one after that.”

Everyone was talking all at once, and my head was spinning with possibilities. In Harper’s absence, they were all looking to me as a leader, but we needed more time to put together a plan.

“We have an advantage right now that we didn’t have with the sapphire gates,” I said. “That buys us some time.”

“What?” Rend asked.

I smiled. “We have a dungeon full of emerald gate Primas and their daughters,” I said. “We hold the lives of their entire covens in our hands. They won’t be able to fight against us with that kind of power. I’m just as anxious as all of you to get started releasing these gates, but I want to go in with a plan. We need to get our core group together at the castle tonight to talk it through. Besides, the ritual only works at three in the afternoon. We’ve got time.”

Mordecai shook his head. “This is a mistake, Jackson,” he said. “You know I got your back no matter what, but I think we need to move on this now. Most of the Order probably doesn’t even realize another priestess is dead yet.”

“We have no idea what the Order knows,” I said. “None of us have any experience with time travel. If Harper killed Priestess Evers, she did it back in 1951, and she burned this building down in the process. We have no idea what kind of repercussions that has. It’s possible she’s drastically changed the timeline, and we don’t have enough information about how that changes everything related to it. We have a small window of time here to get this right, and if we make the wrong move, we could put everyone, including Harper, in danger.”

“Small being the operative word,” Mary Anne said. “If we wait too long to make a move, Mordecai is right. The Order will have an army of witches waiting for us at every single gate we try to free. You know as well as I do that the Order would gladly sacrifice a coven of its own members to protect the overall group. If you want to go back to the castle to talk this through, let’s do it now. Who do we need to call together?”

She pulled a small handful of rubies from her pocket. Communication stones. We all used them to talk to each other across long distances and dimensions. Cell phones didn’t tend to work in the Shadow World.

“Harper’s Sister, Angela, should already be there. Gregory, too. We’ll need to talk to Eloise from Cypress since she’s the Prima of an emerald gate and likely to be our first target,” I said. “Franki and Rend, of course we want you both there. Mordecai, you should be there but tell Joost and the others to hang back. If we’re going to have a productive conversation, we need to keep it somewhat small.”

“I’ll reach out to Eloise,” Mary Anne said. “And I’ll let Gregory and Angela know we’re on our way and to prepare the war room for us.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “You guys head back, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

“What are you going to do?” Mary Anne asked.

“There are a few things I think we should take care of here before we leave,” I said.

Joost and Eric had agreed to stay behind and manage the search of the two properties. Cristo had decided to explore this small Ohio town just to make sure there wasn’t a portal or gate here we didn’t know about.

They got to work, assigning people to different wings of the hospital and areas of the abandoned house.

“What do I do if the cops show up?” Joost asked. “I have a feeling someone in the neighborhood is going to notice that a bunch of people are searching the old hospital. It’s a condemned property.”

“Get a few of the more powerful witches together and have them put a glamour on the hospital so that no light shows through the windows. Make it look like no one’s here and everything’s normal,” I said.

“What if someone already saw us out here on the lawn?” he asked, looking around.

I smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re creative. Figure it out.”

He laughed and nodded. “Got it. Meet you back at the Southern Kingdom?”

“As soon as the search is over,” I said. “Thanks, Joost.”

“No problem, man,” he said. “I’m sorry we didn’t find Harper.”

Again, my heart tightened in my chest, and I had to force back the anger and frustration that threatened to take over my emotions. I had to focus on the task at hand, or I was going to lose my mind.

“We’re going to find her,” I said. “It’s just going to take a little more time than we thought.”

Joost nodded again. “I’ll see you soon,” he said.

He hurried off to help direct people to put up a glamour around the hospital and the house. I watched, so grateful for all of the demons and free witches who had been willing to risk their lives to help us here tonight.

I glanced at the condemned hospital one last time, understanding that Harper could be standing in this exact location at this very moment, locked somewhere in the past. She had faced unimaginable horror, but she had fought until the end, overcoming impossible odds to defeat another priestess.

I pulled a worn and faded piece of paper from my pocket and ran my thumb along the drawing. That was still us sitting there in the garden of the castle, watching our son play among the roses. I had seen this future for us, and I still had to believe that whatever trials we faced along the way, we would both survive long enough to see this vision become a reality.

Harper was the strongest, bravest person I knew, and I had to trust that she would be okay.

For her, I would hold on.

For her, I would see this through and find a way to free the witches and demons bound to the emerald gates.

And then, when it was done, I would move heaven and earth to get her back.