A desperate letter reaches the professor who teaches zeros. Someone is counting on him to believe it.
Rian Vale has earned an independent practice, the devotion of four extraordinary women, and a future he once barely dared to imagine.
Then a message arrives from another school. Its readings are wrong. A man entered a restricted wing and never came out.
Rian leaves Grimoire with Mira, Eleni, Kaela, and Seraphine to investigate. Beyond the academy walls, they discover people trapped inside magical systems—and officials with compelling reasons to keep those systems running.
Freeing the first victims exposes a larger network. Each site presents a different danger. Each intervention demands more than a powerful spell.
Rian’s methods are advancing, but his reserves still have limits. He cannot hold every failing structure, protect every witness, and make every decision himself. The students he fought to teach must now become people he can trust with lives.
Meanwhile, the women beside him want more than stolen evenings between emergencies. Together, they must decide what their shared home will become—and what they are willing to risk to reach it.
He taught them to see their own worth. Now their future depends on what they do with it.