Chapter 160 Chapter 160

Chapter 160 Chapter 160
Taylor's POV

The morning of the council vote started with a phone call from Maria.

Her voice filled with urgency I hadn't heard from her in weeks.

"I need you at the academy," she said.

"Now before the vote, something's come up, and it's not something I want to explain over the phone."

I met her standing outside the history department with two guards, her face grim, and my stomach rumbled instantly when I saw who they had detained between them.

Mr. Ramon.

He had taught history at the academy for almost three years, quiet and unremarkable, the kind of teacher students barely thought about outside his classroom.

I'd sat through his lectures a dozen times without a single thought that he might be anything other than exactly what he appeared to be.

"What's happening?" I asked, my voice unsteady.

"We found irregularities in his financial records while cross referencing everything for the council presentation," Maria said.

"Payments matching the exact pattern we've seen before. McCall, Coach Dawson and Corbin."

"That's not possible," I said, staring at Ramon, who stood quietly between the guards, his expression carefully blank.

"He's been here for years, Maria, Long before any of this started."

"Exactly," Maria said grimly. "Which means whoever recruited him started building this network long before Kessler ever became an active threat."

Ramon finally spoke, his voice flat and resigned.

"I never wanted any of this to go this far," he accepted. "I answered questions, simple ones, at first. Where Taylor sat in class. Which friends she spent time with. It seemed harmless."

"How long?" I asked, my chest tightening.

"Almost three years," he admitted quietly. "Since before you even mated with Hunter."

The revelation hit me hard.

Three years before any of this had even begun, before I understood what I was, someone had already been watching.

Already gathering information, patient in a way that made even Kessler's decades of waiting seem almost impulsive by comparison.

"Who recruited you," Maria asked. "Give me a name."

"I never met them in person," Ramon said.

"Everything happened through encrypted messages, payments routed through accounts I couldn't trace even if I wanted to. But it was a woman. I know that much for certain."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Her voice," he said.

"On the rare occasions we spoke directly by phone instead of message, it was careful, educated, patient. She never raised her voice, never threatened outright. She simply made everything sound reasonable, until I'd already given her more information than I ever meant to."

"Do you have anything else?" Maria pressed. "Any detail at all that could help identify her?"

Ramon hesitated, something moved behind his eyes. "She mentioned once, in passing, that she'd been planning something for a very long time. Longer than I understood at the time. She said Kessler was useful, but ultimately expendable, exactly like Yvaine had been."

My blood ran cold. "She's been using them," I said slowly.

"All of them, Kessler, Yvaine. Everyone we thought were the real threats. They were just pieces on her board the whole time."

"That fits everything we're seeing," Maria said grimly.

"This isn't a new enemy emerging after Kessler's defeat, Taylor.

This is someone who's been guiding the entire conflict from the very beginning, watching Kessler and Yvaine both rise and fall while staying completely hidden behind them."



I sat in stunned silence in Maria's car on the way to the palace, the weight of the revelation settling heavy and cold in my chest.

"Three years," I said quietly.

"She's been watching me for three years, and I never once suspected anything."

"That's exactly the point," Maria said.

"Whoever she is, she's spent this entire time making sure nobody suspected her at all and Kessler was reckless by comparison. Yvaine got caught eventually too. This woman has stayed invisible through both of their downfalls."

"Do we have any idea who she could be?" I asked.

"Not yet," Maria admitted.

"But we're closer than we've ever been and Ramon's confession gives us new threads to pull. I promise you, Taylor, we will find her."

I nodded, though the fear sitting heavy in my chest didn't fully believe it yet.



We arrived at the palace just as the council chamber began filling for the vote, Hunter and Asher already waiting anxiously near the entrance, both of them noticing immediately that something had shifted.

"What happened?" Hunter asked, reading the tension clearly on my face.

I told them everything quickly, watching their expressions shift from confusion into the same cold understanding that had settled over me an hour earlier.

"Three years," Asher repeated, disbelief thick in his voice.

"She's been planning this since before any of us even knew what you were."

"We need to focus on the vote quickly," Maria said firmly, though her own voice carried the same underlying unease.

"Whatever this new threat is, it's clearly patient enough to wait a little longer and right now, Taylor's future with Asher is what's actually on the table."

"She's right," I said, forcing myself to steady despite the fear still churning inside me.

"We can't let this new revelation distract us from what we came here to fight for today."

Hunter nodded, though his jaw remained tight. "After the vote," he said. "We focus everything on finding her."

"After the vote," Asher agreed.

We walked together into the council chamber, the weight of everything, the law, the vote, the newly discovered threat lurking somewhere still hidden in the shadows, pressing down hard on all of us.

I glanced once more at Maria before we took our seats, her expression still grim despite her attempt to project calm for my sake.

"We'll find her," she said quietly, echoing her earlier promise. "I swear it, Taylor, whoever she is, however long she's been hiding, she's not invisible forever."

I held onto that promise as tightly as I could manage, settling into my seat as the council chamber doors closed.

The weight of the coming vote and the shadow of an unknown enemy both hanging heavy over what should have been one of the most hopeful days of my entire year.