Chapter Twenty-Eight
I smiled at Elira’s words.
“So much like your grandfather,” she said, her fingers tracing absent patterns on the arm of her chair. “Yet even more like your dad—his kindness, his loyalty. Embrace that. You have his heart, Maeve. The most important thing of all.”
My breath caught slightly at the mention of my dad. It was refreshing to have the rare acknowledgment of him that wasn’t wrapped in mystery or avoidance. My mom had always avoided speaking about him, and now the reasons were becoming clear as day.
Elira’s eyes softened. “But don’t let the rigidity of your grandfather seep into your soul, Maeve. Sometimes, there are many answers to the same question, and all are legitimate and helpful. And patience is vital for understanding. It’s why the Academy prides itself in accepting students with life experience. But rigidity can ruin even the kindest of souls.”
I frowned slightly, tilting my head. “What do you mean?”
She sighed, glancing toward the fire, her gaze flickering with something heavy. “Your grandfather believed there was only one way to do things—one correct path, one truth. He was devoted to duty and responsibility but struggled to see beyond it. Your father, though… understood that truth isn’t always a single road. Sometimes, the world offers many answers, each holding a piece of what we need.”
I let her words settle, turning them over in my mind like a smooth stone. “Was that what made them so different from one another?”
Elira’s lips curved in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “It was one of many things.”
Something in her tone told me there was more.
A lot more.
Maybe it was my grandfather’s stubbornness or my father’s quiet persistence—whichever part of my lineage tugged at me—but I knew I couldn’t stop now.
“Grandma,” I said carefully, “why does the Academy want me to learn about Alpha bonds?”
Her fingers twitched slightly on the chair’s arm, the only visible sign of hesitation.
And then she exhaled and looked me straight in the eye.
“Because your grandfather was an Alpha.”
The room tilted.
I blinked. “I—what?”
Elira didn’t look away. “Your grandfather was a shifter, Maeve. A powerful one. And so was your father.”
My breath left me in a rush, and I had to grip the arms of my chair to steady myself.
That— that wasn’t just a secret. That was a life-altering, fundamental shift in everything I thought I knew about my family.
“Alphas.”
“My father…” My voice cracked. “He—he was a shifter?”
Elira nodded once. “Yes.”
The floor might as well have fallen out from under me.
I shook my head, trying to grasp it. “But—but I don’t—”
I didn’t shift. I had never once in my life experienced anything remotely like that.
“I’m not—I’ve never—” I struggled to form a full sentence.
Elira’s gaze softened. “You were never meant to.”
I froze, my heart pounding. “What does that mean?”
She sighed, shifting slightly in her seat, weighing how much to tell me.
“Your father didn’t choose to lead the pack,” she said finally. “He never even got the chance. After his first changing, the pack abandoned him when he was young.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “They left him?”
Like Keegan.
Elira nodded, sorrow shadowing her expression. “Your grandfather didn’t believe your dad was the right choice to be Alpha. He saw something in him that made him doubt and turn away from his son.”
A lump formed in my throat. “But why?”
Her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Because your father wasn’t like him. He didn’t look like your grandfather. He didn’t act like him. Your dad wasn’t rigid. He wasn’t ruthless. And your grandfather believed an Alpha had to be both.”
My stomach twisted. “And you?”
Elira looked away, the firelight casting long shadows over her face. “Your grandfather thought I must have betrayed him somehow. That it was my fault.”
I clenched my hands into fists, anger, and heartbreak warring inside me. “It wasn’t, though. It couldn’t have been.”
Elira’s gaze softened as she looked back at me. “Your father knew that, Maeve. And he knew that Stonewick would be the safest place for you to grow up.”
My throat tightened.
My dad wanted me to grow up in Stonewick because it was his safe place. His refuge.
He had been cast out.
His family—his own pack —had turned their backs on him.
And then my mother did the same to him.
My heart burned with sadness.
I let my head fall against the chair, staring at the ceiling. “This is a lot.”
Elira chuckled, the sound warm and knowing. “It always is.”
I glanced at her. “Why tell me now?”
She hesitated, then said, “Because the past has a way of catching up, Maeve. And I think yours is about to knock on the door.”
My stomach twisted.
My grandfather.
Had he come looking for me ?
And if so…
Why now?
The weight of the revelations pressed against my skull, my thoughts colliding in a chaotic storm. Something was just out of reach, slipping through my grasp.
I rubbed my temples, willing the pieces to fit together, but the more I tried to pin it down, the more elusive it became.
My dad was a shifter.
The words alone felt foreign in my mind, impossible yet undeniable.
I had spent my entire life assuming my father was ordinary. A kind, quiet man who avoided conversations about the past, who had never once given me a reason to suspect that magic coursed through his veins.
And yet.
The curse.
My stomach twisted.
Forty years ago.
That was when everything had changed for Stonewick.
That was when the Academy had sealed itself.
That was when the town had fractured , cut off from the magic that had once thrived within it.
I sucked in a slow breath.
And that was when my dad disappeared from my life.
When my mother had forbidden me from ever coming here.
The realization struck like lightning, sharp and electrifying.
I lifted my head, my pulse drumming in my ears.
My grandma sighed deeply, watching me with quiet patience, knowing the storm brewing inside me was about to break.
“Grandma,” I whispered, “am I—” I swallowed, my voice betraying me. “Am I a shifter?”
Elira’s expression softened, the flickering light casting deep shadows along her lined face. Slowly, she shook her head.
“No, Maeve,” she said gently. “I don’t believe you are. It should have shown itself by now.”
Somewhere deep inside, I had known what her answer would be. And yet, hearing it out loud sent an unexpected pang through my chest.
A part of me had been bracing for something— anything —that would explain why I felt I belonged to a place I had barely set foot in.
Elira reached for my hand, her grip warm and steady. “It must have skipped you.”
My lips parted, but before I could speak, she continued.
“You are not a shifter, Maeve,” she said softly, “but you are something else.”
I blinked, my body going still.
Her gaze held mine, unwavering.
“You are a witch,” she said. “Like your mother.”
The words hit like a hammer to my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs.
I pulled my hand back, gripping the arms of my chair like they were the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.
“A witch?” I repeated, the syllables foreign on my tongue. “My mother?”
Elira nodded.
My world tilted as the edges of fact and fiction blurred.
I had spent my life wondering why my mother had always been so adamant that I stayed away from Stonewick and why she had dismissed its existence as nothing more than an old wives’ tale.
She had known what it held for me.
All this time, she wouldn’t bring me here when I was a little girl.
The timing.
My father.
I swallowed past the dryness in my throat, my voice barely a whisper.
“Was my mother one of them?”
Elira didn’t answer right away.
I lifted my gaze to hers, desperation tightening in my chest. “Did she—did she abandon this town like the others? Did she weaken Stonewick by not believing in the Academy?”
My Grandma’s expression was tentative, but the silence between us stretched long enough that I had my answer before she even opened her mouth.
“She was one of the ones who left,” she admitted. “One of the ones who turned away.”
The words stung, even though I had already suspected them.
I had grown up feeling like something was missing, like there was a part of me I had never been allowed to know.
And now I understood.
My mother hadn’t just wanted to keep me away from Stonewick.
She had been part of the reason it had fallen in the first place.
The pieces fell into place, each clicking together with a weight I could feel in my bones.
Keegan’s promise to my dad.
I had brushed it aside when I first learned of it, thinking it was just another one of his broody, duty-bound tendencies.
But now?
Now I wondered what my dad had asked of him—what Keegan had agreed to. Because if my father had been abandoned by his pack and had cut himself off from that world, why would Keegan still feel bound to him?
Unless it was about me .
Unless my father had known, even then, that Stonewick wasn’t done with me.
My mother abandoned him. Abandoning this town.
Had she left because of him? Had she left because she wanted to, or because she was afraid ? I tried to picture her—young, standing at the crossroads of two lives: one full of magic, old and demanding, and another that was simple, normal, easy .
I thought of how she had raised me, how she had shut down every question and dismissed every curiosity I had about the place I barely remembered visiting as a child.
She hadn’t just left Stonewick.
She had erased it.
My dad’s passing.
I had mourned him as a kind, quiet man. But now, I grieved for something else—something I hadn’t even realized I had lost.
I had never known who he truly was.
And now, I never would.
And my mother?
She was off, happily cruising the Mediterranean with my stepdad, pretending this other world didn’t exist. That I wasn’t sitting here, in a magically sealed Academy, unraveling the secrets she had spent her whole life trying to bury.
I thought about Celeste.
About protecting her.
Would I have done the same?
If I had known, if I had seen the weight of magic and duty coming for her, would I have tried to keep her from it? To push her toward a life where she never had to ask these questions?
I didn’t know.
And that terrified me.
Because as much as I resented my mother for leaving, as much as I ached for the father I never truly got to know…
I could see why she had done it.
And that understanding was almost worse.
I let out a slow, shaky breath, rubbing my temples as the weight of the knowledge pounded down on me.
I needed clarity.
I needed answers.
I needed the book sprites.
I turned toward the shelves, watching as they flitted and hovered like tiny, impatient librarians waiting for me to get my act together.
“Alright,” I muttered. “Show me what’s next.”
The books rustled in response, the air shifting as something unseen moved among the shelves.
And then, all at once, a single book lurched forward, landing with a heavy thud on the table in front of me.
I swallowed hard.
The Academy had decided.
And I was about to learn exactly what it wanted me to know.