Chapter Twenty
The Academy felt different this time.
Not louder, not brighter…just, fuller. As though the walls had finally taken a deep breath. As though the air remembered how to move again. The Academy had always felt alive, but the walls felt excited tonight. Anxious?
I stepped inside and paused, giving the old place a moment to greet me. That was the way with the Academy. You didn’t merely barge in. You arrived, you made an entrance, and if it was ready for you, it let you know.
Tonight, it had been waiting for me.
Grandma Elira stood at the end of the hall in a shaft of moonlight that filtered through the blue-stained glass across from the staircase.
Her silhouette was the same as it had always been, spine straight, hands folded neatly in front of her, but something about her face softened when she saw me.
I didn’t need to say a word. She knew something had changed.
“You came,” she said, stepping forward.
“I did.”
We didn’t embrace right away.
We just looked at each other, and everything I’d been holding since I saw him again rose in my throat in that quiet space between us.
I blinked fast to avoid having tears slip down my cheeks, and then I hugged her.
Properly. Tightly. The way a granddaughter hugs someone she thought might never get to hear the truth she’d carried for too long.
“He’s home,” I said into her shoulder.
She froze, just for a second.
Then she pulled back, blinking at me. “What?”
“Dad. I got him back. We set a trap for Gideon, and he fell for it. There was one little mishap, but I turned that around today.”
Her brows furrowed. “Mishap?”
“I turned Dad into a towering bulldog, but I didn’t think about how I’d turn him back.”
She chuckled and gripped my chin. “Ah, those pesky little details.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Great witches never let those things stop them. You knew what you had to do, and you did it.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Maeve…” Her eyes stayed on mine.
“Anyway, he’s safe. He’s back in the cottage. Resting, mostly. Still recovering, but he’s with us now.”
Her mouth opened, then closed again. She sat hard on the nearest bench like her knees had just given out.
For a long time, she didn’t speak. Her eyes were glassy with disbelief.
“I had my doubts.” She shook her head. “I was worried when you left, it might be…”
I shook my head. “You can’t get rid of me that fast. I just got here. I still need the doors to open. We need students. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I—I was too afraid to check the mirrors or the pedestal. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again or you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I held onto the hope, but…”
“He wants you to know how much he loves and misses you. How you’ve never been out of his heart.”
“Oh, he told you that, did he?” My grandma chuckled.
“In not so many words.”
A quiet laugh escaped her, thick with emotion. “Your father was always too good at carrying things alone. I feared that might be what broke him in the end.”
“It didn’t.” I shook my head. “It won’t.”
Elira nodded once, sharply, as if trying to ground herself with the motion. Then her gaze flicked up toward the far hallway—the one that led to the sealed rooms, the locked doors.
The classrooms.
“When the Academy reopens,” I said, sitting beside her, “will people be able to come and go freely? Could Dad visit?”
“That’s not up to me,” she murmured.
“But… you’re its heart. You’re the one it listens to.”
“That’s flattering, but it’s not true. The Academy listens to no one.”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head. “Let me try again. “The Academy listens to everyone. But it only answers to itself.”
I looked down at my hands. “So there’s a chance it might not let him in.”
“There’s always a chance,” she said gently. “But I don’t think it would turn him away. It remembers things, Maeve. Not just history. People. What they’ve done and what they’ve sacrificed. Your father has a place here. The Academy knows that. It knew the moment you brought him back into the world where he belongs.”
“And Gideon?” I asked. “Could he sneak in here?”
“It’s one of the main reasons the Academy started to close itself off. Over a hundred years ago, long before Gideon, it started closing itself down to students and most others. But forty years ago, it seized up like Fort Knox.”
“How will the Academy get over that if we’re to let students and teachers back in?”
“I don’t know, my dear Maeve.” She shook her head.
“One more strange thing to add to the mix.”
My grandma tipped her head slightly.
“My mom came back to Stonewick.”
Her eyes widened. “She did? When?”
“She’s there now.”
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“I’m still in a state of shock myself.”
She furrowed her brows. “Did she say why?”
“Her excuse for visiting seems valid. She’s on the outs with my stepdad and wanted to reconnect with me since my divorce.” I shrugged. “I hope that’s it, but I was able to talk to her a little bit.”
“Your mom is a good person. She was just put in a few unfortunate circumstances, and she did what she thought was best at the time.”
I smiled and nodded. “I hope the others see that.”
“You can’t control other people’s narratives or feelings. They’ll cling to them until they’re shown otherwise.”
And then I felt it again.
That tug. Not sharp or urgent…just a pull, steady and familiar, like the tide easing back from the shore. It started in my chest and hummed low in my ribs, drawing me forward. Not away from Elira, but deeper into the space where the Academy whispered.
She saw it in my eyes.
“It’s calling again, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Go on, then,” she said with a small smile. “No sense keeping it waiting.”
I stood, squeezed her hand, and walked back into the corridors I’d come to know in dreams long before I stepped inside them.
The Academy had something to show me.
And this time, I was ready to see it.
I followed the pull.
The corridors shifted as I walked—quiet, still, but not empty. The Academy breathed beneath my feet, stone and magic woven so tightly together I could almost feel its heartbeat, soft and steady. I passed the old herb chamber, the cracked windows that let in slices of sun. Paintings hung crooked on the walls, as if they had tilted their heads to watch me pass.
I didn’t rush. I didn’t need to.
The path was familiar now, though I couldn’t have said how. Not in a way I could trace on a map. But my bones knew where I was going, and the air got warmer every step. Not hot, not yet. Just laced with the scent of charred wood and ash, as if a hearth had recently gone cold.
The dragon wing.
I’d had a glimpse behind the veil before, as if the Academy had lifted a corner of itself just long enough to say, Look, but not yet.
But something about this visit felt different. The door at the end of the corridor glowed faintly, the old copper etched with curling vines and symbols I still hadn’t learned to read.
And then, from behind the door, came the sound of wings. Not large ones. Smaller, quicker. Familiar.
The fluttering key appeared from the side hall, its gold edges catching the light, wings buzzing like a hummingbird as it looped around me in a slow circle. It hovered at eye level, as if assessing something, then darted toward the door. It paused midair, glanced back—if keys could glance—and gave one sharp click as it turned in the lock.
The door opened with a sigh.
Inside, the air changed completely. Warmer now. Thicker. Like walking into a summer evening just before a storm, when everything hums and the sky holds its breath.
The room wasn’t what I expected.
It was vast and much larger than it had any right to be, considering the size of the wing from the outside. I looked toward the alcove where I’d met the baby dragon before.
A shadowy shimmer of gold flowed along its scales as its glowing eyes met mine. Her iridescent scales glimmered before me as she stretched her tiny wings, waiting for me to step forward. Her tail slapped the dried grass and rocks, swishing as if gesturing for me to come deeper into the dragon wing.
My heart thumped hard, but the pull was stronger than anything my body could send me.
The ceiling arched high overhead, its beams dark with age. Vines had grown up along the stone walls, curling into shapes I couldn’t name. And there, at the center of it all, was the nest.
I stopped short.
It was made of crystal, bone, and bits of scorched wood, woven together in careful layers. Patches of moss grew along the edges, and strange glowing stones had been placed throughout, pulsing with a soft, golden light. It looked ancient, but new at the same time, as if it had always existed here and had only just been completed.
And in the center of the nest, resting, coiled, wings half-folded, was a dragon.
A tired dragon.
She was smaller than I imagined a dragon might be, though still enormous. Her scales shimmered in shades of deep emerald and bronze, and her breath rose in steady clouds, warming the air around her. One eye opened slowly as I stepped closer.
It was not a threatening gaze.
It was old.
Knowing.
She didn’t move. Just watched.
“I… didn’t know you were here,” I whispered, as if any louder sound might disturb whatever delicate magic was at work in this space.
The dragon blinked once. Then, with a deep, slow exhale, she lowered her head and nudged something in the nest toward me.
An egg.
Not large. Not glowing. Just pale, smooth, and tucked in a curve of her tail like something infinitely precious.
I couldn’t breathe for a second.
She was nesting.
Preparing for something rare. Something extraordinary. Something not seen by human eyes.
And the Academy had brought me here to see it.
To witness the beauty.
A chill worked its way down my back, even in the warmth of the chamber.
This wasn’t just about the egg. Or the dragon. Or even the Academy’s quiet awakening.
It was about what comes next.
This was a signal. A promise. Maybe even a warning.
Everything I’d been doing, the rescues, the searching, the fights, and the fear, had been building to this.
Something was coming.
Something big enough that the dragons were preparing for it. That the Academy was waking up. That even the Wards, faded and flickering, had begun to stir again.
Maybe the Academy never closed because of the curse. Maybe it was to prepare for this moment. I didn’t know and wouldn’t know for a time to come.
But the one thing I understood was that I was witnessing something so special and bittersweet it almost paralyzed me.
I stepped forward, slowly, my heart thudding so loudly that I was certain the dragon could hear it. She didn’t flinch. Her gaze stayed steady.
“I’ll protect it,” I said, unsure where the words came from. “Whatever’s coming. Whatever this means for Stonewick. For the Academy. For all of us—I’ll protect it. I’ll protect you.” I looked at the baby dragon in the alcove and smiled. “And you.”
The mother dragon lowered her head again, this time closer. She exhaled, and the air shimmered with warmth and something like approval. I felt it ripple over my skin—an ancient magic, wild and soft all at once.
My hand trembled at my side, but I didn’t lift it. Not yet. Some things are earned slowly.
The key fluttered at the edge of my vision, circling again, as if taking in the whole room.
I realized, standing there, that no one had seen this place in decades. Maybe longer. The records, the rumors, they were scraps. Hints. The truth had been hidden, protected. Cradled, even.
And I had seen it.
Now I knew.
There was no running from that.
No pretending the danger had passed just because my father was home, or the cottage felt safe again. This— this —was the beginning of something else. The spark that would light the path forward or burn it to ash.
And I would not let Stonewick burn.
Not while I still stood.
The dragon closed her eyes, slowly.
At peace. The egg glowed faintly now, just a pulse—heartbeat-like, slow and certain.
I backed away, giving the nest its space. The key flitted ahead of me again, ready to lead me back.
But I turned once more, just before crossing the threshold.
“I won’t let anything happen to them,” I said.
And I meant every word.