Chapter Twenty-Three
The bell echoed through the Academy like a ripple through water. Not rushed. Not panicked. But insistent and deep enough to make the stone underfoot hum in response.
Someone was within the Academy’s boundaries.
Grandma Elira had already started moving when I stepped out of the Maple Ward. Bella fell in beside me without a word, pulling her coat tighter even though the air hadn’t turned cold. It was just something about the sound. That bell didn’t ring without reason.
Not anymore.
We walked quickly, not quite running. Just enough that our footsteps fell in sync, the soles of our boots tapping out an anxious rhythm on the worn floors.
“Has it always sounded like that?” Bella asked quietly, glancing at my grandmother.
“No,” Elira said. “But the Academy changes, same as we do.”
That didn’t help my nerves.
We passed the tall windows that overlooked the east lawn. Morning had started to slide toward afternoon. The light was turning soft with blurry edges as the sky faded to a low blue-gray.
I caught the scent of jasmine on the breeze and turned toward the glass to see a beautiful jasmine etched in the stained glass.
But that’s when I saw it.
Just a flicker at first.
A shape.
Not close, not clear—but definitely someone.
In the Butterfly Garden, walking through the Ward as if it belonged.
I stopped walking.
Bella nearly bumped into me. “What—?”
“There’s someone outside,” I whispered, feeling the need to stay hidden even though we were in the safety of the Academy’s stone walls.
My grandma turned too, peering through the glass. Her mouth pressed into a line. “No one should be there.”
“I tried several times to come in that way,” Bella added, already stepping closer to the window. “It took the fifth time.”
I glanced at her, realizing I didn’t know she’d attempted to come to the Academy so many times. I’d just assumed she walked up and the Academy let her in.
But I returned my gaze to the garden.
The figure moved. Not toward the buildings, but back, deeper into the garden. It was hard to see, just a silhouette against the dusk, but tall. Cloaked. And moving fast.
I didn’t wait.
I pushed the window open. The latch gave easily, like the Academy had been holding its breath and was glad to exhale. The wind rushed in, cool and dry, carrying the scent of chamomile and something sharper underneath.
Burned leaves, maybe. Or iron.
“I’m going after them,” I said.
Bella was already climbing out beside me. “Obviously.”
My grandma didn’t argue our logic, but she knew she couldn’t go outside these walls or she’d cease to exist in her current form.
We dropped down the path and took off across the snow, our boots quiet on the slush and dirt. The garden was just ahead, framed by the low hedge wall and arched entryway covered in twisting vines. It had always been one of the quieter places in the Academy, with soft light, floating butterflies with shimmering wings that responded to mood and magic.
However, now it felt different.
Still beautiful. Still green in the dead of winter.
But the kind of beauty that’s too quiet. Where the hush feels deliberate. Waiting.
We slipped past the gate and into the winding paths, the air thick with flowering things and the faint sound of wings.
No sign of anyone.
“Where’d they go?” Bella asked, voice low.
“I don’t know,” I said, scanning the garden. “But someone was here. I saw them. I know I did.”
“I did too.” Bella stepped off the path and checked behind one of the stone benches. I moved the other way, parting a wall of yellow blossoms with my hands. The garden didn’t resist. It never happened to me. But it also didn’t offer any help.
“Maybe they used a spell,” I said.
“To vanish?” Bella asked. “Or hide?”
“Or both.”
She came back to my side. “Do you think it’s Gideon?”
I didn’t answer right away.
I didn’t want it to be him. I didn’t want to believe he’d made it past the Wards, through the garden, and onto the Academy grounds without setting off some kind of alarm.
But I knew what I saw. And whoever it was, they didn’t belong.
“If it was him,” I said finally, “then he’s getting bolder.”
Bella nodded once, mouth set. “And closer.”
My mind drifted to the weakening Maple Ward, and my chest tightened.
We waited a few more seconds, letting the stillness settle. The butterflies hovered nearby, glowing faintly, drifting from flower to flower like nothing had happened. But they hadn’t gathered on us the way they used to.
They were staying back.
I looked to the far side of the garden. One of the old gates, usually kept shut tight, was ajar. Just slightly. Just enough.
My stomach dropped.
“We need to tell Grandma Elira,” I said. “They felt us coming and fled. That doesn’t sound like someone who belongs.”
We turned and ran, the smell of crushed petals trailing behind us. I didn’t look back. I didn’t need to.
Whoever had been there, whoever had slipped into this quiet corner of the Academy and left without a sound, wasn’t done.
And I had the awful sense they’d be back.
We had just stepped back out of the Butterfly Garden when I heard Elira calling us from across the green, standing at the Academy’s threshold.
“Maeve! Bella!”
Her tone wasn’t urgent in the usual way, not fear, not danger, but it reached straight into my chest and pulled. It had that sound to it, the one you don’t ignore.
We immediately turned and went inside, following her to the east corridor. Her robes caught the last stretch of afternoon sun like a silver veil.
“Come quickly!” she said. “You must hear it.”
I didn’t need to ask what. My legs were already moving.
The Academy shifted as we moved. Doors that had been closed the day before creaked open. A corridor that used to loop back toward the lecture halls now curved left instead, the stones underfoot rearranging themselves with the soft grind of age and memory. The scent of the halls changed too, less of dust and parchment now, and more of green things.
Sap and bark and loam.
The Academy lent us a shortcut back to the Maple Ward.
Bella gave me a sideways look as we rounded another bend. “Do you hear that?”
“I’m not sure.”
But not only did I hear it, I felt it.
The air carried something on it now, something feather-light. Not words. Not even melody at first. Just a vibration under the skin, like the first flicker of a song remembered from a dream.
The stairwell to the Maple Ward wasn’t where it had been.
The corridor opened ahead of us, and instead of a blank wall at the end, a narrow set of steps spiraled upward in soft golden light. We didn’t stop to question it. The Academy had always known where we needed to go, even if it waited until the last moment to show us the way.
As we climbed, the sound grew stronger.
Humming.
Not from a person. Not the kind you do while tidying or passing the time. This was deeper.
Elemental. A thrum that lived in the walls and curled through the air like incense.
And beneath it, barely there, the soft flutter of leaves. Not wind, not rustling.
A beat. A rhythm.
A song.
We reached the top of the stairs, and the familiar wooden door to the Maple Ward stood before us. But even it had changed. The vines around the frame glowed faintly. The handle had grown smooth and warm to the touch, like it had been held by many hands over time and remembered all of them.
My grandma stepped to the side and looked at me.
“It’s begun,” she said, voice soft and reverent. “The tree remembers.”
I swallowed hard and pressed the door open.
It wasn’t the same place I had left.
The chamber had been dim before, heavy with the weight of age and exhaustion. Now it shone.
Light poured through the ancient windows above, though I could’ve sworn the sky outside had already dimmed. It fell over everything like honey…thick and golden, catching in the floating dust.
The great maple stood tall, its limbs still gnarled but alive now, almost proud. A few more leaves had opened along its highest branches, deep amber and green, and they swayed gently—not in the wind, but to the rhythm of the hum.
The sapling near its base glimmered softly at the leaves’ edges. It had grown again. Another inch, maybe two. Its leaves shimmered, catching the hum and tossing it back with a quiet joy I could feel in my chest.
And the sound. It was everywhere now.
Low, warm, full-bodied humming, like a hundred voices singing just below hearing. The kind of sound that anchored you.
The feeling of joy that threaded itself through your ribs and your blood and reminded you what it meant to be held and cared for while you nurtured your soul.
The leaves fluttered in sync, subtle and sure, as though they were keeping time. As though the tree itself was singing.
I stepped forward, barely breathing. Tears had already started slipping down my cheeks, and I didn’t bother wiping them away.
It wasn’t sadness.
It wasn’t even relief.
It was beauty. Raw, unguarded beauty, the kind that sneaks past all the armor and lands right in the softest part of you.
Bella stood beside me, mouth slightly open, hands at her sides like she didn’t know what to do with them. My grandma stood behind us in quiet, her eyes damp with happiness.
“This,” she said gently, “is how the Ward used to sound.”
I turned toward her, blinking. “It used to… sing like this?”
She nodded. “Years ago. The Maple hummed day and night before the fading began, when all the Wards were strong. Not loud—never loud. But steady. Its rhythm kept the protective chants of the Academy fortified. The songs woven into the very walls relied on that hum. It was the pulse. You could sense the melody if you touched the cottage walls at any time.”
“The Stone Ward? My cottage?”
She nodded.
“And now it’s back,” Bella whispered, eyes still fixed on the branches.
“It’s weak, but it’s remembering. It’s trying.” My grandma’s lips pressed together as if she were worried about believing in its strength too soon.
I moved closer to the sapling. It leaned slightly toward me. Just a touch. Just enough to be felt.
“It’s listening,” I murmured. “You are strong and you are sure, little sapling.”
My grandma stepped beside me and placed a hand on the trunk of the great maple. “You gave it what it needed. The nourishment spell, the care. And maybe more than that… you heard it. Before anyone else could.”
I knelt again by the sapling. The glow coming off it wasn’t bright, but it was warm. It didn’t push. It invited.
“You’re doing it,” I said to the tree, the Ward, and whatever force was listening. “You’re growing.”
The humming shifted slightly. It rose and dipped with a musical lilt like a sigh of agreement.
Bella let out a soft laugh. “I can’t believe I was scared to be trapped by maples. It feels like being wrapped in a lullaby now.”
Elira looked at me with something close to awe.
“It’s rare, you know,” she said. “To witness a Ward coming back to life.”
I nodded, still swiping away happy tears.
“I think it wants to live,” I said. “And maybe it’s tired of being forgotten.”
The song continued.
Soft.
Constant.
Alive.
And for the first time in a very long while, the Ward didn’t feel like it was dying.
It felt like it was waiting for spring and new beginnings.
Just like me.