Chapter Thirty-Seven
The kitchen wasn’t grand like the library or solemn like the central hall. It didn’t have the cool hush of the herbarium or the precise stillness of the old spell archives. But it hummed . It breathed . It lived .
Just like the rest of the place.
When Nova and I pushed through the swinging doors, the warm air hit us like a wave of cinnamon, roasting root vegetables, and bubbling broth. I immediately felt my shoulders relax. The kitchen smelled like stories of people gathering, waiting, and filling time with food until something else began.
The ceilings arched high and crooked, and pots floated gently overhead, clinking now and then like wind chimes. The windows were round and uneven, and one of them appeared to be stuck half-open. Rows of copper pans lined the walls, their surfaces scuffed from years of heavy use. The floor was slate tile, worn smooth in patches by generations of hurried feet.
And the kitchen sprites had already gotten word.
They darted through the air, their little wings flickering like sparks. They wore aprons, most stained, and tiny chef hats that leaned dangerously to one side. One was already dragging a bowl ten times the size of its whole body across the counter, grumbling in a language that sounded like rustling parchment.
Grandma Elira clapped her hands twice and rolled up her sleeves.
“Alright, lovelies, let’s get this moving. We’ll need hot cider, apple tarts, something savory that doesn’t argue too much on the way down, and extra rolls. Nova’s finally crossed the threshold and we’re going to feed her like we mean it!” My grandma clapped her hands as her gaze landed on Nova.
“Should I mention that I never got a feast like this?” I teased.
My grandma chuckled. “True, but I could never pin you down long enough to try.”
A sprite zipped past her head, tossing a ladle into the air. My grandma caught it mid-spin and turned to the nearest cauldron.
“Bella,” she said, nodding toward a rack of ingredients, “you’re good with mixing. Get me three eggs, a scoop of that gingerroot paste, and not the slippery salt this time. I want the tarts to stay in one piece, and let’s whip it up.”
Bella moved quickly, sleeves rolled up, eyes bright. She was good in a kitchen, efficient, and a little bossy but never messy.
Ardetia lingered near the doorway with her arms crossed, clearly not planning on touching anything much.
Still, even she smiled as a sprite offered her a napkin folded into a perfect rose.
Nova leaned against the far counter, her eyes wide, like she’d never seen a kitchen like this.
But I didn’t blame her. The Academy kitchen was something else. Magic here didn’t just help. It delighted in the work. Bowls spun themselves when not in use. Spices rearranged themselves based on the cook’s intent. Even the rolling pins danced a little if you left them unattended too long.
“Amazing,” Nova said, almost to herself.
“Only thing that’s changed,” Elira said, stirring her pot with gusto, “is we haven’t had this many cooks in here in quite a while.”
She pulled a sheet of golden bread rolls from the oven, steaming, a few already trying to escape the tray, and began buttering them with a flick of her wand.
“It’s good practice,” she said, half to me, half to the sprites. “When the students return, it’ll be nonstop in here. Morning, noon, night, and midnight snacks. We’ll barely sleep.”
One of the sprites nodded emphatically, then immediately flew headfirst into a pepper grinder.
Everyone laughed.
The bustle was impossible to resist. Nova was soon elbow-deep in slicing root vegetables with a knife that sang every time it hit the board. Bella managed to spill only a little flour into her hair, and even Ardetia eventually sat at the prep table and began chopping something suspiciously like moonfruit.
I found myself near the hearth, turning a spit full of roasting squash while one of the larger sprites hovered at my elbow, critiquing my seasoning decisions with a steady stream of unintelligible mumbles.
I smiled, even as the spice rack behind me rearranged itself three times before settling on what it thought was the ideal line-up.
Something about the chaos made my heart ache a little, in the good way.
Because this was what it had been like, once. I’d never been here to witness it, but I could feel the soul of the Academy waking up.
Before the doors closed, the Wards weakened, and the Academy had gone quiet. This hum, this rhythm, this overlapping of voices and magic and good smells—it was life.
And it was waking up.
But amid all the warmth, the clatter, the flickering lights and laughter, I couldn’t shake a thought that had been curling in the back of my mind since my grandma had declared the feast.
When will the first student arrive?
The Academy could breathe all it wanted, stretch its limbs, rearrange rooms, and open doors, but without students, it wasn’t complete.
And if Nova’s classroom had just arrived today, how many more teachers did we need before the gates opened to the next generation of midlife witches?
I glanced at the door. Imagining it is opening not for Bella, Ardetia, or even Nova—but for someone new. Someone ready to learn but with enough experience to make things make sense.
How long until they stepped through that door?
And were we ready for them when they did?
“What’s that face?” my grandma asked from the stove. “You’re squinting like someone just told you the pudding curdled.”
I shook my head. “Just thinking.”
She snorted. “Dangerous habit.”
I shrugged. “The Academy’s coming alive. I just… wonder how much more it needs before it’s truly ready.”
Elira stirred her pot thoughtfully. “It’ll tell us. Piece by piece. We just have to listen.”
“And prepare feasts?” I asked, raising a brow.
She grinned. “Every chance we get.”
And somehow, that made it all feel a little more possible.
One classroom. One feast. One friend finally stepping inside after decades on the outside.
Maybe it didn’t all have to happen at once.
Maybe this was enough for today.
The table filled, plates steaming, glasses clinking. Laughter bounced off the crooked beams, and the snow kept falling.
Soft. Steady. Waiting.
After the feast died down and the kitchen settled into its natural hum again, pots cleaning themselves, chairs scooting back to their rightful places, the kitchen sprites contentedly dozing in the hanging baskets near the hearth, I slipped out. I needed quiet. Space. A little time to think without the press of voices and celebration.
I ended up in the long hall behind the library, with narrow windows and crooked floorboards that creaked no matter how softly you walked.
I liked it here. No one ever seemed to pass through this stretch unless they meant to. It was a hallway made for wandering thoughts, and I had no shortage of those.
Grandma Elira had answered my questions plainly enough, at least on the surface.
“I don’t know that they still have dragons. Your question was about the present, not the past.”
She was right. Technically. Carefully.
She hadn’t lied, and she hadn’t told the whole truth either. That was something I was starting to recognize in her now. It is not exactly deception, but a careful choice of when to speak and when to stay quiet.
I leaned against the stone wall beneath one of the windows and let my eyes drift to the snow-covered courtyard beyond.
What she hadn’t said, what I hadn’t even realized until now, was how much was changing.
The Wards were stirring. One by one. Once all but snuffed, the Flame Ward had started to roar again. The Maple Ward’s renewed strength and purpose were trying with all its might, and the Stone Ward strengthened each day.
And the Butterfly Ward…
Nova had stepped through it today.
That alone said more than any ritual or reading ever could.
The Wards were tied to the land,…but more than that, they were tied to intention. Energy. Life. They protected and repelled based on balance. When things were wrong, they pulled in. Closed up. Curled tight like a fist around a secret.
But they began to open when something good stirred, and hope was real.
So what did it mean that a baby dragon had been born not too long ago? And another on the way?
I’d felt it. More than once now. That hum in the air, that low, unmistakable thrum in the ground beneath the Academy. Like something breathing just under the surface.
Waiting.
Preparing.
New life had a gravity to it. Especially here. Especially when it came with wings, scales, and old, ancient magic laced through its blood.
The dragons had been silent for so long…hiding, retreating, maybe even sleeping beneath the surface while the curse stretched its claws through the town and the land. But now? They were moving again. Nesting. Breeding.
Living.
I wrapped my arms around myself, not from cold, but to try and hold the questions still.
Would opening the Academy too soon, before the Wards were fully stable, before the teachers were all in place, risk it all?
Or was that exactly what the curse wanted ? For us to hesitate. To stall. To second-guess ourselves until we miss the moment entirely.
I thought back to the pedestal in the cellar, glowing when Bella reached through. The moment I’d seen her image hovering within it, asking for help. That hadn’t been a coincidence. That had been a door opening. A choice was being offered.
The Academy had always responded to those willing to try . Not those with answers, but those with courage. Action. Hope.
Maybe the curse wasn’t a thing to destroy, but a thing to outgrow.
What if it didn’t shatter with a spell or unravel through research?
What if it just… faded, when the Academy became strong enough to eclipse it?
The Wards, the dragons, the teachers… weren’t just pieces of a plan. They were threads of life. Of magic coming back.
And what if the curse wasn’t keeping the dragons hidden? What if it were the dragons themselves, their return , that was cracking the curse apart?
I looked down the hallway, watched the faint shimmer of magic drift in the air where the torches had relit themselves.
Maybe Elira hadn’t told me everything because she hadn’t had all the answers. Maybe none of us did.
But something in my chest told me this much. We weren’t waiting anymore.
We were moving. Forward.
And if dragons were returning, whatever had frightened them into silence was beginning to lose its grip.
I just didn’t know what would happen when the last of the Wards fully fortified.
Would it be enough?
Would it be too much?
I couldn’t shake the image of the baby dragon I’d seen. The one with the luminescent scales, barely old enough to leave its nest, but it did and rested in an alcove while the new dragon egg stayed safe deep in the nest. And the deeper sense, like another heartbeat, distant but unmistakable, of one more on the way.
The land was calling them. Or they were answering something deeper.
I let out a slow breath and pressed my palm against the cool stone beside me. The Academy didn’t answer, not out loud. But I thought I felt the faintest hum in the wall—a pulse, quiet and patient.
It wasn’t going to give me certainty. Not yet.
But it wasn’t afraid anymore.
Neither was I.
“I won’t let fear decide,” I said out loud, to the corridor, to myself, to the waiting hush of the halls.
And something in the wall hummed back.
The Academy was ready to speak.