Chapter Forty-Three
The old velvet armchair groaned as Elira settled back into it. Her knitting lay forgotten on a table, the needles still threaded with deep blue wool that now looked dim under the weight of what we’d just said. The fire hissed and popped beside us, but it did nothing to thaw the air in the room. Everything felt thick with silence.
I stood at the window, arms crossed, staring into the gray haze pressed against the glass. My thoughts spun like a storm caught in a bottle. I could feel the ache still pulsing at my hip, the ghost of the Ward’s decay whispering just under my skin.
Then came the sound of the door creaking open slowly and hesitantly. I turned, half-expecting Ardetia. Or maybe Bella. But it wasn’t either of them.
It was Nova.
She stepped into the room, waves escaping from the scarf wound haphazardly around her neck. Her cheeks were flushed from discovery, and there were smudges of herb dust on her sleeves—lavender or maybe sage, hard to tell. She looked like she'd just come from her classroom.
She stopped when she saw us. Her eyes flicked from my grandmother to me. The firelight caught the auburn in her dark hair.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice quiet but sharp enough to slice through the room’s stillness.
My grandma lifted her eyes to Nova but didn’t speak.
I crossed the room without thinking. My hands were cold. My heart wasn’t.
“It’s the Butterfly Ward,” I said. “It’s fading. We were just there.”
Nova unwrapped her scarf slowly, brows drawing tight. “Fading how?”
“There’s no shimmer anymore. The air felt dead. The brilliant flowers and vines are gone. Still, like something took all the magic out of it and left the shell behind. The carvings on the arch have lost their color. There’s no hum, no resistance. The place feels… wrong. ”
She glanced between us. “That Ward’s never faltered. Not even during the worst of the curse. You’re sure?”
“Keegan saw it too.”
Nova let the scarf drop into a chair and crossed the room, boots quiet against the stone floor. She didn’t speak for a long moment, and then looked at me carefully. “What else?”
I hesitated, the words catching in my throat. But I couldn’t hold them in. Not anymore.
“I think it’s my fault.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Maeve…”
“I think Gideon still has a hold on me.”
That silenced the room in a way that felt heavier than before.
My grandma’s expression didn’t change, but I saw her fingers twitch in her lap, a reflex she couldn’t hide.
“I don’t know what kind of tie it is,” I said. “Not a curse, not something obvious. But something small. Hidden. Something I let happen without knowing it. What if that left a thread?”
I paced, the warmth of the fire not touching the chill in my arms. “What if now that the Academy is waking, and I’m waking with it, he’s feeding on that connection? What if every step we take toward opening is another thread for him to pull? What if the Butterfly Ward— my Ward—is unraveling because he feels the change and is draining it?”
I turned to them both. “What if he’s been waiting for this moment?”
Nova didn’t speak right away. She studied me like she was reading a story I didn’t know I was telling.
And then, without a word, she crossed the distance between us and took my hand.
Her fingers were cool and dry, firm around mine, her thumb brushing gently along my palm. Her grip grounded me in the best way. The tension in my chest loosened, just a little.
She smiled, but it wasn’t a dismissive smile. It was quiet. Knowing. Kind.
“Then come to my classroom,” she said.
I blinked. “What?”
“We’ll find the thread,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “If it’s there, we’ll see it. If he left something behind, we’ll dig it out. Like a thorn. Carefully, but without hesitation.”
My grandma straightened in her chair. “Are you sure it’s safe for you to do that?”
Nova’s eyes didn’t waver. “It’s not about being safe. It’s about necessity. And she won’t be alone.”
“I should’ve seen this coming,” I said, voice thick. “All this magic returning, of course, he’d feel it. Of course, he’d find a way back through me. I’m so worried the Academy chose wrong.”
Nova’s grip tightened just slightly. “Then it’s time we stop looking over our shoulders and start facing the direction the danger’s coming from.”
She gave me a small nod, tugging gently at my hand. “Come with me. My classroom is perfect. It’s time we find answers.”
I looked at my grandma. Her jaw was tight, her eyes lined with worry, but she gave a slow nod. “Go. But come back.”
I nodded, my heart thudding so loud that it filled my ears.
Nova turned toward the door, still holding my hand like I might bolt if she let go.
We left the hearth and the safety of flickering firelight behind.
And we walked into the unknown.
Nova didn’t rush me.
She never did. That was one of the reasons I trusted her with the parts of myself I didn’t even like to name.
We walked through the winding hall in silence. The air shifted as we went, the sconces lighting themselves one by one. The Academy’s halls knew Nova. They warmed for her, softened. It felt a little more alive when she passed through, confirming it wanted her here.
I followed just behind, my boots barely making a sound, as my fingers tingled from the cold outside. Or maybe it was the fear. It was hard to tell the difference now.
When Nova reached the door to her classroom, she placed her hand flat against the wood. Just a moment of stillness. A breath shared between her and the space she’d made her own. Then she pushed it open.
The calm hit me like a wave.
The room was warm in that living way with simmering herbs hanging from overhead beams, smoke curling faintly from the corner brazier. There were no hard edges here, no harsh lines. Everything was rounded, softened by time and intention. A place made for healing. For knowing. For seeing.
Crystals sat in gentle clusters on every surface, glowing faintly, humming just enough to feel their presence even before I saw them. The shelves were crowded with jars and bundles, chalk and quills, feathers and bones. No order, not to the untrained eye. But Nova knew where everything was. Her chaos had a rhythm.
“Sit,” she said gently, nodding toward the window seat. “Breathe. Let yourself settle.”
I obeyed.
The window seat was wide and deep, layered with old cushions in every shade of moss and lavender. As I sank into them, the scent of crushed herbs greeted me with sage, lemon balm, something darker beneath.
My bones let go a little. Not much. Just enough.
Outside, the Butterfly Ward stretched across the landscape. From this angle, I could see the full curve of the arch. The color in the stone had almost entirely faded. The ground beneath the boundary was patchy with frost, but the cold didn’t make the garden look dead. It was the absence.
That shimmer, always faint but undeniably there, was gone.
Even from here, I could feel its hollowness like a smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes.
Nova followed my gaze. Her mouth drew into a quiet line.
“It really has lost its brilliance,” she said.
I nodded, pressing my palm to my hip again. The ache was there. Not sharp, but ever-present.
“But we’ll get it back,” she added. “That kind of light doesn’t just vanish. It wilts.”
Her words caught in my chest. I didn’t know if she was right. But she said it with such certainty that part of me, just the smallest part, believed her.
She turned away, moving to the shelves lining the far wall.
Her hands began to work without needing instruction from her mind. She pulled down bundles and jars, crushed a few things between her fingers, and discarded others with a shake of her head. A bowl appeared in her hands, and she moved to the brazier in the corner.
She lit a charcoal disc with a flick of her thumb and layered the herbs in, one at a time.
Lavender.
Mugwort.
Rose petal, just one, the edges dried and curled.
The smoke lifted in slow spirals, dark and fragrant. It wrapped around the room like a shawl pulled gently over our shoulders.
Nova returned to the center table and selected two crystals. One was a deep green with veins of gold, the other a soft violet that caught the light and fractured it across the floor in watery shapes. She placed them beside the smoking bowl and stood still momentarily, her hands resting on the table's edge, eyes closed.
Then she turned back to me.
I straightened on the window seat, heart hammering harder now. Not from fear. From anticipation.
She knelt beside me and reached for my hands. Her touch was gentle. Cool fingers, steady pressure. Her thumbs settled in the center of my palms.
“You’re sure you’re tied?” she asked.
“No,” I whispered. “But I need to know.”
She nodded once. “Alright.”
Nova closed her eyes first.
I followed, letting the weight of my lashes pull everything into darkness. I listened to her breath. Let it guide mine. The scent of the herbs pressed around us, heady and rich. Not heavy, never heavy, but grounding.
Anchoring.
Then she spoke.
Words I didn’t know.
Soft syllables, low and rhythmic, layered like water moving over stone.
They didn’t pierce. They wrapped. Her voice moved through me like thread through cloth, tugging gently, sewing something together that I hadn’t realized had frayed.
“If there is a tether,” she murmured between those strange, old words, “if anything holds fast to the heart, to the mind, or the soul… it must rise now. It must show its root. It must name itself.”
The air shifted.
Not all at once.
But just enough to know something was listening.
At first, it was just the rhythm.
Nova’s voice, even and low, steady as the breath moving in and out of her lungs, weaving through the air like smoke. The words didn’t register as language, just sound. Syllables that lapped at the edges of my thoughts, brushing gently like waves. Soft. Reassuring.
But then something shifted.
The words began to echo.
Not around the room— inside me.
My chest tightened. My heart started to pound, thudding against my ribs like it was trying to answer back. I clenched my hands around Nova’s without meaning to, fingers curling as my breath caught.
The ache in my side flared…hot this time, not the dull throb from before. It radiated through my torso, up into my shoulders, humming beneath my skin like something trying to break through.
Nova didn’t stop. Her voice deepened, the spell slipping into some older current, older than either of us or the Academy itself. Her hands stayed on mine, firm and grounding, but everything inside me felt like it was coming unmoored.
My thoughts spiraled, fast and breathless.
What if there was something inside me?
What if I’d let him in?
What if every moment I felt stronger was Gideon pulling on the thread, feeding off the magic, burrowing deeper into my soul, learning about the Academy?
My lungs felt too tight, like they couldn’t catch enough air. My temples pulsed. Though my eyes were still closed, my vision sparked with little bursts of white.
I wasn’t ready for this.
I wasn’t strong enough.
The Academy had made a mistake.
And Nova.
Nova was going to see it. She would look at me, see whatever he had left behind, and pull away.
I didn’t realize I’d made a sound until Nova whispered my name.
“Maeve.”
Just that. No command. No alarm. Just her voice, saying my name like it was something strong, something worth anchoring.
Her hands held steady.
And I gripped them like a lifeline as the spell kept flowing.