Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Priestess stood and walked over to the window while I lifted my teacup to see what had been placed on the saucer. It was a note, possibly from Barlen. He didn’t watch me slide the tiny, ripped paper onto my lap. It was half the size of my palm, but the scribbles said everything.
You have help waiting. Just show a sign to the sky when you’re ready.
I rolled the paper into a ball and slid it slowly into my pocket. But I couldn’t leave Shadowick yet.
Or the Academy.
“Maeve, this could all be yours. Stonewick too. Imagine if we had the same goals and shared dreams to unite Shadowick and Stonewick as one. We’d be the most powerful faction in magic. We could take over other factions one by one and help guide them to see the vision.”
“Your vision,” I pointed out.
She turned to me with her eyes narrowing quickly. “Our shared vision, Maeve. I’m not getting any younger.”
“You’ve survived unnaturally long as it is,” I mused. “What’s not to say it will continue?”
“You foolish child,” she nearly hissed. “Don’t play like you don’t have the answers.”
My spine stiffened. “What answers?”
“Don’t play coy with me.” She shook her head. “You have the stone in your possession.”
Stones, I thought to myself.
“But once you find out the power of what it offers, you won’t willingly return it to me. I know that. It will be yours.” She smiled. “Perhaps, you’ve already claimed it.”
“Is that why you want to partner with me rather than destroy me?”
A wicked expression crossed her features. “No, I want what’s best for magic, and that is joining forces, even if it means putting my own personal pursuits aside.”
“You mean immortality?”
She laughed and sat at her desk again. “That stone doesn’t provide immortality, just a lengthened stay, if you will.”
“I think you and I have very different definitions of lengthened stay,” I said, setting the teacup down as carefully as my shaking fingers allowed.
“That’s because you still think in mortal increments like months, years, and decades. One life folding into the next with grief and worry in between.”
“And joy and hope…” I eyed her.
“For mortals,” she said.
“Which I am.”
Her smile deepened. “Are you?”
I didn’t care for the question or the way it poked at me like a splinter. It was the kind of question Nova would have uttered over tea, and then I’d have spent the next four days pretending not to think about it while thinking about absolutely nothing else.
“I’m mortal enough,” I said.
“Such a limiting answer.” She leaned back in her chair and studied me with a patience I didn’t believe for a second.
“The stone does not grant immortality in the way myths would have the simple-minded believe. They sustain what magic already recognizes. They give time to those with enough power to hold it.”
“Or enough arrogance to steal it.”
Her fingers stilled on the arm of the chair.
There it was.
A crack.
It wasn’t big, but it was enough. She still wanted that stone with all her heart.
“You have always had a sharp tongue,” she said softly.
“You don’t know me well enough to say always.”
“I know enough.” Her eyes traveled over me slowly, and I hated the feeling that she was assessing more than my expression.
“You know very little.”
“I know you were discarded by a man who never deserved you. I know you walked into Stonewick wounded and angry, pretending independence felt the same as freedom. I know you clung to ordinary things because ordinary things made the magic feel less terrifying.”
My breath caught before I could stop it, and she smiled faintly.
“And I know the people surrounding you have made you feel safe enough to believe safety and power can exist in the same hand.”
I swallowed and tried not to let my pulse show in my throat. “They can.”
“They can for a little while,” she said, almost gently. “Until one becomes more necessary than the other.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That’s not how Stonewick works.”
“Stonewick works because it has been protected by sacrifice and secrets. You of all people should understand that by now.” She rested her elbow on the chair and tipped her chin into her palm.
“Your grandmother gave herself to the Academy. Your father lost his human life for years. Your wolf carried a curse in his bones because others thought fleeing was easier than fighting. Even your daughter has been touched by the edges of our world, whether you admit it or not.”
“That wasn’t because of Stonewick. That was because of you and your pet Gideon.” Heat flashed through me at the mention of Celeste.
I folded my hands in my lap to keep from reaching for the note in my pocket. “Don’t mistake love for weakness.”
“I never do,” she said. “Love is one of the most useful levers in existence.”
My stomach turned. That was why there would never be a truce between us.
She didn’t see people.
She only saw openings and pressure points.
“You’re proving my point,” I said.
“Am I?”
“You don’t want unity. You want access.” I leaned forward slightly. “To Stonewick. To the Academy. To the stone. To me.”
Her eyes darkened at the last words, and I knew I’d hit closer than she wanted.
“I want what should have always been mine,” she said.
“And there we have it.”
The shadows along the baseboards stirred at my tone, creeping and curling with a slow, watchful interest. I felt them before I let myself look at them.
I was tethered to Stonewick, the Academy, and to the people waiting to come to my rescue, not the shadows.
The Priestess’ gaze followed mine toward the floor. “They like you.”
Barlen, who had been lingering near the bookshelves with a tray in hand, went completely still. Even the fire seemed to pull back into itself, the flames shrinking low and blue at the edges.
“They’re probably relieved there isn’t another tyrant in the room.”
The Priestess didn’t move.
“Tyrant,” she repeated.
“You imprison people,” I said. “You bend magic until it breaks. You call control a vision and fear loyalty. So, yes. Tyrant seems like a reasonable word choice.”
Her hand slowly slid from the arm of the chair to the top of the desk, and I watched the wood beneath her palm blacken. It didn’t burn, but it was like every bit of life inside the grain had been drained away in a swipe.
Barlen’s face had gone pale enough that I wondered if he was about to either pass out or politely excuse himself from existence.
“Careful, Maeve,” the Priestess said.
I heard Keegan’s voice in my head then, low and rough and probably annoyed.
Don’t push her too far.
Which was excellent advice.
“You asked for honesty,” I reminded her.
Her eyes flashed, and for the first time, the polished mask slipped completely. Fury sharpened every line of her face, transforming her from an elegant ruler playing at diplomacy into something far older and far less human.
I stayed still, but it wasn’t because I was brave.
Instead, I felt the strangest thing.
The shadows weren’t hurting me.
They were testing.
And the Priestess saw it too.
Her anger flickered with surprise, and that gave me one small, dangerous thread of satisfaction.
“You feel it,” she said.
“I feel a lot of things,” I replied, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Most of them are unpleasant.”
“The shadows do not gather for nothing.”
“Maybe they’re nosy. I know several goblins like that.”
The Priestess rose slowly from her chair in a graceful movement that rippled with restrained violence.
“They see something in you, unlike your mother.”
“Is that why you locked her away?”
The Priestess took a step closer. “Your mother lacked vision.”
“My mother survived you.”
“She ran.”
“She lived,” I clarified, and her mouth tightened.
“She hid from everything she was meant to become,” the Priestess said.
“No.” I stood before I could think better of it. “She hid me from everything you wanted me to become.”
The room pulsed as the windowpanes trembled in their frames. The shadows around my chair stretched higher, reaching almost to my knees. My birthmark heated until I had to press a hand to my side to keep from flinching.
“You are more like me than either of us expected,” she said softly.
I let out a breath that almost became a laugh. “That might be the worst thing anyone has ever said to me, and I’ve been divorced, cursed, chased, and threatened.”
The Priestess blinked.
“You surround yourself with fools,” she said.
“I surround myself with people who would never confuse loyalty with ownership.”
Her eyes hardened again.
“You think they won’t disappoint you?” she asked. “You think your wolf won’t choose instinct over devotion if pushed far enough? Do you believe the Fae won’t retreat into old bargains when fear returns? Or that the witches of Stonewick won’t hesitate if your choices threaten their comfort?”
“There was nothing comfortable about what happened when they flew in on broomsticks and marched below.”
I thought back to Keegan with his brooding silence and terrifying loyalty.
Stella with tea and threats in equal measure.
Nova with truths nobody wanted, but everyone needed.
Bella with mischief and sharp instincts.
Ardetia with hesitation that made her courage matter more, not less.
Twobble with crumbs in his pockets and bravery he’d deny until his last breath.
“I think they’ll continue to choose,” I said. “And that’s the difference between us.”
The Priestess’ jaw tightened, but she didn’t respond.
“You want obedience because choice scares you.” The words left my mouth before caution could tackle them to the floor.
The Priestess’ face had gone terrifyingly still.
“You presume too much,” she whispered.
“I usually do.” My voice came out softer now, but I didn’t look away. “But I’m right.”
The shadows rose behind her like a storm taking shape, and still, she didn’t send them at me. She didn’t call guards and didn’t summon chains.
She wasn’t doing to me what she did to my mom.
She couldn’t, or was it merely that she wouldn’t?
For the first time since I’d stepped inside Shadowick, I saw the flaw in her power.
On some level, she needed me to be willing.
The stones, the Academy, whatever ancient energy lived beneath all of this, it required more than force. It demanded consent and choice. The very thing she despised.
Oh, the irony.
I slid my hand into my pocket and touched the tiny wad of paper Barlen had given me.
I had help when the time was right.
The Priestess watched my movement, and her eyes focused.
“What did he give you?” she asked.
Barlen froze.
Shoot.
I smiled before I could talk myself out of it and answered simply.
“Hope.”
The shadows behind her erupted upward, swallowing the ceiling in a rush of black movement, and the windows behind her burst open with a scream of wind. Cold air whipped through the study, scattering papers from her desk and sending the teacup crashing to the floor.
The sky beyond the window churned dark and silver.
Waiting.
Just like the note had promised…
It wasn’t merely my Stonewick family.
The Priestess took one slow step toward me, fury burning through every elegant line of her face.
“Maeve,” she warned.
I curled my fingers around the paper in my pocket and felt my birthmark answer with a sharp, bright pulse as the sensation moved up to the shadow mark and joined as one.
My gaze moved up to hers, and I smiled.
Maybe she should have put me in the dungeon when she had the chance.
Because now I knew the truth.
She wasn’t the only one Shadowick was listening to.