Chapter Six #2
Keegan’s hand brushed mine under the table. Steady. Present.
Stella set her cup down carefully.
“You’re not wrong,” she said.
Keegan’s brows lifted slightly as he watched Stella look into her teacup as if it held answers.
“You think we should?” I asked.
“I think,” she said, folding her hands again, “that if magical families are already booking rooms and wolves are already pressing at the threshold, pretending this is a witch-only concern is foolish.
And ignoring the fact that magic can be shared would be dangerous.
We only have one shot, and we'd better take it.”
Relief flickered through me, though I kept my face steady.
“I think you’ll need buy-in from your students,” Stella said. “If they feel overrun, they will retreat. Figure out a way to explain things that are happening and why it would be a good idea.”
“I’ll speak to them,” I said. “Before anything happens. But I’ll need help. Do you think you can get Lady Limora, Opal, Mara, and Vivienne to help? Maybe they could start chatting with the other vampire students?”
“Without question.” Stella’s scarlet lips curved again, more fully this time.
“You’re building something unusual,” she said. “Which means it might work.”
“That’s reassuring,” I said wryly.
She chuckled. “Well, it shouldn’t be.”
I laughed softly, and for a brief time, the tea shop felt small and safe like it always had, with candles flickering and the steady clink of porcelain. A few townsfolk murmured near the front, but outside, the world was shifting.
“You do realize,” Stella said lightly, “that if this succeeds, the Academy will never be what it was.”
“I know,” I said.
“And you’re comfortable with that?”
I thought about the banquet hall. The wolves. The inn filling. The shifters holding their line.
“I don’t think it’s meant to be what it was,” I replied.
Stella’s gaze remained on me, and I had to say there’s something unnerving about being studied by someone who has lived through revolutions you only read about in brittle books. Stella didn’t rush her thoughts. She sifted them.
“Well,” she said briskly, standing. “If we’re rewriting the social fabric of the magical community, we’ll need better tea service.”
Keegan huffed a quiet laugh.
And for the first time since meeting the orcs at the Luminary, the pit in my stomach eased.
Just a little bit.
For once, it felt like we weren’t reacting. We were deciding.
“I spoke to my mom about Mariselle,” I told her, letting the words hang there.
“She’s always preferred consolidation,” Stella said calmly. “Control is cleaner when it runs through one set of hands, and Stonewick has been a thorn in her side for generations.”
“I don’t understand why she’s held onto this belief for so long.”
Stella looked at Keegan briefly before returning her gaze to me.
“I know you’ve heard of her other kin,” Stella said.
There was no drama in her tone. Just fact.
“Briefly. I’m not sure how or why that could work.”
“She weaves several possibilities like thread, and some fray, some snap, and the one that holds she uses until she can’t any longer.”
“She bargains with shadows,” I said quietly. “Not metaphorically.”
“Quite literally.” Stella nodded and stood to refill our tea. “Your grandmother treats family as puppets that can be disposed of once she’s finished with them.”
“Like discarding my mom when she wouldn’t do what she wanted?”
“For your grandmother, that was kind. I’m sure it aggravates her that she let her get away. The others weren’t so lucky over the years.”
A chill settled over me, knowing Stella had seen a lot more than she was letting on over the centuries.
She poured hot water over our loose tea and put the kettle back on the counter.
I studied her. “So you knew.”
“I suspected,” she corrected. “And then I saw.”
Keegan straightened slightly. “Saw how?”
Stella folded her hands neatly on the table, and she looked around the tea shop as my mind went wild with worry.
“I’ve been alive for over two centuries,” she said. “I’ve watched rulers cling to youth, witches siphon vitality from unwilling sources, and covens fracture over a single whispered promise. Your grandmother’s longevity has never sat cleanly.”
I hesitated. “There are whispers. Concoctions. Stones. Something that lets her live among immortals while still being very much… alive.”
Stella inhaled slowly.
“I would like to believe,” she said evenly, “that because of my age, I have seen everything.”
Her scarlet lips curved faintly.
“But I would be a fool to think that. There is always something older. Something buried deeper.”
The candle between us flickered.
“There have always been whispers about Mariselle,” Stella continued.
“Whether it’s a draught she consumes, a relic she carries, or something far more intricate, binding her lifespan to forces that don’t age in the traditional sense.
She’s alive just as much as when she was your age, Maeve, but she’s been around before I was even created. ”
I shifted uncomfortably. “But you’re very much alive.”
The moment the words left my mouth, I felt heat rise to my cheeks.
Stella regarded me with a steady gaze, and I saw her scarlet lips turn down.
“In some ways,” she said gently. “In others, I am keenly aware of what I am. I’m immortal, but it isn’t natural. I was frozen once the vampire turned me.”
“That makes me sad,” I admitted before I could stop myself.
Her expression softened, and she smiled at me.
“It shouldn’t,” she said. “I’m still here, and for that, I’m grateful. But the Priestess made a choice or a bargain, and somehow, she’s not immortal like I am, but she sustains. The distinction is important. A bite made me what I am today. What’s keeping the Priestess going is very much a mystery.”
I thought back to the vision I’d had of the Priestess in her study, shoving something into her drawer, looking around nervously like she sensed me watching.
There was something there she didn’t want me to see.
Was that what was keeping her alive, versus something the vampires lent at the confrontation just days ago?
I swallowed, and my eyes met Stella’s. “When the vampires helped the orcs… did it work?”
Keegan’s eyes shifted toward Stella again.
“It did.” Her voice was steady, certain. “He’s very much alive, but he’s no longer just an orc. We were controlled. There was no frenzy or excess taken.”
“I doubt the Priestess knows what she unleashed.”
Stella’s gaze sharpened.
“If Mariselle sensed the alliance in its full potential,” she said, “she would have intervened.”
The thought pressed into me before I could block it.
Vampiric orcs.
Stronger. Hungrier. Bound by two instincts instead of one.
Dangerous.
“It worked because it was deliberate,” Stella continued. “It wasn’t born from greed or hunger. It was from quiet desperation. That is the difference.”
Keegan leaned back slightly. “You’re saying alliances are safe when they’re chosen.”
“I’m saying,” Stella corrected, “that alliances forged in panic often rot. Alliances forged with clarity can hold.”
I wrapped my fingers around my cup again.
“She’s destabilizing territories,” I said. “Forcing movement. Forcing clustering.”
“Yes,” Stella agreed.
“And if those clusters look to her for structure…”
“They will lose themselves,” Stella finished.
Silence settled between us.
I stared down at the grain of the wooden table.
“I don’t want forced unity,” I said quietly. “I want intentional proximity.”
“You want the Academy to be the meeting ground,” Stella said. “And an option for those who’d like guidance.”
“Yes.”
“Not assimilation.” She nodded like a punctuation mark.
“No,” I agreed.
“Not hierarchy.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Structure.”
“Yes.” I smiled and let out a deep breath.
Stella nodded once.
“That is far more dangerous to her than you realize.”
I looked up. “Why?”
“Because if you prove that cooperation doesn’t require domination,” Stella said, “you unravel her central thesis.”
The words sent a small chill down my spine.
I thought about the orcs pressing at the Wards. About shifters arriving with children. About witches unpacking in the Academy.
And about Mariselle, the Priestess.
She had bargained with shadows to extend herself.
I was choosing to widen the circle of others instead.
The Academy had always been about midlife magic. About reinvention. About stepping into magic after thinking you’d missed your chance.
Perhaps reinvention didn’t end with witches.
Maybe it extended to the walls themselves.
Stella lifted her teacup once more.
“If you’re going to do this,” she said calmly, “do it with intention. Do not apologize for growth.”
I nodded slowly.
Vampires helping orcs.
Shifters guarding witches.
An Academy built for one purpose, considering something larger.
Change was no longer approaching.
It had arrived.
And survival, I realized, did not belong to the strongest.
It belonged to those willing to evolve.
I only hoped the Academy agreed.