Chapter Seven #2
I chuckled and shook my head.
“I can be firm,” he insisted. “I can be so rigid that people will think I’m wood.”
“Please don’t become that hard. I’d miss my little buddy.”
He stopped and pressed his palm against his heart. “You’d miss me?”
“Absolutely.”
“Would you be able to carry on, or would you crumble and eat croissants all day in my honor?”
“I’d crumble and eat all the pastries I could find.”
“Now that’s what I want to hear.” Twobble made a sound that might’ve been laughter or offense, then raised his voice with startling volume.
“Attention, witches!” he shouted.
Several heads snapped toward him at once, and my pulse skyrocketed. This wasn’t exactly what I meant.
“The Headmistress is requesting your presence in the banquet hall for an urgent meeting that is not a drill and not a surprise exam. It’s also not a battle cry.”
“Way to keep things subtle, Twobble.” I rolled my eyes and turned toward the corridor that led to the banquet hall.
I made it five steps before someone barreled around the corner and bumped straight into me.
It wasn’t a student or a teacher heeding the call.
It was Skonk.
He was dusted with soot from his eyebrows down to his boots, and he smelled faintly of burnt pine and whatever strange mineral scent lived underneath Shadowick’s oldest stones.
His eyes were wide in that intense way he got when he’d moved too quickly between places that weren’t built for human nervous systems.
“Maeve,” he blurted, grabbing my sleeve as if I might vanish. “You need to hear this right now.”
Twobble planted himself between us instantly. “Excuse you, sir soot-person. The Headmistress is in motion.”
"Twobble," I said gently, because Skonk looked one breath away from panic, and panic had a way of spreading.
Twobble huffed and stepped aside, but he stayed close enough to glare at Skonk's hands as if preparing to bite them on my behalf.
Skonk swallowed hard. "Message from the UnderSoot."
My skin prickled.
The UnderSoot didn't send casual updates. They lived under the town's edges of Shadowick between hearthstones, under old chimneys and cellars, and in the crumbling spots. They heard shadow-talk. They knew about shifts before anyone on the surface had worked up the nerve to worry.
“What did they say?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
Skonk leaned in, with freckles of soot dotting his cheeks as he wiped his hands on his overalls. It looked like he’d had a rough go of it in the UnderSoot.
“The Priestess isn’t pleased.” He stared at me, and I nodded.
I didn’t need to ask why.
Skonk continued quickly. “She believes Gideon is at fault.”
My heart stopped so sharply it felt like my ribs had caught it.
“What?” I managed.
Skonk nodded, eyes serious. “She thinks he disrupted her plan at the Hollows. That he interfered with the pressure. That he let the orcs step back when she wanted them to push.”
Twobble’s mouth opened. “Wait. Are we talking about Gideon Gideon?”
“Yes,” Skonk snapped, then looked at me again. “She’s hunting him down.”
The hallway noise blurred around me for a moment, with my own breath suddenly too loud in my ears.
“Nobody’s seen him,” I said, the words barely making it past my throat. “Not since the day he stopped the orcs.”
Skonk’s expression tightened. “That’s what the UnderSoot says, too.”
Twobble’s voice came out small for once. “That’s not good.”
No. It wasn’t.
Because Gideon didn’t disappear without a reason, and if the Priestess was hunting him, then either he was running, or he was setting something in motion, or he had already been caught.
And if she thought he was at fault, then she was looking for someone to punish publicly. Someone to make into a warning. Someone to prove she still held the threads.
“Where is the Priestess? Still at her compound?” I asked, forcing my brain to function again.
Skonk shook his head. “We don’t know. There’s movement and shadows traveling faster than they should. They’ve seen messages carried through smoke. So, something big is shifting.”
Twobble lifted his clipboard like it could defend us. “Everything is shifting.”
Skonk’s gaze flicked past us, toward the entry hall where students were beginning to drift into the banquet hall.
“You were going to gather them,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied, voice steadier now. “But my message has suddenly changed.”
Skonk’s eyes held mine.
“Maeve, if she’s hunting Gideon, she’s not only angry. She’s irrational.”
That word landed with weight.
Unsettled meant she’d been surprised.
And a surprised enemy was dangerous in unpredictable ways.
I touched Skonk’s arm briefly, grounding both of us. “Thank you. Go back to the UnderSoot. Tell them to keep listening. If they hear anything about where Gideon is, I need to know immediately.”
Skonk nodded and spun away.
Twobble stared after his twin cousin, and then looked up at me. His expression tried to be brave, but I could tell he was worried, too.
“You’re pale,” he said quietly.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
Twobble’s eyes narrowed. “That was a terrible lie, Maeve. Have I not taught you anything?”
“I don’t have time to fall apart,” I said quietly. “Not today.”
Twobble lifted his chin. “Good. Because the witches are gathering, and they look ready to invent theories.”
“Well, after this, I need you to find Skonk and head to the UnderLoom for foraging. I had to stop a spat about supplies and volunteered you two.”
“Great.” He eyed me.
I forced myself back into motion and walked toward the banquet hall. I knew my students would be waiting. With their sharp midlife instincts, I knew that they could sniff out dishonesty in a heartbeat, so I'd better figure this out.
As I walked, one thought repeated with a steady, brutal clarity.
If I didn’t unify them now, distrust would do it for me.
And if distrust won, the Priestess wouldn’t even need to storm the Academy.
She’d simply watch us tear ourselves into pieces and call it fate.