Chapter Twenty-Five
I’d barely registered the first vibration. My desk lamp trembled a little, its small pull chain tapped gently.
I glanced at Twobble, who scanned the room, right when the lampshade started shaking.
A stack of papers slid half an inch as if something unseen had leaned close and exhaled on them. My skin prickled with uneasy anticipation.
But then the vibration turned into something else entirely.
A low grinding sound rolled through the walls with stone against stone, followed by a sharp crack overhead that made Twobble squeak and duck under the desk as if the ceiling might decide to come down on him out of spite.
“Uh—Maeve?” he said, voice shrill in the sudden roar. His cheeks were puffed out like he’d forgotten how to breathe.
“Stay under there,” I said, bracing myself as the room rattled and rolled unnaturally.
“Is… is this… is this her?” He gulped and closed his eyes as the question cut through me.
The Priestess.
My mind reached for her the way it did with Gideon. But the rumble beneath my feet didn’t make it possible to focus. Was this just the Academy waking up more?
A chill ran over me, and I knew…
This was bigger.
Wilder.
The shelves along the far wall rattled as crystals rolled off and books tipped on their sides. A photo of Celeste fell over, and I glanced at Twobble, whose eyes were enormous.
So were mine, probably.
The rumbling surged again, and this time it didn’t pass through quickly. It held.
The shaking stayed long enough that the air itself felt thick, and from somewhere beyond my office door came a shriek.
It was high and startled, followed by the unmistakable clatter of something metal being dropped. A kettle? A tray? A candlestick? My brain tried to piece together normal explanations and kept coming up with none that fit.
Another sound layered over it: a distant chorus.
Twobble stared at me as if I might have answers tucked under my sleeve.
“Maeve,” he squeaked again, and something in his voice made me look at him.
It was shaking.
“Is it the Priestess? Tell me it’s not the Priestess.”
I pushed back from the desk and stood. The movement felt slow and deliberate, though my pulse had started to climb.
My hands rested on the edge of the desk while Twobble stayed crouched beneath it, eyes wide.
The rumble came again, deeper this time. It wasn’t loud, but steady enough to feel through the stone floor.
I closed my eyes for a moment and focused.
Over the past few months, my magic had been learning the Academy’s strange language. The quiet hum of a Ward holding strong. The shift in the air when a hidden corridor opened. The way the stones themselves seemed to pay attention when something important happened in a room.
I used to think buildings were just walls and roofs.
Stonewick had taught me otherwise.
With my eyes closed, I let the noise of the room fall away until other details surfaced. Voices from somewhere down the hall. A shelf rattling faintly. The distant scrape of something heavy shifting in another part of the building.
Underneath it all was the vibration in the floor.
I felt it in my bones before I heard it again.
And whatever was moving through the Academy this time…wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t from outside.
It felt like something long contained had finally slipped its lock, but it wasn’t the Priestess. She’d never been contained, and her presence had a different quality, usually cold and deliberate. Her magic was the kind that darkened things until it was too late to ignore it.
This sensation was something else entirely.
It felt like the Academy itself.
Fully awake and aware of where it has been and what was ahead. And then a new rhythm pulsed between my feet.
The dragons.
Their presence throbbed through the stone like a second heartbeat. It wasn’t separate from the Academy. It was part of it, and the revelation made my chest tighten as I thought back to the new dragons, and the black dragon, and all of them…patiently waiting.
But for what, I didn’t know.
And then it hit me.
An awakened Academy meant power, and power meant the world would start paying attention.
The Priestess wouldn’t be able to ignore the energy coming from Stonewick.
I opened my eyes, and Twobble was staring at me.
“It’s not her,” I said, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. “Not yet.”
His shoulders sagged with relief for half a second… before he blinked and narrowed his eyes.
“Not yet is goblin for still absolutely dangerous,” he said. “I’ve read enough books to know how this works.”
I smiled at him, not allowing my worries about the Priestess to surface.
“It’s the Academy,” I told him. “It’s fully awake now.”
Twobble stared, and a fresh rumble surged again. It was a little sharper, and this time he fell sideways, grabbing the edge of my desk to steady himself.
“Fully awake,” he repeated, very slowly. “As in… awake awake.”
“As in, done pretending it’s dormant.”
For one impossible moment, Twobble looked delighted, but then he looked terrified.
“Oh no,” he whispered. “Oh no, no, no. That means it can move things.”
“It already knew how to move hallways and stairs. What do you mean?”
Another grinding sound answered him from somewhere beneath us, almost as if the Academy had heard him and taken it personally.
Twobble’s eyes widened further. “Do you really have to ask?”
The door to my office flew open hard enough to slam against the wall, making both of us jump.
Thankfully, Nova burst in like a storm with dark, wild hair, cheeks flushed, and green eyes blazing.
“Maeve!” she shouted over the continuing rumble. “Did you feel that?”
I stared at her for half a beat and laughed because my nervous system couldn’t react appropriately when exhausted.
“I don’t think anyone can miss it,” I said.
“It’s awake,” she said, quieter now and stepping into the office.
I nodded as the rumble eased as if it was done sounding the alarm.
“The Academy has never been this strong,” she announced.
“How do you know?”
She stared at me with an incredulous expression. “I’m half elven.”
“Right.”
“Why is that scary?” Twobble asked. He hopped up onto my desk and sat down, scowling. “Awake sounds like a good thing.”
“It also means it can be seen,” Nova said quietly.
Twobble’s mouth snapped shut.
Nova didn’t look at him. Her attention stayed on me.
“It’s stronger than it’s been in a very long time,” she continued, speaking slowly now. “That’s good in many ways. But power like that doesn’t stay hidden. Once it starts moving again, people notice.”
My pulse picked up.
“No pressure,” I muttered.
One corner of Nova’s mouth moved, though it didn’t quite become a smile.
“The Priestess will notice,” she said. “If she hasn’t already.”
The words settled heavily in my stomach.
My mind went straight to my mother walking into the Wilds, leaving a warm teacup behind on the table.
I thought about the Priestess’s compound, and the long halls, the shadows, the glimpse the mirror had shown me of a future I refused to believe in.
And what she reached for or put away in that drawer…the one she worried someone saw…and I did when she didn’t know I could see in.
But now the Academy had woken up completely.
My hands curled into fists without me realizing it.
“Okay,” I said, mostly to keep my thoughts from running away with me. “Okay. So, we—”
The floor shuddered again.
This time it felt different. It wasn’t the building stretching awake, but like it was answering something.
Nova turned toward the window and looked outside. “You feel that?”
“Yes.” The word came out before I had time to think.
Twobble looked between us.
“Feel what? Because I feel my stomach trying to escape through my ribs,” he muttered.
Nova had already crossed the office. She pressed her palm against the stone beside the window as she stilled.
Nothing happened for a moment, and then the faint seams in the wall brightened beneath her hand.
When she opened her eyes, the color had drained from her face.
“Maeve,” she said quietly, “something just touched the Wards.”
My stomach tightened as the Academy rumbled again, low and deep beneath our feet.
“It didn’t break through,” Nova added quickly. “Not even close. The Wards are strong.”
“That’s good,” Twobble said at once. “Strong Wards are excellent. I fully support strong Wards.”
Nova didn’t answer him as her gaze stayed on me.
“But whatever it was,” she said, “it wasn’t trying to break in. It was feeling them out.”
The Priestess.
The thought arrived whole and certain, and I stepped toward Nova as the room tilted.
“I can’t invite her in. I can’t let her get to me in here.
” I blinked hard, but the blur stayed at the edges of my vision as I dashed out of the office with Nova calling behind me.
I barely made it through the Academy doors, leading down the steps as she and Twobble were on my trail.
The midnight darkness was all around me as Twobble’s face warped oddly next to me.
“Maeve?” Nova called again.
Everywhere I looked, it was as if I were seeing bent mirrors.
I tried to focus on her, but the moment our eyes met, something slipped quietly into my thoughts.
It wasn’t sound.
And it wasn’t magic the way mine felt when it moved through the air or along the Wards.
Something else had slipped into my thoughts. It was a presence that was calm, deliberate, and horribly familiar.
There you are.
Cold slid down my spine.
“No,” I whispered.
Nova stepped closer immediately. “Maeve, what’s happening?”
I tried to answer, but my throat refused to cooperate.
The presence settled deeper, quiet and confident, as though it had stepped into a place it already knew.
You feel it, don’t you?
The voice moved through my mind with unsettling ease.
That awakening. Bright enough for anyone to notice. Congratulations. I always knew one of my kin would be able to break barriers.
My stomach lurched. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping it would break the connection.
It didn’t.
You have always been easy to find, Maeve especially when you worry.