Chapter Twenty-Six
My eyes blinked open slowly as Twobble hung over me. His head looked larger than usual as he tried to summon me awake. Nova was kneeling next to me as Ardetia brought out a warm compress. Bella had shifted into her fox form and was pacing along the Butterfly Ward.
“I’m not like her,” I muttered, trying to sit up.
“Indeed, you’re not,” Nova said, taking the compress from Ardetia and placing it on my forehead.
Something about the exchange nagged at me.
It wasn’t what the Priestess had said, but what she hadn’t.
Ardetia, Nova, and Twobble helped me back into the Academy as Bella stayed a few steps behind us, watching the grounds.
I sat on the stairs and absentmindedly studied the marble floors.
My mind went back to the Priestess and how she had reached for me in that cool and deliberate way, studying every reaction.
My mother had walked into her world willingly.
If the Priestess wanted leverage, that should have been the first thing she used, but she hadn’t.
She didn’t lock my mother up, where I saw her locked in a cell like Gideon when he’d been tossed there.
Mariselle didn’t dangle ropes from my mom’s wrist to drive home the point of her capture.
Instead, there had been something else in her voice.
It wasn’t triumph. It was an expectation.
It felt like she had already moved the piece she wanted and was simply waiting for me to notice.
I brought my gaze back to Nova, and without warning, a sudden heat flared across my skin. I didn’t have time to worry about the Priestess’s mind games.
The sensation struck my birthmark sharply enough to pull a breath from my lungs. I turned toward Nova.
“The Wards,” I said, already moving. “They’re under pressure.”
Nova frowned and shook her head. “I’m not feeling anything.”
“You will.” The sensation struck again, stronger this time. “This isn’t the Priestess in my head. Something’s pushing at the perimeter. And students are already pooling around for morning classes. We can’t ignore this.”
Twobble froze. “Pressure on the perimeter. That’s… not good.”
“It’s targeted,” I said, concentrating on the sensation before it slipped away. “Stone and Flame. Both of them.”
Nova closed her eyes and reached outward, sending her magic beyond the walls of the Academy.
For a moment, there was nothing, but then her eyes snapped open.
“…I feel it now.”
“It’s not breaking through,” I said quickly, recognizing the rhythm of it. “But something’s pushing at the seams. It could.”
Twobble didn’t wait for further clarification.
He darted toward the closet where my broom leaned. It was a little crooked, and the bristles remained slightly uneven from the last time I’d taken it through some shrubbery a little too enthusiastically.
He thrust it into my hands with surprising force.
“Air is faster,” he said briskly, voice back to crisp goblin command. “Scan both from above. Stone first—closest. Flame second—more volatile. If it’s nothing, you wasted ten minutes. If it’s something, you saved the Academy. I’ll watch over the students.”
There was no argument in me, only momentum.
Outside, there was a swirl of students peering from windows above and whispering with wild eyes. A few gasped when they saw the broom in my grip.
Headmistress with a broom had already become a symbol around here.
And as we all knew, it was not always a graceful one.
Keegan came charging up the steps of the Academy, and we nearly collided.
He caught my elbow automatically, steadying me, eyes scanning my face for injury.
“What is it?” he demanded. “I was just at the inn with Ember. We’re overbooked, but I felt something…shaking.”
“The Wards,” I said, already shifting the broom beneath me. “Stone and Flame.”
Nova skidded onto the landing behind us.
“I feel it now,” she confirmed breathlessly. “Subtle but deliberate. It isn’t a smash, it’s more like probing.”
“Exactly.” I nodded as Keegan’s jaw ground in frustration.
Twobble, somewhere behind, began rapid-fire explanations about aerial vantage points while strategically providing pastry visuals if all is clear.
I didn’t wait.
I swung my leg over the broom, and it dipped the moment my weight hit it.
“Oh, behave,” I muttered, tightening my grip on the handle. “For the love of my pride.”
For a second, I questioned every decision that had led me to learning how to fly.
But the bristles shifted, the handle warmed in my hand, and the broom lifted.
The takeoff wasn’t graceful. It never was. It came packed with a lurch and a spurt.
My stomach dropped as my boots scraped the stone steps before I finally cleared them.
A few of the students gathered in the courtyard gasped as I rose above them.
Apparently, even a crisis didn’t stop people from staring when someone took off on a broom.
I heard someone whisper, “She’s really doing it.”
Another voice answered, “She’s getting better.”
That was generous.
The broom wobbled left, swung sharply back to the right, and then settled beneath me.
The Academy spread out below in the early sunlight. Windows glowed across the grounds, and the old stone held that steady pulse I’d started to recognize since the place woke up.
The Stone Ward lay closest, stretched along the edge of the Academy. I leaned forward before I even realized I’d made the decision, and the broom surged toward the cottage.
Cold wind slammed into my face, stealing my breath and scattering the last of my nerves.
Flying did something strange to panic.
On the ground, problems felt like walls.
In the air, those walls started to look more like patterns.
The cottage came into view first.
Karvey stood on the roof ridge, solid as the stone he was carved from, wings tucked tight while his gaze swept the tree line with the patience of something that had watched centuries pass.
He looked up, and his eyes widened.
Recognition dawned slowly across his face as he took in the sight of me on a broom, hovering above the cottage.
He blinked once, very deliberately, then raised one heavy stone hand. I couldn’t tell if it was approval or disbelief.
I grinned anyway and tipped the broom slightly in greeting.
Karvey shook his head, the movement slow and unmistakably unimpressed.
I chose to interpret it as fond exasperation.
Along the roofline and through the trees, the Stone Ward shimmered faintly along the edge of the trees.
I circled lower over the tree line.
The Ward held. I couldn’t see any rupture or crack in it, but along the outer edge, something moved. I spotted faint ripples in the air, the way heat shimmers over pavement in the middle of summer.
Something had touched it, tested the boundary, and pulled back.
My birthmark flared again.
“Keep your eyes steady, Karvey. The Priestess is trying her best to reach through the Wards.”
“Absolutely, Headmistress. We’re on it.”
I felt the searing sensation on my hip again. It wasn’t the steady pulse I associated with the Stone Ward. This one burned sharper.
Flame.
The sting deepened, and I didn’t hesitate.
I leaned forward, urging the broom faster.
It responded immediately, surging ahead as the wind rose around me. Branches blurred beneath my boots, and the cottage fell away behind me.
The Flame Ward lay farther in town, anchored near the iron gate and the old building that housed the memory cauldrons—a seam of magic that had always been a little more volatile than the others.
The closer I flew, the warmer the air became.
Something was definitely happening out there.
It wasn’t fire that called for help.
Not yet, anyway. But the potential for it hung in the air.
The Flame Ward never looked the same as the Stone Ward. Where Stone formed a steady barrier, the Flame Ward moved like breath, expanding and settling in a slow rhythm, but that was only when you stepped inside the building.
But as I circled the towering building, the magic drew in too sharply.
My birthmark flared hot, and I hissed through my teeth as I angled the broom downward.
It didn’t appreciate the sudden descent. The broom’s nose dipped too far, and the handle fought me before I managed to pull it back under control.
Before I could even begin to correct a thing, we landed with an intense thud.
My boots hit the ground, and the broom skidded sideways, its bristles scattering leaves like it was personally baffled by the whole maneuver. I managed to catch myself before fully face-planting into the dirt.
Progress.
The iron gate loomed ahead, black and ancient, its runes pulsing faintly in the moonlight. Beyond it, the small building that housed the memory cauldrons sat quiet and still.
But the air around it felt wrong.
I could sense the pressure now. It wasn’t merely something pushing in from outside the Ward, but a strain running along its seams. Something was drawing on the heat there, testing how much it could take without setting off alarms.
“Well,” I muttered, pushing the gate open, “that’s disconcerting.”
The hinges groaned as if they agreed, and I walked toward the building.
When I reached the door, I took in a steadying breath and moved forward over the threshold into the empty room.
Inside, the air shifted.
The stairwell rose ahead of me, steps winding upward toward the chamber where the memory cauldrons were kept.
With every step, the sting at my hip grew stronger.
The higher I climbed, the thicker the air became, carrying that metallic scent that always clung to old magic.
And I felt something else…movement.
It wasn’t like the heavy shift of stone at the Academy or the creak of old beams at the cottage, but something quicker than that, and quiet enough to slip along the edges of hearing.
I reached the top of the stairs, and the chamber beyond held a faint glow.
The memory cauldrons sat arranged in their familiar places. The enormous iron vessels were worn smooth by centuries.
Flame sprites darted between them.
Often, they were calm here, moving in slow loops around the cauldrons as if tending a quiet hearth.
This morning, they were anything but calm.