Chapter Fifteen
For the first time in longer than I cared to count, my heart felt…
buoyant…not empty or carefree. Those ships had sailed and hit reefs years ago, but lighter, like someone had taken a few of the rocks out of the invisible backpack I insisted on lugging through life.
The Hollows had held. Gideon had said yes with the magical world listening.
And I’d come home to soup and my mother choosing herself. For one thin slice of time, the future didn’t feel like a hallway full of knives or ice daggers.
The Academy steps were warm under my shoes, late-August sun soaking into the old stone as if it had earned the right to keep it.
The courtyard beyond was almost unrecognizable without students. No clusters of midlife witches argued over spell theory, no familiars weaving between legs with what we’ll call grace and not calculated tripping, no enchanted luggage sulking about. The quiet felt wrong and peaceful at the same time.
Banners slept against their poles. The dorm windows were dark. The Butterfly Ward shimmered at the edge of sight, less frantic without dozens of auras pinging against it. Even the gargoyles seemed relaxed, just stone, for the moment, sunning themselves like tired old lions.
“Our headmistress, caught without a stack of paperwork,” a voice declared.
Twobble and Skonk were marching up the path, side by side like mischief dressed in slightly different outfits. Twobble’s ears bounced with each step. His earmuffs, yes, in August, sat crooked over one ear. Skonk’s scarf trailed long behind him, picking up burrs and, somehow, dignity.
I crossed my arms. “Danger approaches.”
Twobble stopped directly in front of me and cleared his throat with the gravity of a man about to deliver a lecture on tax law.
“We’ve been thinking about something,” he announced.
“That’s always worrisome,” I said automatically. “Does the Academy insurer know?”
Skonk jutted his chin, which on a goblin looked like adjusting your entire soul.
“This is serious business, Hedge Witch.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I muttered.
Twobble spread his arms in what I think was supposed to be an expansive gesture and ended up more like a bird threatening interpretive dance.
“You are going to meet the head priestess of Shadowick eventually.”
“Unfortunately,” I said.
“Rude,” Twobble said. “Family is family, even if they’re peddling doom and unreasonable dress codes.”
Skonk nodded solemnly. “If you must confront an ice-hearted priestess with a hunger knot and questionable taste, the least you should know how to do—”
“Is hex her,” I said. “Or survive her. Or out-negotiate her. Or—”
“Fly,” Twobble finished.
I blinked. “Absolutely not.”
Twobble beamed. “We knew you’d say that. That’s step one in the process.”
“No, really.” I planted a hand on the carved rail where generations of students had carved their nerves. “I’m a Hedge Witch. My feet belong firmly planted on the ground. It’s only my mind that should do the flying.”
Skonk stomped his foot.
The thud echoed a little too enthusiastically, courtesy of the Academy.
“Incorrect,” he declared. “A properly leveled heroine should have at least one aerial ability by the time she confronts a major boss.”
“I am not a video game,” I said.
“Tell that to the last eleven months of your life,” Twobble shot back.
I opened my mouth, then closed it, since it was a depressingly good point.
“The priestess has altitude,” Skonk went on, counting on his fingers. “Strategically, emotionally, magically. You? Ground-bound.”
“Rude again,” I said, even as the words landed. He wasn’t wrong. My magic liked lines and roots and hedges and boundaries. It stretched up, sure, but its heart was in the earth and energy between us. The idea of being untethered, nothing but air between me and a very hard landing—
My stomach did a little drop just thinking about it.
Twobble’s grin turned sly. “Anyway, it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” I asked carefully.
“We’ve already gathered a coalition,” Skonk said, puffing up like a toad reciting bylaws.
“Oh no,” I breathed.
The Butterfly Ward shimmered, and as if the world had been waiting for the cue, Keegan walked through it.
He came from the Ward’s archway, shoes crunching on the gravel, hair damp, shirt rolled up at the sleeves like he’d already argued with the day and was willing to argue with it again.
Behind him, the Ward energy clung for a second, then let him go, sliding back along his edges as if it liked him too much to stop touching him.
Keegan took in the scene with the two goblins, my posture, my likely expression, and his mouth tipped wryly.
“They asked, didn’t they,” he said.
“You’re on their side?” I demanded. “You knew about this?”
He winced, which told me everything.
“In principle,” he said. “With safety measures, but they have a point.”
“This is goblin work,” I said. “The word safety does not apply.”
Twobble clasped his hands behind his back.
“We have done extensive research,” he said. “On balancing and bouncing during emergencies.”
Skonk nodded. “We even drew diagrams.”
“Burn them,” I said.
A familiar scent of sweet herbs and aggressive competence washed over us as Stella swept up the steps from the other side, skirts swishing. Her scarlet lipstick earned the color of trouble as she grinned at me.
“Did someone say diagrams?” she trilled. “Please tell me we are not leaving our headmistress at the mercy of gravity and pictures when we have a fully functional Academy. She barely holds onto spells as it is. We don’t need a goblin with a death wish. We need practice and test runs.”
“That’s slander,” Twobble said. “I have at least two death wishes.”
“That’s not any better,” I interrupted.
Stella waved him off. “Actually, darling, it was my idea. You’re going to have a heck of a fight in front of you once you close the circle. You can’t be earthbound.”
I stared. “You. The vampire who prefers heels on solid ground and chairs with backs suggested I learn to fly.”
“Yes,” she said, without a flicker of shame. “If your priestess insists on hovering above it all, you might as well join her. Besides,” she added with a wicked glint, “I want to see her face when you arrive on your own terms instead of being dragged up like a supplicant.”
“That,” Keegan murmured, “is… appealing.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I reminded him.
“I am,” he said. “I will be on your side in the air, on the ground, underground, and in any liminal spaces we accidentally fall through.”
“Accidentally fall through,” I repeated faintly.
“Technically, I’ll be under her,” Twobble said. “With a safety net.”
“Made of what,” I demanded. “String cheese and optimism?”
“Don’t give him ideas,” Skonk muttered.
Footsteps clicked against the flagstones, light and sure. Nova appeared through the Ward as well, staff in hand, raven hair pinned back, green eyes already knowing too much.
“Ah,” she said, taking in the scene. “You’ve told her.”
“Not properly,” Twobble said. “She’s still resisting.”
Nova’s mouth curved, and for once it wasn’t the serene seer-smile. It was mischievous. Wicked, even.
“Good,” she said. “I’d be concerned if she agreed too quickly.”
I pointed at her. “You too? Shouldn’t we be… I don’t know… worrying about closing the circle? Stopping the hunger path? Learning how to navigate my grandmother without ending up like an emotional popsicle?”
“All of that,” Nova said. “And this.”
“How,” I asked, “does my flailing through the air like a flying hot dog add to the plan?”
“Majestically flailing,” Twobble corrected. “There will be form.”
Keegan choked. Stella patted his back for the drama of it.
Nova stepped closer, staff tapping lightly on the stone.
“You are about to stand in a circle with Gideon, your father, Keegan, and a realm that doesn’t know whether to love you or eat you,” she said, calm as tea.
“You’re also going to be negotiating with a woman who has spent her life looking down on the world.
” Her eyes softened. “You’ve spent yours grounding other people.
Holding ground is wonderful. But there will be moments when the only way through is over. ”
“That’s what bridges are for,” I said weakly.
“What happens when the bridge is gone?” Nova asked. “When the path breaks under you, and the hunger is licking at the edges, and the only safe place is three yards up, where nothing is eating?”
“Then I die,” I said. “Which is why we don’t break the bridges.”
Skonk shook his head. “Terrible plan. You’re all potential and no mechanics.”
“Do not call my life mechanics,” I said.
“We’re not asking you to sprout wings and join the local goose migration,” Nova said, and the wicked little curve returned to her mouth. “We’re adding one tool to your belt. One option. One moment where, if the world collapses under your feet, you can say, Not today, and go up instead of down.”
I hated how reasonable that sounded. “And you think this won’t pull me away from the parts of myself that need ground?”
“The Hedge is still yours,” Nova said. “Roots don’t stop being roots because a branch learns how to bend toward the sky.”
“Poetry,” Twobble sighed. “I approve.”
Behind Nova, a shimmer moved in the Ward—silver light in the shape of something too large and too graceful to be fully human. The butterflies pulled back along the archway like a curtain parting.
The Silver Wolf stepped through.
Even in her human form, Keegan’s mother carried the echo of her other shape, shoulders straight, movements precise, power worn like a cloak. Silver threaded her dark hair at the temples, and her eyes, wolf-pale and knowing, scanned the steps, fining in on me with disconcerting directness.
“Hello, Maeve,” she said. Her voice was lower than I expected, with a warmth that made me nervous because I didn’t feel I’d earned it.
“Hi,” I said. “We’ve upgraded from curses to flight plans, apparently.”
She smiled, faint and dangerous. “Good. The sky is less treacherous than certain men and women on the ground.”