Chapter Eight
The Academy welcomed us the way it always did after upheaval, by pretending nothing extraordinary had happened while quietly rearranging everything to compensate.
The doors closed behind us with a soft, decisive sound, and warmth rushed in immediately, the kind that sank into bone and coaxed breath to slow.
The kitchen sprites heard us before we reached the stairs.
They burst from doorways and cupboards in a flurry of aprons and enthusiasm, tiny hands already flour-dusted, cheeks flushed with purpose.
One skidded to a stop in front of my dad and gasped.
Another clutched her tiny chest dramatically when she spotted Gideon and spun around and out of the room so quickly it wasn’t hard to understand her feelings on the subject.
“Well, that’s great. We’re scaring the help,” Twobble said sarcastically. “And I, for one, am the help. I don’t like this one bit, Maeve.”
“I don’t either,” I whispered. “But the Academy didn’t disagree with this arrangement.”
“Maybe the Academy doesn’t know what it’s talking about.”
Kitchen doors slammed shut out of nowhere in disagreement.
“Or maybe not.’ Twobble’s cheeks reddened.
The sprites immediately went into motion anyway, because chaos, it turned out, was best addressed with food.
Trays levitated. Pots rattled. The long banquet table stretched itself wider, benches scooting into place with a flurry of legs.
Someone shouted something about soup, and someone else countered with bread, and a third sprite screamed something about pie.
I didn’t stop them.
I was too tired to argue with the Academy’s instinct for nourishment, and some part of me understood that this, too, was ritual. Breaking bread. Grounding the body after magic tore the world open.
Gideon paused just inside the doorway, eyes flicking from the sprites to the ceiling to the charms humming faintly in the beams overhead. For a moment, he looked genuinely uncertain, like someone who’d wandered into the wrong house and wasn’t sure whether to apologize or flee.
He glanced at me and straightened his shoulders.
“Well,” he drawled lightly, “this is… homey.”
Keegan stiffened instantly, and Stella’s eyes narrowed.
My dad made a sound in the back of his throat that suggested he was reconsidering several life choices.
And I didn’t like the fact that it didn’t take an hour for Gideon’s cockiness to come back.
I saw the subtle realignment of Gideon’s posture, the return of that familiar sharpness around the edges.
It wasn’t full arrogance, not yet. But the beginnings of it had sprouted, stretching its limbs like a tree in the shade too long.
“You’ll eat,” Stella said briskly, sweeping past him toward the table. “You’ll rest. And you will not explore.”
Gideon smiled faintly. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“That’s what concerns me,” Stella replied without missing a beat. “You’ve had too much practice lying.”
The sprites set plates before us whether we sat or not, bowls of thick vegetable stew steaming, bread warm enough to tear easily, butter melting at the edges. A roast appeared at the center of the table with a flourish, followed by a stack of pies that smelled suspiciously like apples and cinnamon.
Twobble climbed onto a bench and clapped his hands.
“Look at that. One apocalypse later, and we still get dinner. Truly, civilization endures at the Academy. I knew I needed to get myself in here one way or another.”
I chuckled and sank onto a bench, exhaustion finally catching up with me now that the adrenaline had somewhere safe to land. Keegan sat beside me, and I rested my hand on his knee, feeling the steadiness of him once more.
Across from us, Gideon accepted a bowl from a sprite with a polite nod, then glanced up as if suddenly aware of the eyes on him.
All of our eyes.
“What?” he asked mildly.
“Eat,” Bella said from the end of the table. “Preferably without doing anything suspicious.”
He launched cynically and took a spoonful, pausing briefly as if surprised by the taste.
“Huh. That’s… good.”
The sprite who had made it, puffed up proudly, while another hissed, “Don’t take compliments from him,” under her breath.
Conversation stumbled into being the way it always did after shared danger in awkward fragments, circling around anything except the thing that mattered most.
My dad talked about repairs that would need to be done. Nova murmured something to Ardetia about the Wilds settling. Bella argued with a sprite about whether pie counted as a vegetable.
Through it all, Gideon ate slowly, watching and listening.
And adjusting.
By the time he set his spoon down, some of the weariness had left his face. Color had returned. His gaze tracked movement with a familiarity that made my shoulders tense.
“So,” he said casually, leaning back slightly. “I take it this is the part where I’m informed of the rules.”
Keegan’s jaw tightened. “You follow them.”
Gideon’s eyes flicked to him. “That’s refreshingly vague.”
“The Academy isn’t neutral ground,” Stella added. “It doesn’t tolerate theatrics, power plays, or wandering into places you weren’t invited.”
“And if I accidentally wander?” Gideon asked.
“You won’t,” Stella said sweetly. “Because if you do, the floor will remove you.”
Twobble nodded solemnly. “It’s very efficient.”
Gideon glanced down at the stone beneath his boots, then back up, something unreadable passing through his eyes. “I’ll behave.”
That earned him exactly zero trust.
I felt the tension stretching, taut and humming, and pushed my bowl aside, folding my hands together.
“This is temporary,” I said, my voice cutting through the low murmur. “One night. You rest. You recover. Tomorrow, we will decide the next steps.”
Gideon met my gaze. “And if I decide my next steps don’t align with yours?”
“Then you won’t be making them from inside the Academy,” I replied evenly.
For a heartbeat, something like respect flickered across his face.
“Fair,” he said.
Keegan didn’t relax.
Neither did Stella.
The sprites, blissfully unaware of political tension, began serving dessert.
As plates were cleared and the warmth of food spread through my limbs, the Academy hummed softly around us, satisfied for now. But beneath that comfort, beneath the clatter and murmured conversation, unease lingered.
Gideon was too calm.
Too quick to settle back into himself.
And as I watched him laugh quietly at something Twobble said, genuine, easy, and almost charming, I knew what everyone else in the room felt too.
Letting him stay was the right choice.
That didn’t make it a safe one.
The Academy lights dimmed slightly, signaling the late hour, and somewhere above us, doors shifted, rooms rearranging themselves in preparation for the night.
We would sleep under the same roof.
And none of us pretended that meant rest would come easily.
But the chime rang once.
It echoed down the halls, low and resonant, and the Academy responded instantly—lamps brightening, the hum beneath our feet sharpening, the air tightening as if the building itself had gone alert.
Every conversation died mid-word.
Twobble froze with a fork halfway to his mouth. Stella’s teacup paused just short of her lips. My dad straightened, shoulders squaring, and Bella’s smile vanished as her eyes flicked instinctively toward Gideon.
Keegan didn’t move at all.
Gideon, for his part, lifted his head slowly, brows knitting together in what looked very much like genuine surprise.
“Well,” he said lightly, “is someone expecting company?”
No one laughed.
The chime rang again.
This time, the sound carried intent.
“Oh, absolutely not,” Stella said sharply, setting her cup down with deliberate care. “We have just finished unmaking an ancient, world-eating hunger curse. We’re not entertaining guests.”
Twobble slid off the bench and whispered loudly, “This is how horror stories start.”
Bella crossed her arms. “Tell me that’s not one of his friends.”
Every gaze snapped to Gideon.
He lifted both hands slowly, palms out.
“I haven’t summoned anyone. I swear it on whatever fragile goodwill I’ve earned in the last hour.”
“That’s not comforting,” my dad muttered.
The chime rang a third time.
The Academy’s response was immediate. The long corridor beyond the kitchen straightened, doors sliding into alignment, lanterns flaring brighter along a clear, unmistakable path toward the front entrance. The message was obvious.
Someone was there, and the Academy intended to let them in.
Keegan turned to me, his expression hard. “If this is a trap—”
“I know,” I said quietly.
My pulse was already racing, my magic stirring in response to the shift. I felt the Wards moving, not in defense, not in welcome, but in evaluation. Whatever stood on the other side of those doors wasn’t being rejected. That alone sent a chill through me.
Stella rose to her feet.
“If you’ve brought the Priestess to our doorstep,” she said to Gideon in a voice like sharpened silk, “I will personally—”
“It’s not her,” Gideon cut in, just as sharp, something flickering through his gaze. “If it were, you’d already know.”
That stopped us all.
Nova appeared at the edge of the room, her staff dim but steady, her eyes unfocused in that way that meant she was seeing further than the rest of us. “This presence is… unexpected,” she said slowly.
“Unexpected bad or unexpected catastrophic?” Twobble asked.
She didn’t answer him.
The Academy hummed, a low, anticipatory sound that settled deep in my chest.
“I’ll go,” I said.
“No,” Keegan replied immediately. “We’ll go.”
He was already moving, his hand brushing mine as he fell into step beside me. I didn’t argue. I didn’t need to. The tension coiled tighter with every footstep as we followed the lit corridor, the rest of the group trailing behind at a cautious distance.
I felt him there without looking, his presence like a question mark I couldn’t quite turn to face. I didn’t know whether I wanted him near the door or as far from it as possible.
The front hall loomed ahead, vast and echoing, its ceiling lost in shadow. The great doors stood closed, ancient wood etched with sigils that shimmered faintly as we approached. The chime sounded one last time, reverberating through the space until even the air seemed still.
Keegan reached the doors first.
He paused, glancing at me, searching my face.
I nodded.
Together, we placed our hands against the wood.
The Academy sighed.
The doors swung open.
Cold night air rushed in, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and something else—familiar, unsettling, impossible to place. Lantern light spilled outward, illuminating the stone steps and the figure standing just beyond the threshold.
I stopped breathing.
Keegan went utterly still.
Behind us, someone swore softly. Someone else gasped.
The Academy’s hum shifted, deepening, not in warning, not in welcome, but in recognition so profound it made my skin prickle.
I knew, with a certainty that had nothing to do with logic, that everything we thought we understood about what had just ended, and what was about to begin, had shifted again.
The person standing there met my gaze.
And the night held its breath.