Chapter Eleven
The dining hall felt different with Celeste in it.
The kitchen sprites had gone into a quiet frenzy the moment Celeste sat down, as if some invisible list had been activated that only they could see.
“Oh,” Celeste said, blinking as a plate slid into place in front of her. “Is that—?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling despite myself. “Your favorite.”
Mac and cheese appeared first, the good kind with the crispy top and just enough herbs to pretend it was sophisticated, as a bowl of roasted vegetables slid next to it, done exactly the way she liked them.
Warm rolls followed, with a small dish of honey butter she hadn’t asked for but absolutely would eat.
A sprite placed a glass of cider beside it all and beamed as if she’d personally saved the world.
And in her own way, she had.
“Okay, this place officially wins over my dorm,” Celeste said, laughing. “When can I move in?”
I chuckled as exhaustion finally settled into my bones now that the crisis of the moment had ebbed.
The ache was deep and satisfying, the kind that followed effort that mattered.
Contentment wrapped around it, soft and unexpected, and for a few seconds I just watched my daughter eat like it was the most miraculous thing I’d seen all night.
It might have been.
She took a bite, chewed thoughtfully, then paused mid-motion. Her fork hovered. Her eyes lifted to mine, suddenly sharp.
“Why is Gideon here?”
There it was.
“That’s more than fair to ask.”
“Mom. He controls Shadowick. That place was terrifying. You told me yourself it wasn’t safe.”
“It wasn’t,” I said. “And it still isn’t.”
“Then why is he in the Academy?” she pressed. “Isn’t this supposed to be protected? Sacred?”
“Yes,” I said again. “Absolutely.”
Celeste frowned. “Those answers don’t go together.”
I smiled faintly. “They do here.”
She crossed her arms, waiting.
“The Academy,” I began carefully, “doesn’t operate on the same rules we do. It doesn’t judge people based solely on what they’ve done. It judges whether they’re aligned with the balance it’s meant to protect.”
Celeste’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds… dangerously philosophical.”
“It is,” I agreed. “But it’s also how it’s survived this long.”
She tilted her head. “So you’re saying the Academy invited him in.”
“I’m saying the Academy allowed him in,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
Celeste stared at her plate for a moment, then back at me. “Okay. Start from the beginning. Because I feel like I missed several chapters.”
I exhaled slowly and leaned back against the bench, the wood warm against my shoulders. “Alright. But this gets complicated.”
“Magic usually does,” she said dryly.
“You remember the curse,” I said. “The one I told you about. The one that’s been sitting over Stonewick like a lid for decades.”
She nodded. “The one that made everyone stuck.”
“Yes,” I said. “It had been cast by Gideon’s hand, but the plan had been engineered by more than him.
He was merely the instrument, tempted by power.
” I drew a breath. “Since you were here last, we uncovered several more developments. At the heart of that curse was something called the Hunger Path.”
Her brow furrowed. “That sounds… bad.”
“It was,” I said. “It fed on want. On ambition. On fear. It rewarded taking instead of choosing.”
Celeste’s mouth tightened. “That explains a lot about Gideon.”
“It explains a lot about several people,” I said gently.
She sat back slowly. “That’s… horrifying.”
“It is,” I said. “It traced back to Malore…your great-grandfather, husband of Elira.”
Her face paled slightly. “The name you don’t like to say.”
“Yes. He nearly destroyed everything,” I said. “Because he ignited the Hunger Path, twisting it to his own whims. And because his actions echoed forward in ways no one fully understood until recently.”
Celeste swallowed. “Is he…?”
“Gone,” I said. “Truly gone.”
She let out a breath she’d been holding. “Good.”
“But breaking his legacy wasn’t simple, and it showed that there was someone else behind it,” I continued. “But first we had to reopen the Ancient Rites by destroying the Hunger Path.”
I hoped even an ounce of this made sense to her.
“We needed to restore the ancient rights that were meant to restore balance, not punish.
Her fork lay forgotten now. “That’s what you did before I got here?”
“Yes,” I said. “With Keegan. With Gideon. With your grandfather.”
Her head snapped up. “Grandpa was there?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “And he was incredible.”
She shook her head, overwhelmed. “You’re saying you all… rewrote something ancient.”
“We invited something ancient,” I corrected. “And ended the Hunger Path. We pulled it apart at the root.”
“And Gideon agreed to help,” she said slowly.
“He did,” I said. “And that mattered. The magic required consent from all of us. The Hollows held the vow. The Wilds held the space. The circle closed the way it was always meant to.”
Celeste stared at me like she was trying to reconcile ten different truths at once. “So Gideon isn’t… what he was.”
“No,” I said. “Not anymore. Hopefully.”
She glanced toward the far end of the hall, where voices murmured faintly. “Then why does everyone still look like they want to throw him out a window?”
“Because trust doesn’t reset as easily as magic,” I said.
She nodded slowly. “Okay. I think I understand that part.”
I hesitated.
“There’s more,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “Of course there is.”
“The circle worked,” I said. “The curse is broken. The Hunger Path is gone. But when something like that ends, it leaves… space.”
Celeste leaned forward. “Space for what?”
“That,” I said quietly, “is the problem.”
She stared at me.
“Mom,” she said slowly, “you’re doing that thing where you tell me just enough to be terrified.”
I met her gaze, seeing her clearly now, not as a child I could shield, but as someone who was already standing in the current, whether I liked it or not.
“I know,” I said. “And I’m sorry.”
She waited.
“The magic that held everything in place for so long is gone,” I continued. “Which means things that were suppressed are starting to move. Old forces. Old attention.”
Her expression sharpened. “Like?”
“Like the Priestess.”
She went very still.
“There’s a Priestess?”
I couldn’t believe I had to utter these words.
“Yes, and she’s your great grandmother.”
She gasped. “Grandma Elira?”
“No, my mom’s mom.”
She stared at me like I’d just grown ten heads.
“Boy, our family tree is something else.”
I smiled at the simplicity of that statement that held so much truth.
The Academy hummed softly around us, content and watchful.
“The Priestess,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “isn’t like Malore.”
Celeste had gone very still across the table from me, her earlier appetite forgotten. She watched my face the way she used to when she was younger and could tell a storm was coming by the way I tucked my hair behind my ear.
“She doesn’t burn things down,” I continued. “She preserves them. Hoards them. People, magic, power. She believes she’s maintaining balance, but really she’s deciding who deserves to exist inside it.”
Celeste swallowed. “And Gideon?”
“He was useful,” I said quietly. “Powerful. Isolated. Easy to manipulate once she figured out what he craved. She convinced him he was choosing his role when really she was shaping every move he made.”
Celeste’s jaw tightened. “That’s sick.”
“Yes,” I said. “And effective.”
She shook her head. “What does she want now?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “That’s what scares me most. She never acts without purpose. She never moves unless there’s a long game involved.”
The dining hall hummed softly around us, lantern light warm against stone, sprites moving quietly now that the first wave of food had been delivered. The Academy felt calm, but I’d learned the difference between peace and quiet. This was the latter.
“And do you think…” Celeste hesitated, “that she’d come after me.”
I didn’t answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
Celeste let out a slow breath. “Because my magic woke up.”
“Yes,” I said. “And not gently.”
She glanced at her hands as if expecting them to glow. “I didn’t even mean to do it.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s part of why it’s dangerous. Untrained magic doesn’t announce itself politely. It ripples.”
She looked back up at me, eyes searching. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” I replied softly, “that the Priestess notices ripples. And if she realizes your magic is active, she may decide you’re… relevant.”
Celeste’s mouth twisted. “I didn’t ask to be.”
“Neither did Gideon,” I said.
The words sat between us, heavy but honest.
Before Celeste could respond, the dining hall doors swung open with unmistakable enthusiasm.
“Well,” came a bright, delighted voice, “this is exactly the sort of chaos I was hoping to walk into.”
Lady Limora swept into the hall like a vision in velvet and moonlight, her silver hair piled high, eyes gleaming with unrestrained interest. Behind her came Mara, steady and vigilant; Vivienne, already cataloging every detail with academic delight; and Opal, who looked like she’d just been promised front-row seats to something spectacular.
And dangling upside down from Lady Limora’s hand—
“Oh no,” I said.
Celeste shot to her feet. “Absolutely not.”
Lady Limora beamed, holding the toad, my ex-husband, by one leg like a prize catch of the day.
“Look what I found wandering the corridor. A transformation of this magnitude, unbound, spontaneous, and emotionally charged? That’s an omen if I’ve ever seen one.”
The toad croaked indignantly, swinging slightly.
Mara squinted. “Is that… a person?”
“Formerly,” Lady Limora said cheerfully. “And not a very nice one, from what the walls were whispering.”
Opal clasped her hands. “Is it cursed?”
“Yes,” Celeste and I said in perfect unison.
“And no,” I added immediately. “You are not putting him in a cauldron.”
Lady Limora blinked. “Oh, I wasn’t going to put him in the cauldron.”
Celeste paled. “That was not reassuring.”
“I was going to consult the cauldron first and see if he wanted to go for a swim,” Lady Limora clarified. “Big difference.”
She turned, already half-lifting her free hand. “Opal, dear, fetch the…”
“NO,” Celeste and I shouted together.
The force of it echoed off the stone walls.
Lady Limora startled, her grip loosening just enough for gravity to intervene.
The toad slipped free.
There was a brief, undignified flail.
Then splat.
Alex landed belly first on the dining hall floor, stunned into silence for half a second before letting out the loudest, most offended ribbit of the night.
Every sprite froze.
Twobble, who had just entered with a plate of pastries, smiled…the biggest, toothiest grin I’d ever seen.
The toad scrambled upright and hopped backward, directly into the leg of a bench, glaring at all of us like this was somehow our fault.
Lady Limora stared at the empty space where the toad had been before following his trail.
“…Well,” she said finally. “That was dramatic.”
“You cannot,” I said through clenched teeth, “throw my ex-husband into a cauldron.”
“I wouldn’t throw him,” she protested mildly. “And it would be a fabulous reading.”
Celeste crossed her arms. “He’s not a tea leaf.”
“He’s absolutely a warning,” Lady Limora said, eyes gleaming again. “A transformation like this doesn’t happen without intent. Someone, or something, answered the call.”
Vivienne nodded slowly. “The timing aligns.”
“With what?” I asked.
“With a shift,” she replied. “Multiple, actually.”
The Academy hummed, deeper now, as if acknowledging the truth of it.
I looked at Celeste and realized that fate had noticed my daughter.
And fate, I was learning, rarely did so quietly.