Chapter Thirteen
I’d been thrashing before I knew I’d crossed the threshold, sheets tangled around my legs, breath ragged and uneven as the dream crashed down around me.
Stonewick stretched out before me, but it was familiar and wrong all at once. The lamplight flickered too brightly. The cobblestones breathed beneath my feet. Every shadow was too long and stretched to places unseen.
And the Priestess stood at the center of the square.
She hadn’t changed. Her robes fell in perfect lines, her face serene in that way that suggested certainty without mercy. Her eyes found mine immediately, as if she’d been waiting for me to notice her.
“You broke what was holding you,” she said, voice echoing oddly, as if the words were being spoken in several places at once. “You don’t yet understand what you’ve invited in.”
I tried to move, but the square locked around me. The buildings leaned closer as the Academy loomed at the edge of my vision, its windows dark.
Gideon appeared, but not beside her. It was as if he was caught in the air between us, suspended by threads of shadow that wrapped around his wrists and throat, pulling him taut.
His eyes met mine, and I felt the familiar twist in my chest as anger, regret, and recognition all tangled together.
“This is your fault,” the Priestess said pleasantly. “You always needed him closer than you should have.”
“No,” I said, but my voice didn’t sound right. It echoed, broke, reformed. “I don’t need Gideon. I don’t need anyone.”
The scene fractured as Stonewick bled into Shadowick without warning. The sky deepened into that impossible indigo where stars pulsed like living things. The ground turned to ash beneath my feet, and the Glacial Hollows rose around us, vast and cold.
Its presence pressed in from all sides. It didn’t speak. It never did. But the weight of its attention was suffocating.
I watched the Priestess fade, the shadows loosen, and Gideon drop in front of me as we were completely transported into the Hollows. The ice acted like a buffer, and my skin chilled at the invasion of my mind.
“Maeve.” Gideon’s voice yanked me to reality.
“This isn’t—” I stopped, swallowing hard. “This is a dream.”
“Yes,” he said. “And no.”
I let out a shaky breath. “You’re doing this...”
“I didn’t know how else to speak to you,” he said quietly. “Not without eyes on us. Not without risk.”
The world shifted as he spoke. The Hollows dissolved into the edge of the Wilds, mushrooms glowing softly at our feet.
“This is real,” I said slowly. “We’re in the Hedge.”
He nodded. “You always knew how to find it. Even before you knew what it was, remember?”
I crossed my arms, grounding myself. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I know,” he said. “But it’s the only place I felt… unobserved.”
Our surroundings slid again, and we were standing beneath the vaulted arches of the Academy, its halls empty, echoing. The transitions were smooth and wrong, like pages turning without hands.
“Unwatched,” he said softly.
The word landed heavily.
The setting shifted again, settling back into the Hollows. The ground was pale, icy, and smooth, and the sky was an endless wash of dim light. The towering forms of the Hollows stood at a distance, their presence vast but restrained, as if honoring some unspoken boundary.
Gideon exhaled. “I’m worried.”
That stopped me.
“You?” I asked softly.
“Yes,” he said, a faint, humorless curve to his mouth. “It happens occasionally.”
I studied him, really looked at him. The edge was still there, but dulled. The arrogance tempered by exhaustion. By choice.
“I shouldn’t have been in Stonewick,” he said finally. “Not like this. Not now.”
My chest tightened. “You already told me you weren’t leaving.”
“I know,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I stopped thinking about it.”
The Hollows hummed faintly, the sound vibrating through my bones.
“You think you’re making us a target,” I said.
He met my gaze. “I know I am.”
The words were blunt, honest, and uncomfortable.
“The Priestess won’t ignore this,” he continued. “She won’t ignore you. Or the Academy. Or your daughter.”
I flinched despite myself.
“She already noticed ripples,” he said. “Celeste’s magic wasn’t subtle. Neither is yours anymore. And if I stay—” He stopped, jaw tightening. “I make the connection obvious.”
I stepped closer without realizing it. “You think leaving will protect us.”
“I think staying puts a mark on you,” he said. “On all of you.”
“And what about you?” I asked. “What does leaving do to you?”
His laugh was short and empty. “It makes me easier to take.”
The truth of it settled between us, heavy and undeniable.
“You are a sitting duck,” I said quietly.
“Yes.”
“And you think the Academy can’t protect you.”
“I think it could,” he replied. “I don’t know that it wants to or should, considering.”
I shook my head. “You don’t get to decide that alone.”
The Hollows shifted, their forms rippling faintly, as if acknowledging the statement.
“You’re safer here,” I continued. “Whatever the Priestess plans, she won’t move openly against the Academy, not yet.”
“And your daughter?” he asked softly.
The question was careful and measured, but it still hit like a blade.
“She’s already involved,” I said. “Whether I like it or not.”
The world flickered, and for a moment, we were back in Stonewick, Celeste laughing at the dining table, my dad snoring at my feet, my mother’s quiet strength filling the room.
But Shadowick bled in, and the image darkened.
“I won’t be the reason she’s hurt,” Gideon said.
“You won’t be,” I replied. “You were a factor because you made that choice. This time, you’re making the right choice. There’s a difference.”
He studied me, searching my face for something..
“You trust the Academy that much,” he said.
“I trust that it chooses deliberately,” I answered. “And it chose to let you in.”
The Hollows hummed again, deeper this time.
The dream didn’t loosen the way it should have.
Instead, it tightened.
Gideon’s presence intensified, and the air around him grew brittle as Shadowick dimmed and pulled back, leaving us standing in a narrow space that felt too much like the Priestess’ land and not enough like anywhere safe.
The ground beneath us darkened, smooth stone veined with faint, crawling light and dead leaves surrounding our feet.
“No,” he said.
The word landed hard.
I straightened instinctively. “No? No, what?”
“I’m not staying,” Gideon continued, his voice firm and resolved in a way that prickled along my spine. “I’ll leave in the morning before the Academy awakens and before the priestess takes notice.”
“That isn’t for you to decide,” I said immediately.
His mouth curved into a familiar smile, knowing.
“There it is,” he murmured. “That certainty. That belief you get to manage outcomes.”
Something twisted in my chest. “This isn’t about control.”
“It never is,” he said lightly. “Not to you.”
The grounds hummed faintly as we moved to the Hollows, its presence distant but attentive.
I felt the Hedge respond to the shift between us, the way it always did when things tilted toward conflict.
“You’re being reckless,” he said. “Staying here paints a target on Stonewick. On your daughter. On you.”
“And leaving makes you easier to take,” I shot back. “You said it yourself.”
His eyes flashed. “I can handle myself.”
“Can you?” I asked. “Because last time—”
He stepped closer, cutting off the space between us, and the shadow around him thickened, coiling like it used to.
“Last time you came for me,” he said quietly.
The words felt wrong. Too polished. Too rehearsed.
“I came because it was the right thing,” I said. “Not because of you.”
His laugh was low and dismissive. “Tell yourself that if it helps.”
Anger sparked inside me. “You don’t get to rewrite my choices.”
“And you don’t get to rewrite mine,” he countered. “I won’t sit quietly in your Academy while the Priestess circles. I won’t be your project.”
“You aren’t a project,” I said. “You are a responsibility.”
His brows lifted. “Listen to yourself.”
The world shuddered, the edges of the dream flickered between the Hollows, Stonewick’s familiar lines, and Shadowick’s impossible angles. The shift made my stomach drop.
“This is exactly why she is right about you,” Gideon said suddenly.
The words hit too cleanly.
“Who?” I asked, though I already knew.
“The Priestess,” he replied, and now the smile was wrong in a way that made my skin crawl. “She always said you’d try to cage what you couldn’t understand.”
Ice slid down my spine.
“You haven’t talked about her like that,” I said slowly. “You never have.”
He shrugged. “People change.”
“No,” I whispered. “This isn’t change.”
His gaze sharpened to a predatory expression. “
You could’ve chosen differently, Maeve. You still could. All of this, Stonewick, the Academy, the rules, you cling to them because you were afraid of what you’d be without them.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” He stepped closer again, and the air hummed with old magic, heavy and seductive. “You feel it too. The pull. The understanding. You and I were never meant to play by their other people’s rules.”
My heart hammered. “Stop.”
He didn’t.
“You should’ve come with me,” he continued, voice velvet-smooth, echoing with something that felt borrowed.
“You always should’ve been with me. You and I could have rewritten everything.
Together, we could have out-tricked the Priestess, and maybe the Priestess saw that. Maybe she is right to push you.”
The realization hit like cold water.
This wasn’t Gideon.
Not fully.
I took a step back, shaking my head. “You wouldn’t say that.”
His eyes darkened. “Wouldn’t I?”
“No,” I said, steadier now. “You’d argue. You’d deflect. You wouldn’t sound like her.”
For a split second, just one, the mask slipped.
Something moved behind his eyes. Something older.
Fear curled in my gut. “You aren’t alone in here.”
He tilted his head, smile returning, wider now. “Neither are you.”
The surroundings stirred.
“Get out,” I demanded. “This is my mind.”
“And yet,” he said softly, “she found a door.”
The thought landed with terrifying clarity.
If the Priestess could reach him through the dream realm…could reach me through the Hedge.
What did that mean for Celeste? The Academy?
“What does she want?” I asked, playing along.
His expression blurred, the edges of him smearing like ink in water. “The same thing she’s always wanted.”
“And that is?”
“You,” he said, and the dream fractured.
I woke with a sharp gasp, sitting bolt upright as my heart slammed against my ribs. Moonlight spilled across the bed, pale and steady, the Academy quiet around me. My hands were shaking, and I felt the person beside me.
Celeste was curled up against my side, knees tucked, one arm thrown across my waist like she used to when she was little. Her breathing was slow and even, her face relaxed in sleep, completely unaware of the storm I’d just torn myself out of.
The sight broke something open in me.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead, breathing her in. Safe. Warm. Here.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered, though she couldn’t hear me.
Carefully, I slipped out from under her arm and rose from the bed, padding quietly into the hallway. The Academy hummed softly beneath my feet, watchful and awake in a way that told me I wasn’t the only one unsettled.
Something had reached into my dream, and I intended to find out how.