Chapter Fourteen
The Academy didn’t creak at night; it breathed.
I slipped into the corridor, barefoot against cold stone.
My pulse still raced from the dream I hadn’t shaken loose.
Sconces glowed low and steady, their light softened, as if the walls themselves understood this was meant to be a quiet hour.
The hum beneath my feet had shifted to subtle, alert, and questioning.
I just walked.
Gideon’s room was in the west wing, tucked into a stretch of hallway the Academy used only when it had to. Temporary quarters.
The door stood open.
Not cracked. Not ajar.
Wide open.
My stomach dropped.
“No,” I whispered, my steps quickening. “No, no, no.”
The room was empty.
The bed hadn’t been slept in. The blankets lay smooth and undisturbed, as though they’d been prepared for someone who never arrived. There was no lingering warmth or, more fitting to Gideon, no shadow residue. No sense of recent presence at all.
Panic hit fast and sharp as I spun, scanning the corridor, thoughts tumbling over one another.
He’d said he wasn’t staying.
He’d said he’d leave. And after that dream, after realizing something else might have been speaking through him…
I sucked in a breath and forced myself to slow.
Think, Maeve.
The Academy wouldn’t have let him simply walk out. Not unnoticed. Not after tonight. The Wards would’ve flared around the village. Someone would’ve felt it.
Unless…
My chest tightened.
The dragons.
What if he’s searching for the hidden?
The thought came unbidden, cold and unwelcome, sliding straight down my spine. The Academy’s deepest secret. The myth was buried so thoroughly that even most magic folk dismissed it as legend. Elira had known. I knew. Very few others did, and I didn’t know who they could be.
And there should be no way to reach them, no corridors, no obvious doors, and no access without invitation.
Still, fear propelled me forward.
I turned and started moving faster, searching methodically at first—side halls, empty sitting rooms, stairwells that coiled upward and downward like thought made stone.
The Academy shifted subtly as I moved, corridors lengthening, corners arriving sooner than expected, as if it were testing my intent.
“Gideon,” I called softly once, then stopped myself.
Calling his name felt like an invitation, and I wasn’t certain who, or what, might answer.
The classrooms came next.
I peeked in to see desks aligned neatly, chalkboards wiped clean, magic tucked away as if in careful repose, waiting patiently for the teachers to come back in a few days. I peered into rooms devoted to herb lore, Ward theory, and elemental balance. Nothing.
The deeper I went, the quieter it became.
I reached the older wing without realizing it. It was the one Elira had always called temperamental. The Academy didn’t guide students here unless it had reason, and it hadn’t housed formal lessons in these rooms for decades, but that was when I felt it.
Goosebumps fleshed over me.
I walked down a narrow corridor where the lanterns burned brighter, and the air was warmer.
The door at the end of the hall stood closed, with faint symbols etched into the wood.
They were ancient, but I recognized them from a selection the book sprites gave me months ago.
The markings weren’t meant to Ward darkness so much as face it.
I stopped short when I read the plaque beside it.
Practical Applications: Confronting the Dark Arts
Of course.
A reluctant breath of amusement escaped me, cutting through the fear like a thin blade of humor.
I pushed the door open.
The classroom was lit by a single glowing orb hovering near the ceiling, casting long shadows across desks and an open floor meant for demonstrations. Old sigils shimmered faintly along the walls, dormant but watchful. This room not only remembered conflict, but it had also been built for it.
Gideon stood at the center.
He wasn’t touching anything. He wasn’t summoning or manipulating or testing boundaries the way I half-expected. He was standing there, with his hands clasped behind his back, as he stared at a faded diagram on the far wall that illustrated the anatomy of a curse.
For a moment, I just watched him.
He looked grounded. He didn’t appear restless or coiled to strike, which was a nice change for once.
The tension I’d felt in the dream wasn’t here, or if it was, it lay buried deep.
“You couldn’t sleep,” I said finally.
He didn’t startle at my words, but he turned slowly and deliberately.
Our gazes met across the room, and the air between us tightened. Our meeting wasn’t met with a threat or with seduction. The sensation was something heavier and quieter. It felt like we were willingly recognizing the aftermath and leaving most things unsaid.
The Academy hummed softly around us, listening, and I knew, with sudden clarity, that whatever came next would not be simple.
He didn’t look away when he spoke again, and somehow that made it worse.
“You should be careful,” Gideon said quietly. “With your daughter.”
The words landed like a thud to my chest, abrupt and unwelcome.
Every protective instinct I possessed flared hot and sharp. I felt my spine stiffen, and my magic stir in response before I consciously reined it in.
“Do not,” I said, keeping my voice level through sheer will, “use Celeste as a point in whatever argument you think you’re making.”
He exhaled and, for once, didn’t meet my defensiveness with provocation.
“I’m not threatening her,” he said. “I’m acknowledging reality.”
I folded my arms, bracing myself. “She’s not your concern.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he replied, and there was no edge to it this time. No cleverness or veiled manipulation. “She became one the moment her magic woke up. The Priestess notices that sort of thing.”
I hated that he was right.
“She’s protected,” I said. “By me. By the Academy.”
“And by you keeping dangerous people close?” he asked, mild but pointed.
I opened my mouth to retort, already forming the usual arguments, when he did something that knocked the air from my lungs.
“I’m sorry,” Gideon said.
The words were simple and unadorned. They didn’t come with conditions or clever framing. He didn’t soften them with humor or sharpen them into a challenge. He simply stood there and let the statements exist between us.
I stared at him, searching his face for the telltale signs I’d learned to read so well over time. The subtle lift at the corner of his mouth when he thought he’d outmaneuvered someone or the spark in his eyes when he was enjoying the game. But I found none of it.
“You’re sorry,” I repeated slowly.
“Yes,” he said. “For involving her. For ever frightening her. For letting myself become something she’d need to fear.”
The sincerity unsettled me more than any lie would have. This man built his life around threats and actions that involved nothing more than…fear.
“I want to believe you,” I said, and I didn’t bother hiding how much it cost me to admit that. “But you’ve tricked me too many times to accept apologies at face value.”
He nodded once. “Fair enough.”
Silence stretched between us, thick with things that couldn’t be undone. There was a history of manipulation and cruelty that couldn’t be erased.
I shifted my weight, grounding myself against the stone floor.
“Why did you come to me in my sleep?” I asked. “You’ve done it before, yes, but this time felt… different.”
He hesitated, just enough for me to notice.
“I thought it was the safest place,” he said finally. “No Wards to trip or listeners to twist my meaning.”
I let out a short, humorless breath. “I’m not so sure about that.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
For a moment, I considered deflecting or telling him about the Priestess.
It would have been easier to keep it to myself, but I needed to take his statements at face value.
“I think the Priestess tried to enter,” I said quietly. “Or maybe she did. I’m not certain which is worse.”
The effect was immediate.
Gideon straightened, the casual looseness draining from him as if a string had been pulled taut. His gaze intensified, scanning the room instinctively, though we both knew the danger I was describing didn’t respect walls or doors.
“She wouldn’t risk that lightly,” he said.
“I know,” I replied. “That’s why it terrifies me.”
His jaw tightened, thoughts clearly racing ahead of the conversation.
When he spoke again, his voice had dropped, controlled and distant in a way I recognized all too well.
“Then I can’t stay.” He stared at me.
The words hit me harder than I expected.
“You just apologized,” I said. “And now you’re leaving for a world where the Priestess will undoubtedly be hunting you?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “Because if she’s probing your dreams, then proximity isn’t protection. It’s a beacon.”
“And you think running will help?” I demanded. “You’d be alone. Exposed.”
“I’ve been alone before,” he said. “I know how to survive it.”
“That’s not the same thing as being safe,” I shot back.
“No,” he agreed. “But it keeps the fire away from your door.”
I stepped closer, frustration and worry tangling in my chest.
“You’re assuming she won’t follow.”
“I’m counting on our previous shared priorities,” he replied. “She wants leverage, power, and influence. If I remove myself from the equation, she loses an angle.”
Or she finds another, a colder voice whispered in my mind, and my gaze flicked involuntarily toward the corridor that led back to my room, to where Celeste slept.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“I know,” he replied softly.
“And I don’t trust you,” I added, because honesty demanded it.
He didn’t flinch. “You shouldn’t.”
That answer didn’t reassure me. It only complicated everything.
“So that’s it?” I asked. “You leave. You disappear again. You decide on your own what’s best for everyone.”
His mouth curved into something that might have been regret.
“I decide what’s best for you,” he said. “For your daughter.”
“And what about what’s best for you?” I asked.
For a moment, he looked almost tired.
“That stopped being the question a long time ago.”
I was about to argue about recklessness, about sacrifice, and about the cost of martyrdom, when I felt it.
The shift in the air and the subtle tightening of magic behind me.
Before I could turn, a familiar presence settled behind me. The sensation roiled over me, solid and grounding in a way that immediately eased some of the tension coiled in my chest.
“Interesting hour for a philosophy lesson,” Keegan said quietly.
I turned to find him standing a few paces away, arms crossed and expression unreadable but alert.
Stella stood just beyond him, wrapped in her shawl, eyes assessing as they flicked between Gideon and me.
Nova hovered near the doorway, staff in hand, her gaze distant as if she were already mapping unseen threads.
Ardetia lingered at her side, calm and watchful, the faint shimmer of fae light tracing her silhouette.
My dad sat squarely in the corridor, bulldog form planted and immovable, while Twobble peeked out from behind Stella’s knee, eyes bright with curiosity and suspicion in equal measure.
“Well,” Stella said dryly, breaking the silence. “I see no one is sleeping.”
Gideon glanced at the assembled group, something unreadable crossing his face before he schooled it away. The moment stretched, heavy with unspoken decisions.
I stood there, caught between distrust and worry, between wanting him gone and fearing what would happen if he left, knowing with aching certainty that whatever choice came next would ripple outward in ways none of us could fully predict.