I stood at the window, arms crossed, staring into the gray haze pressed against the glass. My thoughts spun like a storm caught in a bottle. I could feel the ache still pulsing at my hip, the ghost of the Ward’s decay whispering just under my skin.
Then came the sound of the door creaking open slowly and hesitantly. I turned, half-expecting Ardetia. Or maybe Bella. But it wasn’t either of them.
It was Nova.
She stepped into the room, waves escaping from the scarf wound haphazardly around her neck. Her cheeks were flushed from discovery, and there were smudges of herb dust on her sleeves—lavender or maybe sage, hard to tell. She looked like she'd just come from her classroom.
She stopped when she saw us. Her eyes flicked from my grandmother to me. The firelight caught the auburn in her dark hair.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice quiet but sharp enough to slice through the room’s stillness.
My grandma lifted her eyes to Nova but didn’t speak.
I crossed the room without thinking. My hands were cold. My heart wasn’t.
“It’s the Butterfly Ward,” I said. “It’s fading. We were just there.”
Nova unwrapped her scarf slowly, brows drawing tight. “Fading how?”
“There’s no shimmer anymore. The air felt dead. The brilliant flowers and vines are gone. Still, like something took all the magic out of it and left the shell behind. The carvings on the arch have lost their color. There’s no hum, no resistance. The place feels…wrong.”
She glanced between us. “That Ward’s never faltered. Not even during the worst of the curse. You’re sure?”
“Keegan saw it too.”
Nova let the scarf drop into a chair and crossed the room, boots quiet against the stone floor. She didn’t speak for a long moment, and then looked at me carefully. “What else?”
I hesitated, the words catching in my throat. But I couldn’t hold them in. Not anymore.
“I think it’s my fault.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Maeve…”
“I think Gideon still has a hold on me.”
That silenced the room in a way that felt heavier than before.
My grandma’s expression didn’t change, but I saw her fingers twitch in her lap, a reflex she couldn’t hide.
“I don’t know what kind of tie it is,” I said. “Not a curse, not something obvious. But something small. Hidden. Something I let happen without knowing it. What if that left a thread?”
I paced, the warmth of the fire not touching the chill in my arms. “What if now that the Academy is waking, and I’m waking with it, he’sfeedingon that connection? What if every step we take toward opening is another thread for him to pull? What if the Butterfly Ward—myWard—is unraveling becausehefeels the change and is draining it?”
I turned to them both. “What if he’s been waiting for this moment?”
Nova didn’t speak right away. She studied me like she was reading a story I didn’t know I was telling.
And then, without a word, she crossed the distance between us and took my hand.
Her fingers were cool and dry, firm around mine, her thumb brushing gently along my palm. Her grip grounded me in the best way. The tension in my chest loosened, just a little.
She smiled, but it wasn’t a dismissive smile. It was quiet. Knowing. Kind.
“Then come to my classroom,” she said.
I blinked. “What?”
“We’ll find the thread,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “If it’s there, we’ll see it. If he leftsomething behind, we’ll dig it out. Like a thorn. Carefully, but without hesitation.”
