And the air turnedwrong.
It wasn’t cold
It wasn’t hot.
It was too still, and the air was suffocating.
I took a step toward the door, already reaching inward for the familiar wellspring of my magic.
But the Wards hadn’t sounded.
There wasn’t a bell that rang or an alarm that shimmered. There was no pulse of warning through the stones.
“Where are the sprites?” Twobble murmured, standing beside me now.
They weren’t gone.
Iwould’ve feltif they were gone.
But they weren’t visible.
No flutter of wings or giggling trails of light zipping by us.
The air was too quiet.
“I’m going to check the corridors,” I said. “Grab Stella or Ardetia if you see them.”
“Okay,” he said, voice unusually low.
My dad stood up slowly and followed me as I moved toward the corridor. The moment I passed under the archway into the west wing, I felt it again—that twist.
It wasn’t magic, exactly, but possibly a mimic of it.
I didn’t run.
But I moved faster now, the old reflexes rising to the surface. I passed the mirror alcove just beyond the corridor and froze.
The hallway ahead was shimmering faintly, almost like a mirage heating above summer stone.
But it wasn’t heat.
It was… layered.
Two versions of the same corridor, slightly out of sync. It was as if someone had tried to overlay one place on top of another, and the edges didn’t quite line up, so I stepped closer. My heart thudded, but it wasn’t out of fear.
I’d seen this shimmer before.
In the Hedge.
The veil between places in the here, then, and now.
But this wasn’t supposed to be here.
And that’s when I realized that something was pressinginand trying tofoldspace inside the Academy.
And it was doing so quietly with just one slow, invisible intrusion.
I raised my hand and cast a gentle light spell to scan the space.
