I didn’t know if anyone else could feel it, but I could. It wasn’t pulsing with danger. It was thrumming withexpectation.
Like a timer had been set.
As if Gideon wanted me to know he was coming.
But what he didn’t realize was that I was going to come first.
My eyes scanned the darkened rows of bookshelves. The shimmer was gone now. The shadow vanished, but its trace still clung to the air, like ash after a fire.
The students had no idea how close this came.
And neither, I suspected, did most of the teachers.
Except Twobble. And Keegan.
And maybe, just maybe, the two students.
Krina and her sister.
I frowned.
“I think I need to talk to them again,” I murmured. “We dismissed their story too quickly. I thought the danger had passed once the tether was broken, but now…”
“Now you think the shadow was never about them,” Keegan said.
“It wasn’t,” I said, my voice flat with realization.
“It was aboutyou.” Twobble made a soft sound of agreement.
We turned together toward the arched door, backlit now with warm hallway light.
The silence behind us felt final.
But it wasn’t.
The message wasn’t over.
I knew that in my gut.
Keegan moved first, holding the door as I stepped back into the corridor. Students had returned, many clustered in knots of whispers, but the panic had given way to curiosity. The third floor was still under charm review, but the danger, what they could see of it, was gone.
“Soon,” I murmured again under my breath.
Twobble stepped beside me. “He wants to meet you.”
“I know.”
“And you’re going to.”
“Ihaveto.”
Keegan tensed beside me. “Maeve…”
I turned to him, and for a heartbeat, I saw it.
The worry in his eyes.
Not the kind that coddles, the kind thatknows.
