“Time travel?” I whispered.
“In a sense.” She glanced at the group of onlookers, and my gaze followed.
“All is well,” I told them. “You are safe. Return to your dorms or the dining hall. Avoid the central stairwell until we say otherwise.”
They moved slowly at first, murmuring to each other, but they listened.
Twobble hovered next to me like a second shadow.
“I saw you,” he whispered. “Maeve, you didn’t cast anything. You just…held it.”
I nodded, though I didn’t understand it either. I had no name for what I’d done. No spell in any book that could describe the sensation that had taken hold of me.
I looked down at my hands, half-expecting them to glow or tremble.
But they were just hands.
Shaking a little, but normal.
Except now they weren’t.
“Come,” Ardetia said, not unkindly. “We should speak with Nova.”
I stood slowly, legs unsteady, and glanced once more at the chandelier on the ground that was whole, intact, and gleaming faintly in the dimming light.
I’d stopped it.
Somehow, I’d stopped it.
But it hadn’t been justmealone.
It had been the Academy.
And something deeper still.
Something I wasn’t sure I was ready to face.
But I would. Because now I had to.
I turned to Twobble. “Tell me what you’ve learned.”
Chapter Seventeen
“They’re sisters,” Twobble said for the third time, tugging at the edge of his sleeve. “Two of them. Newer arrivals only showed up last night. Nobody really noticed because they came in during the last wave of orientation, when Ardetia was busy fending off that flirtatious nymph in the Maple Wing and half the book sprites had gone on a shelving strike.”
I held up a hand, realizing I’d heard nothing about any of it. “Twobble. Focus.”
He stopped pacing and pointed at me. “Iamfocused. Exceptionally. Painfully.”
“Then breathe and tell me everything you know. From the top.”
He huffed but obeyed, folding himself into the armchair opposite mine. His feet didn’t quite touch the floor, but he swung them with intent.
“Okay. So. The sisters. Their names are Krina and Mys. Full names are Krina Halvyr and Misandra Halvyr. Middle-aged, maybe a few years younger than you. Krina is the quieter one, with dark hair and strong features. Mys is the one with the braid that has a silver streak, talks fast, always chewing something.”
Twobble went on, fiddling with a tea biscuit he’d pilfered on the way in. “They keep mostly to themselves. Don’t cause trouble in the magical world, at least not directly. But I started asking around discreetly, even asked Bella, Ardetia, Ember, and Nova. None of them remembered seeing the two in more than one class each.”
“Drifting,” I said.
