He nodded. “Exactly. Like they’re stayingjustinvolved enough not to raise suspicion.”
I exhaled slowly, brow furrowed. “And the shadow?”
He grew still. “It’s connected. But not like we thought.”
I met his eyes. “Go on.”
“Krina,” he said carefully, “is recently divorced. Her ex-husband… was a shadow master. From the Wedge Grove area down south.”
Wedge Grove.
I sat back. That was rare magic. I’d read about it in one of the tomes at the cottage. The charms were old and specialized. Most people wouldn’t even hear about that kind of training unless they were born into it or recruited by the wrong sorts.
“She told someone this?” I asked.
“Mentioned it to one of the kitchen sprites in passing,” Twobble said. “Didn’t think anything of it. Just said she was here to start over. That her ex twisted shadows the way some men twist words.”
That sank in.
It made a sort of bitter sense. If she had lived with someone who practiced shadowcraft for long enough, she’d know thesigns. Maybe even unintentionally carried the residue of it. Shadows followed grief and broken things. And divorce…Well, I knew firsthand how that cracked you open.
“And Mys?” I asked.
“No one’s sure about her background,” he said. “Krina’s the one who actually wanted her here. The records list her as a guest with limited access. But they’re always together. One shadow. Two sets of eyes.”
He hesitated. “I’m not sure of their intentions.”
I stared into the fire, letting that settle. The guilt that had been simmering behind my ribs softened, just a little. Not because I wasn’t still worried, but because the shape of it changed. This didn’t feel like Gideon’s style. Not the way he moved. Not the way he worked.
Twobble leaned forward, reading my face. “You think Gideon is involved?”
“I don’t know what I think yet,” I said, though my gut had already loosened slightly. “But this… feels different.”
Behind me, the soft rustle of fabric announced Ardetia’s return. She stepped through the doorway like wind trailing a storm, arms folded neatly across her chest.
“Well?” she asked. “What is this about?”
“I don’t know, but I’m also dealing with an issue that may or may not involve shadow work.”
Her brows lifted. “Here?”
I nodded. “And it might be connected to what just happened.”
“Do you know which students?”
“Yes, and I think it’s time we spoke with them,” I said, standing. “But not with accusations.”
She raised a brow. “Explain.”
I crossed to the window, peering out at the faint shimmer of the Butterfly Ward. The sky was deepening, stained with the last of the day’s light.
“If what Twobble says is true, and I believe it is, then Krina came here to get away from something she barely escaped. And if her magic’s been touched by shadow, even just by proximity, then the Academy may have picked up on it.”
“The Academy may have defended itself,” Ardetia said. “Maybe the shadow was trying to get in.”
“Exactly.”
I turned back toward her, eyes steady.
