I stood near the hum of the Butterfly Ward. My breath quickened as I scanned the crowd. For weeks, I had been trying to keep these people safe, to shield them from the worst of Stonewick’s shadows. Now I was asking them to stand in the storm with me.
A hand brushed my arm, steady and familiar.
Frank.
My dad stood tall at my side, his features sharp in his human form, though the hint of his bulldog strength clung to his stance. His eyes, the same deep brown I’d grown up with, carried both worry and pride.
“Whatever you’re about to say,” he murmured, “say it like you mean it.”
I nodded, smiling. “I will.”
“I’ve always said fake until you make it.” He winked at me.
“I love you, Dad.”
Before I could gather my thoughts further, movement rippled through the students. A figure pushed gently through the crowd, and my heart stopped.
Keegan.
He moved more slowly than his usual stride, but his presence was no less commanding. His cloak hung open, his shoulders squared as if daring weakness to weigh him down. Students stepped aside instinctively, their whispers chasing after him as he came to stand on my other side.
“Keegan,” I breathed, more to myself than anyone.
Up close, I saw the lines of exhaustion still etched across his face, the faint pallor clinging to his skin. But his eyes…they burned with hazel and fire, and locked on me with a clarity that startled me.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” I whispered.
His lips curved faintly, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “And miss this?”
The words might have been bravado, but something about his gaze unsettled me. Heknewsomething, or it was the curse again, whispering through him. The tension in my gut didn’t ease, but I couldn’t argue with him here. Not in front of everyone.
The students’ eyes turned to me expectantly. Lady Limora and Vivienne sat front and center, leaning forward with avid interest. Mara and Opal had squeezed in beside them, notebooks already open in their laps. Even Bella, in her fox form, twitched her ears from the fountain’s edge.
It was time.
I drew in a deep breath, feeling my dad’s solid presence to my left and Keegan’s fierce energy to my right.
“Stonewick,” I began, my voice carrying through the courtyard, “has endured more than its fair share of shadows. You all know it. You’ve lived it.”
The crowd stilled, eyes locked on me.
“For too long, we’ve been divided by curses, by fear, by old wounds. Malore has fed on that division, used it to weaken us. First, he used Gideon as his pawn, and when that failed, he brought out the shadows. But today…” I let the words hang, my voice hardening. “Today, we remind him that Stonewick does not break.”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd.
I continued, my pulse quickening. “This Academy is not just walls and Wards. It’s not just history. It’syou. Every one of you who chose to return, to learn, to keep growing, even when the world told you your chance had passed. That’s not weakness. That is strength. We will embrace our differences and unite with a mission.”
I nodded at Bella, who waved her finger in the air as words filled the sky.
“If we could all sing these words, I think good things will come to Stonewick, to those knowing what they gave up, what they lost, and what could lie ahead. We’re putting out a call for those who left, but are ready to return to a bigger and more unified Stonewick. Power does not belong to one person, but to us all.”
Keegan glanced at me, but I didn’t see anger in his gaze. I saw understanding.
A sea of midlife witches nodded and watched me as the words filled the sky. Funny how the shadows provided the perfect backdrop for our chant to sparkle.
And then I heard something so beautiful erupt all at once.
When the moon is high and hollow,
