“Maeve!” Nova’s voice cut through, sharp as glass.
I turned. She was at the window again, her staff raised. Her green eyes blazed as she called out, “The tear widens. We must hold until dawn!”
Hold until dawn.
I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. That was hours away.
Could we hold that long?
Another wave crashed against us. I raised my hands, ready to burn until I had nothing left.
Because this was it.
The battle had begun.
And Stonewick was on the line.
The clash of spell against shadow still rang in my ears when I felt the tide shift. For a moment, just a moment, the students prevailed. The runes glowed brighter where Nova’s circle pressed them with focus. Ardetia’s vines had thickened into walls of thorn that snapped at anything daring to creep through. Stella’s charms cracked like firecrackers, driving shadows back in sputters of smoke.
And the students… saints help me, the students held the line.
Where they faltered, another stepped in. One witch stumbled with her wand, trembling, and a fox-shifter leapt forward, illusions blooming around them both until the shadow didn’t know who to strike. A fae bent with grief straightened, drawing a rune onto the floor so bright it scorched the air.
Their midlife weariness turned into something else—into grit, into defiance, into fire.
The horde pressed harder, but the hall had become a storm of resistance.
“Together!” someone shouted, maybe Bella, maybe a student, and the cry rippled until it was a chant.
Together.
Together.
Together.
It was working. For the first time since Malore’s shadow had scarred the skies, it was working.
I felt the pull to move, to join, to burn myself out right there among them. But the battle was growing beyond the Academy. I could feel it in the stones, in the way the air surged toward the doors, pulling us outward.
The clans were gathering.
Out the window, I glimpsed them. Shifters in their midlife forms, foxes sleek, wolves bristling, owls with wings spread, pushed forward in clusters, some limping, some carrying wounds old and new to Stonewick.
Fae women in dresses still scented of gardens marched shoulder to shoulder with witches whose aprons were streaked with flour, illusion charms glowing in their hands. They were moving, all of them, toward the front grounds where the real clash was bound to spill.
And then I saw him.
My dad.
He was leading a large group of midlife witches, their wands raised, illusions sparking like fireflies around them. He barked orders in his human form, steady, unwavering, his presence alone a shield.
My heart stalled.
I thought of the dragons’ words.
Some may falter. Some may perish.
No. I couldn’t think of that. Not of him. Not of any of them.
