Stella refilled my cup before I could ask, as though she could sense my thoughts running ragged.
“It’s curious, isn’t it?” Ardetia said suddenly, her voice lilting and smooth. “That the Silver Wolf returns but not her mate. Not the other one who left Keegan and Stonewick both.”
Her words dropped into the room like a stone into water.
Nova lifted her eyes from her tea. “It is more than curious. It is deliberate.”
Bella’s ears twitched, her tail flicking once. “You mean the Academy, or Stonewick itself, chose her?”
“The Wards are alive,” Nova said evenly. “The land is alive. And Stonewick has always had a will. Perhaps it is pulling back what it thinks we need most.”
“A strong female.” Bella nodded.
I swallowed hard. “Or it has nothing to do with Stonewick and everything to do with his mother finally coming to her senses.”
The table went still. Even Twobble paused with a half-eaten scone in his hand.
“But then why not his dad?” Twobble asked.
I nodded, wondering the same thing.
Stella leaned her elbows on the table, her shawl falling into elegant folds. “Because, darling, his father never stayed long enough to belong.”
I looked at her, startled. “You sound so certain.”
“I am.” Her painted lips curved faintly, though there was no humor in it. “I was here when Keegan was small. His father was always flitting about, even then, coming and going, neversettling, never putting down roots. Roots don’t grow in soil that refuses them. Nor do they grow when they’re always being uplifted. Stonewick doesn’t call back what was never truly its own.”
“But his mom grew up here,” Nova added.
Ember, who had been silent until now, leaned forward, her glow softening the candlelight. “That does not mean he is gone forever. Only that Stonewick did not call him, or his wife decided to follow her own heart. Perhaps the land remembered the mother’s strength and the father’s absence.”
Twobble broke the hush with a snort. “Or maybe Stonewick’s just bad at matchmaking. Call back one half of the couple and forget the other? Sloppy work, if you ask me.”
“Fortunately, no one did,” Stella said dryly, plucking the scone from his hand before he could finish it.
“Hey!” Twobble protested, but the scolding look she gave him had him slumping back in his chair. “Fine. Take my food. I’ll waste away dramatically in the corner.”
Bella rolled her eyes, though a smile tugged at her lips. “You’d eat the stone in the corner if it were buttered.”
Their bickering eased the tension, but my thoughts clung stubbornly to Stella’s words.
Roots.
Belonging.
The Silver Wolf had returned, not because she was convenient, but because Stonewick itself had called her back.
Or maybe Keegan had, and he didn’t even know it…
All those nights looking up to the moon for answers and putting out calls.
Maybe the one who needed to hear it most did.
Ardetia’s gaze slid toward me, her eyes thoughtful, too sharp to be comfortable. “You realize what it means, Maeve.”
I set my cup down carefully. “What?”
“That the land is weaving itself together again with fae, shifter, and witch as all the threads return to the same tapestry. It’s quite magnificent. We’ve already started to witness it within the Academy walls. First, the teachers of fae, witches, and shifters united, and then came the students. And then we had more teachers arrive, like Lemonia, Lara, and Petrah.”
