The shadows outside hissed, coiling tighter around the inn, pressing against the glass like they were listening.
And I stepped out to meet them.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The inn’s door shut behind me with a hollow thud, sealing off the warmth of Stella’s chatter and Skonk’s ridiculous frying pan. For a moment, I just stood there, letting the night press against me.
The cobbled lane stretched ahead, lanterns flickering on their hooks, halos of golden light paling against the bruised, roiling sky. The shadows above didn’t simply loom; they shifted. As if the moment I stepped outside, they noticed.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I muttered.
The shadows rippled in response, curling across the rooftops, stretching toward me like smoke-filled fingers. Not striking. Not yet. Just… acknowledging.
It sent a chill spiraling down my spine, but it also lit something else in me.
Resolve.
They wouldn’t be paying me this kind of attention if I weren’t closer to the truth.
I moved quickly down the sidewalk, sandals clipping the stone. Each step seemed to stir the shadows higher, the air thick with their watching. They didn’t want me to do this. Which meant, of course, that I absolutely must.
Because I knew now what had to be done.
Keegan’s mother, the Silver Wolf, had returned to Stonewick. Not for tea, not for nostalgia, not for her son’s approval. She’d returned because Malore had stirred the curse deep enough that even the land itself was calling its guardians back, and she knew her son was in danger.
The clans couldn’t ignore it, no matter how fractured they’d become. They heard the call, and it told me why Keegan had been spending time looking into the night sky and the moon in recent weeks.
If she was here, then the shifters as a whole had to know something. They had to be whispering about Malore’s motives, the cracks in the Wards, the Academy’s awakening. Maybe they were even moving in ways we couldn’t see.
And if I could reach her… maybe I could finally pry out the missing piece.
The thought steadied me as I wound through the quieter streets, the air heavy with the faint scent of bread cooling in ovens and the sharp nip of rosemary from the garden shop. Stonewick looked deceptively normal. Things even felt back to normal.
But above, the sky writhed, the shadows gathering thicker, as though debating whether to swoop down or simply follow me wherever I went.
“Go on then,” I muttered, forcing a smile. “Follow me. You’ll see where this ends.”
The truth was, I didn’t know where it would end. But I knew the next step: the Silver Wolf.
Of course, she wasn’t the type to leave a calling card.
That made things difficult.
I paused at the corner of the square, staring up at the inn’s roof looming against the restless sky. Maybe Keegan knew. He might not want to admit it, but wolves had a way of finding each other, especially blood.
The thought made my chest ache. Keegan was already unraveling under Malore’s curse, shadows curling around him like chains. Asking him to dredge up the ghost of his mother’s presence might tear him further apart.
But I couldn’t do this without him.
The Silver Wolf wasn’t someone you just tracked down with a lantern and a hope. She was his mother, wrapped in fur and fury, the kind of woman who could make clans rise or scatter with a single glance. If anyone had a clue where she was, where she might be hiding, it was her son.
Keegan.
I turned back toward the Academy, and the shadows slithered after me, darker now, more insistent. They rippled across the cobbles like spilled ink, curling around lampposts, slipping along the eaves of the houses.
A breeze stirred, with the feel of dark fog. It whispered against my ear in a way that almost sounded like laughter, but made me feel like I was in Shadowick.
I clenched my fists, refusing to quicken my pace.
