The sprite squeaked indignantly, and I sighed, rubbing my temples.
Despite myself, I started reading that one too. There were indeed tales of enchanted songbirds that had sung others out of dangerous gullies.
But nothing about reuniting broken shifter clans.
Finally, when my eyes blurred and my bed called, I pushed the entire pile away.
“Not a single useful thing,” I teased, leaning back in my chair. “I asked for a thread, and you gave me hedgehogs and marshmallows.”
The sprites hovered, wings drooping, their chatter softening into apologetic squeaks. One even tugged a corner of my sleeve, eyes large and gleaming, and I felt horrible.
Because the truth was that they did help. “I’m sorry, little ones.” I smiled and shook my head. “You brought me precisely what I needed, a distraction.”
I looked down at the mountain of absurd titles, each one useless but lovingly chosen. The ridiculousness of it made me want to laugh and cry in the same breath.
Maybe that was the point. Maybe the Academy, through its sprites, was reminding me that I couldn’t clutch everything so tightly. That sometimes, the path wound through laughter and nonsense before it revealed its truth.
“You’re all treasures,” I told them. “And I can’t thank you enough. Now, if you could find a way to turn a grumpy man pleasant again, I’m all ears.”
Or a grumpy headmistress pleasant again, I kept to myself.
I sighed, pulling the hedgehog book back into my lap.
“All right,” I said, flipping it open again. “Let’s try this one more time.”
And though I skimmed every line, every doodle, every footnote, still nothing led me to the reunification. No trail of breadcrumbs. No hidden hint. Just pages full of hedgehogs and their wildly exaggerated prophecies.
I closed the book with a thud, resting my forehead against its cover as the shadows outside pressed against the library windows, as though mocking my failure.
But I straightened again, determined.
If there were no thread here, then I’d find one somewhere else.
Because the Silver Wolf was out there, circling. And sooner or later, I would find the right way to call her home.
I was halfway through convincing myself hedgehogs might somehow hold the key to luring Keegan’s mom when I heard the soft scrape of a chair at the next table.
I glanced up, expecting another sprite preparing to drop a whimsical book in my lap. Instead, a woman stood there, midlife, like me. Her hair was pulled into a messy golden bun streaked with silver, and she wore the deep blue robes of a student who had just arrived this summer.
I didn’t recognize her, which wasn’t surprising. The summer session was already a blur of names and faces, and I hadn’t exactly been making small talk in the banquet hall lately.
She shifted a leather-bound volume in her hands and smiled, a little tentative but kind. “I think this belongs to you.”
“I doubt it,” I said, half-laughing, gesturing at the tottering pile ofCauldrons Through the AgesandHedgehogs Who Prophesy.“Unless it’s another treatise on furniture that tries to eat its owner.”
Her smile widened, and she slid the book across the table toward me.
The moment my fingers brushed the cover, my stomach dropped. The title was embossed in gold, the letters glinting faintly in the candlelight.
The Call of the Wild Ones: Histories of Shifter Clans and the Rituals That Bound Them.
I nearly toppled off my chair.
For hours, I had been buried under goat philosophy and marshmallow recipes, and here it was, the exact thing I had been searching for.
I stared up at her, wide-eyed. “Where did you get this?”
“Over there,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward the northern shelves. “It practically fell into my lap. I’m still learning how the library works. I figured it was meant for you. You’re the headmistress, right? The one everyone whispers about like you’re half legend, half gossip?”
