Chapter One
Four weeks is just long enough for a bruise to yellow but not long enough to forget who threw the punch.
The Academy’s halls smelled like lemon oil and sunlight. Midlife students moved like the tail end of a tide, ebbing and flowing with laughter because the tears of sacrifice would never be forgotten. Now that exams were finished, the air had turned lighter. Soon, students would be heading back to the villages, cities, and towns until the fall semester begins.
Someone’s familiar sneezed in a distant corridor, conjuring a drift of confetti. I didn’t want to brag, but I didn’t even flinch as the sparkly dust floated in front of me.
Growth.
I balanced a stack of returned grimoires on my hip, a pencil behind my ear, a list in my pocket with normal things on it like buy stamps, ask Stella for the focus blend at the tea shop, have Karvey look at the cottage’s stone chimney that keeps sighing at midnight like a lovesick pixie.
Normalcy almost felt like a charm I could wear if I didn’t jinx it by naming it out loud. But I knew it wouldn’t last. There was too much on the line, too many unknowns ahead of us, and a box full of magic I still needed to unpack.
“Headmistress?” A voice floated from the library doors. A midlife witch in a sunflower dress and orthopedic sandals waved a parchment. “Do we return wands at check-out or…?”
“On your honor and under the watchful eye of six gargoyles,” I teased, smiling. “Take yours home for the break, but just don’t hex a chipmunk or something.”
She laughed, clutching her wand like a new passport to joy, and disappeared down the hall. Little did she know that I was speaking from experience. I set the grimoires on the counter and breathed.
It had been four weeks since Grandma Elira’s terrible, brave choice saved us from Malore.
Four weeks since Luna and Gideon fled, and a different truth cracked open.
Four weeks of waiting for a shoe we couldn’t see to drop and trying to survive a semester around the sense that the sky was practicing how to fall.
It was still hard for me to wrap my head around the information I had learned about my other grandmother, the high priestess of Shadowick.
We’d weathered battles I once thought unwinnable, and the hard-won wisdom of these midlife witches, magical creatures, and familiars was now a permanent charm in our collective arsenal.
I wandered through the Butterfly Ward, letting the hush of magic soak into my bones. The air shimmered faintly, carrying the sweet scent of honey and mint, and the vines along the stone walls glowed like soft lanterns in shades of lavender and rose. Butterflies drifted lazily around me, some alive, some made of light, all moving as if they knew something I didn’t.
Beyond the narrow archway, the cobbled path curved toward Stonewick Village, where the crisp scent of dew and wild herbs deepened into something far cozier, Stella’s tea shop.
The bell above her door chimed before I even stepped inside, almost like it recognized me. Warmth wrapped around me instantly, candlelight flickering against the shelves, the comforting perfume of rosehips and black tea mingling with Stella’s unmistakable scent of sass and centuries-old secrets. A low murmur of conversation floated from a nearby table, and the teacups on the counter clinked like they were part of the rhythm of the room.
I breathed in slowly and steadily, letting the familiar sound and scent ground me. The world outside might’ve been teetering between curses and chaos, but in here, everything felt right. Stella’s tea shop was its own little universe, part refuge, part rebellion against the dark, and walking into it felt like coming home.
“Fake it till you make it, my dear.” Stella’s voice carried through the tables like the jingle of the tea-shop bell.
If zany were an energy bar, she’d be twelve servings. She materialized in the doorway with a tray, rings flashing, scarlet lipstick perfect, and a silk shawl brighter than my future.
“Or in your case, steep it till you keep it.” She set the tray down and peered into my face like a jeweler assessing a flawed sapphire. “Drink. You look two degrees past peppy and eight degrees past honest. You need to keep your sanity.”
“I’m fine.” I shook my head.
“You are not fine,” she declared. “You are stitched together with to-do lists and hope, and both are notorious for unraveling.” She poured, sniffed, and then added two morepinches of something that made my nose itch. “Focus blend for the brain, courage blend for the heart, and a whisper ofdon’t you darefor everything else.”
I cupped the tea. “Do you ever have a day where you just…wobble?”
“I wobble with style.” She took my elbow, squeezed. “You don’t have to be unbreakable to be in charge, darling. You just have to be a hinge. Doors need those. They’re what help bring in new ideas and usher out old ones. Now, drink, and tell me, have you heard any crowing crows from Gideon’s side?”
I shook my head. “Silence. And it’s not the comforting kind. Not a peep from him or Luna. No nightmares, no hidden messages, no…” I shrugged. “Nothing but silence for four weeks. I haven’t had that kind of peace since I arrived in Stonewick.”
“Frightening.” Stella pretended to shiver.
“The silence worries me,” I confessed.
“Silence is a liar,” Stella muttered, then brightened. “Now, where’s that goblin? If I find him in a corner with a pile of crumbs and he tells me he is taste-testing anything in my shop today, I will—”
