I turned.
She looked more afraid than I’d ever seen her. Not the fear she’d had when Malore attacked, or when the Wards weakened. This was older. Deeper. The fear of a younger version of herself, standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, hearing a voice like that call someone else’s name.
“She knows you’re here,” my mom said. “Of course she knows. She’s felt you from the beginning. Since you opened theAcademy. Since you stepped into the neutral ground. You’re… loud, Maeve. In the magic.”
“I’ve been told,” I croaked.
Keegan was at my side, close enough that our shoulders touched, one hand hovering at the small of my back like he wanted to grab me and bolt, but knew there was nowhere to go.
His eyes were fixed on the square. On her.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “I hate that I’m about to say this, but: I really miss the problem where Gideon just didn’t show up.”
“That problem was simpler,” I agreed.
The high priestess turned her head lazily, scanning the buildings that ringed the square as if she had all the time in the world. Shadows clung to her like a cloak, slipping along the cobbles when she moved. Frost traced the edges of shop windows as her gaze passed them.
Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once, sharply, then cut off.
She looked, for all the world, like a woman in a park, waiting for someone to join her on a walk.
I knew better.
Elira’s impressions, the dragons’ cryptic warnings, Gideon’s cold respect—they all threaded together in my head, painting a picture more alarming than anything my imagination could have conjured alone. No wonder they’d told me I was getting ahead of myself. They knew he wouldn’t show.
“She shouldn’t be able to stand there,” Nova murmured. “Not without the Wards shrieking. Elira’s holding like hell.”
“How is she here at all?” I asked. “I thought the Wards wouldn’t let her through.”
“It’s not letting herin,” Nova said. “This is… an extension. A projection with teeth.”
“Teeth,” I repeated. “Great.”
The high priestess lifted her hands slightly.
The fog on the windows thickened, then cleared in a sweeping motion, like someone wiping condensation from a mirror.
Her gaze swept Stella’s tea shop.
And stopped.
On me.
I knew, in that instant, that she saw me.
Not just my face, pressed back from the window, but the shape of my magic, the way the Luminary had touched me, the threads I’d tangled myself in: Academy, Wards, Stonewick, dragons, wolves, goblins, ghosts.
Her eyes narrowed the tiniest fraction.
She smiled again, more genuinely this time.
“Maeve,” she said, and the way she spoke my name was different now, no full middle name, no last name. Just Maeve. Intimate. Proprietary.
I swallowed hard. My throat felt sandpaper-dry.
“She can’t come in here unless we invite her, right?” Twobble whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Tea shop rules? Vampire rules? Somebody’s rules?”
“This isn’t vampire lore,” Stella said, voice like powdered glass. “This is priestess arrogance. Entirely different etiquette.”
