“You did good today,” he said quietly.
“Barely,” I answered.
“Barely counts,” he said firmly.
Miora, exhausted and sagging like a candle burnt low, pushed herself up from her chair. She crossed the room without her usual bustling energy and cupped my cheek in one cool, gentle hand. Her thumb traced under my eye as if checking for splinters left by a storm.
“Your grandmother would be proud,” she said softly. “And very, very loud about it.”
I leaned into that touch, just for a breath. Miora had become the gravity keeping this house from drifting into grief. It terrified me to see how thin she had become under it.
“You need rest,” I said, brushing a stray hair from her brow.
“And you need courage,” she whispered back. “Lucky for you, you keep it in spares.”
“I’ll lock up,” Keegan said. “You all… breathe. You’ve spent long enough looking after me.”
For once, I didn’t argue. I let him flip the bolts and whisper to the wood and murmur something low and steady that coaxed the very walls back into their usual friendliness. The cottage responded with a creak that sounded like a sigh.
The sigil’s absence still hummed in the air, like something watching from just beyond the treeline.
And yet there was soup still warm on the stove. There was the scent of rosemary and garlic clinging to the rafters. There was my mom tucked under my arm, my father settling by the hearth, Miora smoothing the blanket over her knees, and Keegan’s soft footsteps returning to my side.
Something strange had traced a message on our floor tonight.
But something good had gathered around this table.
And standing there, held in the quiet center of all the people I loved and all the people I feared losing, I felt it settle in my bones like a promise.
Whatever was coming…we would face it together.
And whatever had written that ghostly mark, it had only taken the first turn.
The next move would be ours.
Chapter Fifteen
For the first time in longer than I cared to count, my heart felt… buoyant…not empty or carefree. Those ships had sailed and hit reefs years ago, but lighter, like someone had taken a few of the rocks out of the invisible backpack I insisted on lugging through life. The Hollows had held. Gideon had said yes with the magical world listening.
And I’d come home to soup and my mother choosing herself. For one thin slice of time, the future didn’t feel like a hallway full of knives or ice daggers.
The Academy steps were warm under my shoes, late-August sun soaking into the old stone as if it had earned the right to keep it.
The courtyard beyond was almost unrecognizable without students. No clusters of midlife witches argued over spell theory, no familiars weaving between legs with what we’ll call grace and not calculated tripping, no enchanted luggage sulking about. The quiet felt wrong and peaceful at the same time.
Banners slept against their poles. The dorm windows were dark. The Butterfly Ward shimmered at the edge of sight, less frantic without dozens of auras pinging against it. Even thegargoyles seemed relaxed, just stone, for the moment, sunning themselves like tired old lions.
“Our headmistress, caught without a stack of paperwork,” a voice declared.
Twobble and Skonk were marching up the path, side by side like mischief dressed in slightly different outfits. Twobble’s ears bounced with each step. His earmuffs, yes, in August, sat crooked over one ear. Skonk’s scarf trailed long behind him, picking up burrs and, somehow, dignity.
I crossed my arms. “Danger approaches.”
Twobble stopped directly in front of me and cleared his throat with the gravity of a man about to deliver a lecture on tax law.
“We’ve been thinking about something,” he announced.
“That’s always worrisome,” I said automatically. “Does the Academy insurer know?”
