I touched his hand, grounding him. My wolf. My storm.
“You can’t fight destiny with your teeth.”
“I can try,” he said.
We lay in silence for a moment. The morning light crept in through the window, landing on the abandoned books. Keegan’s breath warmed the back of my neck. My anxieties stacked themselves like hedges in winter, dense and thorny.
Finally, I sat up.
He followed, still watching me.
“I have to figure out what the priestess wants before she takes another swing at the Wards,” I said. “If we close the circle and weaken her, good. Great. But if we do it without knowing what she’s after…”
“She’ll find a way around it,” Keegan finished grimly.
“Exactly.”
I swung my legs off the bed. The floor was cold. The room swayed for a second, a leftover aftershock from the mirror corridor, and Keegan’s hand shot out, steadying my waist.
“You need food,” he said. “And about six more hours of sleep.”
“I need answers.”
“Breakfast first,” he insisted.
“You’re bossy.”
“You like it.”
I ignored the heat creeping up my neck and stood, pulling on my robe. My butterfly mark gave a faint, irritated tingle, almost like someone poking a bruise from the inside.
Keegan noticed. “You okay?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But I’m awake.”
Downstairs, the cottage was already up.
Miora put a teacup into my hands before I finished descending the stairs.
“You look peaked,” she said. “Drink.”
Mom was at the table, reading a book that I was 90% sure had been hidden behind a false panel in the Academylibrary. Dad was in human form, drinking coffee and glaring at a crossword puzzle like it had done him personal harm. They’d both slept in the family room.
And Twobble…
Twobble sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by scrolls, ink smudges, and three muffins he claimed were for morale.
“You’re up,” he said happily. “Good. We have updates.”
“No,” Keegan said behind me. “Breakfast.”
“Yes,” Twobble said firmly. “Breakfast for Maeve’s brain. Important distinction.”
I took a seat slowly, sipping tea.
“Okay,” I said. “Hit me.”
Twobble dramatically unfurled a scroll. “We have compiled, through research, bribery, and sheer goblin intuition, a list of possible things the priestess might want.”
