That sobered the room.
“Right,” I said. “About that.”
She patted the pedestal, the light brightening briefly in answer.
“This,” she said, “is why I’m here and not… gone-gone.”
“The Stone Ward?” I guessed.
She nodded. “A branch of it. The cottage is built on an old anchor point—one I reinforced when your father was little, before things went sideways. When I made my choice after Malore—” Her expression flickered. “The Luminary offered mea path. I could dissolve fully into the Academy, or I could split what was left of me between its heart and this anchor.”
“And you chose here,” I whispered.
“And there,” she corrected. “I’m greedy. But I put more of myself here. The Academy needed its ghosts, but Stonewick needed… another keeper along with Miora. Someone to keep an eye on the Stone Ward’s roots. Someone who could nudge the cottage, nag Karvey, annoy Miora, and make sure the magic stayed leaning toward joy whenever possible.”
“Joy,” Miora wheezed. “You call all this joy?”
Elira’s eyes crinkled. “You cannot tell me it hasn’t been more interesting since Maeve arrived.”
Miora’s gaze slid to me. Her mouth pressed into its familiar disapproving line, but her eyes were warm. She squeezed Elira’s hand.
“Infuriating, more like,” she said. “But I suppose… yes.”
“So all those times the cottage seemed… alive,” I said slowly. “The way it nudged me toward certain drawers, or made the kettle shriek at convenient moments…”
“That was you?” My dad asked.
Elira’s smile turned sly. “I prefer to think of it as a collaborative haunting. The house was already half-awake. I just gave it better taste.”
Mom huffed. “You could have told us you were here.”
“I wasn’t until recently,” Elira said, gesturing upward vaguely. “Once I got interrupted by the Priestess when I was trying to talk with my granddaughter, I knew I needed to speed up the inception. I didn’t have a year to wait. I needed to transcend here immediately.”
“I thought Malore was the main danger,” Elira went on. “The hunger path, the curse, all of that. But your other grandmother…” Her expression darkened. “Her ambition makes his look like a child stealing candy. She’s been trying to push through any crack she can find. Being on the other side, told me just how much she has invested in…destroying the good. I saw things I still don’t understand. She’s trying to infiltrate the Wards, the Hollows, the mirrors. Here.”
“Here,” I repeated, throat dry.
“She couldn’t reach this anchor directly,” Elira said. “The Ward refused her. But she could silence anyone who knew too much.” Her eyes flicked to Miora.
Miora grimaced. “Old oath,” she said hoarsely. “I agreed to keep this place secret as long as Elira lived. I didn’t realize the magic had… an adjusted definition of the word.”
“Elira dies,” Dad said slowly, “the oath assumes the secret dies with her but because she anchored herself here, it still counted.”
“Exactly,” Elira said. “When the pedestal woke, the old oath clamped down harder. Miora couldn’t speak of it. And I couldn’t get enough of myself together to walk in your dreams and tell you to check under your cottage.”
“That would’ve been helpful,” I muttered.
“Yes, well,” she said. “I was busy not ceasing to exist, but once I got erased at the Academy in the mirrors, I knew I better figure out a way to make contact.”
Karvey cleared his throat again.
“What woke it fully?” he asked. “This anchor has been… murmur-level for decades. Tonight it sang.”
Elira’s gaze went to me.
“You did,” she said softly. “You, the mirror, and your grandmother in Shadowick. She tried to brute-force a connection through the mirrors. The Hollows and the Wards pushed back. The backlash traveled along your mark, into every thread you touch. It hit this anchor like lightning. And your mom’s powers seemed to be the last bit of energy I needed.”
“And you,” I said, “rode the current in.”
