Chapter One
I thought returning from Shadowick with Gideon on the back of my broom would come with a pause of some sort, but I thought wrong, which wasn’t necessarily atypical for me.
It wasn’t like I was foolish enough to think there would be peace, exactly...
Stonewick had cured me of expecting that, but at least for a breath. Maybe a mug of Stella’s extra-strength vampire-blend tea would be pushed into my hand. Perhaps, Twobble would be doing circles and complaining about a lack of pastries and his twin cousin. You know, just something ordinary enough to pretend the worst had passed and throw me off a little bit.
Instead, the Academy listened to the sounds of magical mayhem and packaged them up into an unorthodox to-do list.
I felt it before I saw it. A hum beneath my boots. It wasn’t the familiar, contented thrum I’d grown used to, but something restless rattling through the stone and wood like a house next to train tracks.
The front doors stood exactly where they always had, tall, carved, patiently waiting for the next visitor. But the greenery framing the exterior arch had shifted overnight. It hadn’t grown, but it rearranged. The leaves coiled inward instead of outward, and the faintly silver veins pulsed with thought, as though the plants had changed their minds about what they were meant to protect.
“That’s new,” I murmured.
The Academy didn’t disagree.
Would a normal person notice that? I wasn’t sure, but it seemed a curse of the Hedge Witch was to notice the details, especially when it came to vegetation and energy between realms.
Inside the Academy, the air felt… tilted. Corridors stretched a breath longer than they should. A staircase curved where it had gone straight yesterday. Doors whispered behind me with wood brushing wood like gossip passing between old friends who’d just remembered something important.
I stopped in the main hall and closed my eyes.
Or I was being paranoid.
But magic moved through the Academy like a tide now, not a pulse. It didn’t wait for permission. It didn’t ask me to direct it. It flowed, tugged, and tested with old spells warming in their bones and charms shifting their weight like guardians readying for battle.
But what was of concern was the Wards. They were no longer humming in harmony.
The Stone Ward pressed inward, heavy and protective. The Maple Ward stretched, its warmth threaded with unease. TheButterfly Ward, usually light as breath, pulled tight around my ribs, sharp with warning. And the Flame Ward burned brighter but flickered with each memory swallowed.
Deeper still, beneath them all, something old rolled over in its sleep.
I opened my eyes to see a portrait of a witch shaking her head.
“That is deeply unsettling,” I told it.
The woman in the frame, an unfamiliar Headmistress from centuries past, tilted her chin and parted her lips as if she might speak. But the canvas stilled, her eyes closed, and the movement stopped.
I exhaled slowly.
Somehow, Shadowick had followed me home.
It wasn’t in the way I’d feared, like with dark creatures’ claws, or the Priestess’ shadows curling through the dark, but in echoes.
Pressure and memory pressed against the stone that remembered too much.
But there was another presence, quieter and closer. It wasn’t in the halls or the walls, but threaded throughmymagic.
The energy brushed the edge of my senses like a hand hovering just above skin. The sensation was oddly familiar, chilling, and patient.
The Priestess.
I pressed my palm to my hip as my birthmark flared. It wasn’t painful and didn’t feel like an alarming warning. It felt more like awareness and recognition.
My grandmother wasn’t reaching for the Academy.
She was reaching through me.
