“Yes,” Twobble replied. “That’s what the UnderLoom’s picking up. This isn’t a raid. It’s a movement with supply behind it.”
Keegan’s jaw tightened. “An organized push.”
I swallowed. “Toward Stonewick.”
“Not directly,” Twobble said. “Yet. They’re gathering along the deeper routes and testing weight tolerance. Seeing what gives. Maybe we’ll be lucky, and they’ll walk on by.”
“Because luck has always been on our side?” Skonk asked, deciding to show up at the most inopportune time.
The warmth at my hip pulsed again, a low, steady thrum that made it clear my magic was paying very close attention.
I drew in a breath. “Do you think the Priestess sent them?”
Twobble hesitated, then shook his head slowly. “Possibly. But I think it’s more than that.”
My heart sank. “More than… hired muscle? Isn’t that enough?”
“Yes, but,” he said. “This feels like coordination on a scale that doesn’t come from a single summons. I don’t know. There’s just something about this that has my cockles up.”
“You’re saying the Priestess is not just reacting.”
“She’s preparing,” Twobble replied. “Assembling. Possibly.”
The word echoed uncomfortably in my head.
An army.
The realization settled into my bones with a cold clarity that made the earlier coziness feel distant, as if it were something I’d dreamed rather than lived.
Orcs didn’t show up unless someone had promised them territory, power, or blood. Sometimes all three. I’d read all about it months ago in a late-night library session.
“And Stonewick,” I said quietly, “sits right where old paths cross?”
“Yes,” Twobble said. “Which makes it very appealing, or at least we’re in the way. And if we add the Priestess on top of it, I don’t know what to think other than I wonder why Ihad been itching to get into the Academy all those years.”
I chuckled. “Because you love it here.”
Stella let out a slow breath. “I knew I shouldn’t have enjoyed the calm.”
I glanced back toward the Academy steps, where the vampire women still lingered, watchful but relaxed, utterly unbothered by the idea of orcs moving beneath the earth. And that was when something else clicked into place.
“Lady Limora,” I said softly.
Keegan looked at me. “What about her?”
“She knew,” I said. “Or at least suspected. She wouldn’t have put out a call to this many vampires unless she expected trouble on a scale that requires teeth.”
“She said it herself,” Stella reminded us.
“True, I guess I just didn’t take it at face value.”
“Always take things a vampire tells you at face value.”
Twobble nodded grimly. “Truer words.”
“And these are women who’ve survived worse than this,” Stella added.
I let out a breath, part relief, part unease. “So, Lady Limora knows more than she’s letting on.”
