And what if they were choosing her?
The thought was equal parts awe and terror.
I forced myself to breathe slowly, grounding the way Nova had taught me, the way Elira’s voice still echoed in my memory. Don’t borrow tomorrow’s fear. I had plenty of danger to deal with in the present.
Right now, the danger was knowledge, too much and not enough.
And whether the Priestess was already counting on me underestimating her reach.
I reached out and rested my hand lightly on the table, feeling the wood warm beneath my palm, the Academy steadying itself around me. Whatever came next, I couldn’t afford to panic. Panic was loud, and panic drew attention.
Dragons survived by being patient, and so would I.
But as the library breathed quietly around us and the sprites resumed their gentle fluttering, one uneasy truth lodged itself deep in my chest and refused to move.
Secrets didn’t stay secrets forever.
And when they surfaced, they always changed the shape of the world, or at the very least, the path of many.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Celeste didn’t say it right away.
She lingered near the long table, fingers tracing the edge of a book she hadn’t actually been reading, her posture loose in that careful way that meant something was coming. The sprites fluttered lazily, and I let myself enjoy this moment where we tucked into a quiet corner of a magical world that made sense in ways the outside never quite had.
But she cleared her throat. “Mom?”
I looked up from the book I’d been skimming through. “Yeah, honey?”
She didn’t meet my eyes at first. “I was thinking.”
The toad ribbited sharply from his perch on the table as if he objected to the concept on principle.
Celeste shot him a look. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
He ribbited again. Louder.
I sighed. “If you keep that up, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack. I don’t even know if that’s a thing for toads, but I don’t want to find out.”
He puffed up indignantly and went quiet, his eyes bulging in a way that suggested he was absolutely not done having opinions.
Celeste finally looked at me then, eyes steady, serious in a way that made my chest tighten before she even spoke the words.
“What if I stayed here?” she asked. “At the Academy.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Instead of going back to college,” she added quickly. “At least for a while.”
The toad exploded into sound.
Ribbit. Ribbitribbitribbit.
“Oh my goodness,” I muttered. “He’s going to rupture something.”
Celeste winced. “Sorry, Dad.”
That only made it worse.
