She crossed the hall and pulled me into a hug before I could protest, smelling faintly of herbs and warmth and something contented I hadn’t realized I’d missed until it was right there.
“We were just saying,” she said, pulling back, “that it’s nice to feel like the world isn’t ending for five whole minutes.”
My father chuckled. “Don’t jinx it.”
I opened my mouth to comment on the unexpected togetherness, then deliberately shoved that conversation into a mental drawer labeledLater. Preferably much later.
“Everything okay?” I asked instead, scanning their faces.
My father’s smile faltered just slightly.
He glanced past me, toward the walls, toward the distant woods beyond the Academy grounds.
“I feel something,” he said. “A change. Among the clans.”
The Silver Wolf’s attention honed in on him immediately. “You do.”
He nodded. “It’s subtle, but it’s there. It’s a tension I haven’t felt since before the fractures, possibly even before my father banished me.”
My chest tightened. “So no one is imagining it.”
“No,” the Silver Wolf said. “We’re not.”
Lady Limora folded her hands in front of her.
“This isn’t something to panic over,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s alignment or the beginning of it.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It is,” Limora agreed. “But ominous doesn’t always mean catastrophic. Sometimes it means decisive.”
I didn’t like the sound of that either.
The Academy hummed beneath our feet again, a low vibration that felt like a warning bell rung too softly toignore. Somewhere in the building, a door closed on its own. Somewhere else, a window creaked open, letting in the scent of damp leaves and approaching night.
“So,” I said slowly, “we have restless vampires, unsettled clans, orcs moving toward ancient thresholds, and a Priestess who’s definitely not sitting quietly with her hands folded.”
Not to mention there was something in a drawer she hadn’t wanted me to see.
“Correct,” Lady Limora said.
“And,” my father added gently, “whatever’s changing is being felt across bloodlines.”
The Silver Wolf inclined her head. “Which means this isn’t localized. It’s structural.”
I exhaled, long and slow. “Of course it is.”
My mother squeezed my arm.
“You’re doing well,” she said softly. “Even if it doesn’t feel like it.”
I met her gaze and nodded. “Thanks.”
I kind of liked this new version of my mom, or maybe it was the one she’d hidden away from me.
But the truth was that I didn’t feel overwhelmed, strangely.
I felt alert.
