Somehow, that made my nerves worse.
My dad shifted first, placing himself a half-step closer to me without saying a word. His stance was casual to anyonewho didn’t know him, but I caught the subtle readiness in his shoulders, the way his weight settled as if he could move fast if needed. After all, Gideon’s choices had left my dad stuck in his shifted form for most of my life.
Twobble hovered near the banister, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, chewing something that might have been a scone or might have been stress. Skonk lurked just behind a pillar, lemon filling on his sleeve and gaze flicking between Gideon and the exits like he was mentally mapping escape routes.
Stella stood near the wall, chin lifted, expression composed in that dangerous way she got when she was pretending not to be offended by something she fully intended to remember forever. Her magic didn’t flare, and her fangs didn’t emerge, which was telling. But they would if needed.
The Academy lights adjusted. The walls didn’t whisper. The floor didn’t tremble.
“That’s not right,” Twobble muttered under his breath. “It should be doing something dramatic like flinging him across the foyer.”
“This feels suspiciously like patience,” Stella said coolly.
Maeve, that’s me, still adjusting to the idea that I am the one standing at the center of all this, couldn’t tear my gaze from the space around Gideon.
The Academy wasn’t icing him out or punishing him for his wicked way. It wasn’t bristling or showing displeasure in any of the ways magical institutions were supposed to when faced with someone who’d tried to unravel them from the inside.
It was… watching him. Perhaps, the Academy was analyzing him like a chessboard that had accepted a piece back onto thesquare it once occupied, not because it trusted the move, but because the game required it.
Or at least that was what I had to tell myself.
The front doors opened again, and a cool draft slipped through, carrying the faint scent of woodsmoke and sweetness.
Ember glided in from the inn. Her presence was soft and luminous, and her expression was relaxed right up until she looked up and saw Gideon standing in the foyer.
She stopped short, and her glow flared instinctively before she reined it in.
“Oh,” she said. “That’s… new.”
Ember’s eyes flicked to me, suspicious and searching. The silent question lingering behind her gaze was clear as anything she might have spoken aloud.
I gave a small nod of acknowledgment because I was as unsure as she was.
She carefully drifted closer, but her gaze never left Gideon.
“He’s standing,” she observed. “Usually when people likehimcome here, they’re either restrained, expelled, or…worse.”
“Give it time,” Twobble said with a wicked smile.
Before Ember could reply, another presence entered the space, and the temperature shifted just enough that I felt it along my spine.
Keegan stepped into the foyer.
He took everything in at once: the people, the positions, the subtle tension woven through the air.
His gaze locked onto Gideon, and the effect was immediate.
A restless charge snapped between them. It felt like two storms readying to collide for the same airspace.
Keegan’s jaw tightened, and his hands curled briefly before he forced them open again. He didn’t move toward Gideon. He didn’t bare his teeth or growl or do anything overtly wolfish. He simply stood there, radiating a quiet fury that made the air feel smaller.
Keegan’s eyes found me, but the tension didn’t ease. It only shifted.
I knew that look. He hated every second of this. He hated that Gideon stood unchallenged on Academy ground. And he hated that I had walked him here myself. He despised that the land seemed willing to entertain a possibility that Keegan would rather see buried.
But beneath the anger was reluctant trust.
His loyalty to me, the Academy, and the village was unshakeable and the fact that Gideon was still standing in the Academy without sprites tying him up or gargoyles turning him to stone spoke volumes about how we should proceed.
