I moved to the window and pushed it open wider, letting the cool night air spill into the room. The sky above the Academy roiled. The clouds thickened and bruised, as shadows curled through them in patterns that made my birthmark ache faintly.
“They’re listening,” Keegan said softly.
“Yes,” I replied. “And they’re unhappy.”
“Good,” he said. “That means we’re doing something right.”
I smiled despite myself and leaned against the sill, watching the clouds shift. For a moment, the shadows thinned, revealing a sliver of moonlight that cut cleanly through the chaos, pale and steady. It didn’t banish the darkness. It didn’t need to. It simply reminded everything else that it was there.
I turned back to the desk, to the books, to the careful order I had etched into my memory. I whispered the opening line under my breath, testing its weight, its truth. The words didn’t resist. They settled, warm and sure, like something I had always known how to say.
Keegan reached for my hand and grounded me. “You’re ready.”
I looked at him and felt the strange, steady calm that had been building all evening finally take root.
“I am,” I said. “And so is the Academy. Whether the sky likes it or not.”
Outside, the clouds continued to argue with themselves, shadows churning, restless and displeased.
Inside, the ancient words waited, patient and unyielding, ready to be spoken at last.
And the Wilds, they welcomed the show.
Chapter Five
We gathered at the edge of the Wilds just as twilight conceded its last fragments of light. The path ahead glowed with that distinctive shimmer that meant the forest had decided to be seen. This was the place we had tried to meet Gideon at before…the night the Priestess pressed against our village while hiding away our missing link.
The mushrooms appeared first, as they always did, rising out of the shadowed earth like constellations that had decided the sky was overrated. Caps glowed in soft reds and pearled whites, some flecked with gold, others pulsing gently as if breathing. The season’s change brought a kaleidoscope of fungi rebellion with their new shades of mushroom tops.
Their stems curved toward one another, creating natural arches and rings that marked the way forward. The ground beneath my shoes felt springy and alive, not unstable, just responsive, as though the forest acknowledged each step and adjusted accordingly.
The Wilds opened wider as we moved in, branches bending without breaking, leaves whispering secrets they hadno intention of sharing fully. Splinters of moonlight caught on spider silk strung between roots and low boughs. Everything smelled green and damp and ancient, layered with a sweetness that reminded me faintly of honey and rain.
This was the heart of it. The place where the circle had been meant to close the first time.
At the center of the clearing, the mushrooms formed a wide ring, their glow brighter here, colors deepening into rubies and amethysts. The earth within the circle was bare and dark, rich with promise and memory, and scattered leaves.
Symbols had etched themselves faintly into the soil over time, not carved, not forced, but remembered. The Wilds never forgot where vows were meant to be made.
I slowed, my breath catching despite myself. No matter how many times I stepped into this place, it always felt like crossing into a story that had already been unfolding long before I arrived.
“This is where it ends,” Twobble whispered, awe softening his usual bravado. “Or begins. Hard to tell with circles. But the point is don’t bump the mushrooms and certainly don’t inhale.”
“I second that,” Nova murmured.
My mom stood just inside the tree line next to my dad. She looked so different than the Mom of my childhood and the Mother of my adult life. Her presence, since she harnessed her past, had become softer but unmistakable. She wore a shawl the color of moss and moonlight, her hands clasped together as she took in the clearing with eyes that knew exactly what this place was, even if she had once tried to run from it all.
When she looked at me, something in her expression eased, like a knot loosening that had been tied for decades.
Beside her stood Keegan’s mother.
The Silver Wolf didn’t glow or shimmer or announce herself in any obvious way. She simply was. Her hair caught the light strangely, silver threaded through dark, and her gaze was steady and sharp, taking in every detail of the circle, the forest, her son.
When her eyes met mine, she inclined her head, not quite a bow, not quite a greeting, but something that acknowledged shared ground.
Relief washed through me, because I suddenly trusted everything was as it should be, and that alone worried me.
Keegan moved closer to his mother, and the space between them held years of absence and unspoken understanding, but it didn’t feel broken. It felt… possible.
