“Maeve,” he said carefully, “you don’t owe him anything.”
“I know,” I replied. “But the priestess will not just hide him away in her castle next time she gets hold of him.”
Bella crossed her arms. “He tried to undo half of this town.”
“I know.” The thought tightened in my chest.
Ardetia tilted her head, her expression thoughtful rather than angry. “The Academy is not a neutral space.”
“I know,” I said again, firmer this time.
The uproar came all at once after that, voices overlapping, concern and anger tangling together in a way that felt almost protective. Stella paced. Twobble gestured wildly. My dad muttered something about security. Even Nova’s brow furrowed, her gaze sharp with calculation.
I let it crest and lifted my hand.
“The Academy let him in already,” I said.
That statement cut through the noise, and everyone froze because it was the truth.
“It weighed him,” I continued, my voice steady now, grounded by something I didn’t fully understand but trusted all the same. “It assessed him. It didn’t reject him. It didn’t push him out. It allowed him to stand on its grounds.”
“That doesn’t mean it should host him overnight,” Stella said wryly.
“No,” I agreed. “But it does mean the Academy sees something we might not be ready to.”
Keegan’s jaw tightened. “Or it’s waiting.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “Exactly.”
Gideon finally spoke.
“If this is a debate,” he said, voice hoarse but controlled, “I can leave.”
Something about the way he said it, without challenge or manipulation, made my chest tighten.
“And go where?” I asked.
He hesitated. Just a fraction. “Anywhere that doesn’t make this harder for all of you.”
That answer didn’t satisfy anyone, especially me. He’d spent too many years trying to destroy everything the Academy and Stonewick had to offer.
I also didn’t say what I was thinking. I didn’t say that there had always been something inside me that responded to Gideon in a way that frightened me. A recognition. A pull that had nothing to do with affection or trust and everything to do with shared fault lines. I didn’t say that sometimes, when I looked at him, it felt like staring at a mirror that showed a version of myself I might have become if I’d made different choices.
That wasn’t why I was doing this.
This was about something else.
“She already captured him once,” I said quietly.
The words settled like frost.
“The Priestess,” I continued, “took him when he was strongest. When he was aligned with her goals. When he had power to trade.”
I looked around at them, at the exhaustion etched into every familiar face. “Tonight, he’s stripped of the Hunger Path. He helped to destroy the Hunger Path. He’s disoriented. Vulnerable. And she knows it.”
Nova’s eyes darkened with understanding.
“If he leaves,” I went on, “he’s exposed. The Academy is charmed against her in ways the rest of Stonewick isn’t. If she wants him again, and I don’t believe for a second that she doesn’t, then this is the safest place for him to be.”
