Celeste stared at him, then at me, horror dawning. “Mom. Please tell me this is temporary.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and ran through every spell I’d cast recently. Protection chants, ancient rites, a couple of prayers…nothing involving amphibians.
But here Alex was in all his toad glory.
It felt good.
“Toad behavior looks good on him.” Keegan chuckled despite himself. “This is the calmest I’ve ever seen him.”
I shot him a look and smiled. “Not now.”
Celeste groaned and covered her face. “My friends are never going to believe this.”
“Especially because you can never tell them,” I reminded her gently.
The Academy doors creaked slightly, light spilling out as if the building itself were leaning forward in curiosity.
The toad croaked again, louder, clearly demanding entry.
I straightened slowly, resignation settling in alongside a strange, familiar resolve.
“Well,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Welcome home, Celeste.”
She peeked at me through her fingers. “And Dad?”
I glanced at the toad.
He blinked at me.
“Temporary accommodations,” I said. “Very temporary.”
I wasn’t sure whether I could convince the Academy to let my ex inside rather than keep him in the garden where he could get snatched by an eagle.
Actually, maybe the garden wasn’t such a bad place for him to be.
I flushed the thought away. This was Celeste’s dad we were talking about.
But I had the sinking feeling that tonight was far from over.
The Academy didn’t fling open its doors for the toad, and I couldn’t even blame the school. The charms shimmered with polite firmness, the sort of refusal that didn’t slam someone in the face but made it very clear they were not invited to the party. Alex, my ex-husband, currently amphibious, sat on the threshold and glared at all of us as if we were the ones being unreasonable.
Celeste hovered beside me, cheeks flushed with embarrassment and disbelief, and I could feel the same frantic question rattling around in both our heads.
How?
“I didn’t do this. I just…I don’t think I could have. I’ve been a little preoccupied,” I explained.
Celeste crossed her arms, eyeing the toad. “I know you didn’t do this. You weren’t even there.”
“Yes, but magic has a way of finding me and your father,” I muttered, then immediately wished I hadn’t said it because Alex let out a smug little croak.
But the truth was, I didn’t need to be there to have Alex barking on all fours when he was in Colorado with one of his girlfriends last year. It was plausible that I was responsible forthis, but at the time it probably transpired, I was in the Wilds, ending the Hunger Path, and at no point during that process did Alex come to mind.
Keegan shifted his stance, watching the toad the way he watched anything that might bite. Stella, on the other hand, watched the situation with a kind of offended fascination, as though she had been personally inconvenienced by the universe’s sense of humor.
Twobble crept closer to the toad and squinted. “Does he… have to stay like this on the front step? Because I feel like the Academy is going to develop a rash.”
“The Academy won’t be the one with the rash,” Stella murmured, and her eyes slid to me with pointed sympathy.
