“That wasn’t me,” I whispered again, but this time it wasn’t reassurance.
It was realization.
Celeste stared at me. “Mom?”
I looked at her, then at the toad, then back at her.
“The timing,” I said, voice shaking. “The trigger. It happened when he started… when he started saying those things.”
Celeste’s eyes narrowed. “So what does that mean?”
“It means,” I said slowly, “that something heard him.”
The Wilds? No, this wasn’t the Wilds. The Academy? We weren’t here yet. The Hollows? They held vows, not petty insults. This felt older. Sharper. Like a force that didn’t care about social norms but cared deeply about balance.
Or consequence.
Stella’s gaze remained fixed on the toad, her expression carefully blank in the way it got when she was thinking too hard.
“Maeve,” the vampire said softly, “that wasn’t your spell.”
“I know,” I whispered.
Twobble’s ears drooped. “Then whose was it?”
Before I could answer, the air shifted.
A familiar sweep of presence moved down the hall, quick and smooth, like wind deciding it had business indoors.
Nova appeared around the corner, robes whispering, staff in hand, her eyes bright with that distant awareness that meant she was always three steps ahead of the rest of us.
She took one look at the gathered group, the tense faces, the Academy’s pulse flaring faintly with agitation.
Then her gaze dropped.
She gasped.
Her whole body pulled back a fraction, brows shooting up, mouth parting in a rare flash of genuine shock.
“Oh,” she breathed, staring at the toad.
The toad croaked.
Nova’s expression shifted instantly from surprise to a deep, unimpressed frown.
Then, as if remembering herself, her eyes lifted to Celeste.
And her face softened into a smile that brightened the entire hall.
“Celeste,” she said warmly. “Welcome back to Stonewick.”
Celeste blinked, caught off guard. “Hi… Nova.”
Nova’s smile held, gentle and real, even as the strange, unsettled hum beneath the Academy rose, as if it too had realized this arrival wasn’t just a coincidence.
And the night, which had already given us too much, quietly promised more.
Chapter Ten
