It was the way he walked down the sidewalk outside the tea shop, shoulders hunched, steps too deliberate, like someone rehearsing bad news before delivering it. He paused once to look over at the pumpkins at a doorstep, started to talk to them, and then shook his head as if even they had betrayed him.
My stomach dropped.
I was out of my chair before I consciously decided to move, the table scraping softly against the floor as Stella glanced up in mild surprise.
“Oh dear,” she said as Skonk pushed open the door. “That’s either indigestion, grim tidings, or a bad prophecy.”
Skonk stared at me.
“Maeve,” he said. “Hi. Pastries look delicious. Love the ambiance of this place, Stella. Always have.”
“Skonk?” My brows lifted.
“Well, we’ve got a slight problem.”
Celeste perked up immediately. “I don’t like the wordslight.”
“What happened?”
Skonk scratched the back of his neck, eyes flicking briefly to Stella, over to Celeste, and back to me. “So. The cottage.”
My pulse kicked up. “What about it?”
“It… disagreed,” he said carefully.
“With what?” I asked, already knowing I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“With the Academy.”
“What part in particular?” I asked slowly, dreading the answer.
He cleared his throat. “Where’s Twobble?”
“With the toad,” Celeste responded.
“Skonk, stay focused. What part did the cottage disagree with?”
“The Gideon staying part,” Skonk replied. “I would dare to say it disagreed very strongly.”
My chest tightened. “What do you mean, disagreed?”
“I mean,” he said, lifting one hand in a helpless gesture, “the Ward shoved him out onto the porch like a bad reaction, and then Miora and Elira locked the doors behind him.”
The words hit like ice water.
“They locked him out?” I repeated.
“Yes,” Skonk said. “Firmly. Symbolically. With feeling. Because truthfully, the cottage…the Stone Ward itself, said,Nope. Not letting him stay here.”
For a heartbeat, the tea shop seemed to tilt. The Academy wanted Gideon near. It had made that abundantly clear by throwing its own steps at him. The cottage booting him out wasn’t just inconvenient; it was dangerous. Conflicting magical authority rarely ended quietly.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
Celeste, however, leaned back in her chair and shrugged.
“I mean… I don’t mind him getting out of here.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, forcing myself to breathe.
