The woman chuckled as I glanced around at the growing group, at the Academy’s calm acceptance, at the toad basking in entirely too much admiration.
Whatever Lady Limora had set in motion, it wasn’t chaos for chaos’s sake. It was deliberate, layered, and very much not finished.
“Welcome,” I said finally, meeting the woman’s gaze. “We’ll… figure this out together. We have plenty of room.”
The doors closed behind the last of them, and I accepted that my day had just taken a very unexpected turn.
The Academy had never felt crowded before.
Alive, yes. Watchful. Curious. But crowded was new.
Women filled the hallways now, their voices low and conversational, shawls draped over shoulders, sensible shoes scuffing softly against stone that seemed more than happy to accommodate them.
The ladies moved with an ease that came from knowing exactly where they were going, even when they didn’t, pausing to admire an archway here, a tapestry there, fingers brushing carved stone with something like fond recognition.
I stood near the center of it all, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
And then it hit me.
It wasn’t a dramatic revelation, just a quiet alignment of details sliding into place.
The stillness beneath their movement.
The way none of them blinked too often.
The faint, metallic scent from their own magic when they passed.
The way the lanternlight didn’t quite reflect in their eyes the same way it did in everyone else’s.
Oh.
“Oh,” I murmured.
Keegan glanced at me. “You figured it out.”
“Yes,” I said faintly. “Yes, I did.”
Vampires.
Every single one of them.
These ladies weren’t cloaked-in-shadow-and-drama vampires. They weren’t feral. These were… established and grounded. Women who’d lived long enough to stop performing immortality and start wearing it like a well-tailored coat. Their magic didn’t shout. It settled deep in their bones.
Stella had gone very still beside me.
Her gaze swept the hall once, twice, and then she let out a low, incredulous laugh.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“You know them,” I said.
“Oh, I knowsomeof them,” she replied. “That one there? Hates cardigans. That one? Poisoned a duke in 1783 and still won’t admit it. And that one—” she paused, eyes narrowing fondly “—borrowed my spell book in 1926 and never returned it.”
A woman across the hall lifted her chin in acknowledgment, lips curving in a smile that showed just a hint too much tooth.
Stella waved cheerfully.
Twobble tugged on my sleeve.
