And that was an oddly unsettling thought to think about a foe turning friendly.
At what cost was the only question that remained when I thought about it.
Once he saw the Priestess and my mom at the compound, he turned back to Stonewick. He didn’t have to.
The realization settled into place piece by piece as I walked.
My steps slowed as the corridor curved, and I thought about Gideon falling back through the trees, standing at the edge of the Ward.
Gideon holding out that strange black stone like it might matter who touched it next.
None of it lined up with the neat picture everyone liked to paint of him.
Evildoer.
But the truth was held somewhere in the middle. He managed to do the unthinkable to my dad, Keegan, and Stonewick, but now, his decisions were less…
Less dark?
Or was that only because he hadn’t had the chance to harness the shadows again? I didn’t know, and only time would tell, I suppose.
I passed my room without stopping.
The air changed as I moved deeper into the older parts of the Academy. The stone here held a different weight, more ancient, perhaps? And the comforting scent drifted through the air.
Ash.
And something sweeter beneath it.
Cinnamon bark.
My birthmark stirred faintly against my hip as I walked, a quiet warmth that grew stronger the closer I came.
I paused beside the crooked portrait of an old headmistress whose bun looked like it could survive a siege. I was so starkly different with hair all over the place, a messy bun or braid on a good day, and cloaks and sweaters layered depending on the cold outside, but I was here. I hoped the Academy still felt confident in its choices because there were days I worried plenty it might have made a mistake.
My fingers brushed the edge of the frame, and the stone in the wall beside it answered with a soft pulse of warmth.
The Academy knew where I was going, or maybe it heard my doubts and wanted to guide me.
But regardless of the occasional self-doubt and messy decision, I felt like I finally belonged somewhere, and I felt… needed.
And the dragons, more than anyone else in this place, had a habit of seeing the pieces people missed, and that was what I needed.
Something fluttered in the air near my shoulder, and I couldn’t help but smile.
The key wasn’t an ordinary key, even by Academy standards, and every time I saw it, joy filled me.
“Hi,” I murmured.
It bobbed once, as if acknowledging my existence, and zipped down the corridor in a stitch of light.
The key didn’t slow. It led me to the unremarkable stretch of wall that just had stone and mortar lines. It was the kind of entrance anyone else would walk past without ever suspecting the Academy was hiding a secret in plain sight.
The stones shimmered faintly in my peripheral vision like heat haze as the key fluttered nearby.
The key spun once in the air and dropped toward a thin line of mortar in the wall.
I pressed my palm over the place it pointed to.
