I stepped around the desk and nudged him gently out of my chair.
Twobble hopped down without complaint and brushed sugar dust from the front of his vest.
When I sat, the chair didn’t feel quite the same as it had earlier that night. Before, it had felt like something placed on my shoulders.
Now it felt like something I had decided to carry.
My gaze drifted to the window. The grounds outside lay quiet. Most of the students had gone back to their dormitories, and the night had settled into that strange calm that sometimes follows a storm.
My mother walking through the Stone Ward rose unbidden in my thoughts.
The slow, steady breathing of the dragons.
The black dragon that had stepped forward and simply watched.
“Twobble,” I said.
“Yes?”
“If my mom thinks she’s saving us…”
Twobble didn’t interrupt. He just waited.
“…then I need to make sure there’s something here worth saving. I have to ensure the Academy continues to grow.”
For once, he didn’t crack a joke or try to soften the moment.
He simply nodded.
I looked back down at the applications spread across the desk.
Names of instructors who wanted to come teach here. Notes about new students arriving. Reports from the north about the orcs who had come seeking shelter.
Outside, the shifters were still holding the Ward.
Karvey and the other gargoyles would be somewhere on the roof.
And beneath the Academy, the dragons were breathing slowly in the dark.
Even Gideon, half in shadow, half in trouble of his own making, had stepped forward tonight when he didn’t have to.
I rested my hand on the stack of papers.
The Academy was still moving forward, whether the world made room for it or not.
And I wasn’t going to be the one who let it stop.
I picked up a pen and started making notes on the top application.
Halfway through the first line, something tugged at my attention.
It wasn’t in the office. Twobble hadn’t moved, and the room was quiet except for the scratch of the pen.
The sensation seemed to come from deeper in the building.
From the stone beneath the Academy.
A faint vibration ran through the floor, so slight I might have missed it if I hadn’t been sitting still. It felt less like a tremor and more like the building shifting its weight.
