I paused, the pen hovering above the page.
“Do you feel that?” I asked.
Twobble tilted his head. “…Feel what?”
The vibration came again, just as faint as before.
Not strong. Not destructive.
But deliberate enough that it set my nerves on edge.
My pulse picked up.
The Academy didn’t move without a reason.
And whatever had stirred beneath it…
was awake now.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I’d barely registered the first vibration. My desk lamp trembled a little, its small pull chain tapped gently.
I glanced at Twobble, who scanned the room, right when the lampshade started shaking.
A stack of papers slid half an inch as if something unseen had leaned close and exhaled on them. My skin prickled with uneasy anticipation.
But then the vibration turned into something else entirely.
A low grinding sound rolled through the walls with stone against stone, followed by a sharpcrackoverhead that made Twobble squeak and duck under the desk as if the ceiling might decide to come down on him out of spite.
“Uh—Maeve?” he said, voice shrill in the sudden roar. His cheeks were puffed out like he’d forgotten how to breathe.
“Stay under there,” I said, bracing myself as the room rattled and rolled unnaturally.
“Is… is this… is thisher?” He gulped and closed his eyes as the question cut through me.
The Priestess.
My mind reached for her the way it did with Gideon. But the rumble beneath my feet didn’t make it possible to focus. Was this just the Academy waking up more?
A chill ran over me, and I knew…
This was bigger.
Wilder.
The shelves along the far wall rattled as crystals rolled off and books tipped on their sides. A photo of Celeste fell over, and I glanced at Twobble, whose eyes were enormous.
So were mine, probably.
The rumbling surged again, and this time it didn’t pass through quickly. It held.
The shaking stayed long enough that the air itself felt thick, and from somewhere beyond my office door came a shriek.
It was high and startled, followed by the unmistakable clatter of something metal being dropped. A kettle? A tray? A candlestick? My brain tried to piece together normal explanations and kept coming up with none that fit.
Another sound layered over it: a distant chorus.
