Twobble stared at me as if I might have answers tucked under my sleeve.
“Maeve,” he squeaked again, and something in his voice made me look at him.
It was shaking.
“Is it the Priestess? Tell me it’s not the Priestess.”
I pushed back from the desk and stood. The movement felt slow and deliberate, though my pulse had started to climb.
My hands rested on the edge of the desk while Twobble stayed crouched beneath it, eyes wide.
The rumble came again, deeper this time. It wasn’t loud, but steady enough to feel through the stone floor.
I closed my eyes for a moment and focused.
Over the past few months, my magic had been learning the Academy’s strange language. The quiet hum of a Ward holding strong. The shift in the air when a hidden corridor opened. The way the stones themselves seemed to pay attention when something important happened in a room.
I used to think buildings were just walls and roofs.
Stonewick had taught me otherwise.
With my eyes closed, I let the noise of the room fall away until other details surfaced. Voices from somewhere down the hall. A shelf rattling faintly. The distant scrape of something heavy shifting in another part of the building.
Underneath it all was the vibration in the floor.
I felt it in my bones before I heard it again.
And whatever was moving through the Academy this time…wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t from outside.
It felt like something long contained had finally slipped its lock, but it wasn’t the Priestess. She’d never been contained, and her presence had a different quality, usually cold and deliberate. Her magic was the kind that darkened things until it was too late to ignore it.
This sensation was something else entirely.
It felt like the Academy itself.
Fully awake and aware of where it has been and what was ahead. And then a new rhythm pulsed between my feet.
The dragons.
Their presence throbbed through the stone like a second heartbeat. It wasn’t separate from the Academy. It was part of it, and the revelation made my chest tighten as I thought back to the new dragons, and the black dragon, and all of them…patiently waiting.
But for what, I didn’t know.
And then it hit me.
An awakened Academy meant power, and power meant the world would start paying attention.
The Priestess wouldn’t be able to ignore the energy coming from Stonewick.
I opened my eyes, and Twobble was staring at me.
“It’s not her,” I said, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. “Not yet.”
His shoulders sagged with relief for half a second… before he blinked and narrowed his eyes.
“Not yet is goblin forstill absolutely dangerous,” he said. “I’ve read enough books to know how this works.”
I smiled at him, not allowing my worries about the Priestess to surface.
