Chapter Twenty-Six
My eyes blinked open slowly as Twobble hung over me. His head looked larger than usual as he tried to summon me awake. Nova was kneeling next to me as Ardetia brought out a warm compress. Bella had shifted into her fox form and was pacing along the Butterfly Ward.
“I’m not like her,” I muttered, trying to sit up.
“Indeed, you’re not,” Nova said, taking the compress from Ardetia and placing it on my forehead.
Something about the exchange nagged at me.
It wasn’t what the Priestess had said, but what she hadn’t.
Ardetia, Nova, and Twobble helped me back into the Academy as Bella stayed a few steps behind us, watching the grounds.
I sat on the stairs and absentmindedly studied the marble floors.
My mind went back to the Priestess and how she had reached for me in that cool and deliberate way, studying every reaction.
My mother had walked into her world willingly. If the Priestess wanted leverage, that should have been the first thing she used, but she hadn’t. She didn’t lock my mother up, where Isaw her locked in a cell like Gideon when he’d been tossed there. Mariselle didn’t dangle ropes from my mom’s wrist to drive home the point of her capture.
Instead, there had been something else in her voice.
It wasn’t triumph. It was an expectation.
It felt like she had already moved the piece she wanted and was simply waiting for me to notice.
I brought my gaze back to Nova, and without warning, a sudden heat flared across my skin. I didn’t have time to worry about the Priestess’s mind games.
The sensation struck my birthmark sharply enough to pull a breath from my lungs. I turned toward Nova.
“The Wards,” I said, already moving. “They’re under pressure.”
Nova frowned and shook her head. “I’m not feeling anything.”
“You will.” The sensation struck again, stronger this time. “This isn’t the Priestess in my head. Something’s pushing at the perimeter. And students are already pooling around for morning classes. We can’t ignore this.”
Twobble froze. “Pressure on the perimeter. That’s… not good.”
“It’s targeted,” I said, concentrating on the sensation before it slipped away. “Stone and Flame. Both of them.”
Nova closed her eyes and reached outward, sending her magic beyond the walls of the Academy.
For a moment, there was nothing, but then her eyes snapped open.
“…I feel it now.”
“It’s not breaking through,” I said quickly, recognizing the rhythm of it. “But something’s pushing at the seams. It could.”
Twobble didn’t wait for further clarification.
He darted toward the closet where my broom leaned. It was a little crooked, and the bristles remained slightly uneven from the last time I’d taken it through some shrubbery a little too enthusiastically.
He thrust it into my hands with surprising force.
“Air is faster,” he said briskly, voice back to crisp goblin command. “Scan both from above. Stone first—closest. Flame second—more volatile. If it’s nothing, you wasted ten minutes. If it’s something, you saved the Academy. I’ll watch over the students.”
There was no argument in me, only momentum.
Outside, there was a swirl of students peering from windows above and whispering with wild eyes. A few gasped when they saw the broom in my grip.
