“True.” My dad nodded and let out a deep sigh.
“She’s framing this as a choice to me,” I said. “Shadowick or Stonewick.”
“And you don’t think it is?” my dad asked.
I shook my head and met my mother’s gaze.
“She thinks division creates weakness and will allow her to tap into it and lure them to her,” I continued. “But we won’t make it easy on her.”
“You sound like her,” my mom said quietly.
A chill ran over me, and I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “I sound like me.”
“You’re right, but you have the foresight and ability to calculate moves that I never had. I didn’t have the strength to fight or to evenbelievethere was another way. You do. I couldnever stand up to her, and it’s almost like you can’t wait to confront her.”
I didn’t know what to make of her words. I knew they were meant to be a compliment, but it also felt…worrisome. Wasn’t that what the Priestess hoped? That she could manipulate me or that I was just like her?
Another wolf call echoed, and my dad turned toward the sound.
He frowned and let out a deep breath. “Things are changing in our world.”
I nodded, hugging myself as the fall breeze picked up. “The Academy is changing too.”
We stood in the narrow stretch of path between the Butterfly Ward and town, the Academy behind me and Stonewick ahead. It all felt frailer than it had yesterday. My dad kept one hand on my mom’s shoulder now, and I realized that some things were being mended, and maybe that could happen between Shadowick and Stonewick too.
But probably not with the Priestess still calling the shots.
“Mariselle,” I said, trying to humanize her.
My mother gave a small nod, her eyes fixed on the tree line as if she expected someone to step out and correct us.
But then I heard fast, purposeful footsteps.
Caleb barreled around the bend, with breath coming sharp as if he’d run here. He slowed when he saw us, but only barely.
“Maeve,” he said, and the way he said my name carried both urgency and relief. “The new visitors are orcs.”
My pulse ticked up. “From where?”
He shook his head. “You won’t even believe this. Nobody believes this. It’s almost like a celebration over there.”
“What do you mean?”
“The orcs came from up north in the caves, from the islands.”
“Those clans were thought extinct,” my dad said.
“Yes. That’s what we’ve always been told, isn’t it? Gone. Lost. Swallowed by the cold and the stones and whatever else people tell themselves so they don’t have to wonder.” Caleb shook his head.
“How were they accepted?” I asked.
“They came right up to the perimeter,” Caleb continued. “No horns. No challenge. Just… tired. The orcs immediately recognized the northern clan.”
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, and for less than a second, he looked younger than he usually did and less like a man holding a pack together and more like someone who’d just walked into a fairytale.
“They carried the same look as the ones we have here,” he said quietly. “That hungry kind of pride.”
