I blinked and realized I’d stopped walking.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “Just thinking.”
He studied me for a second but didn’t press.
We stepped closer to the edge of the Butterfly Ward. The faint shimmer of it moved through the air like drifting light, soft and steady, the way it always was.
Normally, being near the Ward made everything inside me settle. The magic here had a way of smoothing rough edges.
Tonight it didn’t.
The heat in my shoulder deepened and became insistent, like a tug.
Like a pull.
I pressed my fingers against the mark again.
And that was when the realization crept in.
The sensation wasn’t random.
It was trying to lead me.
It wasn’t hard enough to drag me across the forest floor or anything dramatic like that. Nothing I couldn’t ignore if I tried.
But it was there.
A quiet, steady direction.
My breath slowed as I felt it again.
The pull.
Keegan had stopped beside me now, watching carefully.
“You sure you’re alright?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said automatically.
But I didn’t move.
Because the feeling had sharpened just enough that I could tell something else.
It wasn’t pointing toward the Academy.
The Butterfly Ward shimmered calmly a few steps ahead of us, its magic soft and welcoming.
But the pull inside my shoulder…
Wasn’t going that way.
A chill moved down my spine.
I slowly turned my head, looking past the Ward and out toward the dark stretch of forest and hills beyond Stonewick.
The burn responded instantly, stronger. It wasn’t pain. It was recognition.
My stomach dropped.
