“I’d crumble and eat all the pastries I could find.”
“Now that’s what I want to hear.” Twobble made a sound that might’ve been laughter or offense, then raised his voice with startling volume.
“Attention, witches!” he shouted.
Several heads snapped toward him at once, and my pulse skyrocketed. This wasn’t exactly what I meant.
“The Headmistress is requesting your presence in the banquet hall for an urgent meeting that is not a drill and not a surprise exam. It’s also not a battle cry.”
“Way to keep things subtle, Twobble.” I rolled my eyes and turned toward the corridor that led to the banquet hall.
I made it five steps before someone barreled around the corner and bumped straight into me.
It wasn’t a student or a teacher heeding the call.
It was Skonk.
He was dusted with soot from his eyebrows down to his boots, and he smelled faintly of burnt pine and whatever strange mineral scent lived underneath Shadowick’s oldest stones. His eyes were wide in that intense way he got when he’d moved too quickly between places that weren’t built for human nervous systems.
“Maeve,” he blurted, grabbing my sleeve as if I might vanish. “You need to hear this right now.”
Twobble planted himself between us instantly. “Excuse you, sir soot-person. The Headmistress is in motion.”
"Twobble," I said gently, because Skonk looked one breath away from panic, and panic had a way of spreading.
Twobble huffed and stepped aside, but he stayed close enough to glare at Skonk's hands as if preparing to bite them on my behalf.
Skonk swallowed hard. "Message from the UnderSoot."
My skin prickled.
The UnderSoot didn't send casual updates. They lived under the town's edges of Shadowick between hearthstones, under oldchimneys and cellars, and in the crumbling spots. They heard shadow-talk. They knew about shifts before anyone on the surface had worked up the nerve to worry.
“What did they say?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
Skonk leaned in, with freckles of soot dotting his cheeks as he wiped his hands on his overalls. It looked like he’d had a rough go of it in the UnderSoot.
“The Priestess isn’t pleased.” He stared at me, and I nodded.
I didn’t need to ask why.
Skonk continued quickly. “She believes Gideon is at fault.”
My heart stopped so sharply it felt like my ribs had caught it.
“What?” I managed.
Skonk nodded, eyes serious. “She thinks he disrupted her plan at the Hollows. That he interfered with the pressure. That he let the orcs step back when she wanted them to push.”
Twobble’s mouth opened. “Wait. Are we talking aboutGideonGideon?”
“Yes,” Skonk snapped, then looked at me again. “She’s hunting him down.”
The hallway noise blurred around me for a moment, with my own breath suddenly too loud in my ears.
“Nobody’s seen him,” I said, the words barely making it past my throat. “Not since the day he stopped the orcs.”
Skonk’s expression tightened. “That’s what the UnderSoot says, too.”
