“He said the Priestess is after him. I think we can all agree that’s true, and he doesn’t seem to think it’s to punish him, but because he has the stone.”
Keegan nodded. “But he also said he didn’t want to endanger the cottage or you.”
“Either way,” I said, forcing my thoughts back onto the track, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to have that stone.”
Silence.
Then my father’s voice, soft but steady. “In time, it might be the best idea or the only idea.”
I turned fully toward him. “Dad.”
He met my gaze without flinching. “Maeve… the odds aren’t in Gideon’s favor right now, and if it's as powerful as he implied, we certainly don’t want it in the hands of the Priestess.
The words made my stomach flip again.
“He’s running,” my father continued, the tone of someone saying something he hated but wouldn’t sugarcoat. “He’s hiding. He’s slipping around at the edge of your Ward and the Stone Ward like a man who knows he’s being hunted. He only happened to see your mom and the Priestess because he was already here, trying to figure out how best to approach you without getting caught or bringing danger to your doorstep.”
Twobble returned with Cindy on his shoulder. “That doesn’t sound like the Gideon we all know and love.”
Grandma Elira chuckled, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“So, one step at a time, and I’ll add finding a hiding place for a magical stone to my to-do list as Headmistress.” I let out a heavy sigh as the sun started to spray golden stretches across the room.
“Best away under the circumstances,” my dad said, nodding. But I saw something flash through his gaze. Worry. I stood, made my way to him, and hugged him.
“How are you holding up?” I asked into his shoulder.
I expected him to lie, but he didn’t.
“Not well,” he said quietly, his voice rougher than it had been outside. “Not well at all.”
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His eyes were tired…more tired than I’d seen them in a long time.
“But I felt she was up to something,” he continued. “I just never guessed that… would be it.”
That would be it.
Oh, yes. The little something of my mother finishing a cup of tea and walking into the Wilds like she’d done it a hundred times, only this time she had a destination.
And how did she know the Priestess would be waiting for her? Or had she planned to walk all the way to her compound?
My throat tightened. “We have to get Mom back.”
The words came out sharper than I meant them to, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to be calm about this. I didn’t want to be strategic. I wanted to go to the Priestess’s compound and tear the doors off the hinges with my bare hands.
My father’s arms loosened, but his hands stayed on my shoulders, gentle and firm.
“Maeve,” he said, and my name sounded like an anchor. “Even if your mom thinks she can handle this, or who knows what she thinks, the Priestess will use this to her advantage.”
I nodded.
“If you try to do a Hail Mary to get your mom,” my father continued, “it won’t end well.”
The phrase Hail Mary, in the mouth of my father, who’d been cursed into a bulldog, who had spent years pretending to be normal, who had survived all of this by sheer stubbornness, made it feel both absurd and horrifyingly real.
“I can’t let her just sit at the compound. Or—” My voice broke on the edge of the sentence. “Or something worse.”
Grandma Elira stopped pacing and turned. “Your mother did this for a reason, and we just need to figure out how to use this to our advantage, no matter her outcome.”
