“Twobble, spill it.”
“Okay, fine. Skonk went with Gideon.”
I gasped. I hadn’t even meant to. It just slipped out.
“Why? Why would he do that?”
“He thought he could help us by helping Gideon to stay alive.”
“And Skonk thinks he can do that?”
Twobble folded his tiny arms. “You do realize just how long we live, right? That’s not just good genetics. It’s pure determination and will mixed with a lot of sneakiness and good choices.”
“But Gideon has the shadow stone, and he said whoever has that will be in the Priestess’ sights. Skonk has put himself in a huge amount of danger.”
Twobble cleared his throat. “It's for the good of the cause, Headmistress.”
“Does anyone else know?”
He shook his head.
I pressed my lips together and turned away from him, pacing a few steps across the room before stopping near the window, my fingers brushing lightly against the cool glass as I tried to make sense of what he’d just said.
Skonk. With Gideon.
Of all the choices.
Of all the people.
“Of course he did,” I muttered under my breath, because it fit in a way I didn’t like, not one bit.
Twobble shifted behind me. “He thought it through.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“It makes it intentional.”
I turned back to face him. “Intentional danger is still danger, Twobble.”
He didn’t argue with that, which somehow made it worse.
The Academy felt quieter now that the evening had begun. The soft thrum of voices from the study drifted faintly down the hall where Keegan and the others were still talking through plans and possibilities and everything we weren’t quite ready to act on yet.
I crossed my arms, my mind already racing ahead. “When did he leave?”
“Gideon and Skonk left before your first pastry du flambeau this morning,” Twobble said.
“And Gideon let him come?”
Twobble hesitated. “I don’t think Gideon stops people from doing what they’ve already decided. And he may not have realized Skonk was following him right away.”
“That sounds about right,” I said, the frustration tightening in my chest. “He disappears, takes the stone with him, and now Skonk is following him into whatever mess he’s walked into.”
“For the good of the cause,” Twobble repeated, though his voice didn’t carry the same conviction as before.
I exhaled slowly and ran a hand through my hair, because this was exactly the kind of thing that would unravel everything if we didn’t get ahead of it.
“We should tell Keegan,” I said.
