The fox dipped lower, its wings whispering through the air. For a heartbeat, the light around us lifted—just a flicker, but enough to notice.
“It’s responding,” Twobble murmured.
“They all are.”
More movement followed. Shapes shifted in the vines, drawn closer. The small bird tilted its head, its diamond claws glinting as it hopped along a branch toward us. Deeper in the greenery, something else stirred—a faint glow slipping between the leaves before disappearing again.
“They feel it,” Keegan said.
“They recognize it,” I said. “What it’s meant to be.”
The realization settled in slowly, then all at once.
“It’s part of the system,” I said. “Not just power. It finishes something that’s been… incomplete.”
Twobble blinked. “I preferred it when it was just a dangerous rock.”
If the Priestess hadn’t been after it merely for longevity and power, then we’d have been wrong from the start.
“She doesn’t just want it to live longer,” I said, my voice quieter now. “She wants control.”
Keegan’s jaw tightened. “And if she can shape it—”
“She decides what comes back,” I said. “And what stays broken.”
That thought landed hard.
“She could shape parts of Stonewick how she wants,” Twobble said, softer now.
“And the Academy,” Keegan added.
The fox stilled, its ears twitching as something shifted in the air.
The stone in my hand went colder, the chill sinking deeper into my palm.
I shifted my grip, like that might change something, but it didn’t. It just sat there, heavy and quiet in a way it hadn’t been before.
A thought slid in, and made me pause.
The stone was reacting, and my stomach dropped before I could talk myself out of it.
“Maeve,” Keegan said again.
“I feel it,” I said, already turning. “The stone wants to show me something.”
The far end of the space pulled at me. It was the area where the vines twisted together so thickly that the light barely touched them. I’d noticed it before, just enough to feel… off, but not enough to question.
Something was there, waiting, and I stepped forward a fraction, squinting into the shadows, and then…
There.
I spotted a glow, faint but steady, tucked behind the leaves like it had been hiding in plain sight.
Twobble made a small noise behind me. “I did not expect this.”
“Me neither.”
And there in front of me, another stone.
