Page 25 of Magical Mayhem (Stonewick Magical Midlife Witch Academy #7)

The library was hushed when I entered. It was as if the book sprites knew I needed a minute.

I rubbed the tiredness from my eyes and tried to shake the heaviness from my chest.

If there was anywhere to find even the thinnest thread about reuniting, or about shifters at all, it was here. The library always seemed to know what I needed, though it had a mischievous way of testing how patient you were willing to be before it gave in.

I hadn’t even reached the first table when the book sprites noticed me.

A half-dozen of them, no taller than my knees, zipped between shelves with the speed and grace of sparrows, their wings flickering in the lamplight.

Each wore a different scrap of parchment like a tunic, ink blots, and torn corners, giving them the look of tiny, eccentric scholars. It was a new look recently, and I think it spoke to more students returning to the Academy. The look was pretty cute.

One shrieked in delight when it spotted me. Another darted down a ladder, hauling a tome twice its size. Within seconds, they were all swarming, babbling in squeaky, nonsensical chatter, and dropping books onto my table with thuds that rattled the inkpot.

“Thank you,” I said politely, though my smile was strained. “But I’m looking for…”

Too late.

They scurried off again, with their wings buzzing.

By the time I sat down, the table nearly groaned under the weight of a mismatched pile. I sighed, brushing dust from the top book, and read the title aloud.

“A Compendium of Cauldrons: Sizes, Shapes, and How They Reflect Your Personality.”

I snorted. “Perfect. Just what I needed to track down Keegan’s mother.”

The sprites cheered as though I’d approved of their choice. One fluttered up, depositing another volume on top of the pile. This one was so large it nearly knocked over the inkpot.

“On the Philosophical Habits of Goats.”

I covered my face in my hands. “Not helpful.”

They didn’t care.

A tiny sprite in an ink-stained parchment dress presented me with a dainty pink book titled One Hundred and One Uses for Marshmallows in Spell work.

I blinked at it. “Actually… no, still not helpful.”

But I flicked it open out of morbid curiosity and found an illustration of a witch catapulting toasted marshmallows at a goblin army. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Okay, that one’s at least entertaining.”

Another sprite deposited A History of Hedgehogs in Foretelling, followed swiftly by Cooking with Mushrooms: The Dangerous and the Delicious.

The pile grew higher, more absurd, until I gave up trying to protest.

“Fine,” I muttered, pulling a random book closer. “Let’s see what treasure you’ve buried me under.”

The hedgehog book was illustrated with tiny drawings of prickly creatures perched atop crystal balls, staring prophetically into the void. One note read, Hedgehogs never lie, but they often exaggerate.

“Brilliant,” I whispered, chuckling.

It was ridiculous, useless, and somehow exactly what I needed after the weight of the last few days. My laughter echoed softly through the library, the sound bouncing back like the shelves themselves approved.

And I realized, once again, the book sprites knew exactly what I needed: A moment to laugh and think about magic in a way that wasn’t life or death.

Still, time was pressing, and Keegan’s mom wasn’t going to stroll through the gates because I discovered that hedgehogs had opinions about lunar eclipses.

I set the book aside and forced myself to sift through the stack with purpose. Cauldrons. Goats. Marshmallows. None of it helped, except to bring a smile to my lips.

But I relented and started flipping pages anyway, looking for anything like a footnote, or a cross-reference, that might hint at shifters, wolves, or the kind of magic that bound them or reunited them.

Hours seemed to trickle by. The sprites remained at my side, tugging at my cloak every time I looked weary, proudly offering me yet more irrelevant books.

The Art of Candlewick Sculpture and Songbirds of the Midwest Wards.

“Really?” I asked, raising a brow at the last one. “Songbirds?”

The sprite squeaked indignantly, and I sighed, rubbing my temples.

Despite myself, I started reading that one too. There were indeed tales of enchanted songbirds that had sung others out of dangerous gullies.

But nothing about reuniting broken shifter clans.

Finally, when my eyes blurred and my bed called, I pushed the entire pile away.

“Not a single useful thing,” I teased, leaning back in my chair. “I asked for a thread, and you gave me hedgehogs and marshmallows.”

The sprites hovered, wings drooping, their chatter softening into apologetic squeaks. One even tugged a corner of my sleeve, eyes large and gleaming, and I felt horrible.

Because the truth was that they did help. “I’m sorry, little ones.” I smiled and shook my head. “You brought me precisely what I needed, a distraction.”

I looked down at the mountain of absurd titles, each one useless but lovingly chosen. The ridiculousness of it made me want to laugh and cry in the same breath.

Maybe that was the point. Maybe the Academy, through its sprites, was reminding me that I couldn’t clutch everything so tightly. That sometimes, the path wound through laughter and nonsense before it revealed its truth.

“You’re all treasures,” I told them. “And I can’t thank you enough. Now, if you could find a way to turn a grumpy man pleasant again, I’m all ears.”

Or a grumpy headmistress pleasant again, I kept to myself.

I sighed, pulling the hedgehog book back into my lap.

“All right,” I said, flipping it open again. “Let’s try this one more time.”

And though I skimmed every line, every doodle, every footnote, still nothing led me to the reunification. No trail of breadcrumbs. No hidden hint. Just pages full of hedgehogs and their wildly exaggerated prophecies.

I closed the book with a thud, resting my forehead against its cover as the shadows outside pressed against the library windows, as though mocking my failure.

But I straightened again, determined.

If there were no thread here, then I’d find one somewhere else.

Because the Silver Wolf was out there, circling. And sooner or later, I would find the right way to call her home.

I was halfway through convincing myself hedgehogs might somehow hold the key to luring Keegan’s mom when I heard the soft scrape of a chair at the next table.

I glanced up, expecting another sprite preparing to drop a whimsical book in my lap. Instead, a woman stood there, midlife, like me. Her hair was pulled into a messy golden bun streaked with silver, and she wore the deep blue robes of a student who had just arrived this summer.

I didn’t recognize her, which wasn’t surprising. The summer session was already a blur of names and faces, and I hadn’t exactly been making small talk in the banquet hall lately.

She shifted a leather-bound volume in her hands and smiled, a little tentative but kind. “I think this belongs to you.”

“I doubt it,” I said, half-laughing, gesturing at the tottering pile of Cauldrons Through the Ages and Hedgehogs Who Prophesy. “Unless it’s another treatise on furniture that tries to eat its owner.”

Her smile widened, and she slid the book across the table toward me.

The moment my fingers brushed the cover, my stomach dropped. The title was embossed in gold, the letters glinting faintly in the candlelight.

The Call of the Wild Ones: Histories of Shifter Clans and the Rituals That Bound Them.

I nearly toppled off my chair.

For hours, I had been buried under goat philosophy and marshmallow recipes, and here it was, the exact thing I had been searching for.

I stared up at her, wide-eyed. “Where did you get this?”

“Over there,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward the northern shelves. “It practically fell into my lap. I’m still learning how the library works. I figured it was meant for you. You’re the headmistress, right? The one everyone whispers about like you’re half legend, half gossip?”

I groaned softly. “I didn’t know that was happening.”

“Oh, it is. I’ve even heard about a love triangle.” She laughed.

“That couldn’t be the furthest from the truth.” I chuckled, feeling a sense of relief fill me.

“You must have a biblio gift,” I said in awe of the book she’d found for me.

“I’ve been told that,” she confessed. “I was hoping the Academy could find me useful one day after I finish my schooling.

I smiled, clutching the book. “I think it already has. And your name?”

“Trinity.”

“Welcome to the Academy, Trinity.”

She gave a small bow of her head and left me with the book heavy in my hands and my pulse hammering in my ears.

I cracked the cover open with shaking fingers. The scent of old parchment and sage rushed up to meet me.

Illustrations of wolves sprawled across the first pages, their eyes inked in silver that gleamed faintly even in the dim light.

The text was written in careful script, detailing clans that had risen and scattered, rituals of calling, and the bonds that tethered bloodlines to the land, along with rifts and clashes that separated them.

But as I traced the words with my fingertip, something else struck me…something sharp and shameful.

I had been so focused on Keegan. On Gideon. On Malore’s curse and the shadows pressing closer every day. I had been so intent on protecting the Academy’s midlife students and shielding them from fear and keeping them comfortable that I had forgotten the truth staring me in the face.

The Academy wasn’t just a sanctuary.

It was Stonewick’s greatest asset.

Not the building. Not the Wards. The people inside it like Trinity.

Lady Limora, Vivienne, Mara, and Opal…

The midlife witches, shifters, and fae who had chosen to return, who had chosen to keep learning, to keep growing when the world told them their chance had passed.

They weren’t fragile. They weren’t here just to be sheltered from the storm. They were strength waiting to be tapped, a chorus waiting to be woven into something louder than the shadows could ever be.

And I had been wasting them.

I pressed my palm flat against the book, my throat tight.

All this time, I’d been thinking my job was to hold the line. To stand in front, to shield. To carry every burden myself until my back cracked under the weight.

But maybe my real job wasn’t protection.

It was utilization.

It was teaching. Inspiring. Gathering their strength and weaving it into Stonewick’s.

The Academy was alive again, not just because its Wards flickered, but because midlife witches filled its halls with laughter and mistakes and stubborn hope. They were the reason the land stirred. They were the reason Stonewick had a chance at all.

I had been so afraid of losing them that I’d forgotten how much we stood to gain if I let them rise with me.

Unity.

The realization knocked the wind out of me, but so did…

Sacrifice.

I sank back in my chair, staring at the book sprites buzzing around the edges of the table, their wings flickering like candle flames. They chirped and squeaked, smug as ever, clearly taking credit for the woman who had handed me the book.

“All right,” I whispered, almost to myself. “You win. I get it.”

One sprite squealed triumphantly and attempted to crown me with a scrap of ribbon it had stolen from somewhere. I laughed, shoving it away gently.

Then I bent back over the book.

The chapters were dense, detailing rituals of calling that had been used for centuries to summon wayward clan members back to their land. Songs sung beneath full moons, bonfires at Ward-lines, offerings of blood and bone and loyalty. None of it was simple. None of it was safe.

But it was a start.

And whether Keegan knew he was part of it or not, he put out the first call under the moonlight.

As I skimmed, my mind raced. I couldn’t help but think of Keegan in bed and his mother circling Stonewick unseen. I thought of Gideon, tied to us unwillingly by Malore’s intentions. I thought of the students, their chatter and laughter filling the banquet hall even as the sky grew darker.

The page blurred until the words seemed more sung than written, as though the ink itself remembered the sound.

When the moon is high and hollow,

when the pack is scattered wide,

gather not in fang or fury,

but in heart where kin abide.

Break the Path that starves the spirit,

fight the shadow, feed the flame,

call the ones who walked before you,

speak the lost ones back by name.

Every weakness turns to blessing,

every exile finds the way,

when the circle holds together,

dawn will meet the hungering day

It wasn’t long, barely more than a chant, but the words throbbed with a weight that belonged to stone and blood and bone.

This was no battle cry. It was older than that, woven for healing, for reunion. An ancient rite meant to draw the scattered threads of shifters back into one cloth, binding them against the Hunger Path Malore twisted for his own ends.

I mouthed the words again, softer this time, and felt the echo stir in my chest. This wasn’t about claws or dominance. It was about remembering. About calling the forgotten back into belonging.

What if the answer wasn’t to drag the Silver Wolf out of hiding? What if the answer was to call her with a chorus loud enough that even she couldn’t ignore it?

My heart thudded at the thought.

For the first time in days, maybe weeks, I felt a flicker of something I hadn’t dared let myself feel.

Hope.

I closed the book, resting my hand over its cover, and breathed deep.

I wasn’t just a protector. I was a teacher. A leader. A witch bound to Stonewick, not because I had chosen it, but because it had chosen me.

And now, it was time to stop carrying everyone and start lifting them.

The shadows hissed outside the window, as though they’d heard the thought and didn’t like it one bit.

“Too bad,” I muttered, gathering the book to my chest. “You’ve had your turn. Now it’s ours.”

The sprites squealed with approval, scattering into the shelves as though the library itself agreed.

I stood, the book heavy in my hands, and walked toward the doors.

Stonewick wasn’t going to fall while its greatest asset, its people, still stood ready to fight.

And I was going to make sure they did.