Page 137 of Magical Mischief

He knew I’d come to him, eventually. Once I realized I wasn’t like the others. That my magic didn’t follow the rules. That no one else had the answers I needed.

He’d waited.

And now I saw the shape of his patience for what it was.

A trap.

I turned toward the window. The glass was smudged, and beyond it, the garden shimmered faintly. Everything was layered. Stacked. Magic on magic.

Fae. Witches. Dragons. Wards. And now, this.

Bella moved beside me. She didn’t speak, didn’t reach out. Just stood there, shoulder to shoulder. A small comfort in the middle of something so vast I could barely hold it.

“I’m still me,” I said, mostly to remind myself.

Ardetia nodded once. “Of course. But knowing what you are is only the first step. What youdowith it, that’s what matters now.”

I didn’t answer her. Not yet.

I didn’t know the shape of that answer.

But I did know this. I wasn’t walking blind anymore. And I wouldn’t let Gideon lead me anywhere I didn’t choose to go.

He thought he understood me. Thought he’d seen everything he needed to.

Let him think that.

Because hedge witch or not, I wasn’t his apprentice.

I would never be his.

I needed more answers from someone who seemed to keep them close, and glanced at Bella and Ardetia.

“I need to speak with my grandmother,” and a nod from Bella was all I got in return.

As I walked quickly, the sconces flickered, casting uneven light on the stone floors. My shoes made soft echoes, the only sound aside from the wind pressing against the windows like it wanted to come inside.

The snow had started falling again with thick, steady flakes that made the windows blur around the edges like a memory. It was the kind of snow that muffled everything once you stepped outside, made the world feel smaller and quieter. I’d always loved that about it. But now it was pressing in, trying to keep me from thinking too hard.

Not just about the hedge witch business. Sure, that was still spinning in my head, but it wasn’t just that. It was the books. The Shadowick dragon records in the basement. References to Gideon. The hidden pages, the pressed flowers, the scribbled diagrams that looked more like summoning circles than anything I’d ever seen her use.

She had to know I’d found them by now. The Academy didn’t exactly operate on secrets, not when it wanted you to believe something wasmeantto be discovered.

My grandma’s chambers were in the north wing, tucked near the library’s spine where the walls thickened and the ceilings bowed slightly from age. I knocked once, out of habit, and then let myself in.

She was reading in the chair by the fire, glasses perched low on her nose, a blanket over her knees. Her silver hair was braided back, same as always, and her slippered feet rested on the small blue velvet stool she always used but never admitted she needed.

“You look like someone who’s just learned too much,” she said without looking up.

“I probably have.”

She closed the book gently and set it on the side table. “Come sit.”

I took a seat in the chair across from her. The fire crackled between us, and the snow danced hard against the windowpanes.

“You knew, didn’t you?” I asked. “About the hedge witch thing.”

My grandma sighed and tilted her head just slightly. “Isuspected. That’s different.”