Page 161 of Magical Mischief

“You’re not powerless,” he said, firm but kind. “If there’s a bond, we’ll find it. Break it. You’re not his to track. Not his to claim.”

The wind picked up slightly, whistling through the bare branches overhead. I pulled my coat tighter, staring out over the dulled garden.

“I thought the Academy would fix everything,” I said quietly. “Or not fix—just... bring light back. It was supposed to get better, not worse.”

“Itisgetting better,” he said. “Just not cleanly. Not all at once.”

I looked over at him. “I hate that.”

His mouth lifted in a half-smile. “I know.”

We sat there in silence. The statue held her book. The wind carried frost and old leaves through the broken garden paths. Somewhere below, life moved on—bakers kneaded dough, children chased one another across the green, lanterns flickered in windows.

But up here, the magic was thinning.

And I couldn’t shake the sense that something was watching. Waiting.

The ache in my side pulsed again, and I closed my eyes.

“Even if he’s not draining it,” I whispered, “he’s still out there. And heknows.”

Keegan reached over and took my hand, not to fix anything or explain it away—but just to hold.

“I know,” he said. “But so do we.”

Chapter Forty-Two

The wind picked up, stirring the snowflakes at my feet, but dread filled my veins. The butterflies that once fluttered in this Ward, glowing like fireflies, were gone. No shimmer in the air, no hum beneath the stones.

Just a quiet ache along my hip and the unshakable feeling that something invisible had curled its fingers around this place and squeezed.

Keegan stood as quiet as ever, with a steady weight at my side. I could feel him watching me, letting me think and breathe. But I also knew he was waiting. Waiting for me to decide what to do next.

Things weren’t right in the Ward.

Keegan didn’t speak, just turned toward me slightly.

I stared at the pale garden, the statue with her open book now flecked with frost.

“What if this bond between me and Gideon… what if it’s real? What if, when I said yes to listening to him, learning fromhim, or whatever I did back then, it left something behind? What if there’s a tether and I did this?”

“You’re not his,” Keegan said, steady.

“But what if that doesn’t matter? What if there’s some thread left tying us together and it’s leaking through, poisoning this place, and I can’t even feel it because I’m part of it?”

He looked at me, his eyes soft but serious. “Then we figure out how to cut it.”

I shook my head. “What if I already broke something just by being here?”

Keegan didn’t answer that. He didn’t need to. The silence was answer enough.

The Academy was waking up. The rooms were shifting, the teachers had started to arrive, and the halls felt warm again. Itwantedto open. Ithadmade its decision. I could feel it in the bones of the place. I’d heard it speak. I was the Headmistress. The time had come.

And yet… this.

A Ward unraveling.

Not the weak one. Not the damaged one.