Page 164 of Magical Mischief

My grandma was quiet for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice had dropped to that low, firm tone she only used when she was angry and afraid at the same time.

“If he’s still reaching through, we’ll cut him out.”

I nodded, throat tight. “I thought… maybe if I spoke to the Academy, it would help.”

“And?” she asked.

I looked at the high ceiling, the old stone arches, the long stretch of hallway that still felt too quiet.

“Nothing,” I said. “It didn’t respond.”

My grandma’s expression didn’t change, but she pulled back slightly, eyes searching my face.

I shook my head. “No hum. No whisper. Not even a flicker in the wall.”

She slowly turned and walked to the center of the room as if listening. The sconces lit automatically, as they always did. The warmth still pulsed beneath our feet. The place was alive. But it wasn’t speaking to me.

“The Academy made its decision,” I said. “It’s opening. Whether we’re ready or not.”

Grandma Elira turned back toward me, her hands at her sides. “The two won’t happen at the same time. If the Wards are crumbling, the Academy won’t open.”

“But it’s already opening. Making rooms. Gathering people. Pulling students toward us like the tide. Even Nova said she could feel it in her bones, like something had taken root and was already growing.” I rubbed my arms. “But it doesn’t feel the danger. Not this part. Not the thin edge of the Ward or what it means.”

“Maybe it does,” she said slowly. “And it just… doesn’t care.”

That landed like a stone in my stomach.

For all its life and movement and quiet intelligence, the Academy was still a construct of ancient, unknowable magic. It responded to the need. It answered longing. It shaped itself around intention and possibility.

But it didn’tlove.Not like we did.

Or did it?

It didn’t feel fear the way we felt fear. And it didn’t hesitate in how we were taught to be cautious when something cracked.

“It might see the Ward as a casualty,” I whispered. “A piece of the old magic that doesn’t serve the new anymore.”

Elira’s face was unreadable. “And if it’s right?”

I looked at her sharply.

She held up a hand. “I don’t mean itshouldbe right. But what if it’s thinking in a way we can’t? What if it knows something we don’t?”

I wrapped my arms tighter around myself. “Or what if it doesn’t know that I connected to Gideon?”

My grandma walked back toward me and placed a hand on my cheek.

“Then we don’t wait for it to tell us what happens next. Weact.We protect what we can, and we dig until we understand.”

I nodded, though every inch of me felt like it was buzzing with uncertainty.

The Academy wanted to open. The Ward was dying. And whatever link I might’ve left open, whether real or imagined, wouldn’t be solved by sitting and waiting for whispers that might never come.

The time had come. But we had to decide what we were openinginto.

Chapter Forty-Three

The old velvet armchair groaned as Elira settled back into it. Her knitting lay forgotten on a table, the needles still threaded with deep blue wool that now looked dim under the weight of what we’d just said. The fire hissed and popped beside us, but it did nothing to thaw the air in the room. Everything felt thick with silence.