Page 176 of Magical Mischief

The Academy wastheirs.

And I was standing at its heart, holding the piece of fire a dragon had entrusted to me.

The burning in my side flared one last time, and then—just like that—

It stopped.

My eyes snapped open.

And the first thing I saw was the butterflies.

They hovered just in front of me, wings iridescent and trembling. Real. Not magic. Not conjured. Justalive.

One floated, then drifted gently down, landing on the back of my hand.

I didn’t breathe.

I couldn’t.

Its wings moved slowly, up and down, as if in rhythm with my heartbeat.

I looked around.

The Ward shimmered again.

The faintest pulse of gold moved through the stones.

The air stirred.

The garden hadn’t bloomed, but it wasn’t dead.

Blooms took time.

And I knew, with the kind of knowing that doesn’t require proof, that the Ward wasn’t dying. It had never been dying.

It had been waiting.

Waiting formeto believe.

Not in it.

Inmyself.

I looked down at the butterfly again, still perched on my hand like it had always belonged there.

And I remembered.

The vow.

That strange, quiet moment when I felt the Academy wrap itself around my promise.

I hadn’t known what it meant then.

But I did now.

The Academy hadn’t chosen me for power.

It had chosen me forconnection.