Page 83 of Magical Mischief

“But… you’re its heart. You’re the one it listens to.”

“That’s flattering, but it’s not true. The Academy listens to no one.”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “Let me try again. “The Academy listens to everyone. But it only answers to itself.”

I looked down at my hands. “So there’s a chance it might not let him in.”

“There’s always a chance,” she said gently. “But I don’t think it would turn him away. It remembers things, Maeve. Not just history. People. What they’ve done and what they’ve sacrificed. Your father has a place here. The Academy knows that. It knew the moment you brought him back into the world where he belongs.”

“And Gideon?” I asked. “Could he sneak in here?”

“It’s one of the main reasons the Academy started to close itself off. Over a hundred years ago, long before Gideon, it started closing itself down to students and most others. But forty years ago, it seized up like Fort Knox.”

“How will the Academy get over that if we’re to let students and teachers back in?”

“I don’t know, my dear Maeve.” She shook her head.

“One more strange thing to add to the mix.”

My grandma tipped her head slightly.

“My mom came back to Stonewick.”

Her eyes widened. “She did? When?”

“She’s there now.”

“I can’t believe it,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“I’m still in a state of shock myself.”

She furrowed her brows. “Did she say why?”

“Her excuse for visiting seems valid. She’s on the outs with my stepdad and wanted to reconnect with me since my divorce.” I shrugged. “I hope that’s it, but I was able to talk to her a little bit.”

“Your mom is a good person. She was just put in a few unfortunate circumstances, and she did what she thought was best at the time.”

I smiled and nodded. “I hope the others see that.”

“You can’t control other people’s narratives or feelings. They’ll cling to them until they’re shown otherwise.”

And then I felt it again.

That tug. Not sharp or urgent…just a pull, steady and familiar, like the tide easing back from the shore. It started in my chest and hummed low in my ribs, drawing me forward. Not away from Elira, but deeper into the space where the Academy whispered.

She saw it in my eyes.

“It’s calling again, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Go on, then,” she said with a small smile. “No sense keeping it waiting.”

I stood, squeezed her hand, and walked back into the corridors I’d come to know in dreams long before I stepped inside them.

The Academy had something to show me.