Page 88 of Magical Mischief

I nodded, and we turned another corner. Moonlight spilled through a stained-glass window, slicing across the hall in patches of gold and violet. I slowed, watching the color shift across the floor.

“I’ve been dreaming of trees,” I said, not sure why I said it out loud. “Not forests, just one. Big. Hollow. It has something inside it, but I never see what.”

Bella stopped walking. “The Maple Ward is calling you.”

“To get stuck like you?”

She smirked. “Maybe it wants to tell you something.”

We stood there for a beat, saying nothing. The Academy creaked once, just faintly. A door opened somewhere behind us with no one around to open it.

“Let me know if you do decide to explore,” she said. “Not because I want to join you. I just want to know what to tell the rescue team.”

I chuckled. “Fair enough.”

We parted ways a few halls later.

The walls narrowed a little, and the ceiling dipped low like it always did near the older parts of the building.

I could feel the Maple Ward getting closer, which made no sense since Bella got trapped in a grove near my cottage.

And I knew, somehow, it had been waiting for me.

Since I wouldn’t listen to its whispers, it let out a scream, and Bella just happened to be the target.

I pressed my palm against the wood, half expecting it to push back. It didn’t. The door to the Maple Ward wasn’t locked, but it felt like it should’ve been. The latch gave with a quiet click, and the door opened inward without sound, as if it had been oiled recently or hadn’t moved in a very long time.

The smell hit me first. Damp wood. Earth after rain.

I stepped inside.

The room wasn’t what I expected. Then again, nothing in the Academy ever was.

A tree stood in the center of the chamber.

Not just any tree—a maple, massive and ancient.

It reached toward the high arched ceiling, its limbs gnarled and twisted like old hands frozen mid-reach. The leaveswere few and far between. Just a handful clung to the uppermost branches, curled and yellowed, barely moving even though there was no breeze.

It looked…sick, in need.

I stopped in the doorway, mouth slightly open.

The rest of the chamber had all but given itself to the tree. Roots pushed through the stone floor as if they’d grown bored with the dirt beneath and wanted to see what lay above. They’d wrapped around benches and reading desks, split flagstones, curled up the walls like ivy gone wild.

This wasn’t just a tree that had grown into a room. This room was built around a tree, and the tree was dying.

I took a slow step forward, boots crunching gently over loose bits of bark. The air felt heavy. Not in the way of danger, but in the way of something grieving. Of something holding on past its time.

The trunk was massive, easily twice as wide as I could reach. Its bark had faded to a pale gray in places, and one side bore a deep scar, as if lightning had struck it and the wound never fully closed.

Something in my chest pulled tight.

I walked to it. Slowly. Carefully.

And when I reached the base, I rested my fingertips against the bark.

Cool.