Page 89 of Magical Mischief

Still living.

But only just.

I closed my eyes for a breath and tried to listen—not with my ears, but with whatever part of me the Academy had started awakening. The same part that could feel the Wards when they flickered, or the subtle way the stones shifted underfoot when a lie was spoken nearby.

Nothing.

No voice. No hum. Just silence.

I opened my eyes again and let them fall to the roots.

And that’s when I saw it.

A sapling was nestled between two massive roots near the base, nearly hidden under a drift of dry leaves and fallen bark.

Small.

Fragile.

But alive.

Its trunk was no thicker than my thumb, and its few leaves were a deep reddish gold. They caught the light that filtered through the glistening windows and shimmered faintly, almost pulsing.

I crouched beside it.

The air was different here, warmer, somehow.

The sapling didn’t look like it should be thriving. The room was dark and cold. The roots above it were too thick to let much water through. And yet, here it was.

Growing.

Trying.

I reached out but didn’t touch it. Just let my hand hover, feeling the faint energy coming off it like warmth from a sunstone.

The big maple, it was old.

Fading. Its magic had dimmed to the edges of what it could hold. But the sapling…

The sapling was new.

Maybe the tree hadn’t been grabbing at Bella for help.

Maybe it had been trying to show us this.

Trying to be seen before it was too late.

A shiver worked through me, not from cold but from the weight of it all. The Maple Ward wasn’t just one of four. It was a piece of the entire system. A leg of the table holding the whole balance of the Academy and maybe even Stonewick upright.

And this one was falling apart.

No wonder things had started unraveling.

I straightened slowly, eyes moving back up to the twisting branches above me. It looked like a tree caught mid-collapse. Beautiful, even now…but in the way abandoned houses can be beautiful.

Full of memory. Of things that used to be.

My heart ached unexpectedly as I moved carefully around the base, tracing how the roots branched outward in jagged paths.