Page 4 of Magical Mission

“Nope.” He shook his head with exaggerated slowness. “Nothing. Not even atingle.”

“Did you check to ensure you stillhadall your body parts?”

“First thing I did,” he said gravely. “Counted my fingers, my toes, and my favorite ear.”

“Favorite?”

He flicked his left ear. “This one’s slightly pointier than the other. It’s a prestige thing.”

“Oh, naturally.”

He snickered, the sound crackling down the empty space. “So, when nothing exploded, I figured the Academy must be asleep at the wheel. Or it was a trap. Either way, I scurried from the hatch to the first tree…real stealthy-like. Then to the next. Then I belly-crawled to a bush.”

“You belly-crawled?”

He smirked. “What, you think goblins don’t know how to sneak? It’s an art. I had to blend into the foliage. I even rubbed dirt on my face for extra camouflage.”

I snorted. “That explains the smudge on your cheek.”

“Dedication, Maeve,” he said with mock scorn. “Anyway, I even kept expecting the Butterfly Ward tozapme into the sky.But nothing. At first, I thought I’d just gotten better at sneaking around.”

I swallowed a laugh, picturing him scampering from bush to tree like some misfit soldier on a mission.

“But when I made it to the door,” he said softly, eyes wide again, “I… I just stood there for a while.”

His voice dropped into something almost reverent.

“It was beautiful,” he whispered. “The way the light hit the stone… the glass shimmerin’ like a rainbow… and the smell.” He closed his eyes. “Like old paper, cracked leather, and somethin’... somethin’ alive.”

I let him have the silence, let him fill it with the things I sometimes forgot to notice.

“Maybe,” I said gently, “the Academy was waiting for you, too.”

He blinked at me, cheeks flushing a deep, mossy green. “Don’t go getting poetic on me, Maeve.”

“Too late.”

We strolled further, the sconces flickering to life as we passed.

“You know,” I added, watching his awed expression as he brushed his stubby fingers along the carvings on the wall, “you can take it all in now. Nobody’s going to chase you off.”

He perked up. “You’re serious? No traps? No angry gargoyles? No charms ready to fry my pants?”

“Nope. You’re an official student now. You belong here.”

He blinked rapidly, like the words short-circuited his brain. “Huh.”

“Just ‘huh?’” I teased.

“I’m processing,” he muttered, fiddling with the hem of a patched vest. “Goblins don’t usually belong in places like this.”

I nudged him with my elbow. “They do now.”

He smiled, crooked and bashful. “Well. Guess I’ll have to learn how to walk down a hall without scuttling from shadow to shadow.”

“Please do. You look like a squirrel on too much caffeine.”

He gasped. “I’ll have you know my scuttle is refined.”