Page 86 of Magical Mission

“The Butterfly Ward?”

I nodded. “I think it’s trying to tell me something.”

“You want company?”

I hesitated.

Then shook my head. “No. I think this one’s just for me.”

He didn’t argue, which somehow made me like him more.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll go terrify my students.”

“Send them my condolences.”

“And if you get pulled into another dimension or start glowing, let someone know?”

I chuckled. “I’ll try to remember that.”

He grinned, then leaned in just slightly, enough that I could smell the cool spice and feel the warmth of him. “Be careful, Maeve.”

I nodded, and then he was gone, boots echoing down the stone hall, one hand already tugging something from his coat pocket like he was going to teach from memory and charm alone.

I turned toward the doors and went through, as the cold air outside enveloped me.

The sky had that washed-out blue that comes between seasons, where it was too pale for winter, too raw for spring. Somewhere in the liminal space between.

The stone steps leading out into the courtyard were still damp from morning dew. The garden walls glistened with droplets, and the vines that draped the outer edge of the Butterfly Ward shivered in a breeze that carried both chill and the faintest breath of something green.

I wrapped my cloak tighter around me and stepped forward.

The Butterfly Ward had always felt different. Not just because it marked the softest border of the Academy’s grounds, but because itwelcomed.It invited. It breathed.

It didn’t defend like the others.

It received.

The closer I walked, the more the air changed. The scent of loam and stone gave way to something lighter and sweeter like honeysuckle, maybe. Or magical memory.

As I moved nearer, the ache in my birthmark deepened. It wasn’t painful, but insistent.

It was as if it was calling something forward in me or reminding me of something I’d forgotten.

I moved past the outer row of shrubs, through the arbor wrapped in sleeping vines, and into the quiet center of the Ward.

Everything stilled.

The wind quieted. The branches above didn’t creak. Even the birds seemed to pause.

It was early, yet the signs of the seasonal shift were already here, even in this place that never seemed to acknowledge winter.

I walked to the small stone bench near the heart of the Ward and sat down, pressing my hand over the birthmark again.

The ache had faded now.

Replaced with… something else.

An awareness.