Page 20

We led them down to the room Nova had prepared. The space pulsed with light and silence.

Magic swirled around us like breath in winter that was visible, fleeting, and impossibly alive. Each strand of light moved with intention, drawn from the fingertips of Nova and Ardetia as they circled the spell ring that glowed at Krina’s feet.

Mys knelt in the corner, here for support and to help in any way.

Krina sat in the center, cross-legged, eyes closed, her hands resting on her knees. Stella knelt behind her, both palms pressed gently to Krina’s back, whispering grounding spells in time with her breathing.

It struck me how amazing this moment was with women gathering to help someone in need.

And beside me, Bella stood watch with silent focus. Her eyes shimmered with the fox’s presence just beneath her skin, ready to shift if needed.

We weren’t casting a tether.

We were unmaking one.

And the difference wasn’t just semantics.

This shadow-thread tether had been buried inside Krina by someone who claimed to love her, and it wasn’t going to go away quietly.

I could feel the tension and see the way the light recoiled as Nova and Ardetia investigated.

Nova raised her arms again with her voice low, syllables careful and old. Ardetia echoed her in a second tongue that was one I didn’t recognize, but the room did. The magic responded instantly.

Krina flinched.

“Manjalusha, kadorumtether,” Ardetia murmured.

Sparks darted off the walls, and I shuddered.

“It’s okay,” Stella whispered, her voice calm, her hands steady. “You’re safe. He can’t reach you here.”

For a moment, I believed it.

Then the light over Krina’s chest flickered from light to dark.

A shadow’s thread slithered from her collarbone and stretched into the circle. It pulsed… once, twice… then tried to retreat like a root sensing danger.

The tether was real.

And it knew we’d found it.

He knew we’d found it.

Ardetia’s voice didn’t waver, but she moved faster now, drawing fresh sigils midair, anchoring them with thin lines of flame that sparked and shimmered as they landed.

“Tetherlien snulajashka,” Ardetia’s voice rose.

The shadow resisted.

It fought.

But so did we.

That’s when the door opened.

The magic didn’t flare, so whoever entered belonged here. My head turned sharply, with heart in my throat, and there he was.

Keegan and Twobble.

They stepped inside like they’d come from a storm. Keegan’s coat was dusted with raindrops and something darker.

A wrapped charm-warded cloth rested in his hand. He unwrapped it to reveal a glass vial sealed, but faintly glowing, and unmistakably wrong .

He crossed the room without a word and handed it to me.

“It’s a part of him,” he whispered. “I caught the piece of shadow just outside the inn. It came through a mural.”

I stared at the black haze swirling inside the vial, almost fluid, like smoke with a memory.

The vial throbbed once in my hand like a heart that didn’t belong in a body.

Nova glanced over her shoulder. “Whatever you’re holding, bring it into the ring. Now. The energy is resisting.”

I didn’t hesitate.

I stepped forward, crossing the outer circle, and placed the vial in the center beside Krina. The moment it touched the stone, the shadows in her chest pulled taut as if the tether had recognized its anchor.

Krina gasped.

Her back arched. Her hands clutched the floor. The tether unraveled violently from her sternum, a jagged scream echoing not from her throat but from the magic .

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, I don’t want him—”

“Krina,” I said, kneeling beside her. “He has no claim. Not here. Not anymore.”

She looked at me, eyes wide, and then down at the tether now whipping in the air above her chest like a snake caught in firelight.

“I don’t know how to let go,” she whispered.

“Yes, you do,” I said. “You already left once. This is just the last step.”

Her breathing shook.

But then, slowly, she reached out.

Not to grab it.

To release it with hands wide open.

Nova’s and Ardetia’s voices rose in tandem, laced with force and clarity. The sparks surged up from the runes, surrounding the shadow like a cage of light.

Stella reached forward and wrapped her arms around Krina from behind, whispering, “Let go, love. You don’t need his magic in your bones anymore.”

Krina’s fingers hovered in the air and then closed into a fist.

The tether tore loose.

The scream that followed wasn’t hers.

It came from the vial.

The smoke inside roared, twisted, and then collapsed into itself, imploding with a snap that shattered the glass into dust. The air sucked inward, and then silence dropped like a stone.

An image of his contorted face illuminated in the shadows as Krina slumped back into Stella’s arms, crying softly but not from pain.

From relief.

We were still as the room pulsed once.

I stepped closer and placed a hand on her back as her sister came over.

“It’s done.”

Her tears shook her shoulders, but her voice was clear.

“He’s gone?”

Keegan stepped forward, his boots slow on the stone. “We’ll be sure of it. But whatever he had on you… It broke.”

She looked up at me, eyes red-rimmed but open.

“I didn’t think I could feel like this,” she whispered.

“Like what?”

“Like it’s really mine again. My body. My breath.”

“It always was,” I said. “But now? So is your future.”

She nodded, slow and certain, and I knew right then. She would be okay.

Not today. Not fully. But eventually .

And the first brick of the new life she deserved had just been set.

Krina’s steps were unsteady at first, and Mys helped her take the next.

The tether had only just been severed, and even if her body was whole and unharmed. Dark magic had a way of coating deeply like soot. She leaned slightly into my side as we left the room, her fingers clutching the edge of her shirt like she didn’t know what to do with the weightlessness.

Krina had been bound so long that freedom probably felt unnatural. Keegan, Nova, Twobble, Bella, and Ardetia stayed behind.

But she didn’t ask to stop. She walked beside me and her sister down the corridor, past the old stone archways and firelit sconces, toward the hum of the banquet hall ahead.

Laughter echoed faintly, punctuated by the occasional dramatic groan and clatter of mugs on wood. It was the sound of life. Of women living in their magic, their messiness, their midlives, fully and freely.

I glanced at Krina as we neared the threshold. Her lips were parted slightly, like she was almost afraid to cross into that joy.

“You’re allowed,” I murmured.

She looked at me. “I don’t know who I am without him.”

“That’s the best part,” I said. “You get to find out.”

She exhaled, shaky but ready.

We stepped through the archway into a burst of candlelight and chatter. The long tables were still half-filled with students deep in conversation, nibbling on whatever sweets remained, and trading theories about classes and whose spell had backfired the most spectacularly.

Opal was gesturing with a purple feather quill, arguing animatedly about whether Bella’s fox form had winked at her, and Mara was surrounded by a group laughing over a burned workbook she’d turned into a hat. Someone had enchanted a lemon tart to orbit Vivienne’s head like a moon.

Krina stopped cold.

And then, before nerves could settle back in, Mara spotted her.

“Oh, hey!” she called, waving her in with a flourish. “Did you find the pudding I hid in the tea cart?”

Krina blinked. “You… hid pudding?”

“I’m playing a trick on Twobble,” Mara said with faux dignity.

A few students chuckled, and someone scooted over to make room.

Krina looked at me once more, and I gave her a nod.

The sisters walked forward, and just like that, they were surrounded —not smothered, not examined, but included.

A mug of spiced tea appeared in front of her. Someone asked if she wanted extra nutmeg. Vivienne reached for her hand and squeezed it like they’d been friends for years.

I watched her slide into the group, her shoulders still tense but her eyes wide with something like… wonder.

It filled me.

Right to the edges.

I cleared my throat and stepped toward the center of the room.

The voices quieted almost immediately. Someone tapped a mug to call attention, but it wasn’t necessary. They all turned to look at me, and I felt their energy shift, curious and open.

I didn’t have a speech prepared. I didn’t need one.

“I just wanted to say something before the night ends,” I began. “I know today was overwhelming. Exciting, too, but a lot.”

A few murmurs of agreement, one theatrical groan. A smile tugged at my mouth.

“This Academy wasn’t always open. Not just the doors. The heart of it. It’s been locked up for years. And opening it again… well, it meant more than lighting lanterns or dusting bookshelves.”

I looked around the room at every face with expressions ranging from tired to curious and hopeful.

“It means building something new. A place where your story doesn’t end when something changes in your life. Where midlife doesn’t mean ‘too late.’ Where magic isn’t something you left behind. But rather, it’s something you’re allowed to rediscover. Or claim for the first time.”

Heads nodded. Hands stilled on mugs.

“I want this to be a safe space,” I continued. “Not in the way of locked doors or high walls. Safe like welcome . Safe like no one has to pretend they’ve never been hurt. Safe like you’re allowed to arrive messy and tired and unsure.”

A few more nods. A few misty eyes.

“There are some things,” I added, “that might try to reach into this place. Shadows from your past. People who didn’t understand your power.

Choices you regret, or moments you wish you could undo.

Sometimes the Academy will respond with shaking walls or students attempting their magic to deal, but we are always here to help. ”

I glanced at Krina.

“But I want you to know. Old magic doesn’t define you here. You get to decide who you are. And we’ll build the rest together.”

The room was quiet before the applause erupted.

They clapped like they meant it, as if something inside them had cracked open just enough to let the warmth rush in.

And maybe it had.

I gave them a small, cheeky bow and stepped back with my heart fuller than I knew how to carry.

I didn’t linger in the room after that.

Once the noise rose again, cheerful and renewed, I slipped out through the door.

By the time I reached my bedroom, the air had thickened into stillness. My room glowed with soft lamplight, and my dad was already curled on the rug, snoring gently with his legs twitching like he was chasing gargoyles again.

I unlaced my boots slowly and lay back on the bed as the world tilted a little and steadied again.

Safe.

Not perfect. Not finished. But safe .

A place to begin again.

Maybe that should be part of our mission statement.

I didn’t even make it under the blanket before sleep took me.

And in that sleep, for the first time in weeks, I didn’t dream of Gideon or shadows.

I dreamed of laughter.

And candlelight.

And the sound of our students choosing each other.