Page 29

The halls of the Academy hummed with life again.

Not chaos. Not tension. Just… life.

The students had returned from town in a flurry of laughter and bright paper bags rustling with sweets, teas, yarn, and small magical trinkets from their first real adventure in Stonewick.

Their voices echoed down the corridors like birdsong, bright and scattered, full of stories and badly whispered secrets.

And all I could think about was the almost kiss with Keegan.

Yet all it took for it never to happen was a spell gone sideways from Opal in the middle of town.

But for the first time in days, the place felt more like a school than a sanctuary teetering on the edge of something darker.

I let the sound wash over me as I stepped through the front doors, letting them close behind me with a quiet thud. The warmth of the hearth met me immediately, but it was the familiar sound of small, determined footsteps that made my shoulders drop a little.

Twobble.

He trotted toward me, clutching a clipboard with six pages of notes and looking as smug as ever. “Well, well, look who didn’t fall into a hedge or vanish into thin air.”

I gave him a tired smile. “Tempting, though.”

My dad followed behind him, letting out a low, pleased huff when he saw me. He immediately pressed against my leg in greeting, warm and solid and blessedly real.

I knelt beside him, wrapping my arms around his big bulldog body, burying my face briefly in the soft folds of his fur. “Missed you, too.”

Twobble stood nearby, eyeing me. “You look like you need a nap. And maybe a facial. You’re all flushed, and your eyes look goofy.”

“I need a space with a month of silence and a goblin that doesn’t talk back.”

“So, not this place.” He grinned wickedly.

I laughed, and it surprised me. The sound came from somewhere deeper, more weary, but still grateful.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said softly.

“We always are,” Twobble said, not unkindly. Then he added, “But you’re about to cry, aren’t you?”

“No,” I lied. “I just need to make a call.”

He didn’t ask to whom. He just waved his clipboard. “I’ll be in the dining hall interrogating three students who charmed a portrait into narrating their romantic escapades.”

“Of course you will.”

I walked down the corridor alone, into my quarters, and sat heavily on the edge of my bed. For a moment, I just stared out the window and thought about the near kiss with Keegan.

And my confusion with Gideon.

Was that my problem?

I thought I could fix him? Make him do a take back on the curse?

That wouldn’t happen. I knew it in my heart of hearts.

I was just dealing with an overload of emotions. My best friend was pregnant. My daughter was building a wonderful new life, as was I, and I was falling…

For Keegan.

Maybe I just needed a little grounding.

I let out a sigh and reached for it.

The glow brightened at my touch.

“Call Celeste.”

The phone pulsed once, and my daughter’s face bloomed into view, grainy and slightly too bright from fluorescent dorm lighting.

“Mom?” Her hair was in a messy bun with a pencil tucked behind her ear. “Are you alive? Did you fall off the planet? Are you in a cult?”

“I’m alive,” I said, trying to keep the emotion from rising too fast. “I miss you.”

Her expression softened immediately. “I miss you, too. I’m sorry I haven’t called. I’ve been studying and spending time with my boyfriend.”

“The nerve.” I chuckled. “I’ve been feeling guilty for not calling you, too.”

“I’m so ready for classes to be over.”

“I bet.” I spotted her boyfriend in the background and hid a smile as we talked for a few minutes, about her classes, her dorm mate’s mystery casserole, a paper she was dreading, and I let the sound of her voice smooth something rough inside me.

“I was calling to ask if you had plans for spring break,” I said carefully.

“Well… I was thinking of coming home,” she said. “I mean, if that’s okay. I kind of miss our weird movie nights and your over-steeped tea. I’d love to see your new place.”

A soft ache bloomed in my chest. “You can always come home.”

But as the words left my mouth, so did the worry.

Could she?

With the shimmer pressing through the walls, with Gideon’s presence still haunting the town and Academy, with the strange quiet that sometimes fell over the halls like the Academy was listening…was it safe?

She didn’t know what this place really was. What I was. Not yet.

And I couldn’t protect her from what I hadn’t figured out how to fight.

But she was my daughter.

She needed a mother who didn’t just love her from afar.

So I smiled.

“I’d love to have you home,” I said. “But let me make sure the cottage is in shape first. It’s been… a little unpredictable.”

She laughed. “So, like usual.”

I forced a laugh, too. “Exactly.”

When we ended the call, I stared at the darkened phone for a long moment.

Celeste's coming home meant joy and a sense of connection. It could be a moment where a piece of my old life folded gently into the new.

But it also meant risk.

If Gideon was still reaching…

If the shimmer wasn’t done opening...

I’d have to come up with a plan.

A way to shield her. A way to keep the cottage separate. To create protections she’d never notice but would never step outside of.

I couldn’t deny her a homecoming.

But I could make sure she returned to one that wouldn’t take her from me.

The moment I ended the call with Celeste, I walked over to the chest where I’d placed the stone Nova had given me back at the cottage not so long ago.

I picked it up and stared at the softly glowing crystal in my hand, heart still full and aching in equal measure. It had been good to see her face, even through a glimmer of static and the harsh lighting of her dorm room.

These worlds needed to merge someday, but was it too soon?

The question had stirred something else in me, too—something that had been nudging at the back of my heart for weeks.

Skye.

Apart from Keegan, she was the only person who knew me better than I sometimes knew myself.

She’d held my hand through heartbreak, through wine-soaked nights and unspoken grief, through the quiet unraveling of my marriage that had long since stopped being mine.

And even now, while I wrestled with shadows and cracks in our defenses, and whatever it meant to be a hedge witch… she’d been waiting.

I should’ve called her sooner.

“Call Skye,” I said softly.

The phone flared, and within seconds, her face blinked into view. She looked flushed, radiant, and happy with her hair tied up in a messy knot.

“Maeve!” she cried. “You’re alive!”

I laughed. “Barely. You look like you’re about to pop.”

“I feel like a watermelon smuggled under a heated blanket,” she said, fanning herself. “And I still have three months left. Three , Maeve. At this point, I should be getting hazard pay.”

“I’m so sorry I haven’t called.”

“Don’t you dare,” she interrupted. “I haven’t called you either, so we’re even. That’s why we’re best friends. Mutual neglect, perfectly balanced.”

I laughed again. “It’s awful.”

“It’s perfect. Because when we finally do talk, it’s like we just paused mid-sentence and picked back up three weeks later.”

“It really is.”

She smiled, that slightly mischievous grin I’d missed like air. “So. Tell me everything. Is Stonewick as charming as it sounds? Did you start baking bread and wearing linen cloaks? Are you dating a blacksmith?”

“Close,” I said. “I’m managing a magical school.”

Her eyes widened. “Wait—what?”

“Just metaphorically speaking!” I added quickly, heart skipping. “It’s a long story.”

“Maeve.”

I waved a hand. “I’ll tell you everything. Soon. Just know it’s weird and wonderful and exhausting.”

She nodded slowly. “That tracks.”

I hesitated. Then, carefully, “Celeste is thinking about coming here for spring break.”

“Oh! That’s great!”

“It is,” I said, smiling. “I mean, I miss her. A lot. And it would be good to have her close. I just—there’s a lot going on. And I’m worried. The town’s… delicate, in some ways. It might be nice to have you here, too.”

“I mean, you live there. How delicate can it be?” She chuckled. “You’re like the Tasmanian Devil, whirling into life, and it’s still standing.”

“Delicate like a teacup filled with slightly cursed tea,” I muttered.

She cackled. “Sounds like your job at the tea shop has gone to your head. I should come check it out.”

My heart skipped.

She leaned into the phone screen, eyes gleaming.

“I’m serious. I could use a change of scenery.

I’ve been waddling around the same five rooms for months, going to town for groceries and toys.

.. If Celeste is going to be there, it would be perfect.

I could come for a couple of days. Let the bump breathe fresh air.

Maybe try knitting again. Thank that woman who told me I was pregnant. ”

“Nova,” I said fondly.

“Yes, Nova. Oh, I love that woman,” she gushed. “So, what do you say?”

I sighed. “You know I can’t say no to you when you get that face.”

“You mean my radiant, swollen, glowing sphere of pregnancy face?”

“Exactly.”

We both went quiet for a moment.

Then she said, softer now, “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

“Let me come,” she said. “Even just for a weekend. I’ll bring chocolate, and you can bring whatever it is you’ve been bottling up in that complicated heart of yours.”

Tears pricked unexpectedly at the corners of my eyes. “I want that.”

“Then let’s make it happen.”

I nodded, even though my stomach twisted with equal parts excitement and dread. Skye, here? She’d bring laughter and grounded chaos. Celeste, too, with her quick wit and fierce independence.

But was Stonewick ready for that?

Was I ?

And Gideon…

“I’ll check my schedule,” I said slowly. “Make sure it’s okay. That it’s the right time.”

She blew me a kiss and we said our goodbyes.

I wanted them here.

But if Gideon was still watching and if the shimmer hadn’t receded, I would need a plan. Shields. Layers of protection neither of them would ever know about.

I stood, brushing the creases from my skirt, and turned toward the corridor.

It was time to speak with Nova, Ardetia, and maybe even Grandma Elira.

Because if I was going to welcome my old life into this new one, I needed to make sure it didn’t come with a cost too great to bear.