Page 40

The kitchen always smelled like memory.

Even in the middle of a bustling Academy morning, with magically puffed pastries squeaking from the oven racks and a half-sentient kettle doing laps across the counter, the kitchen remained its own pocket of calm.

The sensation was a warmth that seeped into the bones, neither flashy nor ancient, but steady.

Like Twobble.

He hopped up onto a stool beside the long oak table in the center of the room, swinging his feet and nudging a stubborn cookie tin aside to make room for me.

He didn’t push. Didn’t start talking. Just waited while I poured two mugs of tea—one for me, one for him.

The steam curled between us, soft and herbal, laced with honey.

I didn’t sit right away.

Instead, I ran my hand over the smooth tabletop and let out a slow breath. “No judgment, right?”

“None,” he said, without hesitation.

I nodded and finally dropped onto the stool across from him.

There were others I could talk to. Nova would have analyzed it all in terms of magic, equilibrium, and ripple effects. Ardetia might’ve said something poetic and vaguely unsettling. Keegan—well, he’d listen. But he’d worry. I didn’t want worry.

I wanted Twobble.

The goblin who had seen me through the worst of things with his oddly specific snack preferences, sarcastic commentary, and gift for appearing just when I needed someone.

So I started talking.

Not in a rush. Not from the top.

But from the middle, where all the tangled pieces lived.

“I expected to choose,” I said quietly. “That was the whole point. These paths... they’re supposed to strip you down to the core and show you which way your soul leans.”

Twobble nodded, sipping his tea with both hands.

“I understood Celeste. She’s my anchor. My reason for everything. Of course, that path would exist.”

He said nothing, only raised one eyebrow in acknowledgment.

“And Keegan... I mean, that man could charm a dragon into therapy. He’s calm in chaos. I’ve leaned on him more than I probably should, and still, he never makes me feel like I’m too much or too little.”

“Mm-hmm,” Twobble murmured, clearly agreeing without interrupting.

“And the Academy,” I continued. “This place holds something I didn’t even know I was missing until I stepped inside it. It doesn’t just need me, it mirrors me. I feel alive here in ways I haven’t since... maybe ever.”

I paused.

But Twobble waited. No prodding. Just letting me sort it in my own time.

Then I whispered, “But Gideon...”

Twobble’s cup paused midair.

“That one’s different.”

I nodded, ashamed to even say it. “I shouldn’t want to know more. I shouldn’t feel a pull. He’s dangerous. Unstable. He’s hurt people, my father and Keegan…He tried to hurt me.”

“And yet?” Twobble prompted, voice low and steady.

“And yet,” I echoed, my throat tight, “he looked like someone who was abandoned. Who wants to understand why he became what he did. And I... I wanted to know, too.”

Twobble set his cup down carefully, eyes meeting mine with startling clarity.

“You saw the knot,” he said simply.

I frowned. “What knot?”

“The one most people pretend isn’t there,” he replied. “You’re not split between four options, Maeve. You’re tied to them all. Celeste is your heart. Keegan is your steadiness. The Academy is your purpose.”

He leaned forward slightly. “And Gideon? He’s your unanswered question. The shadow you keep circling.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It’s not supposed to be,” Twobble said gently. “But it’s honest.”

The kettle across the room made a sharp whistle and then hiccupped before going quiet.

Twobble’s gaze didn’t waver.

“You didn’t choose one path,” he said.

I blinked.

“You chose all of them.”

The words landed in my chest like a stone tossed into a lake, skimming the surfaces of my emotions.

“You didn’t split,” he went on. “You grew. You cracked the spell that forces choice. You said, I am all of this. And the magic? You bent it.”

“But why Gideon?” I whispered, desperate for clarity. “Why does he still take up so much space in my head? Even now? That scares me more than anything.”

“Because,” Twobble said quietly, “your soul doesn’t like a question left unanswered. You’ve made peace with your daughter’s pull. With Keegan’s presence. With the Academy’s call. But Gideon? He’s the unfinished sentence in a book you didn’t write.”

My eyes stung.

“You don’t want to be like him,” Twobble added. “But part of you knows you could have been. Under different stars. In a different life.”

I looked down into my tea.

And realized I’d stopped shaking.

Because Twobble didn’t judge, didn’t press, or offer solutions.

He simply saw me.

He lifted his mug. “To the witch who broke the rules and wove herself whole.”

I raised mine with a shaky smile. “To the goblin who actually makes more sense than anyone else.”

Twobble smirked. “Naturally.”

And for the first time since I stepped out of that path, I felt steady. Not because the questions were gone. But because I wasn’t afraid of the answers anymore.

Twobble twirled the last bit of tea in his cup, staring into it as if the leaves might spell out something useful. But after a moment, he sighed and set it down gently on the oak table.

“I’ve never heard of this happening before,” he said, his voice low and even, but laced with something he rarely let through—reverence. And maybe a touch of worry. “Not in goblin lore. Not in fae scrolls. Not even in the old whisper-ledgers kept in the iron vaults under Stonewick.”

I looked at him carefully. “You’re saying there’s no precedent for someone surviving the path like that?”

He gave me a long, slow blink.

“No precedent for someone refusing it and being changed by it rather than destroyed. You didn’t emerge as someone who made a choice. You emerged as someone who refused to make one, and the path listened.”

“I’m not sure that’s comforting,” I murmured.

“It isn’t,” he said with a dry twist of a smile. “But it’s true.”

I looked down into the mug between my hands, fingers wrapped around it for comfort, I hadn’t realized I still needed.

“And Gideon?” I asked, my voice quieter now, as if even saying his name might summon the dark thread of him still tangled somewhere in my thoughts.

Twobble didn’t rush to answer.

Instead, he leaned forward, elbows braced on the table, and studied me with eyes that belonged to a much older world than this one.

“You will meet him again,” he said, solemn now. “That’s certain. The path doesn’t throw shadows for no reason, Maeve. It knew he was part of your arc. Your question.”

I swallowed hard. “What if I don’t like the answers?”

His gaze didn’t flinch. “You’ll get them anyway.”

The weight of that settled between us like a third presence. The truth wasn’t cruel, but it was cold and hard, biting into something metallic and unexpected when you were hoping for sweetness.

“I don’t want to be like him,” I whispered.

“You’re not,” Twobble said quickly. “But you’re near the edge he once walked. And you’re aware enough to know it.”

That’s what frightened me the most. I’d seen that edge. I’d felt it under my feet, inside the path, when Gideon looked at me with eyes full of something unspoken. Not power. Not madness. Loneliness.

I started to let out a breath, maybe to thank Twobble for not treating me like a danger to myself, or maybe to bury the rising guilt that came from still wanting to understand someone like Gideon.

But I never got the chance.

Because just as I parted my lips, a piercing shriek echoed through the Academy’s halls.

Then another.

And another.

The sound came from above, then the west wing, then impossibly close.

Twobble jumped to his feet, knocking over his stool in the process. “That’s not excitement,” he said sharply. “That’s panic.”

I was already on my feet, the chair scraped back behind me, the warmth of the tea forgotten.

The next shriek rang out, turning into a chorus of frantic, overlapping voices from students, their heels pounding across the polished stone, as doors slammed open.

I dashed to the kitchen door and flung it open. The hallway outside was chaos, with spell scrolls scattered, an overturned cauldron rolling in lazy circles near the far wall. One student-a witch with glitter in her hair, ran past us, tears in her eyes.

“What happened?” I called after her.

But she didn’t stop.

Twobble darted up beside me, already pulling something from his coat. A short wand carved from riverbone, old and humming with goblin energy appeared in his short fingers.

I looked down at my hand.

Empty.

Still trembling faintly from the path.

And yet, something inside me hummed in return.

No need for a wand.

No need for spellwork, I couldn’t recall.

The magic was already there, quiet and waiting. Watching.

I squared my shoulders, heart pounding. “Let’s go.”

We ran together, Twobble just behind me, already muttering protection spells under his breath as we passed more students fleeing the commotion. Nova appeared at the edge of the grand stair, her coat half-on, face flushed and tense.

She caught sight of me instantly. “Maeve!”

“What is it?” I asked, my voice louder than I expected.

“Something’s inside,” she said, and her expression was pale as glass. “But it didn’t break in.”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the Wards didn’t flare. Nothing was triggered. It’s just… here. ”

Twobble growled beside me, and it was a goblin sound, low and ancient. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

“No,” Nova agreed, her voice shaking. “It shouldn’t. But whatever it is, it’s already on the third floor.”

The third floor.

Near the library.

Near the heart of the Academy.

My pulse surged.

I didn’t know if this was related to me, or the path, or something older and darker that had just been waiting for the veil to stretch thin.

But I did know one thing.

This wasn’t over.

Not by a long shot.