Page 43

I stepped inside the Academy, closing the heavy oak behind me, already bracing for the quiet hum of students, but the stillness hit me differently this time.

Maybe it was the weight of Stella’s words still clinging to my thoughts. Or the look in her eyes…the one that said she knew I’d leave sooner than I was willing to admit.

Storm’s already rising.

She wasn’t wrong.

But I hadn’t expected it to gather this quickly.

As I passed the corridor just before the main hall’s library, movement outside the tall windows caught my eye, sudden and unusual.

A flash of stony gray and an anxious shuffle zipped by.

I paused, took a few steps toward the window, and then stopped cold.

Karvey.

The gargoyle stood outside the building, just beyond the trimmed hedgerow. Not perched. Not stoic. Pacing.

Pacing?

Gargoyles didn’t pace. Not unless something was wrong. Something deeply wrong.

My heart jerked into motion. I rushed to the window, fingers fumbling with the latch, and shoved it open, letting the cool breeze rush into the hallway.

“Karvey!” I called down, voice low but sharp.

He turned at once, stone wings twitching slightly as his gaze locked on mine.

“Maeve,” he rasped, gravel-laced and rushed. “You must get to the cottage. Immediately. ”

I blinked. “Is it Miora?”

“No,” he said, voice cutting through me with chilling clarity. “It’s your daughter. And your best friend.”

The world shifted.

My legs went numb.

“My—what?”

Karvey flapped once, awkward and urgent, and hovered closer to the open window, claws gripping the stone sill like his message couldn’t wait another second.

“They’re there,” he said. “Both of them. At the cottage. They appeared just minutes ago.”

I blinked hard, my pulse thundering in my ears.

“Are they hurt?”

“No. Not physically. But I think they might have seen me jump off the roof.”

A cold sweat broke across my neck.

Celeste.

Skye.

My worlds, both of them, colliding.

“Stay with them,” I said, already turning from the window, my voice shaking but gaining speed. “Don’t let anything or anyone near them until I arrive.”

Karvey gave a curt nod and dropped from sight.

I turned, sprinting down the hall, past a confused-looking book sprite who dropped a scroll midair.

I didn’t care.

I barely registered the noise of my footsteps, or the way my vision tunneled into nothing but the exit door and the edge of the forest, where my life had once fractured and where, apparently, it was being stitched together again with shocking speed.

Celeste.

And Skye.

In Stonewick.

In my cottage.

When Gideon had already breached the Academy by hitching a ride, or at least his essence did.

I burst through the outer doors of the Academy and didn’t stop moving.

The path that once felt meandering now felt like an arrow. The air clung cool and damp to my skin, spring still waking in the branches overhead. Twigs cracked beneath my boots as I veered off the main path, heart pounding like a bell inside my chest.

Questions clawed their way to the surface.

When did they get here?

Why now? It wasn’t even spring break.

I reached the edge of the forest trail that led toward my cottage, the one nestled deep in the curve of the trees like a secret kept too long.

It had been my refuge.

My awakening.

And now, apparently, it was the meeting place of the two people I loved most from a world I had tried to protect by keeping them out.

I crested the last hill, breath catching in my throat as the mossy rooftop came into view, chimney smoking gently, the door cracked open like it had been waiting for me.

And on the porch…

Two figures.

Skye.

Celeste.

And everything in me fractured and realigned all at once.

The breath left my chest the moment I saw them.

Celeste stood at the bottom of the cottage porch steps, her boots muddy, her cheeks pink from the spring chill, her wide eyes trying, and failing, not to show the relief blooming there.

And next to her, comfortably settled into one of my old rocking chairs like she’d never left it, was Skye, her belly round and resting under a cotton sweater stretched to its limits.

They looked like they'd both been through a whirlwind and somehow landed on my doorstep.

“Mom!” Celeste cried, sprinting toward me.

I didn’t brace myself. I just opened my arms and caught her.

The hug was instant and hard, all arms and shoulders and silent tears against my neck. I squeezed her tighter than I meant to, and she didn’t seem to mind. Her hair smelled like sweet lemon and the train, and her pulse thrummed against mine like something I’d forgotten I needed.

“I missed you,” she whispered into my collar. “So much. More than I thought I would.”

“I missed you, too,” I breathed. “Every day.”

The ache that had lodged in my chest since the day I left finally cracked open and softened.

We stood there until Skye called out with mock impatience, “Well, are you going to help the pregnant woman off the porch or just stand there sobbing into your daughter like a Hallmark movie?”

I laughed through the wet in my eyes. “Still dramatic, I see.”

“Still hormonal,” she said. “Hurry up before I have this baby in your flower bed.”

I hurried to her, taking her hand as she eased upright with a groan. “You’re huge.”

“You’re rude,” she said, grinning. “I’ve got months to go.”

Together, the three of us stepped into the cottage. The moment the door creaked open, I saw Celeste’s breath catch.

She walked slowly through the space like she was stepping into a dream she didn’t remember having, as her fingertips grazed the edge of the kitchen table, the jars of tea and herbs lining the shelves, and the faded quilt still folded over the arm of the sofa.

She touched everything with reverence, as if she were afraid she might wake up and it would be gone.

“You’ve really been living here?” she asked.

I nodded. “It’s... been home for a while.”

Skye dropped onto the couch with a sigh, settling into the cushions like the whole cottage sighed with her. “In all your texts to us, you left out the part where you moved into the world’s coziest storybook.”

“I didn’t mean to hide it,” I said. “There’s just... been a lot going on.”

Celeste turned to face me, curiosity sharp in her gaze now. “Okay, but seriously. How did you know we were coming?”

I blinked. “I didn’t. I had no idea.”

“Then how did you find us ?” Skye asked.

“I didn’t,” I said slowly. “I came back from the tea shop and—wait, how did you find me ?”

Skye smirked. “Now that’s a story.”

She shifted on the couch, one hand resting over her stomach, the other gesturing to Celeste. “So, I picked her up from the train station and we drove an hour to get here. She’d called me a few days ago after chatting with you on the phone. She told me she could tell you needed us.”

Celeste grinned sheepishly.

“I didn’t want to wait until spring break.”

I looked at Celeste. “Seriously?”

She shrugged. “It just felt right. I didn’t even know Stonewick existed until a few weeks ago. I mean, I’ve heard about it since you moved here, but I finally looked it up after Dad kept picking on it. But once I saw the village online, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

“So we get into town,” Skye said, “and we’re just wandering around. I mean wandering. We stopped in at that adorable yarn shop we tried out when we came here together, and that charming lady was there again.”

I let out a breath. “Luna.”

“Yep. She was warm and chatty and didn’t even seem that surprised when we said we were looking for someone named Maeve.” Skye smiled. “She remembered me immediately and told me where to go.”

“Wait, she what? ” I asked.

“She said if we follow the mossy path past the tall pine and follow the road out of town that curves right past the fox den, we’d find a long driveway and that was your cottage.”

I blinked. “She gave you those directions, and you followed them?”

Skye shrugged. “Pregnant lady intuition.”

Celeste snorted. “It was better than any GPS.”

“I’m impressed and so happy you’re here.”

“So, you had no idea?” Celeste asked again, softer now.

I shook my head. “None. But... I’m so glad you’re here.”

Even if I didn’t understand how. Even if I was terrified of what it might mean.

Because the veil between the life I left behind and the one I’d just begun to understand wasn’t thin anymore.

It had ripped.

And yet, across that rip sat my daughter and my best friend, laughing on my couch like they’d always belonged here.

And maybe... they did.