Page 30

T he Grove doesn’t just breathe now.

It sings.

It hums through the moss paths, pulses along the rootlines, flickers through the canopy with light that’s as much magic as it is memory.

It’s been a year.

One full turn of the moonwheel since Clara chose to stay—not because she gave anything up, but because she built something better .

They call it the Eco-Magical Integration Program now.

EMIP.

I never remember what the letters stand for.

But I know what it means.

It means the line between human and Grove isn’t a line anymore. It’s a braid—stronger for every strand that wraps through it.

The program runs out of the new wing—expanded now into a living learning space. Kids from nearby towns, students from far-off academies, even a few magical species who used to keep their distance, now walk the Grove like it’s always been part of them.

And it has.

They just didn’t know how to listen before.

Clara taught them that.

She teaches the soil classes herself—sometimes barefoot, always smudged with leafdust, her notebook overflowing with scribbles she’ll later turn into policy briefs or teaching modules.

I watch her from the treeline sometimes.

Or from the center of the new spiral circle she carved into the learning paths.

It holds sacred geometry in its roots, but she just calls it “the quiet spot.”

Today, she’s guiding a group of town council apprentices through the leyline mapping gardens.

“You can’t just plant magic,” she tells them. “You have to let it choose where it wants to grow. Think of it like a dance. You lead, but you don’t drag.”

One of the girls laughs. “How do you know when it’s leading back?”

Clara smiles. “The air tastes sweeter. Or you trip over a root that wasn’t there before.”

The whole group writes it down like gospel.

Later, Callie explains energy-neutral irrigation systems to a cluster of local farmers.

Julie hands out flower-powder nutrient kits to a class of preteens who argue over whose moss patch glows the brightest. Even Hazel—now officially fourteen and somehow more chaotic than ever—is running a pixie-integration workshop near the east glade.

The camp thrives.

The town thrives.

Pollinators have returned to the outer ridge. The local water table is no longer cursed—or “misaligned,” as Clara corrected the board rep who visited last month.

And me?

I still guard.

Still watch.

But not alone.

Not silent.

I teach two classes now—one in ancient wardcraft and another in sentient-plant diplomacy. I still don’t talk much, but when I do, they listen.

And when Clara looks at me from across the Grove—smiling, lit with sun, daisy crown forgotten in her curls—I feel something in my chest settle.

Root.

Bloom.

Begin again.

Because the Grove’s not just protected anymore.

It’s shared.

And it’s evergreen.

The sun breaks low through the trees when the junior casters arrive.

Eight of them today, all between ten and thirteen, dragging charm-satchels and wide eyes, still sticky with morning magic and curiosity. They gather at the moss circle where I teach—just south of the ward tree’s reach, near the vine arches that Clara grew into shade.

“Sit,” I say simply.

They do.

I crouch beside the boundary line, tracing a slow, glowing arc into the soil with my fingers.

“This is your first root-anchored perimeter,” I begin. “Basic wardwork starts with listening. If you don’t know the land’s shape, your spell will buckle.”

One boy—Finn—tilts his head. “What’s it mean to ‘listen’ to dirt?”

“Ask it what’s already there,” I answer. “You’re not planting on land. You’re weaving with it.”

He scribbles that down like it’s prophecy.

A girl to my left, Lina, raises her hand. “What if the soil’s already claimed?”

I nod approvingly. “Then you offer. With respect. With patience. If it still refuses, you walk away.”

They murmur among themselves—this idea that magic might have boundaries both baffles and excites them.

I press my hand flat to the moss, closing my eyes.

After a few beats, the ward pulses beneath my palm—soft green threads unraveling across the surface, forming a spiraling glyph.

I look up. “Now you.”

The kids lean in, hands shaking, cheeks flushed.

Some glyphs fizzle. Some spike too fast. One sparks and sings a quick, high-pitched whistle that startles everyone—except Hazel, who’s watching from a nearby tree and claps like it’s her favorite new symphony.

I correct stances. Adjust hand positions. Repeat trigger phrases softly, patiently.

And when the glyphs hold, and the roots glow, I say: “This is ward-tending. It’s not about walls. It’s about trust.”

A smaller boy, silent until now, raises his hand. “Do you ever miss being alone?”

I pause.

Then meet his eyes.

“No,” I say simply. “Because I was never meant to be alone. I just forgot.”

They nod like it’s something they understand in their bones.

And when the lesson ends, and they scatter to gather moss samples and wildseed, one of them lingers.

A girl with ink-stained fingertips.

She hands me a folded drawing.

It’s a sketch of the Grove. And me. And them.

All together.

I unfold it carefully.

And I smile.

Because maybe this is what legacy looks like.

As the kids begin to pack up their notes and stow away their charm-paper scrolls, Lillian—Torack’s daughter, all knobby knees and sharp eyes like her father—lingers behind.

She’s been quiet the whole lesson, sketching more than speaking, but now she turns to Clara, who’s just arrived with a basket of sunfruit and soil tags.

“Miss Clara?” she asks, tilting her head. “How’d you and Mr. Thorn meet?”

The question makes the group hush again—expectant, giggly.

Clara glances at me.

Then back at Lillian.

And she smiles—slow, full of sunlight.

“He grew on me,” she says softly.

A few of the kids giggle.

But Lillian just beams.

“Like moss?” she asks.

Clara winks. “Exactly like moss.”

And Thorn, who never used to show anything, just chuckles low in his chest, and doesn’t deny it.