Page 7

Chapter 6

W e had been cleaning for what felt like hours, sweeping up shattered glass, salvaging what parchment we could, wiping down every surface that had been touched by Maeve’s magic-fueled outburst. The worst of the mess was gone now—at least, the kind that could be swept away.

Kazrek had taken the broken shelf outside, the door swinging shut behind him. For the first time since the chaos, the shop was quiet.

I exhaled, rolling my stiff shoulders, and reached for a final handful of torn paper scattered near the base of the counter. That’s when I saw it.

A dull glint beneath the mess.

I frowned, shifting the ruined parchment aside, and there—half-hidden beneath the wreckage—was the compass. I’d forgotten I had put it on the shelf for safekeeping. Now, it lay among the wreckage, ink bleeding into its cracks, its glass face shattered. I picked it up carefully, brushing my thumb over the jagged edges.

The door creaked behind me. Kazrek returning. His footfalls were slow, measured. He must have seen the way I was holding it, the way I hadn’t moved, because he didn’t speak right away.

Just waited.

"I forgot this was here," I said softly, more to myself than to Kazrek. "It was supposed to be safe."

"What is it?" he asked, moving closer.

I turned the broken compass over in my hands, feeling the weight of memories heavier than its brass casing. "It was my sister's. Finn's." I swallowed. "Maeve's mother."

Kazrek didn't press, didn't ask the questions I could see in his eyes. He just leaned against the counter, making himself smaller somehow, less imposing. Waiting.

Maybe it was his silence that made me continue. "Our father gave it to her when she was seventeen. 'So you can always find your way back home,' he told her." I traced the cracked glass with my fingertip. "She actually did, for a while. She'd disappear for months, then show up with wild stories about smugglers and skyships, cities where the streets gleamed like gold at sunset."

I could still see her, windburned and grinning, perched on the shop counter while Father pretended to scold her. But his eyes had always softened when she spoke of her adventures.

"The war changed her," I found myself saying. "She was... different. Sharper. Like she was waiting for something to catch up with her." I set the compass down carefully. "The last time she was here, she left this behind. I kept telling myself I'd give it to Maeve someday, that she should have something of her mother's. But really..." The words caught in my throat. "Really, I knew what it meant. She wasn't coming back this time. She made sure of it."

Kazrek shifted slightly, and I realized I'd said more than I'd meant to. I started gathering the remaining scraps of paper, trying to busy my hands.

"Sometimes," he said, his voice low and careful, "people leave because they think they're protecting those they love."

I looked up sharply, but there was no judgment in his eyes. Only understanding. And something else—something that made me wonder who or what he had left behind in his own past.

He reached out, his large green hand hovering over the compass before gently lifting it from the counter. The brass casing looked oddly delicate against his battle-worn fingers as he turned it, studying the fractures.

"It's not beyond repair," he said quietly.

I blinked at him. "It's broken." The words came out harder than I meant them to, brittle with years of disappointment.

He looked up then, and something in his gaze made my breath catch. The way he looked at me—steady, knowing, gentle—made me wonder if we were still talking about the compass at all.

Without breaking eye contact, he placed the compass back in my hands. Then, slowly, deliberately, he covered them with his own. His palms were warm, calloused from years of warfare and healing, and they engulfed my ink-stained fingers.

My pulse thudded in my throat, too fast, too loud. He was close—closer than he had ever been. Close enough that I could see the faint flecks of gold in his dark eyes, the way his breath stirred the loose strands of my hair.

For one unbearable, breathless second, I thought he was going to kiss me.

Then, a soft green glow bloomed between our hands.

I couldn’t see the compass, but I could feel it. The slow, deliberate way the energy seeped through the fractures, knitting the broken pieces back together. The way it hummed, alive and ancient, something older than both of us.

Magic.

After everything with Finn, I had never been one to trust it. Too unpredictable, too dangerous. But now, standing here, my hands enveloped in warmth, I was reminded that magic wasn’t just one thing. It wasn’t just dark or light, good or evil.

It was a tool. A force. A reflection of the hands that shaped it.

The same power that made Maeve glow like sunlight had lashed out in fury moments ago, toppling shelves and shattering glass. The same orc whose hands had once wielded weapons, who had stood on battlefields soaked in blood, now used them to heal.

Air returned to my lungs, shaky and uneven.

The glow faded.

Kazrek’s hands lingered a second longer before they withdrew, slow and deliberate.

I looked down.

The compass sat in my palm, whole. The glass face was smooth and unbroken, the brass gleaming faintly in the dim shop light as if it had never been shattered at all. My fingers curled around it, gripping too tightly.

When I finally looked up, Kazrek was watching me. His gaze was steady, searching. Something unspoken passed between us, thick as the air before a storm. I could still feel the ghost of his touch, the warmth he’d left behind. My heart beat too fast. I needed to say something. Anything.

But all I could do was hold the compass tighter, its weight suddenly unfamiliar.

"Thank you," I said at last, my voice barely above a whisper.

A muffled thud from upstairs broke the moment between us. The sound yanked me back to reality—to all the things I still needed to face.

Kazrek stepped back, giving me space I hadn't realized I needed until my lungs remembered how to work properly. "You should go to her," he said softly.

I nodded, tucking the restored compass into my pocket.

"I'll finish here," he added, already reaching for the broom. When I started to protest, he fixed me with a look that was somehow both gentle and immovable. "Go. Some messes are more important than others."

Another thud echoed from above, followed by a quiet sniffle that squeezed my heart. I hesitated for just a moment longer, watching as Kazrek began sweeping with the same steady patience he seemed to bring to everything.

Then I turned and headed for the stairs.

The upstairs room was dim, the only light spilling in from the window where Maeve sat curled against the far wall. Her knees were pulled to her chest, her small fingers twisting in the hem of her tunic. She wasn’t crying anymore, but the set of her shoulders was too tight, too small.

She didn’t look up when I stepped inside.

I took a slow breath and crossed the room, sinking onto the floor beside her, leaving just enough space for her to choose whether to close it. For a moment, neither of us spoke.

The silence stretched, filled only by the distant creak of the shop below as Kazrek moved through the wreckage.

“I heard what she said,” Maeve finally whispered.

My throat tightened. “I know.”

She sniffled and traced a slow circle against the wooden floor. “Do you wish I wasn’t here?”

I swallowed against the painful lump in my throat. “No, Miss May. Never.”

She didn’t look at me. Her small fingers kept tracing that slow, uncertain pattern on the wood. “But she said Mama ruined everything.”

I exhaled carefully. “Drev says a lot of things.”

Maeve’s brow furrowed. “Did she? Ruin everything?”

I hesitated. Maeve was so young—I wanted to protect her from the truth, to hold her in the warmth of the stories I told her before bed, where mothers and daughters were never parted, where love was strong enough to keep people from leaving.

But Maeve was clever. Sharp in the same way Finn had been, asking the hard questions before she even fully understood the weight of them. And after tonight, I couldn’t hide the truth from her anymore. Not all of it, at least.

"Your mama loved you," I said finally. "That was never a question."

Her fingers stilled.

"But sometimes," I continued, voice steady, "loving someone doesn't mean staying. Sometimes people leave because they think it’ll keep the ones they love safe." I exhaled, pressing my hands together in my lap. "And sometimes, they leave because they don't know how to stay."

Maeve was quiet.

Finally, she whispered, "Did Mama not know how?"

I hesitated, then reached for the compass in my pocket. I turned it over once in my hand, feeling its familiar weight—whole again, stronger than before.

Maybe that was the real truth of things. Maybe none of us were beyond repair.

I held it out to her. “This belonged to your mama.”

Maeve blinked down at it, her little fingers hesitant as she reached out to take it. “What is it?”

“A compass.” I curled her hands around it gently. “It helps people find their way. Your grandfather gave it to your mom a long time ago, and your mom left it for you."

Maeve turned the compass over in her small hands, fingers tracing the cool metal carefully. "Does it really show the way home?" she asked, her voice quiet, uncertain.

I swallowed against the tightness in my chest. "Not always the way back," I said slowly. "But maybe the way forward."

She frowned, considering this with the same seriousness she gave to stories about heroes and witches. "But Mama didn’t come back."

I felt the weight of those words settle between us, heavy and undeniable. "No," I admitted. "She didn’t."

"So what if I get lost?" she whispered.

I exhaled carefully, reaching out to tuck a loose strand of her auburn hair behind her ear. "Then you find your way," I murmured. "And you don’t have to do it alone."

She sniffled, rubbed her nose with her tunic sleeve, then clutched the compass to her chest. "Can I keep it?"

Something shifted inside me at how she held it—like a treasure, a promise. Like something she could carry forward instead of something Finn had abandoned.

I nodded. "It’s yours now."

Maeve’s fingers curled around it tighter, and after a long pause, she scooted closer, leaning into my side. I wrapped my arm around her, resting my cheek against the top of her head, breathing in her familiar scent.

For so long, I’d believed my life had already been decided—that I’d been left behind while the rest of the world moved forward, tethered by responsibility, held in place. But maybe staying wasn’t the same as being stuck. Maybe love—the kind that bound one life to another—wasn’t a weight but something steadier. A guide. A way forward.

And maybe it wasn’t too late to want more. To dream of something beyond ink-stained fingers and long, sleepless nights. Just the thought of it felt dangerous.

But maybe that was okay, too.

Maeve sighed, pressing closer, her small heartbeat steady beneath my palm. “I didn’t mean to break everything,” she murmured.

I smoothed a hand over her tangled curls. “I know.”

Her little fingers twisted in my sleeve. “Are you scared of me now?”

A sharp pain twisted in my ribs. She had seen that flicker of hesitation, the way I’d frozen when I looked at her. No matter how much I wanted to protect her from the weight of things, I couldn’t shield her from what she had already felt.

I tightened my arm around her. “No.” The words were steady, certain. “I’m not scared of you.”

She was quiet for a long moment, her fingers plucking at the hem of her tunic. Then she whispered, “But I am.”

“Magic doesn’t make you dangerous, May.” I nudged her gently. “Not knowing how to control it does. And that’s something we’re going to figure out.”

Maeve didn’t answer. Her hands stayed curled around the compass, her breath slowing against my shoulder. Outside, Everwood carried on as if the world hadn't shifted beneath my feet. Inside, below us, I could still hear Kazrek moving through the shop—wood scraping against wood, the soft sound of broken glass being swept away.

I started to move, half-rising from the bed, but Maeve’s fingers caught my sleeve. Not tight. Not desperate. Just a sleepy, quiet plea.

Stay .

I settled back against the wall, tucking her closer.

Kazrek would handle it.

And just this once, I would let him.