Page 106 of Magical Mayhem

“You can gather all the broken witches and fading shifters you like,” Malore snarled. “You can stitch together the scraps of what Stonewick once was. But when the moment comes, theywill scatter. They always do. It is the ones who stay who are the hardest to break, but I will break them myself.”

The words sent a chill through me. I heard them again, exactly as Gideon had in the Hedge. Malore’s poison, dripping into his ears, bending truth into a weapon.

But this time, I wouldn’t let it take root.

“You won’t,” I said fiercely. “Because Stonewickisstaying. Every student here, every voice, every heart has chosen to return to a place that isn’t whole, not yet anyway. And that courage is what you cannot break.”

The courtyard erupted in murmurs, students nodding, standing straighter. Nova lifted her staff, its crystal gleaming brighter than the lanterns. Ardetia’s vines spread further across the fountain, lush and green. Bella’s eyes glinted with fox-fire, and Ember’s glow deepened, steady as the hearth.

For the first time, I saw it clearly, not just individuals, not just students.

A force.

Malore’s face contorted in the fog, his grin curdling into a snarl. The shadows churned, swirling violently, then dissipated with a hiss, shredded by the Wards’ hum. The sky remained gray, but the face was gone.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Then Lady Limora stood, her voice clear as a bell. “Well said, Maeve.”

Vivienne clapped loudly, Opal and Mara following. The applause spread through the courtyard, uneven at first, then stronger, until it echoed against the Academy walls.

We had rattled him.

Malore had shown his face, and we did not retreat.

I looked at the students gathered around their instructors, their eyes lit with determination, their laughter rising again despite the gloom. For the first time, I believed we could make Stonewick more than a memory.

And for the first time, I believed Malore knew it too.

But when I glanced at Keegan, his hazel eyes were darker than ever, his jaw tight. He wasn’t watching the students.

He was staring at the sky, as though he could still see Malore lingering there.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Keegan didn’t look at the students or the Academy grounds. He kept his gaze leveled on me.

Close up, he still looked worn with edges dulled by fever and a thousand invisible battles, but there was steel under the weariness. The kind you only find when you’ve been to the bottom and kept digging until you hit something that didn’t break.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked softly, as if the question wasn’t for the crowd at all but for the two of us, hidden in plain sight at the center of the courtyard. “Why are you trying to taunt Malore when you know his power? You know what he can do.” His jaw tightened, and for a heartbeat, he seemed to sway. My dad shifted closer on my other side, ready to steady him, but Keegan lifted a hand. “Don’t.”

I glanced at my dad and back at Keegan.

“You know,” Keegan went on, voice rough, “we almost lost the fight that night if it hadn’t been…”

He let the words fray and drift. He didn’t have to finish them.

“For the Silver Wolf,” I said, the name leaving my mouth like a key that had always fit the lock. “Your mother.”

He nodded once, a short, pained motion, and the courtyard seemed to breathe around us, as if the land itself remembered the night she returned.

I took a breath and let it steady the thud of my heart.

“So, why?”

“Because Malore does not control destiny,” I said. “He never did. He’s a bully who mistakes fear for fate. His brute force will not contain the magic in these streets, or the song in the Academy’s Wards. If he sees that we’re not afraid to stand in the open, he’ll have to stop sending whispers and send his best. Then it’s finished. One way or the other.”

Keegan’s eyes searched mine. Whatever he saw there made his mouth hitch into something that wasn’t quite a smile and wasn’t quite surrender.