Page 110 of Magical Mayhem

“You do that very well,” Ardetia said gravely, then departed with a whisper of leaf.

Keegan’s hand brushed mine once more—unseen, warm, necessary.

“Please,” I murmured. “I’m planning to lure your mother with that chorus.”

“The chorus that was already sung,” he said, resigned to my madness, which was to say resigned to me.

He started coughing wildly, and my heart ached. When he finished, his eyes stayed on mine.

“And you think that will call her.”

“I think it already did,” I said, eyes skimming the orchard edge where the Wards had pricked like a cat’s ear. “We just need to give her something worth stepping toward.”

His breathing turned heavier, “And if she comes?”

“Then we welcome her.” I met his gaze. “Not as a tool. As kin.”

I walked him to the steps and sat next to him. This was more difficult on him than he dared show.

“I’m afraid I won’t be standing next to you when this is all over,” he said finally.

“Me too,” I answered, because honesty is the magic that doesn’t backfire.

He nodded once.

“Good. Then we’re on the same page.” He glanced at the sky, then back to me. “Be careful.”

“You too.”

Unity.

Sacrifice.

The overwhelming sadness swept over me, and I stood and started to move when he caught me by the wrist, gentle as a ribbon.

“One more thing,” he said.

I tilted my head.

“I don’t know how this ends,” he said quietly, “but when Malore brings his best, I intend to be at your side.”

Emotion rose quickly and inconveniently in my throat.

“Don’t be dramatic,” I managed, and he smiled, relieved to have the humor to hold as a shield.

“Never,” he lied.

He let me go, and I stepped forward into the soft mess of our afternoon. I made my rounds, dropping my cryptic phrases…“good,” “again,” “together”… touching shoulders,steadier than I felt. The sky did not break. The face in the sky did not return.

A summer breeze moved through the trees, smelling like pine and something older: a wildness that wasn’t Malore’s, a promise the land makes when it recognizes its own.

At the edge of the Butterfly Ward, a single white hair snagged on a branch glinted like frost in shadowed light. I didn’t need to pluck it to know it would smell like snow and midnight and the first breath you take after you stop running. I didn’t need to show it to Keegan, either, not yet. His eyes were already on the line of trees, narrow and knowing.

We were not alone. We had never been.

I squared my shoulders and lifted my face to the dark summer sky.

“All right,” I whispered under the noise and the ordinary and the not, a prayer and a dare at once. “Bring your best.”