Page 29 of Magical Mayhem

The knowledge rang so true it hurt.

I closed my eyes again, letting the voice echo in my memory, low and raw, threaded with something I couldn’t name. Pleading? Warning? Calling me closer?

My throat tightened.

For the first time since Moonbeam, I knew without a doubt that I hadn’t been mistaken. I wasn’t chasing shadows. The Wilds weren’t merely toying with me.

He was here.

And he was calling me.

It was no coincidence that the bramble mule arrived.

I knew exactly who it was.

But the trees held their silence, and the forest gave me nothing more.

The hush pressed heavier the deeper I went, until the Wilds felt less like a forest and more like a cathedral. The trees rose like pillars, their branches arched overhead, filtering the thin morning light into dusky green patterns. The mushrooms still pulsed faintly at the edges of my vision, but I refused to look at them.

Because I understood now.

It wasn’t the voice I had to follow. It was the silence.

The voice wanted me lost, circling, searching shadows. But the silence, that aching hollow between sounds, pulled withmore gravity than any word could. That was where truth lay. That was where he was.

I deliberately avoided the mushrooms, traveling between patches of scarlet and silver as though each cluster might spring to life beneath my feet.

My fear simmered in my belly, sharp and insistent, but determination rose higher, burning steadier. Fear would keep me cautious. Determination would keep me moving.

I thought of Keegan, of the weight he carried in silence, of the shadows pressing deeper into him every day. I thought of Stella’s bustling tea shop, Bella’s fox-tail swishing when she teased, Nova’s steady wisdom, Twobble’s crumbs trailing behind him like a lifeline.

I dreamed of Stonewick of everything I’d fought for, everything I wanted to keep.

If I faltered now, all of it would unravel.

I needed Keegan, Gideon, my dad, and me to be ready and willing to unite and end the chaos that Malore was trying to build.

The silence sharpened the deeper I went, pressing against my skin like glass. My breath came shallow, but I didn’t stop. I moved swiftly, almost recklessly, as though the forest might close behind me if I dared to pause.

And then I saw it.

The log lay ahead, massive and ancient, toppled long ago. Moss draped over it like a shroud, vivid and almost luminous in the dimness, spilling in thick sheets down its sides to the ground. Ferns and wildflowers crowded its base, vibrant yellowsand blues startling against the shadowed wood. It looked like a canopy, a green blanket hiding whatever lay beneath.

I slowed because there, just behind it, slumped into the moss and shadow, was a shape.

A mound of a person, who was broad, heavy, and unmoving, lay there motionless.

My chest seized, and the world narrowed to a single point of recognition.

Gideon.

Even hunched and broken, there was no mistaking him. His frame was too broad, his presence too heavy. The air bent strangely around him, as though it still remembered his power even if he had none left to wield.

My breath caught, sharp as a knife, and my knees weakened.

Gideon.

The name roared through me, not just in fear but in certainty.