Page 30 of Magical Mayhem

He needed me.

And I needed him.

Stonewick needed him.

I stepped closer as my pulse thundered in my ears, and I circled the fallen log.

The shape resolved clearer with every step. His shoulders hunched forward, his head bowed, his hair a dark tangle across his face. His chest rose and fell shallowly, unevenly. Alive, but barely.

For a heartbeat, I almost wished it had been the mushrooms after all, that this was some fevered illusion conjured by spores.

But no. The moss, the ferns, the scent of damp earth, it was all too real.

And so was he.

My stomach twisted as I looked at the man who had tormented Stonewick, who had cursed Keegan and my dad, who had driven fear into every corner of our lives. The man who had mocked me, haunted me, hunted me.

And invaded my dreams…

Yet here he was, slumped against the moss. He wasn’t a villain. He wasn’t a monster. He was broken, weak, and desperate.

My heart ached with the terrible certainty of it.

If I couldn’t save Gideon, I couldn’t save Keegan.

And if I couldn’t save Keegan, I couldn’t save Stonewick. Or the Academy. Or any of it.

It was all tangled together, each thread knotted in ways I didn’t understand. But I knew one truth. If I left him here, abandoned in the Wilds, the curse would win.

My hands shook as I pressed them against the mossy log, steadying myself and leaning into its weight.

“Gideon,” I whispered.

The silence swallowed his name, but in the faintest flutter of his chest, the shallow rasp of his breath, I felt the truth confirm itself.

He was alive. He was waiting.

He needed me.

And if I failed him here, I would fail them all.

My heart thudded harder, my breath catching as I stared at him, a thousand questions burning on my tongue.

What had happened to him? Why here? Why now? And why, after everything, did I feel as though I had been led to him?

The hush of the Wilds deepened, pressing around us both like a held breath. The moss glowed faintly, as though feeding on the last scraps of his strength.

My fingers curled into the log, and I couldn’t turn back.

Not now.

For Keegan.

For Stonewick.

For everything.

I had to try.